Author Topic: Making a donation ... (Read 21,474 times)

NickW · « **on:** October 19, 2005, 01:05 PM »

To all/anybody at DonationCoder.com,

Thanks for the Process Tamer.
May I ask a question? I'm using Windows XP SP2. The "system" process (not system idle) regularly ramps up to +90% CPU usage. I've run multiple virus checks which have found nothing. Any ideas?

I am more than happy to make a donation but I prefer to use PayPal for all of my online transaction - add PayPal and I'll make a donation.

All the best,

Nick

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #1 on:** October 19, 2005, 01:37 PM »

PayPal is already there? Or it was when I joined ...

See http://www.donationcoder.com/Donate/DonateMethod.html

NickW · « **Reply #2 on:** October 19, 2005, 01:56 PM »

Carol,
Bizarre, when I clicked on the donations page it just showed me credit card options!
Thanks for that.
Now if I can just get an answer to the system process cpu loading I'll be happy (or happier than I am right now!).
Nick

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #3 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:14 PM »

What other processes and services have you got running?

Any of them showing unusual activity?

NickW · « **Reply #4 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:24 PM »

Carol,

Thanks for the mails.

Donation now made.
hadn't looked at the click-buttons properly, I thought they were credit card buttons, once I'd clicked through I found the PayPal and Amazon buttons.
How silly do I feel? Don't answer that.

Slow process - I had decided (at about the same time that I got a mail from Mouser) that it was something to do with the NOD32 (virus) scanner. I've now uninstalled NOD32 and re-booted the PC and it's been running fine (no 100% CPU use) for the last 20 minutes.

Thanks,

Nick

PS Now stop reading these forum messages and get those websites finished!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #5 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:26 PM »

Quote

PS Now stop reading these forum messages and get those websites finished!

Gonna take more than finishing ....

I really want to scrap them and start over ... somehow I think it is going to be a while before it happens ...

NickW · « **Reply #6 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:29 PM »

Carol,
What's wrong with them?
What do you want to show?
Nick

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #7 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:37 PM »

The content never appeared (a lot of the stuff there has sat for two years or more).

I have a lot of ideas for stuff I'd like to put on Playoutdoors - but I'd really like it to become a community thing. That's why when it is up and running I am going to include a better (no crap) forum, based on the same software as this one, and a 'Wiki' so that people can contribute their experiences and stuff that interests them. Lairdswood is more personal - really just stuff I am interested in, but again I would like it to grow.

Ideally I'd like to pull the two sites together so there will be a common forum structure and interlinks between the two.

In order to do this I want to change how the site is designed to make it more content driven, and easier to update and organise.

Trouble is I am learning as I go along ... so it all takes for ever, and generating enough content takes a long time too ...

NickW · « **Reply #8 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:59 PM »

Carol,
For anything other than a standard static "here are my holiday" pictures site, going down the content-driven is definitely the best thing to do.
I think it's a toss-up between development and content
- being a programmer I prefer the development of the code which will drive the site and it's features than I do the entering of the content
- but without any content it's going to be a pretty boring site!
I'm currently working solo on an online catalogue and also an online shop and the above is definitely the case so I find myself concentrating on the wrong things i.e. code.
Have you decided which language you are going to use for the back-end code?
Or maybe you could just go down the site-builder route - definitely a lot quicker though less freedom.
Ok, got to get on. Have a good evening,
Nick

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #9 on:** October 19, 2005, 04:32 PM »

Quote from: NickW on October 19, 2005, 03:59 PM

Have you decided which language you are going to use for the back-end code?

I was toying with learning ASP. I use Adobe GoLive which has good support for ASP but I'm not sure I have the time (or the energy) to learn it.

Any other suggestions gratefully received.

I may just go down the route of linked BLOG, Wiki and Forum, and other pages using CSS.

Given that the Wiki and Forum software I am playing with are PHP based I suppose I should really get into using PHP !!

Mouser (if you read this) what was the Blog software you mentioned to me today - I forgot to note the name down?

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** October 19, 2005, 04:38 PM »

movabletype is the commercial one that supports lots of independent blogs
(we use this but probably would NOT use it again if starting from scratch).

wordpress is the nice open source one that seems like it might be the way to go:
http://wordpress.org/

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #11 on:** October 19, 2005, 04:45 PM »

Thanks, it was wordpress you mentioned.

