AVGTECH

Web hosting options

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 03:41:00 +0000

For years my sites were all in Hostgator shared hosting until about three years ago when my accounts kept on getting suspended for exceeding the allowable resources. My shared hosting then had a limit of 2GB disk space, 10GB monthly bandwidth and a couple of hundreds of RAM. Disk space and bandwidth were the lesser problems. My web host was complaining of my memory usage as a Drupal installation profile I used for a news site required a minimum 2GB of dedicated memory.

If your web sites do not require special server scripts, you may start with shared hosting and the market for this is huge, some providers even offering rock-bottom prices and extra bonus features. But not all of them are reliable on long term basis, so you have to choose your web hosting carefully. A convenient reference in this regard is Consumer Rankings which offer ranking for top hosting sites, web hosting price comparison and web hosting bandwidth comparison.

In addition, you can read reviews of top hosting sites and compare recorded uptime, ease of use and page loads. It is surprising also how add ons have increased dramatically. For less than 5$ a month, you can have over $200 worth of ads credits in Google, Bing/Yahoo and Facebook. Years back I given only $25 ads credit for Google Adsense. Some even offer advanced internet marketing tools.

It's also a curious thing that most shared hosting companies now offer unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth.

When I needed to install server-side scripts like Apache Solr Search and Varnish http accelerator, my next upgrade path was a Virtual Private Server (VPS). For a start, I chose a managed VPS which is bundled with cPanel control panel, the web host control panel that is easiest to use but, I would later learn, use up lots of memory.

Recently, I have dispensed with cPanel saving $10 a month and my VPS is now self managed. You also save at least $10 a month if your go for unmanaged VPS hosting. Moreover, cPanel has compatibility issue with Varnish. I now use the free versions of Virtualmin-Webmin as my control panel.

I have just recently started experimenting on cloud server web hosting with Rackspace and Amazon Web Services, which all things taken into account, cost you a monthly expense of $43 and $80 respectively.

Connecting Postgresql 9.0 and phpPgAdmin-5.0.3 to cPanel in Centos 6

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:03:00 +0000

After installing PostgreSql 9.0, compile php and apache using WHM > Easyapache --with-pgsql option

For instructions on installing PostgreSQL 9.0 in Centos 6, click here

Download phpPgAdmin 5.0.3.tar.gz to this location:
/usr/local/cpanel/base/3rdparty

Extract the dowloaded file and rename the extracted phpPgAdmin-5.0.3 directed to phppgadmin.

Edit config.inc.php located in /usr/local/cpanel/base/3rdparty/phpPgAdmin/conf/config.inc.php

Find the line $conf['extra_login_security'] = true;

Set it to false.

Restart postgresql.
In WHM go to Restart Services > SQL Server (PgSQL)
Or in the console prompt type:
service postgresql-9.0 restart

I also restarted Apache
service httpd restart

At this point, the phpPgAdmin link shall be functional - but not the PostgreSQL link. If yo click it, cPanel will warn you that PostgreSQL is

offline.

PostgreSQL may be running but cPanel cannot find the data files.

Additional steps need to be done to connect Postgres to cPanel.

Edit pg_hba.conf located in /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/data
vi /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/data/pg_hba.conf
Find the following lines:
local all all md5
host all all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 md5

Change md5 to trust, thus:
local all all md5
host all all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 md5

This will be only temporary. In the succeeding steps "trust" shall be reverted to "m5" automatically.

Restart postgresql.

Go to SQL Services > Postgres Config

At this point, you are not ready yet to click the configuration buttons. If you do, WHM will warn that data directory could not be found.

Starting Postgresql version 9, postgresql installs files in different location and cPanel expects to find them in the old install locations.

So, we need to create symlinks from the new location to the old locations where cPanel expects to find the files.

Type the following in the console prompt (This has no equivalent in WHM):
ln -s /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/data /var/lib/pgsql
ln -s /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/backups /var/lib/pgsql

Then you can click the Install Config button and get a success confirmation message from WHM.

Re-enter the Postgres password and click Change Password.

Restart Postgresql.

If you check pg_hba.conf, you will find these llines again:
local all all md5
host all all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 md5

Note that trust has been reverted to md5.

Now you can access Postgresql 9.0 databases from cPanel using the PostgreSQL Databases or the phpPgAdmin link.

Installing Drush v3 in Centos 6

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:33:00 +0000

Here are notes I gathered on steps that successfully installed Drush version 3 in my Centos 6.

Move to home dir
cd ~

Remove current drush (if existent)
rm -rf ~/.drush/

Create drush directory (and hide it)
mkdir ~/.drush/

Move to new dir
cd ~/.drush/

Get Drush v3
curl -C - -O -s http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drush-All-versions-3.0.tar.gz

Extract Drush v3
tar -xf drush*.tar.gz

Bin Drush tar
rm -f drush-All*.tar.gz

Pear install console_table
cd drush/includes
curl -C - -O -s http://download.pear.php.net/package/Console_Table-1.1.3.tgz

Extract Pear
tar -xf Console_Table*.tgz

Copy the file
cp Console_Table-1.1.3/Table.php table.inc

rm -r Console_Table-1.1.3
rm -f Console_Table*.tgz

Make drush command executable
cd ~/.drush/
chmod u+x drush/drush

Alias drush and put in bash profile
echo "alias drush='~/.drush/drush/drush'" >> ~/.bash_profile

'Source' the .bash_profile file so updates are made
source ~/.bash_profile

Make sure that we alias drush just in case source does not work
alias drush='~/.drush/drush/drush'

You should see three OK(s) below if the steps below properly executed.

