This is a simple one, but I had to look it up.
So, by my self imposed rules, I have to post it.
This text will constantly scroll memo-like-fields to the end.
[delphi]
Memo1.SelStart:=Length(Memo1.Text);
Memo1.SelLength:=0;
SendMessage(Memo1.Handle, EM_SCROLLCARET, 0, 0);
[/delphi]
This allows you to have an active logging component at the bottom of a form. Proof of concept coming soon.
The 35 Second upgrade processhas been replaced with the “5 Second Upgrade Script” (link). Follow the link for more information.
This post describes a process to upgrade your post to the latest version of WordPress in 35 seconds. Each additional site would add only 5 to 10 seconds, depending upon how fast you type. I’ve measured it myself. The first two runs were 40 seconds and the rest were 35. And just so you know, that is real time and includes manually logging in by typing my password, doing the work, logging out, clicking start run and typing the full URL to the upgrade.php file. If I bookmarked the site and stored my password. I bet I could upgrade my site in 20 seconds. Anyway, I thought you might find this technique useful, so I thought I would share.
The only automation I used is to setup a shell script that will go out and get the latest version of WordPress whenever I ask it to. And since that is a generic process that will work for all versions, I don’t count it as cheating to reach that 35 second mark. I really wanted to hit 30 seconds, but hey this is better than my old methot which involved 15-20 minutes of upload time to take the files from my Windows machine over to the my 1and1.com site.
Some things you should be scared by:
Other things you should know:
So your first task is to get putty and that’s this PuTTY:
Not this putty:
(Old Joke. I’m sorry, but it was a good one and heck, cut and paste is easier than looking up the urls and retyping all of this.)
Just download it from here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ and install.
Now, configure PuTTY to log into your site. It is straight forward, if you have difficulties. Please take a break and read the help docs on it and decided if you really want to take on updating via scripts without further reading and studying. Manual updates take longer but they are safer.
Once you have putty installed, login using your user number and main password (u35555555 or something like that for a 1and1.com user)
Once you are logged you’ll be at a prompt that looks like this:
USERNAME:~>
You can now use unix commands to wander around in your account. Be careful, you CAN break stuff. *nix is a strange world if you are not familiar with it.
As mentioned before, this upgrade process requires you to create a script. A BASH script is like a DOS Batch file. It is a series of commands that are executed sequentially. You create the script once and can run it MANY times. In fact you should be able to use it for all future WP releases. However, if you are performing more than a maintenence upgrade (i.e. if you are switching from 1.5 to 2.04 or from 2.0.4 to 2.1) you might want to follow the manual instructions that come with WordPress as it will result in a cleaner install. It’s up to you. The point is, you can always use this script to update to the latest release over and over again.
The process the script follows is simple.
1. Remove the files and directories used by this process to ensure a clean run.
2. Grab the latest gz file from wordpress.org
3. Uncompress the gz file – this creates a tar file
4. Uncomress the tar file – this creates a wordpress directory tree
5. Change to the directory housing the active wp site
6. Copy all of the files and directories from wordpress over to the current directory.
7. Remove the wordpress directory
8. Remove the tar
In terms of BASH commands, the script file will contain something like this:
rm latest.tar.gz
rm latest.tar
wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
gunzip latest.tar.gz
tar -xf latest.tar
cd ~/wpdir4site1
cp -R -v –remove-destination ~/wordpress/* .
rm ~/wordpress/ -R
rm latest.tar
“wpdir4site1” represents the directory in which your site has WP installed. You’ll need to change that text to use the right name. It is the directory in which WordPress’s Index.PHP resides and WP-Admin hangs off of it. If you are unsure of what to put here, STOP. Script updates are not for you. It is better to take a couple minute to update your site than to put something wrong in here and have the script erase everything on your site.
