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Pet Videos

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Feature Pages/Articles

The Rarest Frog in the US
Popularly known as the Ramsey Canyon Leopard Frog, this small frog was identified in 1988.
Read more here.

Does That Dog Bite?
The CDC estimates the number of bites at 4.5 million a year. Here are some dos and don'ts for the parent.
Read more here.

The Chantilly/Tiffany
The Chantilly/Tiffany is a medium sized cat with a plush, medium-long coat, plumed tail and long ear tufts called streamers.
Read more here.

Traveling With Birds
Whether summer or winter, holiday time can mean travel - either for vacation or moving.
Read more here.

Betta Care
One of the first things a new betta owner notices is the betta's large personality.
Read more here.

DESERT MILLIPEDE
Desert Millipedes are a cylindrically-shaped arthropod in the Class Diplopoda. Coloration can range from a light tan to a dark brown. Some individuals are an orange or a burnt orange color and these can be beautiful.
Read more here.

Natural Ferret Care
How can you feed and care for your ferret to maximize health and lifespan, and minimize problems?
Read more here.

Mail Lists

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TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Non-Domain Hosting Account

|| General || FTP || Front Page 2000 Info || HTML || CGI || PHP || MySQL Database || JAVA-JAVASCRIPT || Access Counters ||
|| Log Files || E-Commerce ||

General Information

HOSTNAME: kingsnake.kingsnake.com
IP ADDRESS: 209.198.140.166
LOCATION: PrismNET - Austin, Texas
SERVER INFORMATION
Dual Intel Xeon class Processors, 100Mb Ethernet
FreeBSD UNIX
Apache Webserver, PHP, MySQL

FTP Information

HOSTNAME: received in email
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

Example

.
..
/www
/logs

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 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 will 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 only offers full Windows Frontpage support for domain hosting accounts. Non-domain hosting clients can use the FTP functionality to publish there sites

To publish your site to a standard FTP enabled web hosting account using frontage you will simply enter http://www.kingsnake.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.

HTML Reference Material

HTML Help

WebMonkey HTML Cheat Sheet

HTML Tags

Web Design Reference Material

Yale Style Guide

Web Developer's Style Guides

Web Page Design Tools

HTML Editors

HTML Editors

Yahoo! - HTML Editors

For more information...

Yahoo!'s World Wide Web Listing

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.