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B&T's Tips & Scripts is a collection of Tips & Scripts to help you build a better website.  The Tips & Scripts are targeted towards the native Apache PHP MySQL environment.  Check back frequently as there will be additions and modifications.  Please check our terms of use.
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   Using .htaccess  

  1. .htaccess Basics Mar 9, 2006
  2. Domain & subdomain pointing May 12, 2005
  3. Automatic subdomains Jun 17, 2007
  4. Undefined subdomains Jul 20, 2008
  5. Prevent direct access to a pointer or subdomain directory Aug 15, 2006
  6. Forcing or eliminating the WWW. Feb 9, 2005
  7. Fixing the trailing slash problem May 11, 2005
  8. Friendly URLs Mar 21, 2007
  9. Rewrites and https Dec 18, 2007
  10. Blocking traffic to your website Jan 2, 2005
  11. Anti-leech May 25, 2005
  12. Fancy default index page Jan 25, 2005


   Using .htaccess/.htpasswd Password Protection  

  1. Setting up password protection Feb 9, 2005
  2. Encrypt your password for .htpasswd Dec 21, 2007
  3. Auto Password Change and Email Notification Dec 21, 2007 php5
  4. Auto generate .htpasswd file Dec 18, 2007 php5
  5. Passing user authentication information to PHP Jun 13, 2004


   Coding Tips  

  1. HTML "One Liners" Nov 13, 2005
  2. PHP "One Liners" Apr 5, 2007
  3. JavaScript "One Liners" Aug 25, 2007
  4. CSS examples Sep 9, 2006
  5. SQL coding examples Aug 29, 2006
  6. AJAX example Sep 24, 2006


   Uploads and Downloads  

  1. File Upload Script Dec 20, 2007 php5
  2. Custom Download Page Dec 14, 2007 php5
  3. Tracking and Securing Downloads Dec 20, 2007 php5


   Mail  

  1. Form Mail Aug 19, 2007
  2. Obfuscate your email address Nov 12, 2006
  3. Read and auto-process mail Nov 12, 2004
  4. Auto-responder Dec 18, 2007 php5
  5. Display your email message count Jul 30, 2004
  6. Setting up SPF Records Jan 4, 2007
  7. Specify a return-path for generated mail Jul 18, 2006


   Working with Images  

  1. Watermark images Jul 14, 2007
  2. Resize images (create thumbnails) Jul 14, 2007


   Frequently Requested Website Functionality  

  1. Visitor Counter Dec 14, 2007 php5
  2. 404 Error Page (with reporting and logging) Dec 20, 2007 php5
  3. CAPTCHA Aug 19, 2006
  4. Poll (voting) Dec 17, 2007 php5   see it on this page
  5. Weather Jul 27, 2008 php5
  6. FAQ Page May 23, 2005
  7. Random/weighted banners, quotes & more Feb 9, 2005
  8. Load a random image (simple) Jan 20, 2004
  9. Image (banner) rotation Oct 15, 2007
  10. Simple "members only" pages May 13, 2005
  11. Replace banned words Apr 5, 2007
  12. Get the most recent file date Jan 30, 2006
  13. Moving (bouncing) Image Nov 10, 2005
  14. Sticky default values for an input Oct 22, 2006


   Using PHP  

  1. Creating a custom php.ini file Dec 18, 2007 php5
  2. Copying the php.ini file Dec 18, 2007 php5
  3. Deleteing php.ini files Dec 18, 2007 php5
  4. Clean up your PHP scripts Nov 11, 2005
  5. Regular Expression Rules Mar 22, 2006


   Website Managment  

  1. Tips for keeping your website secure Jan 24, 2006
  2. Using Cron Sep 13, 2005
  3. Website Monitoring Dec 19, 2007
  4. Automated Site Backups Dec 19, 2007
  5. Automated MySQL Backups Dec 19, 2007
  6. Server-to-server file transfer December 16, 2006
  7. MySQL Error Notification Dec 20, 2007
  8. Find File and Directory Sizes Dec 14, 2007 php5
  9. Deleting session files Aug 9, 2006
  10. FTP made easy Mar 1, 2006
  11. Search and Replace Dec 14, 2007 php5


   Other Tips  

  1. URL Validation Feb 8, 2008
  2. Stop direct links to web pages Jan 22, 2004
  3. Ensure your page is not opened in a frame May 5, 2005
  4. Masking your URL in the Address Bar Jul 20, 2004
  5. Ban or allow IP Addresses (without using .htaccess) Jan 19, 20008
  6. Using Cookies Sep 24, 2006
  7. View your website in different resolutions Jan 2, 2005
 

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Visitor Counter

This simple script creates an image that can be used on any page to display a visitor counter.  A session variable is used to ensure that the counter only advances once per browser session (the most accurate way to count website visitors).  If you want to see how it works, the counter is shown here:

counter

In your html, put an <img> tag for the image, such as the one below.  Do not put width or height parameters in the img tag as this will distort the generated image.

<img src="counter.php" alt="counter" style="border: inset 3px;">
Name the script below counter.php.

You can download this script as a .txt file.  Remember to rename the file as a .php file.

- - Start Script Here - -
<?php
$filename = 'counter.dat';
session_start();
if (!isset($_SESSION['visitor_counter']) AND is_writable($filename)) {
  $count = @file_get_contents($filename);
  if (is_numeric($count)) {
    $count++;
    @file_put_contents($filename,$count,LOCK_EX);
    $_SESSION['visitor_counter'] = $count;
  }
} else {
  $count = $_SESSION['visitor_counter'];
}
$width = (strlen($count)*8)+8;
$im = @imagecreate($width, 18);
$background_color = imagecolorallocate($im,255,255,255);
$text_color = imagecolorallocate($im,0,0,0);
imagestring($im,4,4,2,$count,$text_color);
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>
- - End Script Here - -

The count value is stored in a file counter.dat.  Create a starter counter.dat file with notepad with a good starting value (say 50 - give yourself a few starter hits).  You can cheat any time just by changing the value in counter.dat with notepad.

Put your web page, counter.php and counter.dat in the same directory.


If you want an invisible counter (cannot be seen on the page), you can simply use the following <img> tag in the html page:

<img src="counter.php" alt="" style="display: none;">


If you would like a comma in the number if the number is more than 3 digits, then add this line just before the $width calculation:

if (strlen($count)>3) $count = substr($count,0,strlen($count)-3) . "," . substr($count,strlen($count)-3,3);


If you are using a PHP page and want to include the counter in a text line rather than display it as an image, as is done at the bottom of this page, you can simply replace the bottom half of the script (everything after the if/else test) with this one line:

echo "You are visitor $count since January, 2004";

Do not use the <img> tag, but rather use a php include('counter.php'); where you want the counter on your page.


Note - If the user's browser is blocking cookies, then the counter will count each page hit rather than browser sessions.


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