The next line is the one that does all of the work. So, you need to copy the cd and the cp lines if you want to change this script to update more sites. Then your script would contain something like this:
rm latest.tar.gz
rm latest.tar
rm ~/wordpress/ -R
wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
gunzip latest.tar.gz
tar -xf latest.tar
cd ~/wpdir4site1
cp -R -v –remove-destination ~/wordpress/* .
cd ~/wpdir4site2
cp -R -v –remove-destination ~/wordpress/* .
cd ~/wpdir4site3
cp -R -v –remove-destination ~/wordpress/* .
cd ~/wpdir4site4
cp -R -v –remove-destination ~/wordpress/* .
rm ~/wordpress/ -R
rm latest.tar
So, here’s where you use PuTTY to log into your account (see above). Once you are at the bash prompt, you will use the vi program to create your script in your root directory.
So just type in:
vi updatewp.sh
Then hit the letter i
That will put vi in insert mode.
Then just type in the script as I described in the previous section. If you want you can use Notepad to customize the script to fit your directory structure and then copy it into the Windows clipboard, and paste it into PuTTY by right clicking the window.
Once, you have the script file looking as you want it to appear or if you want to give up and start over, hit Escape. That will take you out of Insert mode.
If you are satisfied with what you see, hit colon (:), hit w and then hit enter. That will save your work. Then hit :q and press enter to quit.
If you just wish to quit without saving, hit colon (:) and then type q! and press enter.
In review here are all of the vi commands you need to know
Oh, and don’t paste the file in without updating the directory names, because if you run it like that, say when you are proof reading a blog post, you will update your root directory with the current version of WP and that means loads of files to clean up. Luckily you can identify them via their modified date. And no, I will not tell you how I know this!
Now you’ve done all of the hard work. You’re up to the 35 second challenge.
Each time you upgrade, do this process:
1. Telnet/SSH/PuTTY into your account.
2. Type “sh updatewp.sh” and then press enter
3. Close your Telnet/SSH/PuTTY program.
4. Visit your upgrade url and press the “Step 1” link (I do this by hitting Start->Run and typing “http://www.MySiteUrl.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php”)
This process is also great for quickly restoring a corrupt/hacked site back to operation.
I can do all that in 35 seconds, how fast can you do it?
This post is obsolete. It describes two issues I had with WP2.0.4 just prior to it being released. The first is a Maxthon browser specific error, that is suppressed by default in Maxthon and IE. In IE however there is never a way that it can be shown. At least that’s what my testing indicates.
The second error was due to a zero byte Index.php files being located in the plugins directory. IF index.php is there, it replaces the dashboard upon subsequent visits. That’s a nifty trick… I put the index.php from my bubble headed boy page in there and now the wp Dashboard hosts bubble headed boy! How useful is that?!?!!
Anyway, I’m now “good” with 2.0.4 – both of these things are “non-issues” – Install away!
Well, Matt released version 2.0.4 a short while ago. I’d love to jump on the Go, download and Install Now band wagon, but frankly I am just not there yet. I’m seeing weird problems that just shouldn’t be there. Admittedly, these problems are far better to suffer though than dealing with some malicious member bumping themselves up to administrator level or doing something worse to your blog than that. Still, I would have preferred these problems being confirmed and fixed or at least knowing why they were happenning here and perhaps not elsewhere. I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary with this site at the moment.
I’ve just spent 4 hours trying to find the first problem. I am getting this error all over the post.php page:
You’ll only see this message if you turn back on the annoying Script-Error-Popup that everyone disables because 90% of the sites out there contain errors:
IE:
or Maxthon:
I can often produce it upon saving a post, deleting a post, leaving the write tab, heck I even sometimes get two of them when closing down the browser.
I’ve just found that the error is never raised/actively supressed from IE7 proper. However, the Maxthon browser raises the error. If this is truly a Maxthon only issue, than I’ll just turn back off the error popup and go on happily with life. Since this error can be easily ignored, I’m not thaaat worried about it anyway. I am a little concerned that it could be masking other behaviour…
The other issue is a bigger deal, but I’ve heard from two people who don’t see this bahaviour. My dashboard tab/button points to
/wp-admin/admin.php?page=index.php
and therefore only displays this when I click on it:
Look Ma! No dashboard!
