Hey Dave! I'm only about twenty years behind here, but I want to start building my own Web site and am kind of drawing a blank on where I should store the files. I think that's called "site hosting" [ed. yeah, it is :-) ] but every single person I talk with is somewhere else, so I'm at a bit of a loss. Where should I host my new Web site? Don't need much, it's probably not going to be too busy...

I've been trying to figure out whether there's a way that I can automate digging through the "referrals" on my site so I can see what searches people did to end up on one of my Web site pages. I'm running a Linux server and have Apache installed, so I get a huge log file with tons of info. But what I'd love is a simple script that will let me get email once a week with a sorted list of what searches people did to get to me. Doable?

I keep hearing from you and others that I really need to be tracking how people use my Web site and that I should be collecting "aggregate traffic statistics" and such. I've heard that Google Analytics is good - and the price, free, is great - but I'm not really clear how to use it and add it to my site. Can you please step me through the process, Dave? Thanks!

Giving out a link to take a survey is pretty easy, but I think it would be much easier if I could just put a survey directly it into my website. So my questions is, how do I put a survey into my website without having to send out a link?

I've been using Movable Type almost as long as you have, Dave, and just noticed that the way you name your blog entry archives is pretty different to how Movable Type 4 does it by default. I'm setting up a new blog for my sister and would like to see if I can mirror your archive filename format. My question is: how do you change the template file naming scheme in MT4?

Okay, so I have been reading some of your other blog entries here and you've written both about how to convert street addresses into map data coordinates (see convert street map addresses into latitude and longitude) and how to import Keystone map data (KML) files into Google Maps (see Import KML data files into Google Maps). My question lies in the middle: how do I take lat/long data and create a KML data file?

We hired a company to produce a Google Maps data file so we could produce a custom map of all our business office locations across the United States and they supplied us with a XML data file. I have no idea what to do next. Help!

I'm really wanting to get into the field of hacking. It's something I've always wanted to do. It seems, however, that whenever the question of "how do I learn to hack" is asked, it is usually responded to with the over-used statement "Teach yourself."

I know that hacking is a skill that is built over time, and I'm well aware that it cannot simply be taught. Still, there has to be some form of advice that you can give me as to where to begin. I simply have no idea how i would go about hacking a website or database. It's hard to teach yourself something when you don't even know the basics.

At this point, I'm still pretty clueless. I have a general working understanding of Batch and HTML coding, but nothing more. I'm just wondering if you can give me some tips on where to begin. Where can i learn the basics, and what sort of code/programs would be most helpful?

What is the HTML needed to add an ASK.COM search box or search form to my web page? Thanks.

I wanted to implement a similar thing to what you show on add a custom eBay search box to your site on my eBay store site, but I'd rather have a neat little box in a position of my choice, instead of using the ugly default eBay side menu. Is there a way to customise the search form so it only searches within my eBay store? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

I've been building a celebrity blog and want to add a simple feature where readers can get the filmography and latest projects for movie stars like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. So what I want is to have pre-defined searches (on IMDB, preferably) for specified actors and actresses and also allow users to type in another name if they'd like. How do I do that??

Thanks for all the help re: adding a Google search box to web site... BUT, what I really want to do is have a button that when clicked will submit a SPECIFIC querry to google from within my web page. I guess its the equivalent of replacing the querry box input mechanism with a predefined text string... how do I do that? or... maybe just being able to pass parameters to google search... is any of this possible?

I just learned about Google Webmaster Tools and am psyched to learn how to use them. My first puzzle, however, is how to "verify" my site with the tools. Can you explain that, please?

I'm frustrated as heck! I clicked on a URL and next thing I knew I was on a completly different site that was quite, um, inappropriate for work. I know how to write a redirect in my own script, but I am wondering: how can I unwrap, decode, slow down or trace a sequence of redirects so I can see what's going on? If it helps, I have a Linux system I can use for the task.

I recently enabled a search widget from Lijit on my blog and it works awesomely well, except for one little problem. Apparently some people are searching for weird and unpleasant things on my site and their searches are showing up in the "search cloud" on the Lijit widget. Not good. Not what I want at all. How can I clean that up?

You have a custom domain, everyone seems to have a domain for themselves except me. I'm stumped. How do I find an available domain and buy it?

