|| General || FTP || Front Page 2000 Info || HTML || CGI || PHP || MySQL Database || JAVA-JAVASCRIPT || Access Counters ||
|| Log Files || E-Commerce ||
General Information
For Frontpage hosting information please see below.
FTP Information
- HOSTNAME: king1.kingsnake.com OR king6.kingsnake.com
- USERNAME: received in email
- PASSWORD: received in email
- USER DIRECTORY: /
- WEBSITE DIRECTORY: /www
- CGI_BIN DIRECTORY: /www/cgi-bin
In order to move your files from your local pc to your website you will need to use
an FTP program. There are a number of FTP programs available. Some we would recommend
would be WS-FTP or CuteFTP for Microsoft Windows or FETCH for Macintosh (see our
recommended software page). Once you have installed
your FTP program and you start it, you should be prompted for the hostname (king1.kingsnake.com)
your username and your password. Once you have entered this information, hit the enter button
and you should log in. If for some reason the login fails, check the information you entered above
and make sure that the names are EXACTLY as received. Remember that UNIX, unlike Windows, IS case sensitive.
Once logged in, most FTP frograms show a split screen with the screen on the left showing the directory
contents of your PC, and the screen on the right representing the files on the king1.kingsnake.com
web server(also called the HOST) .
In the right hand window you should have a listing of files similar to the example below
You are in your HOME directory. There will be a folder called www. Highlight this folder and open it.
This is where you copy your website files to. You can create subdirectories, change file permissions,
upload, move, and delete files to this area.
You must name your main or index page file index.html, index.htm or index.php for the domain name to work properly
Please make sure to make back ups of all of your files.
While we do maintain weekly backups, there will be a stiff charge to access the backed up data, unless the file loss is OnlineHobbyist's fault.
If you are a domain hosting client you may have a directory called /logs in
your home directory. This directory is where the current access and error
logs for your domain are kept. Monthly backups are made of the logs files.
If you require copies of your log files for the purpose of running reports
from them or any other use please contact Director, Technology Services.
Front Page 2000 Information
OnlineHobbyist.com offers hosting accounts which support the use of the
Windows Frontpage program. This must be configured at the time that your
hosting account is purchased.
Information on publishing your site using frontpage will be sent via email
at the time your account is configured. Below is a summary:
- To publish your site to our server supporting frontpage extensions you will
simply enter http://www.your_domain.com as the location to publish to (substituting your actual
domain name for your_domain.com. Your will then be prompted for
your username and password which were sent to you via email.
- To publish your site to a standard FTP enabled web hosting account using
frontage you will simply enter http://www.your_domain.com/www as the location to publish to (substituting your actual
domain name for your_domain.com. Not the '/www' after the domain
name. This informs Frontpage of where to put the files when connecting via
FTP. Your will then be prompted for
your username and password which were sent to you via email.
HTML Information
HTML
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language with hyper text referring to its ability to "associate" or "link" one document to another. HTML as originally designed was meant to be the great leveling language that allowed a variety of different types of computers to view the same documents in roughly the same format and layout. This is what made the World Wide Web work. Until the development of HTML both use of, and access to, the internet was limited.
It would be silly for us to offer even a basic .html primer here, when so many sites are devoted
to it. Below is a list of good .html resources that gives you a variety of places to find answers.
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HTML Reference Material
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Web Design Reference Material
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Web Page Design Tools
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For more information...
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If you prefer getting a book/books for easier reading of this information
PetHobbyist recommends the 2 books below:
Meta Tags
What are meta tags and why are they important? Meta tags are hidden tags placed in the header
section of a .html document. These tags can be utilized for a number of things, but perhaps the
most popular is to allow search engines to find and properly categorize your website by keywords and descriptions.
Below is an example of meta tags from an actual PetHobbyist document.
<HEAD>
<TITLE>kingsnake.com classifieds</TITLE>
<META NAME="resource-type" VALUE="document">
<META NAME="author" VALUE="your email">
<META NAME="description" VALUE="reptile and amphibian classified ads">
<META NAME="keywords" VALUE="Reptiles, amphibians, classifieds, turtles, tortoises, snakes, boas, pythons, kingsnakes, milk snakes, frogs, toads, newts, salamanders, herpetology, herpetoculture, lizard, iguana, monitor,alligator, gecko, chameleon, for sale, wanted, trade">
</HEAD>
Design Tips
OnlineHobbyist is a UNIX based server. It is recommended that you use the file extension .html
instead of the extension .htm, but either will work.
It is recommended that you create sub-directories for things such as images. This makes updating
the page and knowing what files are what on a crowded website much easier.
Unix is case sensitive and if a filename is of mixed lower and upper case letters, that is exatly how the filename must be called inside your documents. We recommend that you use all lowercase filenames
throughout your site to make programming easier.
It is always a good idea to have a complete backup of your whole website in a seperate directory
on your local computer and do your testing and developement in a different directory.This makes it easier to recover your site in case you make a mistake.
CGI-BIN Information
CGI
CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface which is a type of program that actually runs
on the web server. Most of the time webservers do nothing more than send files to a web browser
that requests them, but with CGI you can actually have the web server perform a number of
different tasks such as sending form mails, running an address book or a forum, or display
the current time. Most CGI scripts are written in the PERL language, but some are also written
in the C language. We will cover PERL here.
PERL
perl is a relatively easy to use scripting language that can be utilized to
write many different kinds of scripts for the web. Onlinehobbist.com's servers supports perl 5.0+.