Sooo, I’m still investigating. When I have found the reason for these, I’ll make another post describing the really quick way to download and install these upgrads…
But till I get this isolated, please excuse the dust and any weird behavior… though for now, I am off to bed…
Thanks
Rickard Liljeberg has posted a video of the feature in action at his office. Their victim computer of choice was the Dell GX520 and they were having random shutdowns that Dell support could not explain. Kudos for him giving credit to coworker Chris for researching the problem and sysadmin Ben for putting 1 and 1 together and coming up with two.
I was alerted to this by a friend at the office who regularly reads The Register. When he saw an article referencing the Dell Gx520, the computer we use at all of our sites, it caught his eye. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of these computers in the field.
Apparently, certain cell phone can trigger the circuits that suspend a Dell computer. The phone in the video appears to be an older analog phone. So, I’m not quite as worried about this as I might otherwise be. We haven’t had a rash of call about random shutdowns. In fact, I’d originally decided not to log an issue on this as we don’t use the suspend feature. However, if the phone is triggering the circuits, software and bios settings probably do not matter.
Dell’s response to The Register was:
Communication devices do sometimes cause interference with other communication devices. The level of interference created may depend in part on the model and condition of the phone.
Dell systems are designed to operate in line with industry standards for power and electro-magnetic shielding. We recommend to customers who are experiencing interference to avoid using mobile phones within one foot of the system. We encourage customers to contact Dell directly if they have other concerns.
It looks like Rickard has posted the video on the public Google video site. So, I can show it here too.
Here it is in action:
Thanks to some drastic and controversial actions taken by SpamKarma creator Dr. Dave, a large percentage of the blogging populace has been alerted to a security hole in WordPress. He even went to the effort of activating a warning message that was sent out to everyone who uses his SK2 plugin. This has resulted in a lot of fear spreading amoung a huge number of bloggers. This sort of thing just spreads exponentialy. Here’s a quasi random sampling of two dozen of the first posts on it: .......................
And these were just from the English blogs that posted about this on the same day as the notice going out. The neat thing is that these are some of the most on-top-of-things bloggers out there. Those 24 blogs have some great content and gread visual styles. The are well worth perusing…
Anyway, as you can guess he’s taken plenty of heat for this, because loads of people are now searching for the hole and trying to figure out how to exploit it. Most of these people just want to protect their own blogs. Others might be searching so that they can use this exploit against others. There are certain people I would not like to be right now…
The most common fix being spread out there is to disable “Anyone can register”. The good news is that this will eliminate the possiblity of new people exploiting this issue. The bad news is that I would wager most bloggers don’t know the hearts of even HALF of their members. The ugly truth is that I bet many of the WP bloggers out there (the pajama media in particular) have members that are REALLLLLY pissed at them right now. Hey, its ugly but it happens. Now that this exploit is known, do you really trust that unknown/angry member to not go and read up on the details? Should you delete their account; so that they are even angrier the next time an exploit is announced? Don’t look at me, I can’t answer that one for ya…
The really good news is that Ryan Boren released the beta version of WordPress 2.0.4 on Sunday. The Beta2 version of the release includes a fix for this issue.
Here’s what Ryan said in a WP public list:
To recap, there is a bug in core WP involved that I believe I’ve fixed
for 2.0.4. This is the core API bug Dave is talking about on his blog.I was in error before to say that this is a problem to be fixed solely
by the plugins. There are some plugins that need help beyond the fix to
the core, but the core fix should cover most plugins. Sorry for the
confusion.And with that, I really need to get some sleep. Later all.
If you want to test the beta release, the beta2 beta3 version is available for download here:
zip
tar.gz
Please be aware that this IS a beta release and has not been tested against all common plugins and themes.
That said, WordPress 2.0.4 is under some intense scrutiny and *MIGHT* be released in just four days. You can see that for yourself here. In fact, you might want to keep that link around. Modifying that link is much easier than asking around “When will WP x.y will be out? Huh? Huh? Huh?” If there is an answer to that question, there will be a link like that, showing the date. Can you figure out what the link for the 2.1 release is?
