Just so you lot know...in conjunction with launching my new hosting venture...I intend to begin a periodic tutorial series aimed at the end user side of linux hosting.That being said..are there any topics anyone would like me to specifically cover?

How about the extreme basics for someone like me?

Basics of CPanel you mean?Using the various features,adding e-mail accounts/subdomains/addon domains,fantastico,etc?

I haven't had the need yet (I think...), but scheduling chron jobs seems to be an important but confusing task for users.

Cron can be confusing,yeah...but I'm sure I could write a tutorial on it that would make it less confusing ^^;;

yeah cron's are a bugger, that would be a good one

Y'know..I totally missed the 'web hosting tutorials' forum x.x

So far:

-CPanel Basics
-Reseller Basics
-Cron Explained

and I responded to your pm,Leo ^^

While I'm at it..Joe(or anyone else,for that matter)...any PHP tutorials you lot want?

oh yeah, hadn't noticed it, had two pm's then, read one of them not realising the other was there and ofcourse it didn't show in red at top of forum.

hehe, you'll leave yousrself with no time writing so much

No time in exchange for a reputation of being helpful as a person(and thus,a service provider ^_~),and content for one or more of my planned sites...seems like a perfect trade to me...considering I can multi-task everything(including talking to Lin) while coding/writing/admining/doing support/billing ^_~

I'm just working on a few additions to my cms..once they work out...I should be able to work on setting up the backend for the hosting site so I only need to design it.

is the cms pretty much wrapped up then?

you're bang on though, a good reputation is worth it's weight in gold

It's pretty well complete.I don't feel happy enough with it to let anyone use it outside of my friends..tho.Mainly because I still have lots of things I want to add to it,even tho it is completely usable(save for a template admin that I'm writing right now)...and I will be using it for avianhosting as well as all other sites I plan to launch.

lol I was going to say cron jobs! At the moment I'm using an external cron service anyway cause I'm on a windows server.

How about some of the more advanced cPanel stuff like account and email automation and auto-creating for customers. I had a working script to automagically create an email address in cpanel using php but never actualyl used it as it didn't seem overly secure.

And it look sliek there are going to be THREE custom CMS's coming from this board lol. Obviously the in thing this year

I'll see what I can do ^^;;



The other two probably didn't procrastonate for several years before doing it,tho.Also..mine won't ever be publically usable(as in,it won't ever be available to anyone outside of people I choose to give it to).

I've got a working CMS at the moment but I really just want to scrap it and start from scratch. There are so many things I want to add that will require a hell of alot of messing around that its easier that way. When I started writing my CMS I didn't really have the ideas I ahve now so they weren't incorporated into the code and database design. So at the moment they are falling more than a bit flat. Only problem is that I don't have any time! I'm working on a project at the moment that is slowly taking over my life so maybe when thats finished I'll start again lol Plus theres PHP5 to get to grips with as well !

I refuse to embrace php5 for at least another year..which is sorta sad considering I'm an OOP whore.

Constant re-writes is what led to years of no-web related productivity...but this time around I resisted the urge..and it's turning out nicely.

lol I really should be an OOP whore as well but I'm not really. The funny thing is that I learned to design in Java but program in PHP. Go figure! And there are some aspects of OOP in PHP 4, if oyu look hard enough. There just not implemented very well. It stinks as a bit of an afterthought as opposed to an integral feature. I've been meaning to learn Javascript, Java (properly, including servlets), C# and ASP.NET for a while now. I may re-write the CMS in asp. That would be interesting and kill 2 birds with one stone lol

Constant re-write is what has lead to years of non-productivity from me as well. But this time I will get it cracked, even if it kills me, which is a distinct possibility!

Your sounding alot like me...things I've wanted to do:

-Learn Java(JSP)
-Learn Ruby
-Learn C#/asp.net


except..I'm anti-m$..so I don't quite know why I wanna learn asp.net.

heh...the reason I'm writing the cms like I am is that I can drop it into any site...any site...and with some minor configurations...have it look like I'm not even using the cms(eg: you wouldn't be able to tell I was using 'my cms'..unless I told you)...XD

Oh..and I know PHP4 has OOP..thats what I code in...hense OOP whore ^_~

I'm pretty much the lone ASP guy on these boards... this will finally be the year I learn C# I've got 4 years worth of ASP integrated into the company Intranet, so there will NOT be a rewrite, but moving forward... I'm really looking forward to finally start doing some OOP. As bad as you think PHP 4 OOP is, in classic ASP it is completely non-existent. Well, maybe not completely, but close enough.