Update Drush using Drush
~/.drush/drush/drush dl drush

Update drush_make and provision in drush/commands
~/.drush/drush/drush dl drush_make
~/.drush/drush/drush dl provision

Move updated additions to correct directory
mv ~/.drush/provision ~/.drush/drush/commands/
mv ~/.drush/drush_make ~/.drush/drush/commands/

You are done and drush is ready to use.

How to connect Postgresql 9.0 to an existing Webmin

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:54:00 +0000

If you installed Postgresql 9.0 or upgraded Postgresql to the latest version in a Linux system that has an existing Webmin application, you need to update Webmin using Module configuration for Postgresql.

Postgresql 9.0 installs files in directories different from its earlier versions.'

Here is a checklist of what need to be changed using Webmin's module configuration:

Path to psql command: /usr/pgsql-9.0/bin/psql

Command to start PostgreSQL: if [ -r /etc/rc.d/init.d/rhdb ]; then /etc/rc.d/init.d/rhdb start; else /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql-9.0 start; fi

Command to stop PostgreSQL: if [ -r /etc/rc.d/init.d/rhdb ]; then /etc/rc.d/init.d/rhdb stop; else /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql-9.0 stop; fi

Command to initialize PostgreSQL: if [ -r /etc/rc.d/init.d/rhdb ]; then /etc/rc.d/init.d/rhdb start; else /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql-9.0 initdb ; /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql-9.0 start; fi

Path to postmaster PID file: /var/run/postmaster-9.0.pid

Paths to host access config file: /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/data/pg_hba.conf

Default backup repository directory: /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/backups

Restart Webmin.

A fresh installation of Webmin however, automatically recognizes an existing Postgresql 9.0 and adjusts the Postgres paths in the initial module configuration, so the steps listed above are no longer necessary.

Installing Postgresql 9.0 in Centos 6

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:33:00 +0000

Installing Postgresql 9.0 in Centos 6 is done in few easy steps.

First, download the Postgresql 9.0 RPM package:
wget http://yum.pgrpms.org/9.0/redhat/rhel-6-x86_64/pgdg-centos90-9.0-5.noarch.rpm

Install the package:
rpm -i pgdg-centos90-9.0-5.noarch.rpm

To avoid conflict with older postgresql packages existing in the Centos distribution, you must tell yum to exclude these in the installation. You must edit the CentOS-Base.repo file:
vi /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

Add this line at the [base] section:
exclude=postgresql*

Verify that the new package is active:
yum list

Then yum install postgres:
yum install postgresql90 postgresql90-devel postgresql90-server postgresql90-libs

Initialize postgresql:
service postgresql-9.0 initdb

Then start postgresql:
service postgresql-9.0 start

You are done with the installation.

The configuration that I you still need to do is to is edit the postgresql.conf file located in /var/lib/pgsql/9.0/data/ Be sure to add this line in the config:
listen_addresses = '*'

To enable remote access, I added this to the pg_hba.conf located in the same directory:
host all all 110.93.88.91 255.255.255.255 md5

Today is the death anniversary of Nikola Tesla

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:52:00 +0000

Nikola who? If you don't know him, can't blame you. But I am glad he is alive in Facebook with over 200,000 fans--- way below Michael Jackson's 10 million but much ahead that of his nemesis, Thomas Alba Edison who has just over 900. Nikola Tesla deserves more.

Ostracized and persecuted in his time because of an obsessive-compulsive behavior (a little understood disorder in his time), Tesla is now regarded as the "mad scientist" who invented the 20th century and probably beyond. Electricity that powers our homes and appliances ---and, yes, computers---is a result of Tesla's works on Alternating Current (AC). Maybe partly because of OBC, Tesla was so obsessed with "free energy for all" that he refused to impose royalties out of his AC patents. He could have been the richest man in his time and, who knows, a Tesla-AC royalty fee would still be an unwelcome burden in our electric bills.

Whereas we still hear of Westinghouse, General Electric, huge companies that benefited from his AC technology; Tesla died in 1943 at the age of 86, impoverished, leaving unfinished projects behind. Pure science ruled Tesla's life, unmindful of his finances. He should have been resting today in a tomb made of diamonds, which he deserves, but did not want to. There lies the greatness of the man.

I am not into fan pages but I take exception---way of saying "Thank you, Nikola Tesla." And we have not talked about the Principle of Resonance yet! ---another mind-boggling concept that will forever be equated with his name.

Address Verifier, a Data Quality Software from Anchor

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:33:00 +0000

Talking of Data Quality Software, I recently came across an interesting product that has huge future usability to me and other application developers. And what better way to keep track of it for easy reference than to blog about it?

The product is Address Verifier by Anchor Computer Software. It is a callable Application Programming Interface (API) that may be easily integrated to an application that requires address verification. The API uses the USPS ZIP+4® database and instantly verifies or corrects addresses. Applications that rely on accurate customer addresses like call center, batch processing or any web application are prospective beneficiaries of this API. Address Verifier provides the complete address of a target customer as soon you enter the zip code, house number and few characters of the street name.

To use the API, a developer needs to do some coding. This will not be a tough job because Anchor Software provides comprehensive documentation and installation instructions---in addition to Anchor's Live Support. Anchor customers also receive the latest version of the system and applications that uses the API get the latest monthly updates to the USPS ZIP+4® database.