Many people have been running 2.0.4 for ages now, but it is still under development. There have already been a number of changes and fixes since the beta2 version. Beta2 will not be the version that is released, but you might prefer running it to turning off your membership.
This fix is important, but the danger is as all encompassing holes that existed prior to version 2.0.3. It involves an assumption, by plugin authors, that the WordPress core takes care of all security concerns. The fact of the matter is, a WordPress plugin should be written so that it is secure in and of itself. It only makes sense. This fix enhances the security around plugins. But plugin authors should still be aware that they must always make certain the logged in user has the rights to do the action the plugin is about to perform.
Likewise, WordPress bloggers should be aware that that the more powerful a plug in is, the more risk you expose your self to if someone gets to it through a security hole. This was just as true before this hole was disclosed as it is now.
For example, if you really think your WordPress blog needs to be able to restructure all of your table, did you chose a plugin made by someone that looks like the have professional experience in web security or was your plugin written by a highschool senior or college freshman? I’m just asking… And so should you…
Now, there has been so much FUD that everyone is in a panic. I’m not saying that you should do nothing. You might actually want to disable the creation of new user accounts. You might want to disable some trouble users. You might want to update to the beta 2.04. Or you might just want to take a breath and realize that chances are, no one is out to destroy you or your blog – even just for the fun of it.
The fact of the matter is that there are still thousands of blogs out there running version 2.0.2 of WordPress (100,000+ results from google) and earlier despite our best efforts to get people to update and realize the serious nature of the risk. When there are published security holes allowing allowing mass deletions of posts, there are much easier targets with more bang for the buck than your WP 2.0.3 blog.
You ARE running at least 2.0.3 right?
Beta 3 was released 7 minutes ago at 12:38pm EST/16:38 UTC. I’ve updated the links above to point at beta3. The only change between b2 and b3 is a minor fix I tested and improved for Ryan last night. In some rare circumstances the author link at the bottom of the posts might have been incorrect. Those of us without themes that support multiple authors would be unaffected by this change. So, there’s no real reason to get b3 if you have b2 installed already. The release MAY come sooner than I mentioned in this article. Perhaps by as much as 3 days sooner…but I wouldn’t mind another evening just to try to exploit this version.
Well, I had a nice post about how I was distracted from posting more Delphi code because I was playing with a new pear module I’d found called GameServerQuery. I was finishing that post by asking if anyone had gotten it to work because I was pretty sure I had everything correct but it wasn’t working. Before I published the post I noticed someone had telneted into my account and run some bash commands. And I knew it was not me…
They searched for my local ip address and an example file I used for Game Server Query. Very odd…
Then I got an email from 1and1 saying I was hacked and that “WordPress needed to be updated because it had many security holes”. Uhhhh, no it doesn’t.
Long story short – I wasn’t hacked my anyone but a 1and1 representitive and dumbing language down for the end user is a bad practice if you don’t also provide them with an explaination of what you REALLY mean.
I’ve got enough materials for four or five posts out of this whole thing, but if I combine all the detail here, this post will be 5 pages long and it won’t make any sense when read as a whole.
So, here’s a summary and some good things to know when working with 1and1.com shared host accounts –
1. They say: Don’t use your account to host a game server or simliar program.
They mean: We monitor and block outbound socket connections from your server. By doing this we lock out people looking for a cheap game server, and we protect our customers sites from several common attacks. We will allow FSocketOpen but the traffic is interupted and you will be contacted by a “Customer Compliance Operative”.
“Customer Compliance Operative”?!?!?!!? So, is that like one of the Men in Black or more like a Mafia enforcer? Will I be zapped by a blinky light and forget all the PHP code for openning sockets if I continue with this post?
UPDATE: I just found a reference that indicates that this is probably NOT 1and1.com fault.