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** October 19, 2005, 04:46 PM »

i'm a huge fan of PayPal and it is in fact the far preferred way of donation to this site (reasons listed on donation page).

i took another look at the donation page and i wonder if what may have thrown you off is that the big images for going to the donate method pages show an image with what looks like only visa/mastercard picture, and that may have been what gave you the erroneous opinion?

maybe we need to change those images so that they include a little paypal logo among them?

NickW · « **Reply #13 on:** October 19, 2005, 04:53 PM »

Mouser,

Jeez, when do you get any work done, are you monitoring EVERY forum!

I didn't really look at the page text properly, yes, I assumed they were credit card buttons.
Don't worry about it if I'm the only one who's experience the problem.

By the way, I want to include PayPal into my online store which is based in Spain so the text has to be in Spanish but I don't yet speak Spanish. I noticed that the only way I could get the PayPal screen to be in Spanish was to change the PayPal admin screens to Spanish. The admin option indicates that you're changing the admin screen language but it also changes the front-end language. I contacted PayPal about this but they weren't that helpful. Am I doing something wrong? Do you know of any way of setting the admin screens and the front-end screens to different languages?

Thanks for your help ... and don't forget about the PHP books, sites, etc advice!

Nick

NickW · « **Reply #14 on:** October 19, 2005, 04:58 PM »

Carol,

I'm inclined to advise you to take the easiest route i.e. let other do the hard work and just use their tools.

If you insist on writing code then I can't really advise as to which you should use as I've only used ASP & VBScript.

Mouser has obviously done PHP which a lot of people rave about.
For PHP development I haven't got a clue - I'm sure there are free development kits out there (please tell me because I need to know) but I don't know where they are.

To develope ASP at home you'll need Windows XP Pro with IIS installed and a text editor - yes, you could use a fancy editing tool (e.g. Dreamweaver) but a text editor will get you started - I use jEdit which is a fancy freeware editor from www.jedit.org - but there are loads of editors out there.
And if you want a content-driven site then you're going to have to opt for XML or a database ... or both - Microsoft Access will do to start with.
I suggest taking some demo code and making light changes to see the effect.
It's very gratifying seeing the results of your first script - and the beauty of database-driven (and something which people don't always understand) is that once you've written the code it will work with 2 entries or 200.

Have a play with all 4 options
- WIKI, Forum, etc
- Site Builder (your domain may have a free one)
- PHP
- ASP
and decide which works best for you.

All the best and good luck,

Nick

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #15 on:** October 19, 2005, 08:56 PM »

Cheers - good advice ...

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:06 PM »

the site content manager tools, like Drupal, are getting really really good,
and tend to include everything, contents, blogs, wikis,etc.

there was another post on the forum discussing this in the past.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #17 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:43 PM »

Oo err ... that does look good ... for anyone else interested you can see it at http://drupal.org/

Guess what my first Blog is going to be about ...

NickW · « **Reply #18 on:** October 19, 2005, 10:01 PM »

Mouser and Carol,
Drupal looks VERY nice.
I can't figure out what's in it for them to give away this beautiful product - any ideas?
It's PHP based so unless you want 2 servers that will dictate your programming language ... if you're going to do any programming!
I'll be looking into this ... now what kind of site should I set up, hmmm.
Later,
Nick

mouser · « **Reply #19 on:** October 23, 2005, 03:50 PM »

a product like drupal can sometimes get corporate funding from companies that use it.

brotherS · « **Reply #20 on:** October 23, 2005, 04:12 PM »

Quote from: NickW on October 19, 2005, 03:24 PM

Slow process - I had decided (at about the same time that I got a mail from Mouser) that it was something to do with the NOD32 (virus) scanner. I've now uninstalled NOD32 and re-booted the PC and it's been running fine (no 100% CPU use) for the last 20 minutes.

NOD32's worm protection interferes with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2P programs. Might be that?

Also, do you regularly check your PC for malware?

NickW · « **Reply #21 on:** October 23, 2005, 04:33 PM »

brotherS,
Maybe NOD32 does interfere with P2P programs ... but I'm not using any.
I contacted them about this and they asked me to re-install it in SAFE MODE and then run a full scan.
I did that, ran the scan which took over an hour, no problems.
I left NOD32 installed but within a day the processor slow-downs were getting irritatingly noticeable so it's gone again.
Shame, as it's meant to perform it's virus-scanning very well.