Messages posted by: amber222

Here is one problem I am seeing when I look at your source code:

theURL = './/mod/guestbook/picture.php?img='+Image;

So, it appears there is a problem with your base url. In your mod/guestbook directory, open index.php. Change

to :

Do not know if this will solve your problem. I don't know phpws, so I cannot say - or why it does not put out an error message?

Let us know what happens so we can help anybody else with the same problem.

I also noticed the phpws version does not show a link to the administration panel. You can get to admin from here:

index.php?module=guestbook&agbook=admin

or if you want the link to show in the page:

Open templates/body.php

Around line 5, find:

Change to:

Sorry you are still having problems. Since there are many phpwebsite sites out there using this, it makes me think the problem could be with your phpws installation. I will look at the guestbook files again and see if I notice anything, but you may want to visit some phpws forums and see if they have any info about integrating the guestbook. It appears it is not processing the posting instructions.

Try changing the line in addentry.html to include the complete address:

*bump*

Takara wrote:Amber, you are wonderful!!!! Unfortunately for me, the "easy" way was not the easy way. LOL Your instructions on the more "difficult" way were wonderful. Now my guestbook and review book look just the way I want them to (the index page was the only page I really cared how it looks).

Here's a link for anyone who wants to see the final product:

http://datalorefiction.net/guestbook/index.php

BTW, if anyone decides to check out the rest of the site, I want to warn you. Yes it is a fan fiction website (that's not what I'm warning you about ). Most of the fan fiction has a NC17 rating however there are no graphic images on the site - just graphic words.

Thanks, Takara. I am glad you found the information useful.

I visited your site.

Data is my favorite from TNG.

Here's the link to download the PhpWebSite version of the guestbook:

http://www.3hc.co.uk/studentsupport/

Blocking the bad bots from .htaccess definitely works. Problem is there are so many, and not everyone has .htaccess.

Block bad bots in .htaccess like this:

SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^NaverBot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^TurnitinBot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EmailSiphon" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^EmailWolf" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^ExtractorPro" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^CherryPicker" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^webcollage" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Port_Huron_Labs" bad_bot

<Limit GET POST>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot
</Limit>

Add new bots to the top. You don't have to use the bot's full name - first 3 letters will work. Get bot names from your server stats.

Everybody should block that Naverbot!

Another alternative is the robot trap. Bots that ignore the robots.txt file are caught in an endless loop.

Info on building a robot trap:

How to keep bad robots, spiders and web crawlers away: http://www.fleiner.com/bots/#trap

A Rogue Robot Trap: http://www.braemoor.co.uk/software/robottrap.shtml

How to build a Bot Trap and keep bad bots away from a web site: http://www.kloth.net/internet/bottrap.php

This site has a good forum about robots and they share info on the function of various bots.
Here's their PHP version of the robot trap:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum88/3104.htm

Here's a link with info about a version for PhpWebSite:

http://www.phpwebsitemanual.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_
op=view_page&PAGE_id=94&MMN_position=122:122

This forum offers other guestbooks, and one person says they have the zipped version of the Advanced Guestbook for PhpWebSite available for whoever wants it:

http://phpwebsitemanual.com/index.php?module=phpwsbb&PHPWSBB_MAN_
OP=view&PHPWS_MAN_ITEMS%5B%5D=395

Anonymous wrote:If user can enter the email address before voting, it can help our website collect member.

Why nobody reply this email?

Or it is a difficult work!!

Perhaps it was an oversight, or perhaps people were busy since it was a holiday weekend. We are all volunteers here. The author of the scripts does not appear to be available.

I do not know if what you want is possible to enter an email before voting. What about people who visit your site who do not have email - they are not allowed to vote?

Look at Demo 4 and Demo 6 which have comments

http://proxy2.de/poll/demo_4.php

http://proxy2.de/poll/demo_6.php

Perhaps this can help you?

If not, perhaps Auron will be able to help you when he returns.

Here's a discussion making email a required field in the Advanced Guestbook. I believe the first two posts above are asking about the Advanced Poll.

http://proxy2.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3388&highlight=required+field

If all guestbook entries are lost and there is no way to get a backup from your host, here is a last-ditch effort, but it requires a considerable amount of work. Read everything before you try this, as it may not be beneficial for you.

