Hercco

That is correct. In admin panel select configuration (under general admin) and set "Enable account activation" to Admin. However this doesn't work quite like Gmail for example. As anyone can try to register and admins can only approve their accounts. I have follewed the phpBB mod "scene" quite much and haven't ever seen a mod that would enable invitation system exactly like Gmail's is. There might be such available for other BB systems as vBulletin (maybe new versions come with such option already) and Invision.

.htaccess is a Apache thing only. At least it is originally used in Apache, tt might be that some other servers have copied it.

This is probably the most suckiest flaw in IE (at least if you don't take security into account...). With tables that have several columns making every other row different colour makes it highly more readable. But as IE doesn't suppory this and it is like 95% of people in the web using it, you gotta go with clumsy <tr class= .Geez I hate IE...

I have Categories hierarchy (2.0.10, beta I think) installed to my phpBB and is working fine but... To my taste the select forum <select> element (aka Jump Box) looks crap with those lines. Here is a screenshot http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and you'll know what I mean. I tried to search the template files and the actual script files but couldn't find where it is. What I would simply do is replace underscores with 's and it'd look neat. So my question is, where I can edit how the Jump Box looks? And remember this was for forum with cat. hierarchy installed. If somebody can help, thanks in advance.

Let's add http://www.photobucket.com/ to the list aswell. I'm not a user myself but I have few friends constantly sending me links to images in their photobucket galleries

In shell you can change access permission simply with chmod command. You can use the numerical form (ie. chmod 666) or letters (easier to remember).With letters it goes like this:For example if you want to give others (in web server meaning anyone who tries to access the file thru web) write permission you could type: chmod o+w <filename>If you wanted to take the write permissions away you'd use - (minus) instead of plus. chmod o-w <file>For read the letter is r and for execution x. Notice that execution also means access to directory (if the file is a directory)For yourself the symbol to use is u (as in user) and for group g (group means users belonging to same usergroup as the owner. In web server doesn't really matter). Latter a means all (ie. user, group and other)You can also combine different change rules to one command. For example setting read, write and execute right for yourself: chmod u+rwx <file>

Take a look at this thread. My recommendation would be an open source (and thus free) client called FileZilla. It is freely downloadable at SourceForge FileZilla is about as easy to use as it gets so that shouldn't be a problem.

I love Opera & Gecko based ones and hate IE with passion. I naturally test my site with all browsers I have available (in windows and linux). And for me, making it look good on IE is always most painful task. It really is funny how a standard compliant site that looks fine in Netscape is totally crap in Microsoft's browser. And yet 95% of web users still stick with it...By the way thanks for that link to iCapture. I wasn't aware of such a service until now. I'll have my site processed there as I write. Really handy as I for example don't have access to a machintosh.

There is a reason why Microsoft is trying to steer us away from open source: EDIT: Just checked the poll result. 15-0 We're a bunch of commie-bastards here.

He just has a database called ad. And don't forget to put error checking in database select and queries aswell. Like lhunath said you know what caused the errors and makes fixing it a hell of a lot easier.

I wouldn't say so... If your mods are not small ones. Sure mods are probably easier to install than in other systems because of the EasyMod but still it isn't easy. I just fought two nights with the categories hierarchy... Also phpBB needs mods as it hasn't that many featureas built-in. That's probably what has driven the developmnet of EasyMod. I use phpBB on my site but I would use vBulletin if I wasn't such a cheapskate. PhpBB 2.2 sounds very promising... Only of they could finish is someday...

Connecting to a database is done simply with mysql_connect function. You create a handle, just like for accessing a file. $handle = mysql_connect(...Mysql_connect needs the address for the database server (here in asta just use localhost), database username and a password.The connection to the database is closed with function mysql_close which takes your handle as a parameter. mysql_close($handle)

Well... using that other server "bool.co.il" saves bandwidth from his own account. And it seems likely that Cool doesn't yet have an account here at Xisto, so his might be on a server that doesn't allow CGI or PHP (or ASP or whatever).

Heh! Those were really cool, thanks for sharing.

As sad as it might be, reason for this is possibly just that people don't pay attention to these kind of things. I would say that most of people who program web applications consider their work is done once the script works right. I am not very familiar to perl and especally its security, so can't really comment. From what I've heard it surely does have its share of vulnerabilities. And your point is probably right; Java would be lot more secure.One thing might be that (I'm just assuming here) that Java people might be more likely to go for JSP than binary CGI.

Heh. I think the answers that you are looking for can be found in your question My opinion about flash on websites... If you have content that people come after to your site, like articles for example, don't use flash. If you do, at least offer alternative version of the page without flash objects. On the other hand, some people design sites that don't really have "content" that people are looking for. With this I mean sites that don't have information that somebody might need and search. Instead these sites are just for watching. In this case flash is more than ok. Flash is a technique that can be used to produce very cool looking animations and thus suits for "experience" sites very well. Usually these sites are not browsed in hurry so people don't mind longer load time. One thing to keep in mind with flash... As it takes forever (like r3d put it) to load the stuff better be amazing. Sad thing is that the people that don't do flash very well usually don't bother optimizing load times... I'd also like to remind that although flash nowadays is mostly used to create intro animations and menus to websites, it can be also used as a powerful to present content. If you have for example made research on history nothing isn't more illustrative as an flash timeline that reacts to mouse movement.