Free Domain Name and More at No-IP

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:44:00 +0000

Looking for a free domain name? I use No-IP Free for my blogger blogs to make my url neat, shorter and prettier---and it is for free!

Using No-IP Free is simple. Go to no-ip.com, sign up and wait for your e-mail confirmation. After you receive your login credentials by e-mail, go to No-IP website, login using the account you have created and you will be guided at every step. Choose Add Host and Web Redirect options. Enter a hostname of you choice, e.g. avgweb, and in the dropdown list select a Free No-IP Domain, e.g. no-ip.org. You must also enter the url of the website that you like to redirect, e.g. http://www.blogger-templates-avg.blogspot.com. You may now click the Create Host button. Allow for five minutes lead time, then you can type your new hostname in the navigation text of youw web browser and your website opens. In this example, I now use http://avgweb.no-ip.org as the new neat url of my website.

To prevent the old long url from appearing in the navigation bar, you can also use the Mask/Cloaking option. Click the Mask checkbox and type a Page Title. Optionally, you can enter meta keywords and meta description for SEO purposes. After you successfully setup the Mask/Cloaking option, only your new short url appears in the navigation bar.

No-IP Free is the entry level service of No-IP and it is for personal use only. If you expect huge website traffic or if you intend to redirect a commercial website, you may upgrade to No-IP Enhanced or No-IP Plus, which offers managed DNS, all accessible from your personalized web interface.

As a DNS provider, No-IP gives more value for your mnoey. Whereas its competitors only offers two nameservers, No-IP offers five, all on distinct networks. This guarantees more uptime and protects your website from disastrous DNS outages. Using the DDNS service of No-IP, you can run your server on dynamic DNS. You save on fees from static IP addresses or web hosting. Using No-IP's ddns, you can also easily access your home or office computer from a remote site. You can also redirect your port 80, which is sometimes disabled by Internet Service providers.

You may also register a domain name directly with No-IP. You may then manage your domains using your personalized My No-IP page. A wide range of e-mail services also comes with your domain registration.

My No-IP Free urls give me no problem, and I know it is a window to the quality of all other more advanced services offered by No-IP

Complimentary BI: Your SaaS Solution in a Bad Economy

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 13:30:00 +0000

Designed to operate using a PC with a web browser, mobile devices, barcode or RIFD devices, on-demand Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is tailor-made for companies of all sizes during bad economic times. SaaS dispenses with costly company owned server hardware and software and customized application, not to mention of full-time data center personnel. The vendor provides the server hardware data hosting and security, back-up and fail-over provisions, and product upgrades. The next generation of Saas offers business intelligence (BI) and analytics that are now indispensable tools for businesses to streamline operations and to get the best value for money. The new addition to SaaS solutions, Complimentary Business Intelligence (Complimentary BI) by Oco, Inc offers savings, fast implementation, custom targeted functionalities and built-in best practices features---all aimed at profitability, even viability, in a harsh economic environment. It deserves a closer look.

Complimentary BI is delivered as on demand SaaS and is designed to leverage existing BI framework. Data can come from varied sources, aside form the company's single data warehouse. Rather than addressing the entire enterprise, complimentary BI aims to focus on targeted business needs, with custom fuctionalities analytics and reporting, delivered in the shortest time possible (6 t0 8 weeks), at least possible cost (around $100,000 to $500,000) and with minimal strain to the IT personnel. Complimentary BI also provides functionalities to limited areas of operation, while not disrupting any on-going in-house enterprise level business intelligence development. It also aims to fill business knowledge gaps in in existing IT resources.

More info on Complementary BI is found at the website of Oco, Inc. You may download free white paper to learn more of Complimentary BI, compared to enterprise business intelligence. The CIO update - Gartner Research Free Newsletter is also available in the same site. Gartner's research document, entitled Survey of BI Purchase Drivers Show Need to New Approach to Business Intelligence gives you ideas how Complimentary BI may address the specific needs of your business.

The bad economy dictates well thought of scalpel approach to business intelligence solution that Complimentary BI offers. Developing Enterprise Business Intelligence that uses the hatchet or all-of-the-above strategy may be undesirable in tough times like this. Enterprise BI addresses the needs of the entire company, which is desirable in the long term, but it can take years to complete, may require full-time IT personnel, and may take many years before a return of investment becomes visible.

Using oDesk Debit Card in the Philippines: Seamless and Cheap

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:17:00 +0000

After reading online talks about scary charges in using oDesk Debit Card, I tried using my own card in Naga City Philippines. The first ATM with MasterCard logo I found last night was the 24-hour Bank of the Philippine Island Express Teller in the downtown area.

I was surprised to learn personally that oDesk Debit Card is so easy to use and the rumors of exorbitant charges are unfounded. It functions just like any local ATM card, except that you will not be presented with option to deposit fund. After inserting my card, I was asked to enter my Payoneer 4-digit PIN then press ENTER. I selected the withdraw option. When I was asked to enter the amount, I hesitated because the ATM message did not specify the currency the amount should be entered in.

So I cancelled, re-inserted my card and repeat the procedure. I choose the balance inquiry option and the screen showed my account balance in Philippine Peso. When asked if I like to do another transaction I selected YES then selected the withdraw fund option. When asked to enter an amount, I was confident to enter 2000 and knew it would be in Philippine Peso. After pressing ENTER, four 500 bills dropped in seconds.

