Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with www

Maintaining Server Privacy

dacoit — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:27:15 -0800

If you do a search for my company’s website on Google, one of the top hits is a page at Quantcast.com that purports to display “visitor statistics” for our domain. These statistics are wildly inaccurate by orders of magnitude and make it look as though our site gets only a tiny percentage as many visitors as it actually does. What’s more, there are all kinds of demographic charts and info, purportedly about our site, that don’t seem to have any connection to reality whatsoever. How do I get them to stop misrepresenting us? In their FAQs, Quantcast answers the question “how do I remove my site from Quantcast’s listing?” with “We do not remove sites from our listing.” They propose that one join their Quantcast Publisher program, but this program forces you to give them your actual server stats, which they will use and publish whether you like it or not.

I’m galled that there seem to be only two choices:

a.) putting up with a page of highly visible misinformation about my company that causes us actual financial harm; and

b.) signing up for some company’s service and giving them access to our server stats.

Surely there's a third choice? My question is this:
Do you think there’s any way to word a letter to a company like this to get them to remove our site from their listing?

(BTW, I know there are a couple of other companies, like Alexa, that do this kind of thing, but they don’t bother me because their stats are vague and don't pretend to be accurate. It's the false "accurate" picture that I can't get over.)

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?

Securing a Directory and Logging Logins

boombot — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:50:48 -0800

Need to password protect a directory on my site in a fashion that allows me to see which approved users are logging in, and when. I know .htaccess will let me do do the security and the separate accounts, but can I get a report on user activity? Or is there a better way? Obviously, a Google search returns plenty. So much, though, is from sites I'm totally unfamiliar with - I'm interested in advice from the community I trust.

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.

How do you spell D-N-S?

fijiwriter — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:54:32 -0800

How do you explain DNS, A records, MX records, etc. to your staff and clients? What's the best way to get non-technical people to understand this? In my line of work, we have new co-workers who know just a little bit of what DNS is. Usually, it's their understanding of how a person finds a website or gets email to someone. And that's pretty much it.

So, I'm considering a primer of what DNS is, what it does, why it's important, what role A/MX/www records play, and the like.

What have you seen online, preferably with graphics, that you've used to explain to people what's going on in such a foreign concept? Or, how have you explained this subject?

Yes, I know there are Internet for Idiots-type books out there and Wikipedia entries, but that is a Step 3, and we're just on Step 1.

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?

HELP! I need to update a site that is outdated.

Meep! Eek! — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:25:36 -0800

I need a web page design program that will work with pages that were originally done in Adobe Page Mill, and have .swf files from around 2003 or so. I'm temping for a very nice firm who are trying to keep me busy even though they've already filled the position that I was pulled in to fill while they were looking. They need an update to their website. Badly. It hasn't been touched in years, and there are silly noises, probably javascript, as well as .swf files that need updating. My days of coding are from back in the hand coding days of static web pages, although I did do QA after people started adding interactive things to websites.

I searched through the old answers, but they were old enough for me to think that there may be something better out there. As I'm temping, I doubt that they're going to want to buy a big expensive program, so something that has a trial period, or is cheap to buy, but has elements that will perform these services will be the most helpful.

ANY help appreciated. Some of their information is about people who haven't worked here in some 5 years or more. It ~really~ needs an update.

Redirecting users by IP in Apache

Oktober — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:16:56 -0800

How do I redirect incoming website visitors to an external site by IP address? I'm the general sysadmin here and don't do much web stuff other than simple content updating, but I think I'm on the right track with adding this bit of mod_rewrite code to the end of the httpd.conf file...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^12\.345\.678\.9$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/index.php$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://test.foo.com/$1 [R]

Any ideas why this isn't working?

(apache 1.3.33 on OS X)

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.

Can I force numeric input on a mobile browser?

chrisch — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:50:55 -0800

I'm developing a web site to be accessible by mobile phone. One of the key requirements is data input into a form that is submitted back to the server. This has been developed and works fine. One of the features of my K610i Sony Ericsson mobile phone is text prediction or auto completion of words. This is a good feature on the text fields, but some fields only require integer or floats (e.g., 12.34567). Integers can be input by either holding down each key for a full second, or by switching the "Writing language" to "123..." (i.e., integer input). Both approaches add a few seconds to the input process, but I'd like to make this is quick as possible. My question is: Is there a way, perhaps with a tag on the form field, to force my mobile browser to switch to the integer input for those fields? Do other phone brands (Nokia, Siemens) do this differently? Would a third party mobile browser, such as Opera, handle this somehow?

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?

How can I get my domain name back?

stackhaus23 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:53:55 -0800

I was using a combined domain and hosting deal, but the company went under and the domain was registered in their name, how do I get it back? I registered a domain name - matthewpower.com - because that's my name. I was using it merely as an online depository of all my misc files that I needed to link to at work or to show people etc. The hosting was cheap, really cheap - but as such the company (known only to me as Darkenhosting) has gone under and the owner is not replying to correspondence. I'm unsure of what to do.

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).

sitepal.com or castration via rusty spoon? I'll take the spoon, please.

basicchannel — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:07:31 -0800

Help me convince a co-worker, by pointing me to credible sources online (or offline, if necessary), that adding "web avatars" to web pages, such as those found at sitepal.com, are a HORRIBLE idea. I am primarily concerned with issues dealing with usability + accessibility problems and eye socket/ear drum bleeding caused by such things.

Can I get an address with no www to work with godaddy?

minifig — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:06:35 -0800

I've bought a domain with Godaddy. I would like the http://mydomain.net (with no 'www') to go to my site, except it doesn't, it goes to a parked page. How can I change it so it goes to the same place as typing http://www.mydomain.net? (I'm not an idiot, but for these purposes, I might need it spelled out).

Access, Web-Style?

boombot — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:28:19 -0800

Rather continue to work with Microsoft Access, I'd love to move a few old databases I continue to maintain into a www database app, if one exists. I'd like something that feels Access-like, with the ability to structure queries and forms as Access does. I'd happily accept a script package that I can easily install and maintain on my own web server, or a full service. Is there such an Access corollary, either free or available for purchase?

Keep my own records?

yellowbkpk — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:57:55 -0800

Now that the CALEA deadline has passed and the feds could potentially have access to any and all of my internet communications, is it better to keep a record for myself of everything I do online? With the CALEA deadline passed, my ISP is required to record my online life. I don't plan on doing anything evil, but if I am ever accused of doing something evil, would it be better to keep my own record of what I do online to verify that what "the man" has is correct?

On the other hand, does keeping my own records make it easier for someone to get at it without a warrant?

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.

YA htaccess Q

mikel — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 14:10:35 -0800

Another redirect question. My wife has just shifted her weblog from a folder on my server to another server. I want anyone who links to:

http://mysite.com/wife/path/to/file/file.html

to be automatically redirected to:

http://wifesite.com/path/to/file/file.html

Note there are several different paths to files - and this structure will remain identical (for now) on the new server.

I've looked at the other Mod_rewrite and htaccess tagged posts here, and they seem promising, but I can't get them to work. This is likely because I am an idiot, I know, but please be charitable!