What are you going through bass'?I love PHP4's OOP support..it's great for what I do..so

As far clASP...I have no interest in coding in such a sad excuse for a language as vbscript.Espically using a m$ format.

But I'll spare you my anti-m$ sentiments.

You mean as far as PHP? Nothing really. I do a very very very small amount of PHP programming and have yet to get into any OO aspects of it, I guess my comment was based on what I've read around the web and maybe "bad" was the wrong word. The common thing I've heard is that it has OO features, but is lacking in some areas. Again... this is all second hand.


Yeah, learning today clASP is pretty pointless and vbscript is, well, I'll just say "quriky". I didn't really want to switch to it when I did, but it was a matter of having to pay the bills

I'm split when it comes to MS. There are certainly some things they do that irk me to no end, but they actually are more and more developer-friendly. I imagine some of it is a result of the open source movement, but hey, whatever it takes. SQL Server is great; by far my favorite of their products. And the little I've been able to dabble in C# and VS.net has impressed me.

PHP 4 lacks advanced oop support..you know..multiple inheritance and the like...certain oop features...but it works just fine if you want to do for example Model-View-Controller structure,Database abstraction,and pretty much anything else that doesn't specifically require 'advanced' features...

http://php.net/oop

I thought your statement was an interpretation of what I said..hense the "what are you going through?"...being.."how did you get 'php4 oop sucks' from my praising of it?" ^_~


I have no respect for microsoft.The only remotely m$ thing I like...is the .NET framework.Regardless of your stand on m$...the .NET framework is a wonderful addition to the development world.And I mainly wanna learn C# because it's an OOP language with 'rules'...PHP is starting to bore me.Sure..I enjoy coding in it...and I can code in it in any state of mental stability/usability...but sometimes I'd like to have some rules to have to stick to(you know..non-floating data types and so forth).And don't even mension Java.I have a book the size of a small boulder that I got for my b-day a few years ago from my brother...I may eventually learn it...but it's not my priority.

C# looks very kinky(my expression,don't ask)..as does Ruby(a language I briefly began writing in a while back...I'd like to start developing a CMS in Ruby..but not until my current one in PHP is done).

He he... now we're on the same page.

Java... pfft. Unless it comes in a tall, steaming mug with a wonderful aroma, keep that garbage away from me. Anything I've ever used that was written in Java is as slow as molasses running down a Canadian mountain side in the middle of January. Plus, I've heard too many horror stories from Java (ex-Java?) programmers about planning and implementation.

I've got a nice ~200 pg O'Reilly book on C# burning a hole on my bookshelf. Hopefully this time next month it'll be here at work with me

Thats my point.I'd learn it just to say I know it...I wouldn't learn it to use it.Anything that is that much of a resource hog that running one high traffic jsp site can bog down a dual xeon...has no place in my toolkit.

I don't tend to learn from books..tutorials/script examples are enough for me to pick up all but an exact library of functions.I'll focus on C# eventually.

Cron Jobs I would say to go really in depth with. I've not seen any good tutorials on them anywhere.

I think a good PHP tutorial on functions would be good, what functions are useful and what should never be touched etc ...

Lmao..I have such a title for the last article idea(I will write it,btw)....:

PHPS :: A Practical Warning Guide For PHP Coders

try to guess what the S stands for ^_~...hint: plural

Functions are a funny thing. I was chatting to a Java developer mate who is absolutely OOO (OO Obsessed ) and he breaks EVERYTHING down into functions. Something that I see as a bit unnatural in PHP (4 at least) and more than a tad un-necessary. In the PHP code I was lookign at of his there was more code to control the functions than there was actually doing stuff!

Having said that I always try to break down some major aspects down into handy functions. So stuff like cookie management, sessions an dlogin data and the validation stuff I posted here before. Stuff like that is made for functions.

I'm not 'that' extreme..but I do use a lot of OOP abstraction..it's just the way I've honed my coding skill.

I finished the crontab tutorial guys.I wrote it on my off block(it's lunch now)...I'll post it tonight.It's been years since I used crontab...so if you guys try it and run into any serious errors...let me know.I reserve the right for it to have issues...but I think it's correct.