When I accessed my Payoneer page, my transaction details showed the P2000 withdrawal and $43.77 was deducted from my balance. At the current P49 to $1 exchange rate, it means I was charged only $2.95 for the transaction.

Create Your Free Professional Online Surveys

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:48:00 +0000

If you have been a blogger for quite sometime and has gained a sizable readership, you may feel the urge to know the profile of your visitors. You can turn on the built-in comments, feedback and survey features and get basic interactivity. But if you have a product or service to sell online and you like to fine-tune your sales and promotion campaigns, you may need more robust and heavy-duty website with more sophisticated features.

Online surveys are indispensable if you like to gather data from your prospective clients. To add prestige and credibility to your website, your online survey feature should look professional. To start off, you can open a free account at LimeService and try and explore its online survey service. LimeService has every online survey tool you will need to create your own professional online surveys that you can easily integrate to your website.

After you create your own account you are automatically given 10 Megabytes of bandwidth. This will be good for a 20-question survey with 100 respondents. If this is all that you require, your LimeService subscription remains free. At the end of every month your bandwidth quota gets stocked up to 10 Megabytes.

Creating your online survey is wizard based and there are many editable templates you can choose from. LimeService online survey service supports 49 languages. You may create survey groups and on the security side, you can specify survey users. A built-in CAPTCHA is an additional login or registration feature. You may also import existing surveys that are saved as csv or sql file. All your surveys are saved in a SQL database that you can easily back up

Of course as your needs increase and you expect to receive thousands of survey respondents, you can upgrade to LimeService's paid subscription. Pricing is on per-use basis, graduated by bandwidth usage.

Adobe Photoshop: "Scratch Disk is full" Error Solved

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:31:00 +0000

When you open or create a file in Adobe Photoshop, you may encounter an error that says "Scratch Disk is full."

The solution is easy.

Specify one or more hard drive partitions that have enough free space--approximately three to five times the file size of the largest image and at least ten times the size of the largest bitmap-mode image--as scratch disks. Don't specify a network drive or removable media such as a Zip or JAZ drive. Photoshop 6.x can create 200 GB of scratch disk files on up to four hard disk partitions; Photoshop 7.0 can create an unlimited number of scratch disk files, limited only by hard disk space.

To set the Scratch Disk preference:

Choose Edit > Preferences > Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks.
Choose the drive that has the most free space from the First pop-up menu.
Choose a second, third, or fourth drive, if available, from the Second, Third, or Fourth pop-up menus.
Click OK.
Restart Photoshop.

Build Your Own Website in 10 Minutes

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:32:00 +0000

Newbies may find building a website a daunting task. To start off you have to buy a domain name and register for web hosting. Then you have to setup your domain name to point to your nameservers. After your domain name gets propagated through the whole Internet, which can take up to 48 hours, you can start uploading your files. To manage your web files and directories, your web host will provide you a web control panel, for example, cPanel, which is not really a breeze to master. Your web host will support you up to a certain level. But for the most part, you will be on your own. Creating your web files and scripts is another story. Optimizing your website for search engines is another job you have to do to make your site visible in the Web. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a sub-specialization in itself. So is website design.

If you like to create your own website but your skill has not gone beyond basic use of computer and leisurely web surfing, you can visit BuildYourSite.com and build your own website. This web-based suite allows you to single-handedly create, build and customize your website in ten minutes.

For $9.95 monthly subscription, you will get everything you need to start off. You will have free domain name and web hosting. The wizard-based SiteBuilderPro enables you to create and publish your web pages. As you master SiteBuilderPro, you can create more advanced web sites like e-commerce site, web form site or photo album site. A search engine submission utility gives you a kick-start in promoting your web site. Of course you need to do more to fully promote your web site but this is a good start. A built-in web traffic statistics allows you to see the progress in your web site promotion campaign.

In addition, BuildYourSite.com gives you extra goodies like 23GB disk space, unlimited e-mail accounts and 24/7 customer support .

You may try the service now or you may view the design gallery of over 4000 web designs.

Conference Group Brings Web Conferencing To Higher Level

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:08:00 +0000

For ordinary communication, telephones and e-mails and ordinary postal services will not go away as yet. Free online services like YM and Skype have given us the feel of Web-based chat, audio conferencing, video conferencing and are enjoyed by millions. These services will likely improve over time and will be mainstays for ordinary needs.

On the high-end, Conference Group offers paid services for your web conferencing, audio conferencing and video conferencing needs. The target users are people and companies who need to be in constant communication with employees, partners and clients For this clientele category, the fee is really just worth it.

Through the ReadyShow® Web Conferencing service, online communication among several participants accross states, countries and continents comes close to live personal conversation. Without downloading files, you easily present your Word documents, Excel documents and Powerpoint presentation to the participants . You can easily share documents, your desktop and application. Multiple presenters as well as control passing features are also supported.

Interactivity is further enhanced by hand raising feature, the equivalent of raising your hand when you like to weigh in the conversation. Hand raises are tallied. Custom Polls may be designed, executed,summarized and presented. Smart scrolling allows the participants to be literally on the same page as the presenter.

Conference Group's audio conferencing is more than the old conference call. You can tailor your features depending om your needs.Options include international toll free telephone, digital recording and playback and transcription, among others. A telephone operator is on hand to assist and may be valuable side-service to new users. As in ReadyShow® Web Conferencing, you can customize combination of features.

Key word in Conference Group's conferencing services is "quality"---quality video, quality audio and quality experience---and running on robust infrastructure for reliability.

