Low End Mac's Online Tech Journal

More Link Automation and PHP Frustration

Website Automation with PHP and MySQL, Part 15

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: New 2008 iMac 2GB $42 / iMac Intel Core2 DUO & MacBook Pro 2GB $36 - 1GB $20. MacPro 8 Core Memory 8GB kit $286 / 4GB kit $143 / 2GB kit $93 -- Free shipping available. LIfetime warranty.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, Apple Batteries and Apple A/C Adapters. Also Great prices on Used Apple Computers. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

OWC: OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW400/800/USB2/eSATA Portables High Performance A/V Rated, **Bus Powered** **Up to 500GB in the Palm of your Hand** Macworld Editor's Choice, CNET 'Very Good' - from $75.99!

Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.

MacPro Memory 667Mhz With Apple Spec Heat Sink 2GB $ 82 / 4GB $128 / 8GB $256 - Click to Maximize your Macs...

Dan Knight - 2002.07.31

Back in the Apple II+ era, my boss bought an Apple II+ system - and I discovered that I really enjoyed BASIC programming. AppleSoft BASIC was related to the Microsoft BASIC used by Commodore, CP/M machines, and most of the others.

The challenge was learning how BASIC worked by modifying programs, learning how the various dialects worked by converting them to AppleSoft BASIC (and later Commodore BASIC when I bought a VIC-20, GW-BASIC on my Zenith DOS machine, as well as Turbo BASIC and Quick BASIC).

Then I got a Mac, and I stopped programming - unless you count defining relationships between fields in Excel, FileMaker, and ClarisWorks programming. I never did get the hang of HyperCard and still don't understand AppleScript.

I don't pretend to understand PHP. I'm learning slowly, and I'm much less dependent on Brian and Steve for assistance, but when I need a fresh set of eyes to find a programming bug, one of them usually comes through.

I'm learning enough PHP to do what I want to do. And I've discovered that PHP isn't terribly well documented. A lot of the sample code I download from PHP.net doesn't work without some modification, and some of the information is simply wrong. That's frustrating.

Reading Email

My big programming project for the summer was going to be writing an email list management program that could handle dozens of lists while using a single subscription database. Anyone who runs a few busy lists probably knows the frustration of receiving "take me off your list" emails from subscribers who don't tell you which list.

That's one thing my program will address.

But instead of making progress, I've been stuck for almost a week trying to use the imap_open function. This is supposed to let me open a mailbox, then read and display the headers. Using the example on the PHP.net site (modified for my test address and password), I get error messages no matter what I do.

This is very frustrating, because I need to have this figured out before I can go anywhere with the project. And the imap_open function could also form the basis for creating a personal program to remove spam from my mailboxes.

More Low End Mac Automation

That may be frustrating, but this morning I began another aspect of automating things on Low End Mac.

When we publish new editorial content, we include a list of recent links at the end of the article. For some content, this is a generic "recent content" list, but for regular columns, we usually link to the 3 or 4 most recent articles in that series followed by other recent links on the site.

This morning I began automating that using pretty much the same techniques discussed in part 12. The big difference is a new section that displays the three most recent articles in that column (such as Mac Scope - our sample) and then recent links excluding those from that column.

I'm not going to post all the code, but here are the relevant parts:

$get_links = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM links WHERE timestamp <= $rightnow and columnname = 'Mac Scope' ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 3");
while ($array = mysql_fetch_array($get_links))
{
echo "<li><a href=\"$array[path]$array[html]\">$array[linktext]</a>, ";
$shortdate = $array[pubdate];
$shortdate = substr ($shortdate, -5);
$shortdate = strtr ($shortdate, '-', '.');
echo "$shortdate.
$array[description]</li>";
}
 
echo "<li>More in the <a href=/musings/index.shtml>Mac Scope index</a>.</li>";

The first line finds the three most recent Mac Scope columns and sorts them in descending order by date. The subroutine displays the column title, link, date, and description. Since Mac Scope is always written by Stephen Van Esch, there's no need to display the author's name or the column title (Mac Scope) here.

The rest of the code is almost unchanged from what we came up with in part 12. The only real difference is excluding Mac Scope columns:

$get_links = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM links WHERE pubdate = '$latestdate[pubdate]' and timestamp <= $rightnow and columnname != 'Mac Scope' ORDER BY rank DESC");

The != is PHP's way of saying "not equal," which some languages write as <> and your math teacher probably taught you as an equal sign with a slash through it.

Once I had the script working properly, all I had to do was change the calls that had been made to a manually updated include file and instead call my PHP script. It works beautifully.

What Next?

For now, I'm pretty happy with how things are working. It'll take some time to get all of the sections updated with these new scripts, but there's no big hurry - nor is it a tedious job.

I'd eventually like to work on a submission system where writers could turn in articles online, maybe even writing some PHP to analyze content and take a stab at picking the best words to use in META tags. But there's no hurry.

The next big project will be Email List Automation Using PHP and MySQL. Assuming I can solve the imap_open problem.

Recent Online Tech Journal Columns

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Go to the Online Tech Journal index.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2008 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Best Used Macs
Video Cards
Email Lists
InfoMac's Low
End Mac Forum

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
MacResQ
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.