You seem to be the wizard of unwrapping searches on sites and showing how to add them on our own Web sites, which is awesome. I saw - and really liked - your article on how to add a Google search box to my site but instead of searching Google, I want to search Google Images. Doable?

I'm making a website that helps kids at my school find nearby restaurants. I wanted directions by bus, and there's a Trip Planner site that will plan the bus trip. How can I make it so that visitors can click the link and have the starting and ending addresses pre-filled in?

I've been talking with a lot of my peers and become very interested in wikis. I love the idea of pure collaboration and as I have my own Linux server box, I'd love to be able to just install a wiki application on my box and play with it, but I am lost at that point. How do you figure out what wiki app to use and install it?

I'm addicted. First it was America's Funniest Home Videos, now it's YouTube. There are just too darn many hilarious videos on the site. What I really want, though, is to be able to add a YouTube search to my own site so people can easily find all the funny stuff there. Is that doable?

I want to add some high-end animation and transitions to my Web site and figure that I need something written in Flash. I also want to add a fun game to the site. That, my friends tell me, should be written in Shockwave. Now I'm confused. What is the difference between Flash and Shockwave?

I know you have shown how to add a Google search box and such to my site (see Add Google search to your site) and even saw that you've written about how to utilize Google Custom Search (see Add Google Custom Search to your site), but I want to implement a cool widget I saw on another site from Lijit. Do you have any info on that?

I just saw your cool article on how to add a pull-down menu letting people translate the pages of my Web site into any of a dozen different languages (see make your site available in multiple languages) but I would prefer to have tiny little flags for different languages and when someone clicks on the flag, the page is translated into that language. Know what I mean? Can you do that and still use Google Translate?

I know that it's not optimal, but I want to make the product information pages on my online store available in a bunch of different languages without paying the major bucks to get a professional translator to maintain them. I know that services like Babelfish let you enter a URL and get the contents translated automatically, but is there some way to hook that into a site directly?

I've seen some very nice Google-sponsored search systems on sites like StickerGiant and am wondering how hard that is to implement? I know you've written about how to add a Google search box on your site (see How to add a Google search box to your site), but I'm talking about how to have the search results on my site itself.

One of the features added to the latest revision of the Apple iPhone operating system that's garnered quite a bit of attention is the ability to save Web page bookmark icons directly on the main screen of the phone. Experimentation reveals that some sites have cool icons while most are just miniature representations of the Web site. What's the difference? Read on and find out, including step-by-step directions on how you can easily ensure your own site (or blog!) has a custom iPhone icon too.

I saw your answer regarding how to modify a Google search box to only look through a specified subdirectory on my site (see Search only subdirectory in Google) and it's interesting, but where's the actual code? I need something I can cut and paste, please!

Hi Dave. Maybe I've missed this somewhere, but how do I get the search to only look at one directory in my domain? I'm looking for it to only search files in my help file, but not to look in the rest of the site. I'm unsuccessful. I looked at that bot thing, and i didn't see an answer [cf how to add a Google search box to your site]

So, for example, it currently looks at www.mywebsite.com, but I want it to look at www.mywebsite.com/directoryA. Is there a way to do that? Entering that path simply returns 0 results.

I've been using Google Analytics to track what's going on with my main Web site and now have a second site. Is there some easy way to have Analytics track both, or do I need to sign up for a second account?

I've seen a number of different sites where you can drag a link onto your bookmark bar in a browser and then have that bookmark act as a tiny little program that grabs and sends specific information. I want one like that for a bookmark program of my own, where I have a CGI backend and want to be able to visit a page, click on my link, and have the URL of that page handed to my script. Does that make sense?

Dave, I got the search box into my site (as detailed here: Add an eBay search box to your Web site) but I need to be able to use it to search both title and description. I have not had any luck getting that part in. I need this because I encode the description of an eBay listing with a specific number giving my customers an easy way to look at their items only. Thanks for the help

I read your note about how to add an Amazon.com search box to your site and it's very cool, but what I want to know is: What if I want the search to only search a certain keyword, Example "Honda Parts"?

Amazon.com's jumped on the wagon, and Meebo has too: they automatically give you a different version of their site if you're browsing from an Apple iPhone. I want to do that too. How the heck do I detect that a visitor has an iPhone?