How to .tar.gz in Windows Interface

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:39:00 +0000

This is an area I did not explore any deeper because the two-step procedure that I know has worked for me all right. I use two freely downloadable software: PowerArchiver and Win-GZ.

1. Archive your files and directories using PowerArchiver. You produce a single file xxxx.tar.
2. Compress xxxx.tar using Win-GZ to produce xxxx.tar.gz

Yes, Drupal 6.3 and phpBB 3.0.2 Can Be Integrated

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:52:00 +0000

Here is the result.

This is my personal reference just in case I have to make another installation that integrates Drupal 6.3 and phpBB 3.0.3. A Drupal 6.3 web site must already be existing. PhpBB 3.0.2 and Drupal phpBBforum module must be installed in that order. Here then are the steps I did in sequence:

Installing phpBB 3.0.2

I downloaded phpBB 3.0.2 (zip)
I extracted this file to my local hard drive. A phpBB3 directory is created.
Using Filezilla client, I uploaded the entire phpBB3 directory to the root directory Public_HTML/) of my Drupal installation.
I changed the permissions on config.php to be writable by all users (numeric value 666 in Fizezilla client)
I changed the permissions on the following directories to be writable by all users (numeric value 777 in Fizezilla client):
store/,
cache/,
files/ and
images/avatars/upload/

To start the installation process, I typed the Drupal site url + install/index.php to start phpBB installation. My Drupal 6.3 site is http://voxbikol.net63.net/, so I typed http://voxbikol.net63.net/install/index.php. (Typing http://voxbikol.net63.net/install will do).

In the installation dialog, I clicked the INSTALL tab and fill out all the requested information:
host name
database name
database username and password

As instructed, I removed the entire install/ and docs/ directory in my remote site before opening the newly installed phpBB. I also changed the permissions on config.php to be writable only by myself (numeric value 644 in Fizezilla client)

With the above mentioned directories deleted, I typed http://voxbikol.net63.net/phpBB3 in my browser and the stand alone phpBB version 3.0.2 opened. I was automatically led to the Administator panel, where I must enter my phpBB admin user name and password. The same user name and password of the Drupal web site administrator should be entered.

Keep logged on to phpBB as we proceed to the next steps.

Installing and Configuring Drupal phpBBforum Moodule

1) Download the phpBBforum module from http://drupal.org/project/phpbbforum or
from http://vgb.org.ru.
Unpack the archive.

2) Install phpbb mod phpbbdrupal.
Go to the directory .../phpbbforum/contrib/phpbbdrupal/
You must at least patch file functions_user.php to avoid name conflict
in function user_delete.

Copy the file “function_user.php” located here:
[phpbbforum > contrib > phpbbdrupal > root > includes] ... to ...
[phpbb3 > includes] ... replacing the existing “function_user.php” file there.

Then, if you are using subsilver2 theme, copy the four icons named:
“icon_home.gif,” “icon_members.gif,” “icon_pages.gif,” “icon_ucp.gif” ... from ...
[phpbbforum > contrib > phpbbdrupal > root > styles > subsilver2 > theme > images] ... into ...
[phpBB3 > styles > subsilver2 > theme > images]

Then, if you are using prosilver theme
and would like to hide the vertical scrollbar in Firefox in iframe,
you may copy file “common.css” located here:
[phpbbforum > contrib > phpbbdrupal > root > styles > prosilver > theme] ... to ...
[phpBB3 > styles > prosilver > theme] ... replacing the existing
“common.css” file there.

or

You may simple to copy content of directory contrib/phpbbdrupal/root/ to your phpbb
root directory

3) Copy phpbbforum directory to your modules directory
sites/all/modules/phpbbforum/
Do not copy .../phpbbforum/contrib/ subdirectory or you may delete it.

phpbbforum install paths

Module -------------------------> Your site paths
+/phpbbforum -------------------> +/sites/all/modules/phpbbforum
(Path to phpBB api file: sites/all/modules/phpbbforum/includes/)
+/includes -------------------> +/sites/all/modules/phpbbforum/includes/
phpbb_api.php ----------------> phpbb_api.php (phpBB api file name:)
phpbb_api_subs.php -----------> phpbb_api_subs.php
phpbb_api_recent.php ---------> phpbb_api_recent.php
+/contrib
+/phpbbdrupal (phpBB forum root path: /home/vb/www/example.com/public_html/phpBB3/)
+/root ---------------------> +/phpBB3/
+/includes -----------------> +/includes
functions_user.php ----------> functions_user.php (replace or patch)
+/styles -------------------> +/styles

4) To test how you will be authenticated, login to your phpBB forum as admin.
It is assumed that you have both usernames with the same name ('admin' or your name) and the same password.
If you do not have so, change.

5) Open new window in browser with your Drupal site, login as admin,
navigate to Administer » modules and enable the phpBBforum and profile module.

6) Navigate to phpBBforum settings and enter the path to
phpBB root (path to forum's config.php file).
Save settings and ensure that phpBBforum successfully connected
to the phpBB database and you are authenticated.

Your path settings should look like this

phpBB forum root path:
/home/vb/www/example.com/public_html/phpbb/
Path to forum directory. Enter the full directory path where phpBB is installed.

Path to phpBB api file:
sites/all/modules/phpbbforum/includes/
Enter the full directory path where phpBB api file is located.

phpBB api file name:
phpbb_api.php
Enter phpBB api file name.

