Nick’s Blog|Nick’s Personal Blog

In Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, the Remote Site refers to a live website (or account) which is stored on a separate computer also called a web server. Dreamweaver allows you to access a remote site directly within the application in order to upload files (without using a separate FTP program) or access a web-based database such as MySQL. In order to access a remote site you will need a web hosting account with FTP access. All Teacherhost.org web hosting plans offer this feature and if you would like information on our hosting plans please visit - web hosting plans.

Setting up a remote site within Dreamweaver will allow you to do any of the following:

• Upload your site to your web hosting account or storage space
• Download your site from your web hosting account to your computer
• Develop a database driven website using web server driven technology such as MySQL, ASP, ColdFusion, or PHP

The following tutorial utilizes graphics from a Apple’s OSX system; however, Window’s users should find the steps and graphics almost identical.

To setup a remote server, please review the following steps.

Step1

You will first need a website account. If you do not have a website account please refer to our web hosting plans. If you have an account with Teacherhost you received an “Account Setup” email which includes your IP address, username, and password. You will need this information, so please make sure you have it. If you have an account with another service provider please refer to their account information for your account IP address, username, and password.

Step 2

Locate your local website files and folder and place them in an easily accessible location. You may want to move them to your desktop for easy access.

 

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Step 3

Open Dreamweaver, and go to the Site menu > New Site. This will allow you to define your local and remote site folder. Defining a Site allows Dreamweaver to remember how all your files are interrelated. If you move a file or folder within Dreamweaver’s Site Window (Window > Site), the change will be updated and the links will not get broken! If you do not define your site Dreamweaver will not be able to remember how your files are interrelated and you risk creating a huge mess of broken links. Be sure to always define your site before you begin working!

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Once you select the New Site option a window similar to the one below will open. Select the Advance button.

 

 

 

Step 4

A new window will open providing you with a series of character boxes which you will need to fill in. The box titled “Site Name” requires a random name that you would like to name your site. This name is used only within Dreamweaver to manage multiple sites and does not relate to your Doman name or your web server account. I suggest to name it the same name of your site.

Once you set your Site Name, click on the folder icon next to the character box titled, “Local Root Folder”. Clicking on this folder icon will allow you to select the location of your local website folder.

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Step 5

Since my site folder is located on the Desktop, I selected the Desktop in the scrolling menu. Your location or path to your folder may be different; however, simply go to the location of your folder and select it as your “Local Root Folder”.

 

Once you have selected your “Local Root Folder” you will be taken back to the main window as seen below.

 

Step 6

Now we are going to setup our access to our Remote Site. If you are not connected to the Internet please do so now.

On the left side of the main “Defining a Site” Window (seen above), select the Remote Info option.

 

Step 7

A new window will open. under the Access menu, select FTP (File Transfer Protocol). FTP is a standard name for a category of software which allows you to access files on a server which is accessible through a network. You generally need an IP address, username, and password; however, some organizations offer open access which does not require a username and password.

 

After you select the FTP menu option continue to enter your account information

• FTP Host: Enter your IP address (ex. 207.132.40.12)

• Host Directory: Enter the name of your host directory.
  This is the main folder of your wedsite account.
  (ex. public_html)

• Login: Account username

• Password: Account Password

 

 

Now that you have entered your account information click on the Test button to check if Dreamweaver is making a connection to your hosting account.

 

If Dreamweaver fails to connect to your hosting account, double check your Internet connection and account information. If you have Internet access and you continue to experience errors while connecting to your hosting account, contact customer support and confirm your account information.

 

 

When you successfully connect, you will receive the following message.

 

Step 8

If you want to use Dreamweaver to create a database driven website, you will need to setup a Testing Server. This feature allows you to setup the type of database and scripting language you plan to use. If you do not plan on using a database, please skip to Step 9.

To setup a Testing Server, select “Testing Server” within the main window.

 

 

Selecting the Testing Server option will open a new window with the following selections. Under the Access menu select FTP and then double check your IP address, Hosting Directory, Login (Username), and Password.

 

 

 

Once this is complete, select the Server Model you plan to use. I chose PHP MySQL. PHP is the scripting language that accesses the MySQL database. In order to use any of the technologies listed within the Server Model window, your web hosting account service provider will need to have the technology installed in your account. Teacherhost.org provides both PHP and MySQL technologies.

 

 

 

Step 9

Once you have your Remote Info (and Testing Server if using a database) go back to your Site window. Window menu > Site

If you select the button as seen below, Dreamweaver will connect you to your hosting account (Remote Site). Your website hosting account files will appear in the left window.