My boss had a great suggestion for our local business web site: create a stock index like the S&P 500 that's just comprised of companies in our area. He said we should add it to our site but I honestly have no idea how to do that. Help!

I'm looking to improve the close rate on my ecommerce site and have noticed that many successful online stores have various trust, security and hacker-proof seals and certifications. How do they work, which are worthwhile, and how much do they cost? Most importantly, will adding one of these actually improve my online sales?

I see you've posted articles explaining how to put a Google Search Box and Search Results on a website. (see add Google search to your site). But is it possible to be able to store the search phrases typed into the Google search boxes? This way I can analyze the data to know what people are searching for, then create more content on that subject.

I'm intrigued by Google Calendar's public calendar search capability and am wondering if there's any way to reverse engineer it and add it to my own site. Possible?

I've noticed that on some of the more slick Web 2.0-style Web sites, you can click on the text description adjacent to a checkbox and have it act as if you'd clicked on the checkbox itself, just as you can with regular Windows dialog box elements. How the heck do they do that?

What is Web 2.0 and should I employ any of these innovations on my site?

I found instructions for adding a cool Google search box to an html/xhtml site, here on askdavetaylor. I want to add a similar Wikipedia search box to my website. Any advice on where I can get code to do this?

I run a fairly busy Web site with a variety of different image directories. The problem is, Apache shows directories in a fairly rudimentary way which makes it quite difficult to find a specific image if I don't remember its name. Is there a better way with some sort of shell scripting?

I really like the Google search box you demonstrate on this site, but I want to add a search box on my site for Drugstore.com, and can't figure out how to do it. I thought I had it all working, but it's not. Can you help me out? I'll be forever in your debt!

I'm really upset. I was just visiting a competitors Web site and found out that they had links to my FAQ pages, but when you clicked on the links, their "frame" neatly wrapped my content, which made it seem like it was their content, not mine. That stinks, and I want to know if there's a way that I can kill or prevent this from happening to my Web pages?

I would like to add the days current stock on my web page. I read your answer to someones questions about adding the current weather, I would like to do the same but with stocks.

I just read about Google Checkout (at your site, actually: Introducing Google Checkout and I"m inspired to add "buy now" buttons for this service to my page in addition to the Paypal buttons I already have. Can you step me through the process, please?

I saw your article about adding an eBay search box to your site - very cool - and would like to find out how I can add a search box for Google's Froogle shopping service to my page. Ideally, I'd like to have it open up in a new window when someone does a search. Can you help me out?

I just checked and apparently both the "domain.com" and "www.domain.com" work for my site, bringing up the same page with different URLs. According to an SEO buddy of mine, that's a bad thing. Is it? And if so, how can I tweak my web server configuration to fix it?

Hello I have a website and I show the time using:

<?php
\011

$fecha = time ();
\011echo "Date: " . date ( "j/m/Y" )."&nbsp;&nbsp;";
\011echo "Time: " .

date ( "h:i A" , $date )

But the time in my webserver is different from my time and I wanna display my time in my website, how can I modify the time? for example if the time in my server says 5pm i want to show 6pm

I hate to sound like a groupie or something, but I love your site, Dave, and I'd love to be able to include a little box somewhere on my own site that featured your latest entries! Is this doable, and if so, how do I do it?

I'm looking to make a Sony PSP optimized website, but I want it so that it can only be viewed by the PSP and if viewed in a normal pc internet browser, you have a message saying "please visit us using your psp" or something along those lines. How do I do that?

I have a new Web site and I'd really like to be able to add a little weather "bug" to it so people can check on the weather in my neighborhood. I've looked at some sites that offer weather forecasts but am completely befuddled. How do I add a weather forecast box to my Web site?

I'm running phpBB for my site discussion forums and really like it, but I'd like to slip some advertising between forum posts #1 and #2 on my pages. For the life of me, though, I just can't figure it out. Can you help out?

I've been hearing a bit of a buzz lately about a new Web technology called Ajax, but I have no idea what it is or even how to find out more about it. Help?

My question is about the Technorati search box. How do I move the search box over to the right so it's not jutting outside the sidebar?