You should see in phpBBforum settings

Successfully locating phpBB installation.
Successfully locating sites/all/modules/phpbbforum/includes/phpbb_api.php.
Successfully connected to the phpBB database.
Successfully authenticated phpBB user: admin.

If you see Anonymous beenig logged in phpBB and Drupal as admin,
it is probably mean your settings are wrong.

You should go to phpBB settings and revise Server and qookie settings or do something else
in your environment, site and forum layout and settings.

7) Ensure that phpBB profile fields map with corresponding
drupal profile.module fields.

8) Ensure that corresponding profile.module fields exist.
If necessary create profile.module fields that match with
phpBB profile fields.

9) Navigate to Blocks.
Enable phpBBforum: Hidden authentication block.
Do not disable it in the future if you want advanced synchronyzation.
In configure add at least
(*) Show on every page except the listed pages.
user/reset/*
user/password
Enable the phpBBforum blocks you want to use (optional).

10) How to make phpBB work in frame

1. Go to Administer › Site configuration › phpBBforum settings

phpBB display way:
In the window
X In frame inside Drupal page

Save configuration

2. Go to Administer › Site configuration > Performance
Clear cached data

3. Go to Administer › Site building > Menus > Navigation
See Menu item with blank title in state (Disabled)
You may enable it if you do not want phpbbforum in Primary links

If you enable it your forum page will be with title.
Reset will help to remove the page title if you disable it back.

4. Go to Administer › Site building › Menus › Primary links
Enter Menu item phpbbforum.

Main page and link to phpBB in frame is

phpbbforum

To change this name you may add URL aliases (core module Path must be enabled).

Add next URL aliases (System path -> URL Alias)

For the path 'forums'

phpbbforum -> forums
phpbbforum/viewtopic.php -> forums/viewtopic.php
phpbbforum/viewforum.php -> forums/viewforum.php
phpbbforum/viewonline.php -> forums/viewonline.php
phpbbforum/memberlist.php -> forums/memberlist.php
phpbbforum/posting.php -> forums/posting.php
phpbbforum/search.php -> forums/search.php
phpbbforum/ucp.php -> forums/ucp.php
phpbbforum/mcp.php -> forums/mcp.php
phpbbforum/faq.php -> forums/faq.php
phpbbforum/report.php -> forums/report.php
phpbbforum/adm/index.php -> forums/adm/index.php

Administer › Site building › URL aliases › Add alias

Existing system path: http://example.com/phpbbforum

Specify the existing path you wish to alias. For example: node/28, forum/1, taxonomy/term/1+2.

http://example.com/forums

Specify an alternative path by which this data can be accessed.
For example, type "about" when writing an about page.
Use a relative path and don't add a trailing slash or the URL alias won't work.

All links from blocks will have that path 'forums' instead of system phpbbforum.

It works with or without Clean URLs enabled.

11. Pay attention to Drupal User settings

(*) Visitors can create accounts and no administrator approval is required.

Clear checkbox
[ ] Require e-mail verification when a visitor creates an account
If this box is checked, new users will be required to validate their e-mail address prior to logging into the site, and will be assigned a system-generated password. With it unchecked, users will be logged in immediately upon registering, and may select their own passwords during registration.

Go to User settings

(*) Visitors can create accounts and no administrator approval is required.

Clear checkbox
[ ] Require e-mail verification when a visitor creates an account
If this box is checked, new users will be required to validate their e-mail address prior to logging into the site, and will be assigned a system-generated password. With it unchecked, users will be logged in immediately upon registering, and may select their own passwords during registration.

12. Pay attention to phpBB Settings

User registration settings

Account activation: () Disable (*) None () By User () By Admin
This determines whether users have immediate access to the board or if confirmation is required. You can also completely disable new registrations.

If you set By User, user must to login first to phpBB and after that you will see that he is registered.
Set to None for test purposes.

Username length:
Minimum and maximum number of characters in usernames. [1] [30]

Password length:
Minimum and maximum number of characters in passwords. [5] [30]

Security settings

Check IP against DNS Blackhole List: () Yes (*) No

You may switch off
Check e-mail domain for valid MX record: () Yes (*) No
If enabled, the e-mail domain provided on registration and profile changes is checked for a valid MX record.

Cookie settings
These details define the data used to send cookies to your users browsers. In most cases the default values for the cookie settings should be sufficient. If you do need to change any do so with care, incorrect settings can prevent users logging in.

Cookie settings
Cookie domain:
Cookie path:

Server settings

Server URL settings

Domain name:
The domain name this board runs from (for example: www.example.com).

Script path:
The path where phpBB is located relative to the domain name, e.g. /phpBB3.

You should revise all settings that may affect the behavior of the module.

Install first locally and ensure that with your settings it works as you expect.

Upgrade
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Replace old files in your modules directory .../modules/phpbbforum/
2) Login to your phpBB forum as admin.
3) Login to your Drupal site (www.example.com/user/login will help you).
4) Navigate to phpBBforum settings and ensure that phpBBforum
successfully connected to the phpBB database and you are authenticated.
5) Navigate to Blocks.
Enable the phpBBforum blocks you want to use.

Upstart Social Network to Share Revenue With Members

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:39:00 +0000

The Beta stage is almost over and it's not only free membership that you get. Upstart social network, ZenZuu, pays you to sign-up your friends and it also promises to share 80% of its advertising revenue with its members.