Every perl script must invoke the Perl interpreter on the server as
its first act so every perl script will require the first line to read:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
MAIL PROGRAMS
Programs such as forms will require access to the mail module on OnlineHobbyist and,
if secure, will require a referrer url and IP address. Examples are listed below.
$mailprog = '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t';
@referers = ('yourdomain.com','208.198.148.107');
NOTE: DO NOT USE THIS SERVER FOR THE SENDING OF UNSOLICITED MAIL.
Anyone found doing this will have their account terminated
Other Configuration Parameters
Most cgi programs require specific parameters be set to locate files in your directories
on the web server. Below are some of the more common parameters required.
$basedir = "/usr/home/YOUR_USERNAME/www";
$baseurl = "http://www.yourdomain.com/directory_of_file_using_cgi";
$cgi_url = "http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/filename.cgi";
OnlineHobbyist does support SSI Server Side Includes, but the file extension of the
web page using it must use the .shtml file extension rather than the normal .html file extension.
All perl based CGI scripts require the use of the file extention .cgi instead of .pl
Please do NOT use high traffic scripts such as cgi-based chat rooms as this dramatically
slows the web server down
OnlineHobbyist will provide minimal support for installing CGI Scripts. If
you are having trouble getting a CGI script running (and are a domain
hosting client) please chack your error log in the /logs directory. The
error log will contain messages generated by the cgi script and will often
be enough information for you to solve the problem.
If checking the error log does not help, please contact
the Director of Technology Services with details of the script you are installing and the error messages you are
receiving. We will then (as time permits) attempt to help
you install and configure your script.
To find a large assortment of various cgi scripts including counters,
forums, address books, calendars, and many, many others, take a look at
HotScripts.com
Be aware that there are many poorly written and very insecure CGI scripts
available. Onlinehobbyist.com, Inc. reserves the right to ask you to
upgrade or remove from our servers any script we deem to be a security hazard.
PHP Information
PHP
PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor which is a type of program that actually runs
on the web server. Most of the time webservers do nothing more than send files to a web browser
that requests them, but with PHP you can actually have the web server perform a number of
different tasks such as sending form mails, running an address book or a forum, or display
the current time.
PHP
PHP is a relatively easy to use scripting language that can be utilized to
write many different kinds of scripts for the web. Onlinehobbist.com's servers supports
PHP 4.0+.
MAIL PROGRAMS
PHP can be used to send the contents of form via email.
NOTE: DO NOT USE THIS SERVER FOR THE SENDING OF UNSOLICITED MAIL.
Anyone found doing this will have their account terminated
Other Configuration Parameters
Many PHP programs require specific parameters be set to locate files in your directories
on the web server. Below are some of the more common parameters required.
$basedir = "/usr/home/YOUR_USERNAME/www";
$baseurl = "http://www.yourdomain.com/directory_of_file_using_php";
OnlineHobbyist will provide minimal support for installing PHP Scripts. If
you are having trouble getting a PHP script running: Upon encountering an
error PHP will generally print useful debugging information to the browser.
If checking the errors does not help, please contact
the Director of Technology Services with details of the script you are installing and the error messages you are
receiving. We will then (as time permits) attempt to help
you install and configure your script.
To find a large assortment of various PHP scripts including counters,
forums, address books, calendars, and many, many others, take a look at
HotScripts.com
Be aware that there are many poorly written and very insecure PHP scripts
available. Onlinehobbyist.com, Inc. reserves the right to ask you to
upgrade or remove from our servers any script we deem to be a security hazard.
MySQL Database Information
MySQL
MySQL is an open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that
uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding,
accessing, and processing data in a database. On OnlineHobbyist serverMySQL
databases can be accessed using both Perl and PHP.
How to get a MySQL database
If you would like to use a MySQL database in the design of your website
please contact Director - Technology
Services with your full name, domain name (or web directory for
non-domain clients), and the email address used at the time of your hosting
account's creation. We will respond (within 48 hours) with the information necessary to
access your database.
To find a large assortment of various Perl or php scripts including counters,
forums, address books, calendars, and many, many others which utilize a
MySQL database take a look at
HotScripts.com
Be aware that there are many poorly written and very insecure Perl and PHP scripts
available. Onlinehobbyist.com, Inc. reserves the right to ask you to
upgrade or remove from our servers any script we deem to be a security hazard
or which uses excess server resources (ie: slows things down for other
clients and users).
JAVA-JAVASCRIPT Information
JAVA and JAVASCRIPT programs are alternate ways to run programs on a web server, rather than using
CGI programs, but tends to be less stable than cgi.
PetHobbyist's server does support JAVASCRIPT programs but please be aware that
older web browsers and WebTV boxes do not support these programs well or sometimes at all.
Click Here For Information on JAVA and JAVA Applets
Click Here For Information on JAVASCRIPT
OnlineHobbyist does NOT offer technical support or de-bugging of JAVA and JAVASCRIPT programs.
Access Counters
Please Click here for information on putting a graphical counter on your domain web site.
Please Click here for information on putting a graphical counter on your non-domain web site.
E Commerce
E Commerce is the act of selling goods, items, or services and receiving payment for such directly over the internet. To do this safely it requires a secure server, a digital certificate, and a shopping cart system. OnlineHobbyist does not offer this service directly as it is very expensive to maintain proper security. Instead we recommend you contact Cybercash, the company that is the industry leader in this field. Cybercash has options that will allow you to implement a truely secure ordering system on your website at OnlineHobbyist.
We hope this helps to answer your questions. We will be adding to our support page as new questions are asked.
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