Messages

Hi HostNed'ers, I am looking for a solution for accepting recurring payments on my website.  I know PayPal does the "subscriptions" thing, but I do not want that.  I need something more traditional where subscribers can use a credit card as usual.  I have found some solutions out there that do this, but many charge big monthly fees (like $30 to $90 a MONTH!).  I am not going to be doing volume enough to justify a large monthly fee.  I understand that the providing service needs to make money, so I do not mind paying a fee per transaction.

Does anyone know of a service like this, or have any experience or review of it?

Seems like Shopster is no longer around.  Site appears to be taken down.  Shame.

I have a client who has a Mac and uses iWeb for creating sites.  He likes the templates and widgets and all it offers.  Can I use a Mac and iWeb to manage websites on HostNed?

Strange indeed.  Isn't tech stuff fun?  Sounds like a firewall issue to me.

Spiffy indeed.  Exactly what I needed.  Thanks!

Very helpful, thanks.

Well, it seems like you have the right idea on some things but are confused on others.  Your idea of having a link structure like (www.mysite.com/thefolders/thepicture.jpg) seems good.  Now let me tell you something about FTP.  You do not link things to your FTP.  FTP is a file transfer protocol -- a vehicle to transport the data files from your local computer to the web server.

So using an FTP program to connect to your server space, once connected there you will see some directories there.  This structure is known as the "domain root".  It is slightly different depending on which specific web server you are on, but it will look something like this:

/error_docs
/httpdocs
/httpsdocs
/private
/stats

Your actual directories (aka folders) in your web space may be different and you may have more or less, but that is not really important.  The important thing is that you locate the directory named "httpdocs" or "htdocs" or "public_html".  Using your FTP program, enter that directory and then transfer your web files into there.  So for example, if you put a file named "dog.jpg" in there, you will be able to view that online at http://yourdomain.com/dog.jpg or http://www.yourdomain.com/dog.jpg

I hope this helps you :)

Is there an easy way to make rounded corners using CSS?  I do not want to use graphics.

That is great.  I can't recall how many times I have needed this when scripting PHP code.  Hey, does anyone know how to do this in CGI?

[Create an ODBC DSN Database Connection]

I am not a dreamweaver user, so I probably cannot help you with the specifics of that program usage.  I try to use MySQL database whenever possible since it is designed to be used over the internet.  Although Microsoft allows you to use Access on the internet, it is still not the best choice.  For those times I just have to use Access database, I find that creating an ODBC DSN is the best way.  I belive "custom connection string" is just Dreamweaver's lingo for DSN-less connection.  I guess you can use DSN-less; it is just that I always get frustrated with them and people I know feel the same way about them.

Anyways, this might help you.  I find that for troubleshooting it is good to create a "testing" connection to the database.  This just bypasses all the other things that could be throwing the error messages and will at least allow you to discover if the permissions are set right.

Create an ODBC DSN Database Connection
First use your control panel to create the DSN.  If you have a DSN (data source name) connection called "apples" you can connect to the database with the following ASP code:

Code Select Expand

<%
set conn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Open "apples"
%>

With an ODBC connection, you can connect to any database, on any computer in your network, as long as an ODBC connection is available.  For this reason, I find it more secure to name my ODBC database DSN connections something more complex like apples12763.

Create a DSN-less Database Connection
Another way to connect to a database is to use a DSN-less connection.  Some people find it easier but I do not, mainly because it relies on server mappath.  You can use a DSN-less connection for any Microsoft Access database on your web site.

If you have a database called "apples.mdb" located in a web directory like "c:\webspace\user\domain.com\private\", you can connect to the database with the following ASP code:

Code Select Expand

<%
set conn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Provider="Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0"
conn.Open "c:\webspace\user\domain.com\private\apples.mdb"
%>

Take notice from the example above that you have to specify the Microsoft Access database driver (Provider) and the actual physical path to the database on your server.

So try making a test connection to your db using these examples (save the code as dbtest.asp or something like that) and if it connects there will be no message.  If it cannot connect then there will be an error message displayed in the web browser.  I find that for some reason, firefox browser displays more accurate error messages than IE.

Hope this helps you.

[error 406 - Not Acceptable]

Upon browsing through my web stats for one of my domains, I noticed a lot of hits on a page returning  error 406 - Not Acceptable.  I am not familiar with this error code.  Any idea what could be causing this?

[Server MapPath]

Also in your CGI files, make sure all the references to other files are correct.  For example, if your server has a directory structure like this:

| /httpdocs/
--| /httpdocs/cgi-bin/
| /private/

You can see here that the cgi-bin is inside httpdocs.  Also, httpdocs and private directories are on the same level (root).  So let's say you have a .ext file in the /private directory and you have a .cgi file in the cgi-bin that makes reference to it.  There are three different ways to make reference to the other file.  Server mappath, virtual, and absolute paths.  Server MapPath is pretty complicated to me and anly applies to Windows servers, and since I do more PHP coding than ASP, I usually don't use it.  Virtaul path reference would be "../../private/dbname.mdb".  An absolute path depends on the server, but would be something like "C:\Inetpub\Vhosts\domainname.com\private\filename.ext" on Windows or "/home/www/vhosts/domainname.com/private/filename.ext" on Linux server.  (To be sure about the absolute path, refer to your hosting settings page at http://www.hostned.com/setup/ce/ )

[Dundas ASP Upload]

For uploading files on Windows servers (I am on server WIN2 and it works great), HostNed supports Dundas ASP Upload -- a very easy to use component.

Here is an example:

It's very easy to use. You will need to create 2 files

1. upload.html

Code Select Expand

<html>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
     <form method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data" action="upload.asp">
          <input type="FILE" size="40" name="FILE1"><br>
          <input type="FILE" size="40" name="FILE2"><br>
          <input type="FILE" size="40" name="FILE3"><br>
     <input type=submit value="Upload!">
     </form>
</body>
</html>

2. upload.asp

Code Select Expand

Dim objUpload
Set objUpload = Server.CreateObject("Dundas.Upload.2")

objUpload.MaxFileSize = 150000
objUpload.UseVirtualDir = True
objUpload.UseUniqueNames = False

objUpload.Save "/upload"

Set objUpload = Nothing

Response.Write "Files Uploaded Successfully!"

Give it a try.

For general FTP I use Filezilla.  For quick online file edits, I use FTP Live.

Yes, sendmail usage is standard on all HostNed's hosting servers.  I agree, PHP mail () is the easiest way to send mail.