Someone was investigating why Traceroute was not available on shared servers and discovered that socket traffic could not be accessed without root level access. Of course root level access cannot be givin on a shared server. If anyone can Confirm or Deny this, I’d appreciate the additional information…
2. 1and1 passwords should not be considered secure and therefore should only be used on 1and1. Any/all 1and1 account representatives have access to your root passwords and can login as you and for all intents and purposes impersonate you using your accounts. What bothers me most about this is that they don’t have a policy of notifying you that they have logged in as you to do something… That’s wrong…
3. 1and1 Support reps as a whole – as might be expected – have only general knowlege about the vast number of programs out there that could be running on your server. So they will look for alarm words and offer generic advice when they see one of these dangerous words. This could be considered a form of Red Zone Management, I guess. They get involved only when they need to and only know the hot topic of they day. So they will search for a file called XMLRPC.php since last year it had a hole in it. So, that means you were probably hacked. If they see WordPress, they know it had vulnerablities earlier in the year, so they can assume you were hacked. They will not research/know the versions of the files involved even if they are listed in the logs. Again, this is really to be expected. I would not want every customer support rep to be a $90,000 a year security expert. I sure would not be paying what I am paying right now for the service.
4. When working with support, if you want a good solid response help them give it to you. You can be in control of the calls and guiding the representative will make the call easier on both sides. This is true of any company any where in the world. Not every support rep will have the same level of training, the pressing calls of the moment can and will take priority to the detriment of other calls, if something is important to you trust but verify it has been done.
5. The latest version of the Pear module GameServerQuery is good and functional. The latest version is not what pear serves up. You have to retreive it manually. PhGStats is a MUCH more refined tool and produces more fully functional pages. There’s a place for both of these tools. That place, btw, is NOT 1and1.com – see point 1.
More on each of these topics later…
I’ve made two changes to the Forms and Field lister I posted yesterday – the original post has been altered to include them.
First and foremost, the line to paste into Start->Run to install the program into the registry was being altered by WordPress. Though the text looked identical, the double quotes were being changed to a different character. The result was you would receive an “invalid key name” error. If, in DOS, you went back and replaced the double quote imposters with actual double quotes, it would run fine. So I have wrapped that line with PRE and TT tags in the original post and provided a batch file in case anyone still has problems.
Second, it was discovered that some Windows computers would block the popup. There would be no error given or any indication of what happened beyond a dialog box flashing up on the screen and disappearing. I debugged this by adding alert(1),alert(2)…alert(n) messages after every line of the source code. Once I did that, IE was kind enough to tell me that it was bombing out due to an “Access is Denied” error triggered from my Window.Open(“”,”tcc_formlist”,””); command. That line worked at my office, but bombed out on one of my home computer.
The reason is that Windows now blocks one window or frame accessing another window or frame that is in a different domain (or security zone I believe). This technique is calls Cross Frame Scripting. The problem is that what I am doing with these tools IS exactly working across two frames/windows. Luckily there is a way around this.
The JavaScript Mini-FAQ, available here: http://www.dannyg.com/ref/jsminifaq.html#q15, has a good description of this issue and the work around:
Q. What does the IE “Access is Denied” error mean?
A. The “Access Denied” error in any browser usually means that a script in one window or frame is trying to access another window or frame whose document’s domain is different from the document containing the script. What can seem odd about this is that you get this error in IE for Windows frequently when a script in one window generates a new window (with window.open()), and content for that other window is dynamically created from the same script doing the opening. The focus() method also triggers the error.
The error can also occur if scripts try to access objects, properties, or methods that have been locked down by Microsoft’s security platoon. For instance, the document.styleSheets.rules property used to be accessible in IE 5 and IE 5.5, but is not in IE 6.For the new window problem, there is a bit of history associated with the problem and workarounds. For example, the problem occurs frequently when the scripts are being run from the local hard disk. You get a clue about the situation in the titlebar of the new window: It forces an about:blank URL to the new window, which is a protocol:domain that differs from wherever your main window’s script comes from. If, however, you put the same main window document on a server, and access it via http:, the problem goes away.
