Question - How does the web site admin turn directory listing on and off?

The Web Server configuration file is usually called httpd.conf, though were you find it varies depending on your operating system and configuration. For a web server installed on a Linux server, as configured on our Linux Web Server and Deploying Apache httpd and Tomcat courses, you'll be looking at /usr/local/apache2/conf.

Find the Options line for the directory in which the directory tree you're interesting in altering is located and add (or remove) Indexes. For example:

<Directory "/home/www/htdocs">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

allows web directories served from within /home/www/htdocs to display their contents, but

<Directory "/home/www/htdocs">
Options FollowSymLinks

will give anyone who tries a 400 series error.

Question - can the web develop control this too?

Yes, if given such permission by the Web Site Admin. The Web Site Admin need to allow overrides - if the httpd.conf file says

AllowOverride None

then the web developer has no control but it it says either of

AllowOverride Options

or
AllowOverride All

the it CAN be overridden by the web developer ... who would provide a file called .htaccess in the top level directory to which the automatic indeing should apply. The line in that file would be either

Options Indexes

to allow Indexes (only) or

Options +Indexes

To turn indexes on in addition to options inherited from the directory above.

There may be other things in the .htaccess file too, and these files can exist in multiple places on the web site - here's an example of mine that allows a directory listing and turn off any page rewrites too:

RewriteEngine Off
Options Indexes

and here's one which (by contrast) diverts all .html and .htm requests to a script with the undescriptive name 8.php, passing in the name of the page that was called up as a parameter.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm 8.php?pagename=index&sharename=$1&%{QUERY_STRING}

Question - is it a good idea to allow automatic indexes?

In general NO. If you leave out the home page from a directory by mistake, you'll be exposing yourself to anyone who visits your web site. When I go to a web site following a link to an obscure page on a domain I don't know, I often "research" the domain by cutting sections off the path. By disallowing, you stop people like me spying around, and perhaps finding backup files (e.g. copies of .php scripts that have a .bak extension) from which I could (but wouldn't!) break holes in your site.

But if you want to make a directory from which people can quickly and easily grab pictures and you're not too worried about it looking pretty, then in these LIMITED CIRCUMSTANCES it can be a good idea.

In fact I have turned in on for one of my directories today - here where you can some some record shots of this morning's breakfast setup, and of Devizes last night.

Note - than answers on this page apply to the Apache httpd web server, which is used to serve the majority of domains on the web. Options and configuration files differ for other servers.

Moored at the wharf on the Kennet and Avon Canal was a cluster of modern narrowboats (and what a wonder it is that my modern camera let me shoot this right into the sun!

Looking out towards Honey Street and Pewsey, "Unity" is moored up. Now "Unity" is a famous name - a barge built in the days of commercial carrying, horse drawn, and operated by Robbins Lane and Pinnegar - a long established firm of carriers on the canal. She looks beautiful - but is she original, or a reproduction? And if she's original, just how much of the original boat remains? Questions that I don't know answers to!

Questioning "Unity"s credentials is rather like questioning our credentials to describe our breakfast as "Continental" when we're certainly not on the mainland of Europe, and our breakfast products are sourced locally where possible. Not only do local products help us to support local businesses, but they also cut down on greenhouse gases from Transport, and they give distant visitors a local taste rather than the standard fayre from a worldwide chain.

Our niche at Well House Manor, where we cater for business travelers to our computer courses and to other local businesses also allows us to provide products that would be out of the question at a more general hotel. The picture here shows the preparation of fruit which we allow guests to juice for themselves - bringing a true new meaning to FRESHLY squeezed orange juice - but it's something we couldn't entertain allowing if we were to accept bookings from children.