 

Once you have connected to your hosting account (Remote Site), your files will appear in the left window, possibly in a different color.

Once you are connected to your hosting account (Remote Site) you can make changes to your local files (files on your hard drive or desktop) and then upload them to your hosting account (Remote Site). You can also view your account window in different ways.The following shows you the different management options.

 

 

 

The Site Files button allows you to view your local files.

 

 

The Testing Server button will display the files on your Remote Site.

 

 

The Refresh button refreshes the selected site window. For example, if you select the Remote Site window, the refresh Button will refresh that window. If you select the Local Site window, the refresh Button will refresh that window. When a change is made to a file or folder, you will need to click the Refresh button to see the changes in the Site window.

 

 

The Get File(s) button allows you to download files to your local folder or site folder.

 

 

The Put File(s) button allows you to upload files from your local folder to your hosting account (Remote Site).

Disney have released a trial track of their up and coming online game, The World of Cars Online. From what I can tell the game will be a 3d Flash based game which means it will need at least an OK computer.

I have opened up a forum for the game as well. Cars Online Forums.

People have been asking where the FLV/MP3 player for modx snippet was, Here is version 0.1

• Place the code from flv_mp3_chunk.txt as a chunk in modx (named flv_mp3_chunk).
• Place the code from flv_mp3_player_snippet.txt as a snippet in modx (named flv_mp3_player).
• Use the code from example code.txt in your pages to make the videos appear.
• Upload assets/snippets/flv_player/player.swf

FLV and MP3 Player snippet for Modx

Congratulations go out to my client Emma Snowsill in her Gold Medal win at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Ending Australia’s Olympic triathlon drought Emma Snowsill claims a gold medal with a win in the women’s triathlon race in the Beijing Olympics 2008.

If any of you would like to find out more information on her, I developed her website at http://www.emma-snowsill.com/

Just a note to all our customers worried about the BIND Nameserve hacking flaw. All our servers are updated to Updated: bind.x86_64 20:9.2.4-28.0.1.el4 which doesn’t have that vulnerability.

See http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-1447 for more details.

The team over at MODX have released a new 2.0 version of modx.

Click here for details.

New Features

• New Core - Revolution sports a completely new core, written from the ground-up. It uses the database modeling framework, xPDO.
• Completely configurable - run multiple sites on one core install, install the core outside of webroot, pick any name for the manager and assets directories, change and restructure every manager menu option.
• New parser - fully and infinitely recursive without using regex and no more eval().
• Improved caching options - goodbye 5000 page limit, hello any caching system you so desire to implement. This makes MODx an even better candidate for larger sites with lots of traffic. Also, any Element can now be specified to be treated as a cached or non-cached. There’s even a clean path to completely override the default caching system to implement large-scale caching code like memcached.
• Override everything & lose nothing - as implied by the previous bullet, you can now extend or override any part of the MODx core cleanly and simply, all the while maintaining a clean upgrade path for future releases.
• New Transport Packages - Installing just got a whole lot easier. Create custom distributions and more.
• Contexts - this allows developers to assign different views of your site based on pretty much any criteria. This means native multi-sites, subdomains, running the core outside of webroot
• Core logging - Provides various error levels and output targets including ECHO, HTML, and FILE. You can also use it in add-ons for audit logs, error logs, debugging, or other logging needs.
• Unified, simple tags - supports calls to MODx resources broken across multiple lines, cached calls within cached calls, and allows PHx-like modifiers to be attached to any Element (Snippet, Chunk, TV, Etc.). And yes, the upgrade system for legacy sites takes care of changing over the old ones, in case you’re curious.

I was reading over at one of my favorite Marketing Blogs Zakazukha Zoo and was rather pleased to read that other people are irked by the annoyances in large URL’s on what you would call BIG and Important sites.

For example if you want to send one of your clients to the list of Bigpond DNS servers for them to enter into their router or operating system network settings you need to send them to:

http://bigpond.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bigpond.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?display=content&p_page=1&p_faqid=5586&p_Platform=N

Honestly, these large companies need to setup some sort of url forwarding for all their most frequented pages. PHP does it for their manual and they do it well… For example if you want the details on session handling you just type in php.net/sessions and it takes you straight to the sessions information page.

You can setup a tinyurl, but these large companies just need to smarten up their act and employ some programmers who think about what the “General Public” need and how they are interacting with the websites they are designing.