Scour the Internet and you will find only one social network that pays its members to get sign-ups. ZenZuu promises to be a next generation social networking platform and calls others ancient. Just like in MySpace, FaceBook, Friendster, LinkedIn and others, your also create your own profile and get exposure for your website and business. The difference is that ZenZuu pays you for signing up your friends, who automatically become your downlines. This may conjure pyramidal marketing schemes with variable successes (or failures) in the past. But here you do not lose money. The idea is to make money while you make friends, going by ZenZuu's motto: Make Friends. Make Money. Make Sense.

As additional flavor, ZenZuu even offers to share 80% of its advertising revenue with its members. If you suspect that the big social networks produce tons of money for their stockholders, you are partly right. Front-runner MySpace has 270M members and still growing, producing millions of dollars in monthly revenue. Facebook is far second with 60M but is expected to have 200M by the end of this year. Facebook's founder, another Harvard dropout, recently sold a small part of the company for 240M. He is now worth $3B on paper. ZenZuu's owner is worth a little over $100M, but in his drive to join the ranks of the billionaires he likes ZenZuu's members to be happy as well. We will be watching how far this rather aggressive marketing innovation goes. ZenZuu.com's Google PageRank and Alexa ranking are shooting up really fast, even while in Beta testing. These are the website indicators that advertisers watch before they spend millions just to showcase their products and services. We expect ZenZuu to launch with a bang in a few weeks.

Sounds like ZenZuu has raised the bar in this trillion-dollar business. If others follow its example, social networkers will be elated. Who would mind receiving regular paychecks from MySpace or Facebook or Friendster?

ZenZuu sign-up here.

.
.
.

Modified Ocean Dancer Template

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:05:00 +0000

The Ocean Dancer Template by Tukang is one of the Top Rated Blogger templates at eblog templates. Personally I am curious why it is not among the Most Downloaded templates. But I would never wonder why it is top rated. With a couple of customizations, we can now use the modified Ocean Dancer Template for our tourism promotion blog.

Banners sized 468px X 60px can easily be placed above the posts. The 450px wide one-column and the two-column sidebars easily hold all small to medium-sized ad widgets, while retaining an un-cluttered look and feel. Thumbnails in the sidebar are 140px X 140px graphics and may be placed in the upper one-column sidebar side-by-side three at a time.

My own cutomizations include:

Use of CSS menu in lieu of the original hardcoded one-level HTML unordered list. Credits go to CSS Play for great CSS menu design.
Use of Google AdSense search form
Minor tweaks for compatiblity with IE.

This modified template works perfectly with Firepox, IE, Opera and Safari.

Modified Ocean Dancer Blogger Template

View Live Download

How to Boost Your Traffic and Profits with Content!

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Are you aware of how vitally important and valuable CONTENT is to your online business? In fact, content can do more to build your business and profits than just about any other resource or service available.

Following is a list of 5 key ways that content can help build your traffic, subscribers, and customers starting today!...

1. Boost your search engine ranking and daily visitor count by posting keyword rich articles and content on your web-site. For example, if your business involves offering products and services related to fitness, posting fitness related articles and content will attract unlimited prospective customers on a regular basis!

2. Generate double or even triple the number of newsletter subscribers you do currently, simply by offering content in the form of "special reports" or manuals as bonuses for subscribing to your publication. People love freebies, so give them what they want and watch as your results increase!

3. Create an automated cashflow by using content to formulate multi-part email training courses with related web-site or affiliate links "sprinkled" throughout each course. Use an autoresponder service to automate the delivery of your training course (such as a 5 part training course delivered over a 5 day period).

Training courses can also serve as excellent bonus offers for your prospective newsletter subscribers.

4. One of the most important keys to a successful online business is not JUST having a mailing list or newsletter subscribers... It's about building a trusting relationship with your subscribers (ie, "cultivating" your list)...

By sending informative articles (content) to your list on a regular basis you will establish yourself as an expert on your topic of business, as well as gain the trust of your subscribers over time. As a result, your subscribers will be EAGER to take advantage of your "paid" product and service offers. (Just make sure that you NEVER take advantage of the relationship you develop with your list by offering products or services of poor quality just to make a quick buck!)

If there is one "constant" in Internet marketing, it's this: A cultivated list of subscribers is as good as money in the bank. Write that down and never forget it!

5. Another excellent way to generate no cost traffic is by submitting ready-made articles to "content hungry" web-site and newsletter publishers with your "resource box" attached. A resource box is nothing more than a little 3-6 line "bio" about you and/or your web-site - including a link to your site (or even instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter)...

When submitting or offering your article(s) for reprint purposes, just make sure to specify that each article is to be reprinted "as is" with your resource box attached.

...Even one article can go a LONG way towards generating no cost traffic and visitors for you. Just imagine your article being sent out to a newsletter subscriber base of 100,000 individuals - many of whom will be reading YOUR included resource box and clicking on your URL to learn more about what you have to offer!

Well there you have it, 5 sure ways to build your online business exponentially with the help of articles and content...

With the declining effectiveness of many of the online advertising methods that we've relied on in past years, content is only strengthening its position as the ultimate KEY to generating unlimited traffic, subscribers, and customers!

Advertise your Blog for Free

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:39:00 +0000

As you know some of the best ways to get traffic to your site is through the search engines. And as you know search engines love blogs.

If you know how to use blogs you can easily get more traffic to your website just by posting your keywords in the title and having your blogs indexed.

Other ways to get traffic to your site is to use popular free traffic exchanges. They come in many forms such as start (homepage) exchanges, safelists (opt in email ads), toolbar ads such as instantbuzz.com and forums such as the free advertising forum.

