wdvltalk Roundup July 2002 - Page 26

How do we use MySQL database with ASP? My books tell me how to use ASP/Access2000/MS-SQL and PHP/MySQL but not ASP/MySQL.

• If what you're looking for is the connection string to connect to a MySQL database using ADO, checkout this page: http://www.able-consulting.com/ADO_Conn.htm

Does anyone have any advice, or resources to create a message board with secured login that I may be able to have a look at?

• The easiest way is if your hosting company has a bbs script and an htaccess script. Follow the directions and improvise as necessary and off you go.
  
  Otherwise, www.sourceforge.com. Search software/group for cgi. And there is always google.

• I like Discus (http://www.discusware.com/) - but you will need the PRO version (rather than the free version) which costs around $150 to set up secure private boards. The program is very robust and handles the registration process on its own, and allows a lot of moderation options.

What is an ht access script?

• User authentication, actually it is HTTP authentication; this is done by the web server itself. You create a .htaccess file (containing authentication instructions) in the web directory that you want to protect. Then whenever someone tries to access a web page in that directory, their browser presents a pop-up box that asks for their username and password:
  
  step by step process:
  http://bignosebird.com/passwd.shtml

• Well that describes .htaccess, not an .htaccess script. A script is a CGI program that automates the .htaccess user/password function - a discussion board needs a way for users to sign on and get their passwords on their own (this can be subject to moderator approval), and to retrieve their passwords later on if they forget them.
  
  Otherwise, the webmaster becomes a password babysitter. If you have 10 users with encrypted passwords, 9 will promptly forget their passwords and send you irate emails wondering why they can't get into the site.
  
  Of course, a good discussion board will have the password issuance and retrieval system built in and automated......

I'd like to "discourage" people from "hot linking" to pictures on my web site, or at least make them acknowledge where the pictures are being viewed from. By hot linking, I mean putting a direct link to my images as the "SRC" attribute of an <IMG> tag, on their own site.

• If you've ever gone through your site logs and found someone hotlinking to your image files, stealing your bandwidth, then you need the following lines in your .htaccess file:

  
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://mydomain.org/ [NC]
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.mydomain.org/ [NC]
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://subdomain.mydomain.org [NC]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/thief.gif [NC]
  RewriteRule \.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG)$ http://mydomain.org/thief.gif [R,NC]
  

  "thief.gif" is the image you want to load whenever someone attempts to hotlink an image from your server.

"Bookmark This Page"

• Button:
  

    <input onclick="window.external.AddFavorite(location.href,
  document.title);"
    type="button" value="Bookmark This Page">
  
  

  Unless you just want a link to do the bookmarking, in which case you can do:

  <a href="javascript:window.external.AddFavorite(location.href,
  document.title);">Bookmark This Page</a>
  

Recommendations for web based mail applications.

• Check out Horde and Imp, i use a webmail system built in this and it's the best i've ever used, really well designed and not lacking in features that you'd expect of client-based software. err, http://www.horde.org might be a good place to start.

wdvltalk Roundup June 2002 - Page 25
wdvltalk Roundup
wdvltalk Roundup July 2002 - Page 27