Here is a email spam protection script which is rather simple and just does it’s job. It also degrades nicely too. I have used it on many sites but as wordpress doesn’t easily allow javascript within posts its a bit harder to use in wordpress but it works well on other sites

To be able to integrate this javascript email mange script you need to replace the words email and domain.com.au with your details and then place it on your website.

<script language=”javascript”>
var h5dga = ‘<a href=”mailto:email-[at]-domain.com.au“>email-[at]-domain.com.au</a>’;
var h5dga = h5dga.replace(’-[at]-’, ‘@’);
document.write(h5dga.replace(’-[at]-’, ‘@’));
</script>

I Just got an email from Google, telling me that Google Referrals is closing in August. That isnt very nice, I was earning some good money on that scheme. Anyway, they tell me to go sign up at DoubleClick and their ConnectCommerce system.

Well… wasn’t that a nightmare, I finally got through and now they need me to be approved? Didn’t google purchase DoubleClick? Shouldn’t it just link to my Google Account?

Come on Google get your act together and give me a better alternative to use before you send me bonkers and I move my referrals to a different company.

Here’s is the email

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program.
We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit:
www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.
* AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August.
We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is
retired:

* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space.
* Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information

Why is this happening?
We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term.  For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center:
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882

Many people claim to know how to get the top of a search engine listing, most of these people are plain wrong and misinformed.

We don’t claim to know everything there is, but what we know works and works well. Below is an explanation of how search engines work, what has changed in the last few years and what we do to help your site.

It wasn’t long ago when Search Engine Optimisation was all about how many keywords you could gather in your meta tags (code which Search Engines use to use). As you may imagine, this would there in turn make the life of a visitor to the Search Engine frustrating because when they searched for something all these “wrong” sites would appear. To fix this problem the Search Engine Companies had to change the way they sorted the good from the bad. Some search engines implemented manual cleaning of sites and ordering, some required you to pay to be included in the listing and some of these sites are still around, yes they may be failing and unpopular but some people see it fit to still list themselves with them. Then there are the successful search engines which changed the way they analyzed the content and popularity of the sites they were listing, e.g. Google.

When you think of search engines what do you think of…? Many people would think of Google, but also many people would think of Yahoo and MSN search. The other search engines are rarely used and are mainly populated by the “elite” few that even know about them.

Google, MSN and Yahoo do not rely on Meta Tags anymore, to our knowledge only in extreme circumstances do they even look at the meta tags. Using meta tags can hurt your website if not done correctly (e.g. spamming and repeating keywords) and that is why there is a trend to not even use them anymore. If you look at the higher ranking sites they will rarely have meta tags, yet they are at the top of the list.

Google being a pioneer company started the new trend for Search Engines to start analyzing websites content, site structure, domain name and link popularity and not rely on Meta tags. Google looks at your website content, searches for keywords and how those keywords are placed along side other keywords and generates a rank on your content according to what people may search for. It also looks for how many sites “link” to your site as it thinks that if many people link to your site then you must have a useful site for its clients. But beware if the sites linking to your have been blacklisted as being “Link Farms” (sites that just place links on them for search engine ranking purposes) it will decrease your sites listing.

There are three factors that come into play with Search Engine Submission and Optimisation.

1. Content and Site Structure
2. Link Popularity
3. Unique Hits to your site

Unique Hits to my site you say? Yes, to get higher in the search engines you need to have lots of visitors. “But how can I get lots of visitors to my site when I am not high in the search engines” the answer from the search engines to that is plain and simple… They Don’t Care.

The way to get around this is pretty much covered when you look after step 2. If you list your site with other sites and other search engines and other directories; Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other Search Engines will “Spider” those sites and follow the links on those sites to your site. Therefore giving you unique hits from one search engine to the other search engine.

In the end, there is not a quick fix to getting higher in the search engines without paying for advertising. If you want a quick fix you must sign up and use services like Google Adwords and Overture. These allow your site to pay for how high your listing appears on the Advertising panels on the search engines. (You will see these for example on the right hand side of Google). If you wish to do these campaigns it will help your Search Engine ranking as well.

We work our strategy around focusing on the top three search engines and letting all the other search engines feed off that content. You may not realize that AOL search uses Google’s content and other search engines feed off Yahoo and MSN alike. Once you are in the top three you are pretty much assured of appearing in the other search engines in time. Why spend big dollars wasting money paying to be included in the other search engines when they will include you for free?