If you are looking to kill 2 birds with one stone, you can advertise for free on a new BLOG that actually allows you to place your ads for free on their site.

The reason this is good because you get all the benefits of placing your ads on a BLOG and you all get to advertise for free.

Most people would look at this as a no brainer. Although most webmaster do not like people to advertise on the blogs, this site was made just for that.

It is free to join and thousands are flocking to this service to drive huge traffic to their sites in ju8st days by simply posting one little ad on their home page.

Anyone looking to increase their profits should look in to

Free Advertising Blog Website

School System Software by AVGTECH

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:03:00 +0000

This software has been revised three time since 1998, the year when it was one of the top 10 awardees in DOST's National Search for Product Excellence in Information Technology. First revision came in 2002 when the original MS Access front-end (backened database has always been SQL Server) was converted to Visual Studio interface and ran in .Net Famework 1.1. It was again revised in 2005 to leverage advances offered by .Net Framework 2.0. In the current version, continuous upgrade is done in Visual Studio 2008 with SQL Server 2005 as backend database and it targets .Net Framework 3.5. While presently the School System is mainly a desktop application running oer with LAN and WAN, its Web-based version is definitely next in line. Full coverage is described here.

The video below shows the common interface of the School System software.

WP Premium 3-tabbed Templates

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:46:00 +0000

WP Premium template comes in red, black and brown themes. This is a popular template because with its multi-level CSS menus and a tabber portion, it is ideal for bloggers with multiple contents to organize. A couple of weeks ago we introduced a modification by replacing the original LinkList menu with multi-level CSS menu. In this edition, we added one additional tab for your blog archive. This blog uses the WP Premium red version. You rarely see multi-tabbed

Blogger templates,

so here they are.

Red 3-Tabbed

View live. Download.

Black 3-Tabbed

View live. Download.

Brown 3-Tabbed

View live. Download.

Spruce Up Your Blog with Picture Collage

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:12:00 +0000

Picasa is a light-weight graphic application that Google offers as a free download. Picture collage creation is one of its coolest features.

How do we produce these effects? Incredibly easy. Moments after you install Picasa, it will find all the pictures, and some supported video files too, in your hard drives and immediate network, including long lost pictures whose locations you have lost track of long ago. The pictures shall be organized in folders for your effortless access. In Picasa's application interface, CTRL + select the pictures you like to include then click Picture Collage from Picasa's Create menu. You will immediately see the preview of your collage. When satisfied with your creation, save the composite picture as graphic file.

You may select from any of the four options for your final collage output: picture pile, picture grid, contact sheet and multi-exposure. You may choose white, gray or black for background color of your collage, or you may set the farthest picture as your background graphic.

Download your free Picasa here to explore its other features. Very soon you will start posting professional-looking graphics to spruce up your blog.

Web Service Factory Video Tutorial

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:21:00 +0000

Kurt Claeys shows how to use the Web Service Software Factory in Visual Studio.The Web Service Software Factory (also known as the Service Factory) is an integrated collection of tools, patterns, source code and prescriptive guidance. It is designed to help you quickly and consistently construct WCF and ASMX Web services that adhere to well known architecture and design patterns

Video Link: Walkthrough of the Web Service Software Factory

SeeControl's Affordable, Online Inventory & Asset Management Software

andygimpaya@gmail.com (Dr. Andy V. Gimpaya) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Being a windows form programmer, who works in client-server or WAN based computing environment, I get fascinated by software products that leverage Web technologies --browsers, light client and all that. Software customization is the norm in my field unlike in the world of Web-based application where user-customization is done to a minumum and turnkey is the byword.

SeeControl is an application service provider. In its promotional pitch, SeeControl alternately describes its products and services as On-Demand or Software-as-a-Service(SaaS). There are fine-grained technical differences between the terms, which we will not discuss in details. Whatever their product is called, SeeControl offers web-native software application that clients use from his PC using a Web browser, a digital device like mobile phones, or barcode or Radio-frequency identification (RIFD) readers. The client pays not for software ownership but for the use of the software application. SaaS appeals most to clients who have big computing requirements but are not willing to spend for server computers, server software, and full-time datacenter personnel. SaaS applications are therefore designed to be affordable and entail lesser financial investment than licensed software and customized application. The SaaS vendor assumes the burden of hosting data, providing back-up and fail-over provisions, and product upgrades.

Every SeeControl's product revolves around a sophisticated asset/product identification system using barcode or RIFD tags and readers. This ID system collects the data and sends them to a central datacenter through the Web to provide the count, statistics, and whereabouts of asset and these are the source of data for reports that the client sees.

For the past days I have searched the Web for available information about its SeeControl's Affordable, Online Inventory & Asset Management Software. As a software developer I am interested in SeeControl's application interface. No luck so far in finding material on interface. You will find at the bottom of this post the only video I could download from SeeControl's Web site. It features a SeeControl workspace rather than an application interface.

How affordable is it? I still await SeeControl's response. When queried on pricing as well as on how they secure client's data, SeeControl, through Michael Harper, sent back this e-mail:

Better if we answer your questions live. When are you available?

Until I talk personally with Michael Harper, I will not be able to offer any pricing information. In addition, I still have to know how SeeControl addresses clients' concern about the security of their data while in the hands of the SaaS vendor. What if their data fall in the hand of their competitors? Informations on suppliers, clients, product costs are valuable trade secrets, never to be shared with the whole world. More on this in my next post.