Thomas Penwell

I have a simple problem. When I build a new website for a potental client, I write a custom coded feedback script with an attempt to curb spam robots from spamming my customers with unwanted feedback or trying to sell them SEO services. So........

I decided to write a universal generic feedback management system that can use all my tricks for detecting spam robots. Let me give a bit of a rundown of what people who write these bots do.

Companies (such as SEO services and competing designers) write robots to scan websites for feedback forms, read the fields, and insert their own sales pitch in those fields and submits them to the website. They then submit to thousands (or more) of websites in the hopes of getting customers (or even taking customers away from me. gasp!)

One of the most effective methods I have used to detect spam bots is to use fields which are hidden to the user by use of CSS code.

Ex:

<div style="display: none"><input type="text" name="My_Hidden_Field" value=""></div>


Robots see the "text" field and it will fill out the field. Users will not see this field. In the script, simply check the css hidden fields for non-null values.

The TWD Feedback Management System is a simple and powerful management system for website feedback. It stores the form data in a mysql database, and includes various features for detecting spam bots. This system has an addon system that allows me to write any custom code I need on a per-client basis. I include a feature for my clients that allows them to report spam to me.

I am currently in the process of beta testing, if you would like to beta test, please contact me.

Link: http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Scripts/twd_events

These past few weeks I have been working on a simple to use and neat looking Calender and Events system. And so twd_events is born.

I took a different approach to this project and made it sort of "modular" sortof like wordpress is. Coders can write 2 different types of "modules", the visual kind: Themes; and the coded kind: Plugins. Check out a preview at http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Scripts/twd_events

Currently this system is considered beta status as it is not 100% complete or tested. If you would like to help with testing, please contact me for more information.

I've decided to reorganize all the in-house scripts that I write. They have been moved to http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Scripts

Link: http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Scripts/minialbum/

Today I decided to write a small gallery script that was simple to use and easy to upload images and pictures to.

so... MiniAlbum was born.

MiniAlbum is a very simple gallery script that will read the contents of a directory defined in the settings and output a gallery view of it. It will also automatically generate thumbnails as necessary of those images. Then to add an images to your gallery, simply upload the images to the directory specified in the settings file.

Since this script will read image width and height data every time it is called, it is not practical for large galleries or a large number of albums.

MiniAlbum also makes use of my custom coded template library to make it easy for a web designer such as myself to alter the look of each image output by this script.

This script is free for my clients to use. They just need to send me a ticket request or they can contact me to install it on their domain. For all others, please contact me for licence information.

For more information and to see a demo of this script in action, goto http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Scripts/minialbum/

Link: http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Articles/SSI/

I was searching the net for info on how to use Server Side Includes (SSI) to display time limited content. I did not find any code examples so I had to write my own.

I have now added a "Technical Resources" section to my company's website and have published an article on SSI to it. The code sample I've written for time limited content along with some other samples have been published at http://www.tomswebdesign.net/Articles/SSI/

About a week ago I had someone call me about installing a new image gallery system. I recommended the 4images gallery and they were sold on it. I installed 4images gallery on their server and adjusted the style sheet colors to match that of their forum.

My client was pleased with this new gallery system, however she wanted it to be able to display a "Buy Now" link through paypal for select items. So I went through hundreds of lines of php code (php isn't quite my bread and butter.) I was able to modify queries to add an item price field to the image upload form. This field is used to display a Paypal "Buy Now" link for any image uploaded with an item price set. If I recall correctly, I had to add/modify code in about 12 places.

you can view this specific gallery at http://www.meca1.com/gallery/

Related Links:
4images gallery homepage: http://www.4homepages.de/