We pride ourselves in our flexibility - the ability to treat each customer as an individual and offer him a solution to meet his or her needs. And that means that we're likely to ask each and every delegate booking a course with us a whole string of questions - some to establish that he or she is booking on the right course (not something too advanced or basic), whether she or he prefers to work at a Linux system, with a Mac, or with Windows Vista, whether a station pickup is required and if there are any special dietary requirements, and whether a hotel room is wanted - if so, bath or shower preferred? But our flexibility leads to the danger of a very complex online booking system!

"KISS" - "Keep it Simple, Stupid" ... a 4 letter acronym! A booking system needs to be simple and easy to use - and our new one is.

• On the first page, simply fill in the names of the delegates you want to send on each course, and if necessary check a box if they don't want a hotel room.

• On the second page, fill in the contact details of the person who's making the booking, and an order number.

• And on the third page, tell us how you want to pay. If that's by credit or debit card, the whole of the booking system is using a secure site so you can enter the details.

• The final page isn't a form - it's a confirmation. Yes, it's that easy! You'll get an automated email to let you know that your order is in the system.

You'll also get a nice note from Lisa, thanking you for your booking and dealing with many of the things that we're very flexible about - and it will be personalised. Book from outside the UK and Lisa will ask you whether you need directions from the airport, or a taxi. Book from one of our regular client companies, and she'll know how you PO system works .. or from a new company but requesting to pay on account, and she'll set that ball rolling.

Our conundrum of how to keep it straightforward, and yet provide the flexibility, isn't unique to us - in fact it's a common feature of most customer-aware businesses. When I book a train ticket and I'm offered (as I was the other day) 37 different fares for the same journey on the same train, I take an object lesson and say "please let this be a reminder to me to make sure that our system NEVER gets like that".

Go on - try it out ... why not find a course and book it today!

You may well ask why ... the screen of the mac mini is to be visible at Well House Manor where it will provide an information screen at the front door when it's not otherwise in use, and we want it to say things like "Sorry - no Vacancies" and "Welcome to the Chamber of Commerce"

Task achieved! Using PHP ... and Perl ... and Web2 technology. With a smattering of OSX!

Here's the control widget on our web page ... the page is in PHP and this particular widget is only displayed to staff members who are logged in - if you look at our Staff Resources Page you won't see it.

And the PHP that's run when you press the update button:

if ($_POST[door] == 12) { // Door Status changed
  $ds = $_POST[doorst];
  $fho = fopen("door.txt","w");
  fputs ($fho,stripslashes($ds)."\n");
  fclose ($fho); // Host and Port changed for security
  $done = file("http://zzz.wellho.net:8080/cgi-bin/dodo.pl?$ds");
  }

That piece of viewing software was called a controller on the Mac - which is running as a Web Server on a port enabled on our firewall, and redirected with NATS to the Mac Mini.

The Perl software dodo.pl looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Changing Page";
`rm -rf /Users/lisaellis/FrontDoor`;
`cp -r /Users/lisaellis/$ENV{QUERY_STRING} /Users/lisaellis/FrontDoor`;
open (FH,"ps aux|");
while (<FH>) {
  if (/ScreenSaverEngine/) {
  @n = split;
  kill 9,$n[1];
  print "$n[1]<br>";
  }
}
sleep 1;
open (FH,'|/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions'.
'/A/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine' );
close FH;
print "Changing Page";

And there's also a standalone version here if you want to download a copy for your own use.

You'll notice - typical use of PHP to front a web application, typical use of Perl as "glueware", and typical use of a Unix / Linux / OSX utility - in this case Mac's ScreenSaverEngine - to do the oddball job we needed.

Here's a quick Download, build, install, test procedure for Lua

• Download from http://www.lua.org/ftp/ and save to disc. The file you choose is lua-5.1.3.tar.gz

• unpack tar file and build

tar xzf lua-5.1.3.tar.gz
cd lua-5.1.3
make linux

• Install (as root, into /usr/local)

su -
cd ~trainee/lua-5.1.3
make install
exit

• Test (as trainee, once again)

[trainee@holt ~]$ lua
Lua 5.1.3 Copyright (C) 1994-2008 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> print "hello world"
hello world
>
[trainee@holt ~]$

I've put a simple program - the next step beyond "Hello World" that shows some of the basics of the language here, and I would be delighted to spend a day or two going through the language with you ... (Keywords - Lua Courses / Training / Classes!)