One thing I'd like to point out. This is something I learned the hard way...If you are going to install mods to your phpbb (which I don't really recommend unless you really need the features. Mods cause problems and make the forums a ***** to update), first import your templates! Or if you install mods first, download the subsilver from your own forums and build your own theme there.The thing is that practically all mods make changes to the templates, and naturally won't work with unmodified templates. Also if you are going to install mods (heavy ones, like sub-categories) keep your own templates as much similar as possible to subsilver.

I'm not sure what the situation is now, but last time I used DC the hubs I wanted to use required several gigas of sharing. It's not problem for me, but for somebody it could. Like I said I don't know what the real situation is now-on and did I just happen to check the wrong hubs.

Although in last few years the sound circuits inegrated to motherboard have gotten lot better, a good quality separate sound cards are a better option, if you are using your computer to multimedia much.I personally use the integrated sound circuit on my nForce2 motherboard. It is okay, but if I wasn't limited financially I'd most likely buy a better card. In that case I'd most likely have a 5.1 sound system and larger television too. If you are using your computer to watch DVD's or xVids (or whatever), play games other than slow paced strategies or especially if you use it for making music (and it doesn't have to be electric music, people use use computers regardless of what type of music you are making), separate sound cards are still a way to go.

There are lot's of handy functions in PHP to be used with MySQL. I strongly recommend glancing through this page http://php.net/manual/en/ref.mysql.php There are lots of stuff that can make your life easier. I remember when I started using PHP & MySQL combo, I stubbornly programmed lots of stuff myself, when I didn't know of all things that were just function call away. So it is a good idea to check the manual to know roughly what kind of features are available. When you program something, instead of implementing it yourself, it might come to your mind that there could be a ready function for this.

I gotta agree with Roberrtk on Mandrake and RedHat. They are excellent choices for anyone. Debian is my choice for my linux machine. The installation is very customizable and liek Rob said has very up to date features.I ahve heard lots of good about SuSe. However I've also heard that it is made rather hard for people to get it free. I guess you could say they are on the "gray area" concerning GPL.

Alright... time for someone to stand up in defence of 2000.Security. XP and 2000 are just as (in)secure. Often the security holes are the same for both OS's and MS releases patches same time. XP now has this "security center" (or whatever they call it) which does not increase security any more than good anti-virus & firewall software. Performance. I've somethimes heard people claiming that XP is faster in multimedia applications. This is bull. If therer is difference, it is minimal. Looks. Sure XP has these skins which add colour to your desktop. They also look gay.In 2000 no activation or validation. Also 2000, AFAIK, does not contains built-in spyware as XP does. Stability. I and few of my friends have used 2000 for few years now and we all have been very satisfied to its stability. The secret is the Digital's kernel. From what I have experience and heard, 2000 and XP are equally stabile. The changes to the kernel from 2000 to XP are, AFAIK, quite minimal. 2000 has now had 4 service packs. Anyways I haven't seen a single "Help with Win2k SP n" threads anywhere in web. But it seems like just about every bigger forum I visit (regardless if it is computer related forum or not) has these XP threads more than enough. So as long as M$ keeps supporting W2k and I'm not going 64-bits, for my windows machine I'm sticking with w2k.

I think the easiest was is to make a link in HTML page and simply drag it to the bar. And about your own forum, why not make it server side? Allow users to change their template from a user control panel and possibly a button in the posting page for adding template to post. Other neat trick with personal bar links and javascript is is grabbing information of a website. I have a links database system at my website (here) and to add links I use a button at browser personal bar. What is does is grabs the sites that I am on title and url and simply with window.open() opens a new window for which it requests a PHP page with the page url and title as get variables (eg. quicklink.php?url=<url_here>&title=<title_here> ). The php page (quicklink.php) processes the get data and adds them as default values to a form. Then I just make my changes, write a description of the site and hit submit and the link appears to the database.

I gotta add here...The best excuse I have heard for not switching IE to Firefox is that "firefox doesn't have as neat smooth scrolling and IE".

The reason for IE being faster is exactly why anyone shouldn't be using it. See the swift working of it is achieved by integrating it with the windows core. Sure, add something to to OS core, it'll work faster, BUT when someone gets though it (ie. "hacks" the software" all hell is let loose. All programs have security holes, even Firefox, but security holes in programs running outside the OS core are far less dangerous. To make the situation worse, Internet Explorer has had slightly more holes than its competitiors. Security-wise Firefox is something that web has really needed. The problem hasn't been lack of relatively secure browser but the fact that people didn't bother installing and using them.