Geeklog Forums

a) Not all hosting services accept index.php as a home page. I needed to drop it into a directory and use a redirect to get a geeklog site to work.

b) A good ftp program makes life easier

c) Back up config.php before working on it.

d) Only change a little code at a time.

e) Search these forums: copy and paste error messages

f) 2 monitors would be nice: one for project, other for help screens

g) All of this can be done on a Mac.

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Chris Kofer
TheArsenicSite.net site adminstrator

plus some hobby sites

there are easier ways to get around this issue. using a simple .html redirect or an .htaccess file for a redirect or, AFAIK, an .htaccess file directive that effectively changes the order that the server parses file types if that directive is allowed (im not sure it is).

Ouch, it sure sounds like you've had a tough time getting your site to work the way you want it. You have my sympathies and I wish I knew more so I could give you better answers than I did!

When I set up my site, it took a lot of trial and error, and the suggestions from these GL forums sometimes nailed the answer to a problem, more often it led me to the right direction for my "next experiment".

Every provider is different, and it sounds like you eventually discovered what yours requires for the index page, whether it's index.html, .php, whatever.

Are you pretty much where you want to be now? Do you have more questions? I'm just a guy in Colorado running a web site, but I'll do my best to your questions and help you get your site running. People like Machinari and Dirk here on GL are the only reason my site is OK, and I hope I can pass that help on to others.

Colorado Tom

BTW your list of lessons is extremely good IMHO, if everybody approaching GL as a newbie followed your suggestions, they'd be well served.

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Tom
www.southparkcity.com

Got two sites going pretty well:

skicheapordie.com

theArsenicsite.net

the first is a hobby site, the second having a higher purpose. I take chances with the ski one.

a little problem: can't get emoticons and text formatting buttons to work in forum of skicheapordie.com . Maybe a missing javascript file?

Thought that starting this thread may help others starting out.

forgot to add: get the filepaths right !!!! I found that different hosts describe your environment differently .

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Chris Kofer
TheArsenicSite.net site adminstrator

plus some hobby sites

Oh. Is this common? One would think the hosts would try to make life easy for the users if they allow scripting anyway. Is there a reason for this?

It is probably a good idea then to ask if they pull stuff like this before signing.



Even better IMHO:

Use a host that has installed webmin or something like that. Very convenient. You feel like you are on a work station on a LAN when using it, only that everything runs slower. The drawback for me is that I forget to back stuff up due to that feeling. I haven't done it in weeks now that I think about it.

*off to back my site up*