I maintain a website for a grammar school and I would like to put a form in on our alumni page with their name, graduating year and email address. I can create the form on Frontpage or Dreamweaver, but I don't quite get how the info is sent out. I would like the info sent to a particular email address but I don't know where to put that email address. Can you help?

Dave, I have a few different books and audio CDs I'd like to sell and am wondering if you can recommend a quick and fast way for me to add some sort of an online store on my Web site so it's "commerce enabled", even a rudimentary one?

I would like your recommendation on integrating php scripts on the website to create free membership or paid membership access only web pages. Are there any books that teach you how to do that in the most simplest way? I'm quite new to website building and still in the process of learning html. I would appreciate your advice. Thank you.

Dave, you can restore my sanity. I'm trying to get the Technorati searchlet to work on my Web site and the darn thing just isn't working out right. I've even blogged about it to no avail. Help!

I really enjoyed your article about the "mail to" problem many of us rely on for folks to contact us for one reason or another.

While I am just a geekette wanna-be, and am at best a stumbling dabbler in script and coding, I was wondering if you could share greater detail about how you scripted your contact form? When I took a look at the source code, not that I understand a lot of it, I was unable to determine how the message gets to where it needs to go without specifying the destination in the HTML?

Dave, I need your help. I'm updating my Web site for The David Lawrence Show and would like to display 'ON THE AIR' between 7p and 10p PT (3a to 6a GMT) Monday through Saturday, and 'OFF THE AIR' the rest of the time. How do I do this? Later, I can easily replace this displayed text with an image tag once I find an on-air light graphic that doesn't look like it's from 1943. :-)

Dave, we've got a problem. I help run a Web site and we're finding that there's one troll out there (yes, I read your article on trolls a few days ago!) who keeps showing up and posting inflammatory comments, really ruining the guest book for everyone else. Is there a way to selective block one person without just tossing the whole guestbook out?

Dave, being a new web developer I would like to know how I can code for a numeric value to decrease by 1 every 24 hours based on the local time function.

Specifically, we are trying to create a reminder for our employees of an upcoming DoD audit in the facility. The count down will represent the number of days remaining before it's conducted. So what I need to do is begin with a date and start the countdown from there. What is the code that I should use?

And here's how to do just that...

I am following your book Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS and am trying to protect a subdirectory on my website. The following is the .htaccess code

AuthUserFile /www.bvg.us/uswholesale/uspasswords/passwords.txt
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Please enter your login name and password"
AuthType Basic

<Limit GET>
require user weiyang
require user annawei
</Limit>

The "passwords.txt" reads

user weiyang:wy
user annawei:aw

By doing so, I can get the "log in" box but can not login with the info that I set. Could you help me on this?

I know about the ".htaccess" file as a way of protecting entire directories, but I'm wondering if I can use the ".htaccess" file to require a username and password in order to access a single file while allowing the rest of the directory to remain open?

For this experiment, I decided that I'd like to have a new sentence on the intuitive systems home page that always showed the two most recent entries in my intuitive life weblog...

Your intuitive.com site (which I love, by the way! great site!) has a custom error page when I enter a bad URL. I've seen that elsewhere too, but don't really know how to do it. Any hints?

First off, here's the JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
// Script written by Dave Taylor based on some math suggested by
// Bennett Haselton @ Peacefire.org. Thanks Bennett!

function centNotation(value)
{
  // return the value in normalized dollars.cents notation

  dollars = Math.floor(value);  // chop floating point portion
  cents   = Math.floor((value % 1) * 100);              // and chop everything else
  if (cents < 10) cents = "" + cents + "0";

  return(dollars + "." + cents);
}

Can one develop a web site for e-commerce that utilizes a shopping cart function and credit card processing without the use of JavaScript? Perhaps this question is addressed later in portions of the book I haven't gotten to yet.

"I'm trying to create a guestbook using the forms and CGI's, but I'm stuck as to how to link the form to the server. The sign page is at <guestadd.html> and I would like the view page to be at <guestbook.html>. What I did was use a somewhat template form of guestbook provided by our web host, and, after editing the sign page (new additions are "Current Division" and "Mu Alpha Theta Chapter"), wanted the additions to appear on guestbook.html, but I don't know how to do that..."

How do you think that i could make a login page with a password using CGI script?