Photoshop is, of course, a marvelous piece of software for adding art and zest to a dull picture such as this one of a steam engine at Bressingham, taken just a fortnight ago. You may argue that the best place for this picture was the recycle bin - but, hey, I'm an amateur and an amateur will show you as many of his pictures as he possibly can. In fact - if you want to see the other ones that I have just been labeling up they are here

Another picture - from last Thursday, at Bibury. [more pictures of Bibury]. A certain timelessness, and an opportunity to take a rare picture - one that has no road, no vehicles, no signs of the 21st or even the 20th Century in it. Or so one might think, but I do wonder as to just how similar (or otherwise) this scene might have been in 1908 rather than 2008.

And finally, a pair of pictures that lead me to start thinking just how European we have become in Great Britain - with photographs on the steps in Norwich and in Rome.

Stop Press - Image search at http://www.wwuu.co.uk

I'm a great believer in providing a wide range of linked resources for our customers, and for other visitors to our web site. With links to sites that we manage (and there are lots of them, from our company overview microsite to Save the Train and from our PHP course pages through to image reuse details via the hotel and the First Great Western customer page), I know how likely (or otherwise) it is that the URLs will go away or change in the future (and can link accordingly), but with most external sites, the best I can do is make an educated guess!

This is not an exact science ... so what can I suggest?

a) That links to the major pages of well established organisations are likely to remain substantially correct, as are links to pages that one's encouraged to link to

b) That links by IP address, to obscure URLs especially within blogs, forums and wikis, are likely to go out of date

It's regrettable that there's no way that you can register any links you add and get the people to whom you've linked to let you know when they take pages away ... but the good ones will replace pages they remove with "301" redirects rather than just abandoning you - as I found this morning - to a "404" not found.

There's another option. You can write a spider / script that will visit all the pages to which you have provided links from time to time, and update you on their status. I have one of these somewhere in a dusty directory - written in Perl and using the LWP module, it trawled my own pages for external references, then visited each of those internal references in turn. But I admit - it's years since I've looked back at it and I need a month of Sundays to catch up on such things.

My current view is that external links within my main pages are very carefully selected, and will rarely go out of date - and I would typically know very quickly. External links on blog articles and on forum answers - well - the reasonable person may expect them to go out of date over time, especially if they're something like an advert for an event in July!

However - in response to a request at last Friday's Staff meeting, I have put together a page, suitable for printing out on a single sheet, that pulls together the training and the hotel business.

See what you think here

So I've looked through the code and realised that I can publish it, and the sample data - and indeed I can have a running copy on our web server. So here you are:

Example Gant chart (PHP)
Source code for Gant Chart program
Sample Data file

Techniques such as these are covered on our new PHP Techniques course

We knew her as "Molly" but by birth she was Mary O'Loughlin White; Dad's cousin who we met from time to time, and who passed away towards the end of last month. "I haven't seen an obituary this long ..." said the priest who officiated at her funeral yesterday, and indeed she had been an accomplished journalist on the staff of the Witney Gazette, which he had in his hand.

But how many of us have (or will) learn to fly - to get a pilot's license - in our 50s? How many of us will fly with the RAF's heavy lift aircraft, and helicopters from other nations too, for famine relief in Ethiopia? And write "The Foodbirds" - a book on her experiences too.

I predict that this quietness won't last; companies need to invest in their staff and, once they're sure where they're going the quieter times are an excellent opportunity to catch up on training and backroom work so that they can hit the ground running as things accelerate forward again. We're certainly taking that opportunity.

In a month, it will be two years since we took over Well House Manor and now is a good time for us to take stock and move onwards and upwards.

