Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with web and www

Under Construction

wcfields — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:10:33 -0800

Where are some repositories of Web 1.0 style graphics and icons? I can only recall Graphic Station from its old Geocities days but was wondering if there are anymore like it?

Why my design sucks? I can has better design skills please?

Meatbomb — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:15:14 -0800

Three part question about "professional-looking" websites. 1. What makes a website look "professional"? It's hard for me - I know it when I see it, but at this point it is something ineffable and I need people more technically competent and with more refined knowledge of aesthetics / layout / design to spell this out.

2. Why does my business website look unprofessional or amateur? I won't link, but it is the "Modern Institute" site recently posted into projects. I want it to say "these people are online professionals", and right now it doesn't.

3. Why does my own judgment seem to change so radically over time? When I first create a new design / layout / color scheme / whatever, I'm all "ooh! it looks so PROFESSIONAL!!! I am design KING!!!". Now when I look at it, weeks or months later I am embarrassed that this is the image my organisation is providing to the Internet, and I feel that it looks like it was made by a 6th grader just learning HTML.

I can't afford professional services, I need to just rely on my own work here... please, help me make this look better? And tips that will help me in the future?

I sincerely thank you in advance for your time in this regard.

Best Free File Sharing Script?

boombot — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:52:06 -0800

Four years ago, Aaorn asked after "free software that will let me set up a document dropbox on my web server. Basically I want to upload files and then have them be available -- through a nice-looking interface -- to users of my choosing." TooManyGadgets recently posted a question that brought DropBox to my attention, and after littleme was kind enough to share a DropBox beta invite, I wanted to revisit the original question. Obviously, there are lots of free scripts that offer the ability to do server-based file-sharing, but which is the best (security + ease of use, with free preferred but not necessary)? I remove the estimable DropBox from consideration because of the reliance on an desktop app and the fact that some of the data I need to share is proprietary - I'd like something I can install and exclusively administer. But a web interface of that quality would be a lovely thing.

Apache2, mod_php, suexec security confusion.

odinsdream — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:58:46 -0800

Apache2 security theory; mod_php versus CGI php and the use of suExec: What is the non-theoretical problem with running Apache2 with mod_php and thus without using suexec on a dedicated system? I'm setting up a typical LAMP environment. I've used phpsecinfo to evaluate my current environment and implemented all of the recommended changes except for two, Group ID and User ID.

The distribution is the most recent Ubuntu Server with the mostly-default Apache2 configuration, and the mostly-default PHP installation, with the exception of the changes recommended by phpsecinfo.

These warnings indicate that my group and user ID numbers are below 100 (33 to be specific), and therefore may be a problem. I am not sure how to interpret this.

I followed the documentation links and was about to implement SuExec when I realized that this meant doing a lot of other reconfiguration, like not using mod_php, and that meant changing a lot of other things, etc.

This is not a shared system. It will only be used to host one company's applications through several virtual hosts. The applications will be PHP-based, and most frequently will use the Symfony framework. Apache currently runs as www-data, whose shell is /bin/false. SSH access to the system is by public-key authentication only and is further restricted at the daemon level to only specific real users.

What do I need to do to run this securely? Resources, guides and real-world examples would be greatly appreciated.

Make Apache recognize Perl!

kaozity — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:49:15 -0800

How can I get my web server to interpret perl I am playing around with perl for the first time in my life. I am using a fedora core 8 machine. It seems to ave all the essentials installed already (apache, php, mySQL, and perl). However, I make a file called perl.pl and it does not seem to translate correctly. Here is what is in the file:

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html \n\n"; #HTTP HEADER

# DEFINE SOME SCALAR VARIABLES
$number = "5";
$exponent = "2 ** 8";
$string = "Hello, PERL!";
$stringpart_1 = "Hello, ";
$stringpart_2 = "PERL!";
$linebreak = "
"; #HTML LINEBREAK TAG

# PRINT THEM TO THE BROWSER
print $number;
print $linebreak;
print $exponent;
print $linebreak;
print $string.$linebreak;
print $stringpart_1.$stringpart_2;

When you go the the browser, you see the following
http://[ip address]/perl/perl.pl

As you can see, you prints out exactly what I type. Am I doing anything wrong? Am I suppose to enable a perl service or change a configuration file?

How do I figure out which pages on a web site are wider than X amount of pixels?

boombot — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:26:10 -0800

How can I analyze the width of specific site's web pages? I'm envisioning either a list of links for pages exceeding a certain amount of pixels or a table that lists every page title, along with the link and the page's width.

Help me AJAXify a portion of my project without overwhelming me.

odinsdream — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:41:58 -0800

Help me AJAX-ify a very simple web process in PHP. Links to very simple AJAX tutorials much appreciated. I've been reading up on AJAX technologies for a couple weeks. I've tried out a few, but I am still stuck with taking existing tutorials and modifying them slightly without really understanding behind-the-scenes. That is, I understand conceptually what the tutorials are showing me, but not very much programmatically. I'm fairly capable with PHP and HTML. I can read and write basic Javascript, but it seems like the AJAX technologies require a deeper level of understanding.

Having said that, all I'm really looking to do is rewrite a very simple portion of my project. Hopefully taking this small step will help me better understand what AJAX can really help me do long-term.