Nope... not acceptable. If there are any issues, your membership is immediately revoked j/k You will notice many Last edited by... notes on my tuts

Looking forward for the tut

I'm getting Leo to preview it first...if he says it's fine(more of a 'editor' person...I usually don't need one...but this particular topic is something I don't use often enough to have memorized every little detail of it) I'll post it tonight.

Leo has previewed it and confirmed as I suspected...the tutorial is correct.I will post it in a few hours when I get home from school -- I've only got like 20 minutes left right now.

20 minutes left? You're in eastern Canada, right? Like an hour or two ahead of me. How do you get out of school so early?

20 minutes left of my off class...this is only first period.I'm leaving a half hour into 3rd period..I have chemistry next..and then lunch before 3rd period....lunch is an hour..periods are 80 minutes.

I'm in atlantic Canada...Nova Scotia.

Ahh, I see I'm getting too old

Is it not PC to say eastern, then? I've only been to Canada once and that was in Alberta.

Eastern Canada..I don't think thats me..I've always heard us called the Atlantic Provinces..thus Atlantic Canada.Eastern Canada is elsewhere I believe.

I'm off for the next 4 days...how does a full tutorial on cpanel basics sound to you guys provided I get my other work done?

Well I've finally installed Visual Studio .NET and the .NET framework SDK so I'll actually have a play around with all that funky stuff. I'll have MS SQL in half hour or so as well so I'll be fully set. How does an ASP based CMS running entirely off XML sound?

Like what I want to do in PHP but I refuse to do because I don't like php's interface to XML...and I'm too lazy to write my own.

I had a big discussion regarding PHP's XML parsing functions with a uni tutor last week. I wrote a parsing script using the built in (kinda) functions (expat) and its quite possibly the messiest piece of code I've ever come up with! The tutor said I should learn to use expat properly cause there must be a better way of doing it. I think he was probably appauled when I turned round and said I was doign it properly and it was the best way of parsing XML. Anyone know if PHP 5 is any bettter for this?

I know MS SQL is somewhat expensive so my thinking is that if I sue th emore advanced ASP.NET XML parsing capabilities I can write a pretty effective CMS using just XML so they don't have to pay for an expensive MS SQL licence or pay a host to have one. Seems reasoable enough and will be a good way to learn. I may bolt on the option to run from a mySQL DB as well just for convenience though.

The problem I have is that I only tend to learn stuff when I'm interested and enjoying it, hence learning PHP when I was writing my CMS. I think an XML based CMS in ASP is a good start I just need something to take my interest in C# now! Maybe I'll do a SERP checker or something like that.

Oh I just noticed that the MSDN .net library is bloody 2 gig odd! thats going to take a while lol Thats one thing I love about PHP, I think the PHP.net site is great if your just looking for a certain function and its usage. Its nto as comprehensive as the MSDN site but more accessible IMHO.

man cover Cpanel inside out for people who never have used it its baffling and the online instructions you can find are really half assed.

I agree.The pathetic part about it is...CPanel is easy as hell to understand...but people who don't know how to use it..get scared by lack of decent documentation...and it's abundance of pathetically stupid bugs.

I'll see what I can do.

yeh it doesnt look to hard ive figured some of it out but like you said the documentation is pitiful really i can see how some people would be intimidated or overwhelmed by it.

I'll see about working on the tutorial tommorrow -- I got sidetracked today by getting things ready so I could launch AvianHosting.

do it anytime you feel like it right now im not using any Cpanel but its one of those things we all need to know since Cpanel is so widely used.

i would definitely read it.

yeah..believe me when I say ensim is a far superior overall product...but CPanel sells -- period.Excuse the tampax commerical parody.

I always found CPanel a bit, err amatuerish when I used it. You look at it from a design pont of view and think that the usability isn't quite what it should be. Especially when considering that its aimed at people who don't necessarily know what half the stuff does let alone how to do it. I bet the average CPanel user doesn't even know what a Cron Job is let alone know howto set one up or even have need for one!

At the moment I'm using HELM on a windows account and its ahell of alot easier to use. True it doesn't have anywhere near half as many things to do but thats probably why its easier to use. Plus, cause its a reseller account its all on one unified interface unlike the CPanel/WHM relationship. I still think there are areas where helm can improve though, in fact some things aren't very good at all in it lol