A Pound of Cure
Go to Google.com and enter your guestbook's address in the search box. If your guestbook has been indexed, you should see the link in the search results. A few lines down is a link to the Google Cache results. Click on that link. If you have managed to get here in time, you may find the page shows your entries the way they looked before they were deleted. Save the page or "select all" and copy and paste the entries into an email, notepad or other wordprocessor.

This will only show one page of entries. To get other pages, look at the address of the cached page you found. Add the guestbook entry page increment after the "index.php".

Example:
I want to recover the guestbook entries for one of my members' sites, pauldelacour.thepraisegates.net, I would enter the following in the Google search box:

www.pauldelacour.thepraisegates.net/guestbook/index.php

When I click on the link to "Show Google's cache of (www).pauldelacour.thepraisegates .net/guestbook/index.php", it only shows the last page of guestbook entries, and the following is in the address window:

http://IP#/search?q=cache:48ZNF10p9k0J:www.pauldelacour.thepraisegates.net/ guestbook/index.php+&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Normally in the Guestbook, when you click on "Next Page" it adds "?entry=x" at the end. Since I set up the Guestbook in Admin to show 10 entries per page, "x" would be in increments of 10, or "?entry=10", "?entry=20", etc. So, to find the next page, I would input the following address in the Google search window and look for its cached page:

http://IP#/search?q=cache:48ZNF10p9k0J:www.pauldelacour.thepraisegates.net/ guestbook/index.php?entry=10+&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Important Notes:
You must do this within a couple of days, as Google revisits your pages often. When Google visits, if your entries have been deleted or your page has been hacked, that is what will be cached. (If you are planning on doing this, you might want to first disallow robots indexing the guestbook until you're done. However, some robots do not check the robots.txt file on a regular basis and will index anyway. I don't know Google's M.O.)

You can only get as many entries as were in your guestbook at the time of the last indexing of your site. If there were 40 entries when Google last visited, but you had 45 when they were deleted, you will only find 40 entries in the Google cache.

Do this at your own risk. I cannot be held responsible for the outcome unless it's wonderful.

If you have disallowed the guestbook in robots.txt, this won't work. Possibly, other factors would prevent this from working for you, such as the use of frames or page encryption.

If you believe your guestbook should be there but you can't find it, try entering just your main site in the search box and then looking under the following areas:

# Find web pages that are similar to www.xxxxx.com
# Find web pages that link to www.xxxxx.com
# Find web pages that contain the term "www.xxxxx.com"

Once you have copies of the entries, they need to be re-entered into your guestbook. You can enter them from the guestbook's addentry or through an .sql file. Use "copy" and "paste" to do this. If you decide to just enter them from the guestbook, go to admin and turn off flood control and email notification temporarily. The dates will show the dates you entered them, not the original dates. If you care about the dates, Here's a link to a Unix timestamp converter. Change the dates in the database:

http://www.4webhelp.net/us/timestamp.php

If you aren't sure how to put the entries in the .sql file, you can always make a few entries into the guestbook and then export the database to a .sql file. Examine the exported file and you will see where to paste the info for each entry. A rather tedious process, and it has to be exact or MySql will return errors.

Sorry, some of my wording may be awkward, but I did the best I could. I am only sharing this process I have used to recover many guestbooks when the admin did not keep backups. There may possibly be other faster or easier methods. Remember, I called this a last-ditch effort.

The website mentioned was used only as an example. There may not be actual guestbook entries there.

Two Ounces of Prevention:
It's a good idea to backup your databases on a regular basis. It is so easy, and quick, to create an .sql file. There are some instructions in the thread titled "Advanced Guestbook Fixes And Mods."

Every good host keeps regular backups of the entire server. If you can't get a backup from your host, perhaps you should consider changing hosts.

I love my web host.

These threads may help:

(Make a backup .sql file of guestbook entries)

Export/Import MySQL Database:
http://proxy2.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3580&highlight=sql

Guestbook MySQL database transfer:
http://proxy2.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5819&highlight=#5819

Where is the guestbook database?:
http://proxy2.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2761&highlight=sql

The collations weren't matching, so I set them to match. Works fine now.

I was able to fix Paul's guestbook. MySql was putting out an error for illegal collations.