I have one PHP script, delete.php, which does an UPDATE SQL statement setting Deleted = True for a given ID, passed via HTML GET from other pages.

This seems like the perfect thing to AJAXify, but all of the tutorials I can find jump straight into Google Mashups, SOAP, JSON, XML, etc. I don't need these yet. What are some very basic tutorials that would help me replace my delete.php script with something more efficient?

Semantic markup and the world wide web: non-noob needs an explanation.

josh.ev9 — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:29:04 -0800

Semantic markup and the world wide web: non-noob needs an explanation. What is all this semantic markup talk about, and where can I learn more? I've been creating web tools/apps/etc. for years with well-written (as far as I can tell) and valid XHTML & CSS code. But over the last few years I've heard lots of people talk about "Semantic Markup."

What is this, and how can I tell if I'm already doing it? Why is it so good, and are there any problems with it? Finally, what are your favorite web and non-web resources for learning more?

Buying a .org but not the .com

Plutor — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:50:01 -0800

It is a commonly held belief that enough Internet users foolishly expect every Internet domain to end in ".com", it would be a mistake to purchase and promote a domain ending in ".org" unless one can also purchase the corresponding domain in the ".com" TLD to redirect these foolish Internet users to the proper URL. Is there any statistical evidence that there are so many foolish Internet users out that that this is a necessary practice? Or is this merely unsubstantiated myth?

Looking for an OSX app(or other solution) that will allow us to edit/update a front page produced site.

neilkod — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:25:02 -0800

Looking for an OSX app(or other solution) that will allow us to edit/update a Front Page produced site. My wife is a marketing manager at a local hotel. She was tasked with keeping the hotel's site up-to-date. The outdated site was created with front page. We would like to import certain parts of the site, if at all possible. The current site isn't exactly horrible, but the content is years out of date.

As far as I can tell, the site is just static pages - no real functionality. I dont think she's planning on adding any real functionality-this is pretty much display-only.

One of her requirements is to be able to easily update the site-add blurbs for new promotions, partner companies, etc. I'm not sure if she should use an html editor, or a CMS, or any other options. I'm very far removed from the web-development world so what I do know may be out of date. Inexpensive would be good, free is even better.

The hotel is also in the market for a new site host - if any solution requires certain server-side technology, please list it in the reply.

Mac or Firefox solution to download local copies of web sites?

dripdripdrop — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:12:10 -0800

I'm looking for Mac OSX software or a Firefox plug-in that will allow me to create local copies of web sites to be viewed later. I will be without web access for about a week and I want to do some work on few php and css projects. To do so, I will need to have tutorials handy. I'd like something for the Mac that will allow me to download a page including all graphics and download all the pages it links to (1 to 2 links deep).

Paging Herbert Kornfeld - ecommerce with purchase orders

Wild_Eep — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:27:28 -0800

Is there an open-source ecommerce store system that has built-in support for purchase orders? You see, I was all set to just use ZenCart, when the client informed me that the first 3 interested customers he has all want to pay with a PO.

Personally, I'd rather just tell the potential customers to go find a credit card, as writing/testing/debugging/shipping/maintaining a bolted-on PO system seems like a lot of effort. Then there's the additional 'back-office' administration of dealing with the purchase orders, collections, etc. Seems like a hassle that could grow unwieldy.

So, is there a LAMP-compatible e-commerce system that supports customers paying with a purchase order instead of a credit card?

Looking for ad-serving software.

crickets — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:46:20 -0800

Anyone have any ad-serving software they recommend? I'm managing a site that is quickly rising in popularity (2+ million hits a month). I'd like to know what options there are for software to manage ad campaigns.

I know eventually I will need a robust solution, but until we get sales folks in place and figure out those options, I'm looking for a lightweight, possibly open-source solution to manage the campaigns we have sold so far.

All I need is some sort of interface to create the campaigns, track views and clickthroughs, standard stuff.

Web Hosting 101

boombot — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:34:13 -0800

For those who pay for web hosting: I'm about to look for my first web host. What information, be it about privacy, or questions to ask, or really anything, should I have/look for as I shop around? I'll gladly take anything, I'm quite green.

Windows XP crashing

grumblebee — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 06:31:35 -0800

Win XP Problem: Windows Explorer (and My Computer) keep crashing. If I bring either up, it crashes immediately (the computer doesn't crash). Around the same time, I noticed I'd acquired some spyware. So I ran Ad-aware, and it seemed to get rid of the bad stuff. But Explorer still crashes. I ran Norton Anti-Virus, which claimed it found viruses but couldn't fix them because I needed to adjust the properties of some of the Norton files. But I can't adjust these properties, because I can't get to the files (because Explorer crashes). Help.

Simple Site Setupt

luriete — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 13:38:24 -0800

A family member of mine wants to set up a simple site for his home business - schedules of classes, some photographs, contact information, links, etc., and I have suggested that he use Typepad, which I use for a number of projects. However I think he'd prefer a non-weblog format, which leads me to my question: are there combined hosting/construction tools out there, like some of these weblog services, that have a good and very easy-to-use back-end, lots of design/format choices, but are more focused around a more heirarchically structured, top-down site structure?