There is a workaround for the local-only problem: In the first parameter of the window.open() method call, load a real document (even if it is a content-free HTML document) into the sub-window before using document.write() to generate content for the subwindow. The loading action ‘legitimizes’ the window as coming from the same domain as your main window’s document.
(This solution does not affect scripts that load a page from a secure server into a separate window or frame. An http: protocol in one window and https: in the other–even if from the same server.domain–yield a security mismatch and “Access Denied.” Setting the document.domain properties of both pages may solve the problem (but I am unable to test it for sure).)
[…]
I’ve updated the original code to include this fix.
Window.Open(“”,”tcc_formlist”,””);
is now
Window.Open(“file:///c:/Windows/web/formlist.htm”,”tcc_formlist”,””);
The end result is that window.open command quickly opens the script before the dynamic content is displayed. This little blip is not noticeable on my daughters computer. I don’t think it will be a major slowdown. Due to how the code is written, the whole of the JS routine is not executed. The biggest negative is that the script now has a reference to what I expect the file name to be on your computer. If you rename the script, you need to change that reference in the source. I doubt many people will rename the script.
That was kind-of a ramble… Does that all make sense?
This post is an introduction to what I’ve been researching in my spare time over the last few weeks. It will be the first in a series of posts about form submission. It will lead you basically along the path that I took in discovering this information, and will hopefully allow you to skip over some of the trouble spots along the way. I’ll note each of the trouble spots in the comments in the doc (for instance in this one I include a note about the value of a button also being submitted with the form).
This HTML file builds on top of the work that I did on with the Copy as Text Link tool referenced elsewhere on this site. However, this routine processes the currently active webpage/frame and generates a report of the Forms and fields on that page. For each form it shows its name, action and then list the inputs on that form. For each input, it shows its name and value. From this information, you can see what is being tracked between pages on a website. You could also use this information to debug an entry form you are creating. It could also be used to generate the form submission information that will be generated by a certain action so that it can be repeated programmatically in the future.
This routine will only work in IE right now and older releases of Maxthon. It could easily be transposed to other browsers and tools. The process should be relatively easy to follow thanks to Microsoft’s Document Object Module (DOM) technology. DOM allows HTML code to be accessed as if it were Object Oriented. In other words, this routine doesn’t work with the HTML source code. Instead it asks IE for specific parts of the webpage one at a time. This allows each of the various parts/divisions of any web page to have its own particular properties and methods. This routine asks asks the document object for the list of forms it contains. It then asks each form for a list of fields. It displays each in its turn.
To install this file in IE, right click on the following link and choose Save Target As. Then in the destination window type %WINDIR%\web\formlist.htm and press enter.
%windir% is an environment variable that represents your Windows directory. So you can put C:\Windows\Web\formlist.htm if you know you have a c:\Windows directory.
Then choose Start->Run and put in this text and then press enter:
reg ADD "HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\MenuExt\\F&orms and Fields" /ve /t REG_SZ /d "%WINDIR%\\web\\formlist.htm" /f
That will update your registry to point to the file. If you have problems, use this batch file instead. It contains the same command but will not be corrupted by windows.
Then close all instances of IE.
Now browse to a web page that has a form, most of them do now-a-days.
Right click anywhere on the text of the form and choose Form and Fields from the menu.
You’ll now be able to see all sorts of information about the page you were on and the fields and hidden fields it contains.
BTW, this routine uses a pop up window. Popup blockers like the Google Toolbar will try to block this form. So, you just might have to hold down the CTRL key as you choose Form and Fields to allow this to work.
Also, FYI it works in Maxthon through at least version 1.5.2 build 21. I think build 23 reworks the context menu stuff, but don’t quote me on that.
Enjoy!
Sample output from FoxNews.com
(Source code follows)
NOTE: There is now a reference to the final location of this file in the source code. If you install this as something other than c:\windows\web\formlist.htm you must now update the source code.