And on the training course side, with the ongoing popularity and growth of PHP we've added our PHP Techniques workshop to our regular PHP programming and OO Programming with PHP courses. PHP Techniques are critical to the success of a web based application, and they're what our new course covers. A user friendly, flexible, easily maintained site that hides the complexity from the customer and is secure is critical to a web campaign's success - but is often overlooked. This course will be a really good investment for anyone who knows the principles of PHP programming but wants tips, techniques and help as to how to make best use of them. But it is going to be a hard one for people to "sell" to their bosses ...

It's been brought home to me in the last few days just how effective an online application can be ... looking as an example at our Save the Train pledge page. Over 350 people - with over 90% of them from Wiltshire and the local area - have signed up on the page I wrote on Easter Monday, and I hear the "whisper" that the interest that it has generated has been noted in the high places that matter with regards to decisions on whether we'll see a more appropriate train service next year across Wiltshire, or a continuation of the current travesty.

* If you've not signed up to support the train yet, please click here

* If you've not booked for PHP Techniques on 15th / 16th May - please click here for a description - and if you book by email (graham@wellho.net) for that first course, we'll give you a £100.00 introductory discount.

See more recent images here and here

Hi, I'm Freddie the fallow deer and I would like to introduce you to my home at Dyrham Park.

Some of the older trees in the park have fallen and newer trees have been planted ... and there's plenty of grass for me and my friends to eat!

Avenues of new trees disappear over the horizon and there's plenty of grass for me and my friends to eat - I repeat that because it's important to us!

The quiet winter is over, the summer season is coming, and the stalkers are out. But we feel safe here as they only shoot us with cameras!

If you can already code PHP but you're looking to make good use of databases (and get the joins right), to make secure code, to write applications which recognise the country your visitor is from (or whether your page is being visited by a spider), to write code which is easy to modify as your customer's needs change, to handle uploaded images, or which can have a new look-and-feel applied without reprogramming, our PHP Techniques Workshop will be what you're looking for.

Why a Workshop? Because for this type of learning, a small group is ideal. Interaction with other delegates and the tutor, working on projects that are relevant to you so you go away with a practical experience and not just the result of book-learned theory.

We describe this as a two day workshop - but it's a full two days and we encourage you to arrive the evening before at our Melksham, Wiltshire hotel and training centre. On that lead in evening, you'll get a chance to get on line (we provide server and client laptops, but you are welcome to bring your own and connect them in), to meet your fellow delegates, and to be prepared for a fresh start early the following morning.

This year (2008) arrive on Wednesday, 14th May ... on Sunday, 20th July, on Sunday 14th September or on Wednesday, 5th November, for the following two days. The £720.00 + VAT rate includes 2 evening meals, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and two nights accommodation, high quality rooms. Let us know if you'll be arriving in Melksham by train and we'll meet you at the station too. And, yes, we have plenty of free parking.

We'll offer you a lift back to the station at the end of the second day, or if you prefer to stay a further evening you're welcome to book your room for just £60.00 + VAT and check out the next morning.

Of course, I have one leg in either camp - customer and hotelier.

Top marks to the reception staff for their handling of this livid man - and confirmation to me that our policy at Well House Manor of going "one step beyond" is the right one. I was looking for an explanation, duly given. I was anticipating (for what it was worth) an apology, which I got. I was hoping for a step or two to be taken to avoid the same thing happening to another guest. That was promised and probably followed through. I wasn't anticipating the complimentary tray, delivered to my room as I had an evening of work to do.

I try never to turn away from a well-liked supplier based on one unfortunate incident, so it's unlikely I would have given this chain a miss in the future even if I had been given a "don't care" type brushoff. But actually the whole has cemented by brand loyalty - victory from the jaws of potential defeat, if you like. Someone - please remind me to tell this story at our next staff meeting, and to remind our team (who know it anyway) to go that extra step.