Continue reading Listing the Forms and Fields on a page in Internet Explorer or Maxthon
I was going to post this to wp-hackers in reply to a couple other posts but decided it was WAY to off topic
[wp-hackers] Close old comments and pingbacks: feature or plugin? Jamie Holly
[wp-hackers] Close old comments and pingbacks: feature or plugin? David Chait
I decided it is too off topic and Robert Deaton would get on my case again. 😉 I didn’t want to waste the typing. So you all get an extra post today…
> I’d have more fun designing for a site getting .75M hits/day —
> send me some of that traffic! 😉
0.75m is 0.75m, Kudos to Jamie. Actually I guess its .36m/day between the two sites. Still in large part, I ignore hits when figuring out how my sites are doing…
More specifically, I can’t see how it much helps in comparing two sites either. My reasoning: To go to an extreme, if a site is Flash based, I’d assume the hits/visit is low as it would be with a largely text based site – perhaps even < 10 hits per visit. If a site has lots of graphics and little tag images (translation flags, "new" buttons, whatever), I would assume the hits/visit are WAY higher. My hits per visit is around 47 - I suspect I should try to lower that. So, if I use only hits as a measure and compare myself with a text based site with 12 hits per visit, my hit count would be four times higher but we would get the same level of traffic. And even that ratio is subject to the definition of "a visit". I use two different stat engines to evaluate my sites: AWStats and WebStatistics. AWStats often reports "Unique Visitors" to be as low as 1/3 of the "Unique Visits" reported by WebStatics. Part of the difference there is the visitors/visits issue, another part is awstats filtering out search engines and another part of it is AWStats has a much more liberal definition of what constitutes a single "visit". I'm just not certain that I have a number of people spending an 1+ browsing my site. It's really cool if I do, but I suspect it is people returning to the site (tab) once or twice within a 2 hour period. Am I correct in saying that the ONLY way to compare the traffic between two sites is to look at the same stat by the same stat engine on both sites (e.g. comparing "Number of visits" in AWStats.)? Am I way off on this? As I said at the beginning. 0.75m/day is 0.75m. That's more traffic then any of my current sites will ever see. What is the best method of measuring a blog's popularity? I know it isn't alexa... I currently have half the traffic of my wife's site but Alexa sure doesn't show that... http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=Thecodecave.com http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=www.knitchat.com Denise's site has been around for almost two years vs four months for my site. So, I'm pleased with my progress. "My unique Visitors" have been doubling each month. I don't think that will happen this month since I have missed half a month of posts, I expect only a 20% increase over last month... But all's good...
It actually can’t get any easier than this.
Just put the following line in your .htaccess file:
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php
And your done! Your site is now running under PHP5.
Enjoy…
Want proof? Want to know details?
Well… Here you go…
It turn’s out that 1and1.com accounts all come with PHP4 active. By default php files are processed by PHP Version 4.4.2.
Test this out on your 1&1 server without affecting the operation of your site:
Create a new directory called TestPHP4
Create a file in that folder called index.php that contains the following text
[php]
phpinfo();
?>
[/php]
Then open that directory in your web browser.
You’ll get something that looks like this:
PHP Version 4.4.2 |
| System | Linux infong 2.4 #1 SMP Wed Jan 18 14:53:29 CET 2006 i686 unknown |
| Build Date | Feb 6 2006 10:16:02 |
| Configure Command | ‘../configure’ ‘–with-pear’ ‘–with-mysql=/usr’ ‘–with-zlib’ ‘–enable-debug=no’ ‘–enable-safe-mode=no’ ‘–enable-discard-path=no’ ‘–with-gd=/usr’ ‘–with-png-dir=/usr/lib’ ‘–enable-track-vars’ ‘–with-db’ ‘–with-gdbm’ ‘–enable-force-cgi-redirect’ ‘–with-ttf=/usr/’ ‘–enable-ftp’ ‘–with-mcrypt’ ‘–enable-dbase’ ‘–enable-memory-limit’ ‘–enable-calendar’ ‘–enable-wddx’ ‘–with-jpeg-dir=/usr/src/kundenserver/jpeg-6b’ ‘–enable-bcmath’ ‘–enable-gd-imgstrttf’ ‘–enable-shmop’ ‘–enable-mhash’ ‘–with-mhash=/usr/src/kundenserver/mhash-0.8.9/’ ‘–with-openssl’ ‘–enable-xslt’ ‘–with-xslt-sablot’ ‘–with-dom’ ‘–with-dom-xslt’ ‘–with-dom-exslt’ ‘–with-imap’ ‘–with-curl’ ‘–with-iconv=/usr/local’ ‘–with-freetype-dir=/usr/include/freetype2’ ‘–with-bz2’ ‘–with-gettext’ ‘–enable-exif’ ‘–with-idn’ ‘–enable-mbstring=all’ |
| Server API | CGI |
| Virtual Directory Support | disabled |
| Configuration File (php.ini) Path | /usr/local/lib/php.ini |
| PHP API | 20020918 |
| PHP Extension | 20020429 |
| Zend Extension | 20050606 |
Now copy and rename the TestPHP4 directory as TestPHP5 (or create the directory as above manually). Now create one more file in the TestPHP5 directory named .htaccess
Make certain a period is in front of htaccess like this: .htaccess
The period indicates this it is a hidden file. It tells your system how to process requests. In this case we will tell it to process all .php files as php5 files. That is done by adding the following line:
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
Now save that file and browse to the directory with your web browser. You’ll see something like the following:
| System | Linux infong371 2.4.28-grsec-20050113a #1 SMP Thu Jan 13 08:59:31 CET 2005 i686 |
| Build Date | May 4 2006 13:56:29 |
| Configure Command | ‘../configure’ ‘–program-suffix=5’ ‘–with-pear=/usr/local/lib/php5’ ‘–with-config-file-path=/usr/local/lib/php5’ ‘–with-libxml-dir=/usr/local/php5’ ‘–without-sqlite’ ‘–with-config-file-scan-dir=.’ ‘–with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config’ ‘–enable-soap’ ‘–with-xsl=/usr/local/php5’ ‘–enable-mbstring=all’ ‘–with-curl=/usr/local/php5’ ‘–with-mcrypt=/usr/local/php5’ ‘–with-gd’ ‘–with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql’ ‘–with-freetype-dir’ ‘–with-libxml-dir=/usr/local/php5’ ‘–with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql’ ‘–with-zlib’ ‘–enable-debug=no’ ‘–enable-safe-mode=no’ ‘–enable-discard-path=no’ ‘–with-png-dir=/usr/lib’ ‘–enable-track-vars’ ‘–with-db’ ‘–with-gdbm’ ‘–enable-force-cgi-redirect’ ‘–with-ttf=/usr/’ ‘–enable-ftp’ ‘–enable-dbas’ ‘–enable-memory-limit’ ‘–enable-calendar’ ‘–enable-wddx’ ‘–with-jpeg-dir=/usr/src/kundenserver/jpeg-6b’ ‘–enable-bcmath’ ‘–enable-gd-imgstrttf’ ‘–enable-shmop’ ‘–enable-mhash’ ‘–with-mhash=/usr/src/kundenserver/mhash-0.8.9/’ ‘–with-openssl’ ‘–enable-xslt’ ‘–with-xslt-sablot’ ‘–with-dom’ ‘–with-dom-xslt’ ‘–with-dom-exslt’ ‘–with-imap’ ‘–with-iconv=/usr/local’ ‘–with-bz2’ ‘–with-gettext’ ‘–enable-exif’ ‘–with-idn’ |
| Server API | CGI |
| Virtual Directory Support | disabled |
| Configuration File (php.ini) Path | /usr/local/lib/php5/php.ini |
| Scan this dir for additional .ini files | . |
| PHP API | 20041225 |
| PHP Extension | 20050922 |
| Zend Extension | 220051025 |
You now have two different directories that process files using two different php engines.
Pretty cool huh?