Email Address

(February 8 - April 11)

Read some emails on your mobile concerning mom's computer. First of all, I have a hack which can get her Windows to update, unless some bozo or she updated it in a way which she wasn't supposed to. I tried to explain this to her but figured I might as well be talking to a wall. Anyway, there's this thing called Genuine Windows something and which you can download as part of Windows Update. I always check everything I download, and obviously did not download this thing, so I do not have such a problem, and continue to download updates without a problem. So I have that hack if you want to try that. I also have the smtp thing I can offer her on my server, so that she does not have to worry about finding the smtp settings of the internet provider everytime she goes travelling. So I can set that up for her too. Otherwise, when she's back in Van, perhaps you could find out what the big deal problem is with her computer. I'm almost a Windows expert, with lots of hack software, so I may be able to help long distance. Did you say you paid 800 bucks for some reboot or something?? laterman

On the anti-spam email soft thing, I have tested out some 7, but most of them failed the tests. Moreover, although it was not mentioned on their website, many were built only for Outlook only so were limited from this point of view. Here are a few that seem to work though, but as I cannot guarantee 100% for any of them, I really do not want payment for this search.

1. Spam Gate (seemed one of the best), cost varies from 6USD/month to 13USD/month or 50 USD/year to 100USD/year depending on the chosen service pack. More details here:
http://www.spam-gate.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=6
2. Zaep- seems very good but is very expensive-almost 150$, one-time buy. More here: http://www.zaep.com/features/
3. Spam Eater Pro. Actually this is the best I have found, is not bound to Outlook, it has bouncing feature, I tested it and it works, there is a 30-day free trial period, cost 24.95 USD (if you buy from 1 to 9 licenses, is cheaper if more but do not think it is the case). Can be found here: http://www.hms.com/spameater.asp

As I said, I have tested more but they either did not work or even from features listed on their website it was clear that they did not have what you are looking for.
Here are the spam filters that do not match requirements/failed tests(always took the latest version into account):

1. K9 version 1.28
2. PP Mail Check version 2.1
3. Email CRX 1.5.6
4. 007 Email Verify Express 4.5.0 !!! not actually a spam filter but can be used when sending out mass emails, cost 40$, more here: http://www.soft32.com/download_4341.html
5. ASSP 1.2.6
6. Mail Snoop Pro version 1.14.022
7. Spam Blocker 2.3.07.
8. No Spam Today
9. Anti-Spam Bastion
10. Email Pal 5.0
11. Virus Cop 2.00

I'm having problems with my previous spamguard Choicemail, which dad suggested to me. Seems to be something wrong with the database structure on the server or something. Tried to resolve it forever, several experts were trying, and I'm just giving up. Do you know of another program which uses this challenge email system? Some normal filter system which I constantly have to educate is not good for me, considering how much spam i get. My email addresses are advertised on the internet, and I need to continue with that, in search of customer and translators. So this challenge things is ideal for me.

I know you tired with all this but can't you check again if you follow such order of steps: 1.Remove CM (uninstall and delete folder) 2.Set up your mail-client (Outlook or other) with mail-server to receive and send. And check it for correct sending and receiveing. 3.Setup CM. On this step CM must found mail-client's settings and adjust it with itself. Well, I guess I'll have to try some different programs. I am getting way too much spam and need to resolve this somehow. With such their support I guess it is reasonable decision.

well, tried it all again. Set up my Outlook Express so that it downloads from only volny.cz account, with smtp, tested everything, and worked okay. Uninstalled Choicemail, and cleaned it from the registry as well. Then I installed in and used its wizard to hook it up with Express, and the same things happened. I even turned off the Desknow server, but the same result that there was a data mismatch and it could not download mail to the database. I spent a few hours looking for another program, and found one site which had a very long list of different programs with explanations, downloaded one, but it is too simple. I need this type of spamblock which sends out challenge messages, forcing the sender to go to a website and prove they are real, after which they are automatically put on my whitelist. Actually, I'd prefer a system which sends an email and all the sender needs to do is press Reply, without going to some website, because many people are lazy about this and don't bother going to a website. But all the systems I've found were Unix based. You think its possible to install one of those onto my server somehow? Or do you have any other suggestions? Right now I'll start using Desknow's filter, but it is labourious, not perfect, and the challenge type would be much better. Or if you could figure out how to get Choicemail working, because that was a perfect system and totally knocked out all my spam. I must get about a thousand a day now.

I remember we were having that discussion about vcd files. Just rented some movies and it occurred to me that, whatever program that pops up when I stick in the vcd should be able to play that individual file. Then I copied the file to my computer, for an experiment I changed the .dat to .avi, and then it worked like usual. So simple. And several programs allow playlists, so I just created a playlist and it worked without a glitch. Before I was trying to join two .avi files into one, but obviously this approach is so simple and it works. Guess I was smoking dope too much in Prague that something like this would not even occur to me.

Is is possible to travel or live anywhere in Europe and get Wi-Fi internet connection, like out of a flat?

cau dude, no, not easy. You got to do some hunting, but it is spreading like a virus, so I hope it will be almost everywhere in five years.

Do you use a toll-free business phone number, so anyone anywhere can call and get a translation?

No, only mobile, but you should be able to get some deal with Skype, and there are other packages, but with roaming it can get pretty pricey.

> Are you a truly pan-European agency?

I'd say yah, but it's all about testing translators. Otherwise, I can say I'm pan world, based on the people I have in my database.

If you plug your Wi-Fi laptop into a working phone jack,will it get Wi-Fi? You did it in our kitchen.

I don't think you know what wifi is. It's wireless internet, and you need a provider for that, like anything else. A lot of places offer free wifi, others you have to set up an account with them and pay them. I have an antenna now with which I can catch a signal up to 10k away, hence the advantage of the wireless aspect, and I can work on the beach etc. Otherwise, there's the standard 6 pin cable, like dsl, and then there's the phone line. With the phone line I was using ATT Global, which has modems all over the world, so I was making a local phone call within LA at your place, my modem hooking up to theirs, and then they'd charge me to my credit card the number of minutes I was online. Many ways to hook up to the internet.

I was thinking of making a trial sojourn in Europe within the next 2 years, probably somewhere in Mediterranean. Hey, price of house in Greece is as low as $40K and Calabria , Italy, has flats for less than $100K.

I'm in Cyprus now and prices are much cheaper in the northern Turkish half than the southern Greek half. Would suggest buying something there, although the Turks are pigs with garbage. Hope they clean that up sometime. I've started a Europe property investment site, based on all the stuff I see while travelling. laterman

Just tried out a new spam guard because my old one got busted, so I'm glad I got that taken care of. Great system for about 34 bucks a year, if you ever get a spam problem. One thing you might consider for your website is to create a contact form instead of posting your email address. I got a couple of contact forms if you need. Or you can post your email address as an image, or replace @ with AT or something, because they have these scripts which scour the internet looking for the @ and automatically compiling email addresses. I need to post my email address when looking for translators, so I might as well post my email address on my site without hindrance. Get about a thousand spam a day and no normal filter would be sufficient. This system only lets through people on my whitelist, and any new people will be sent an auto email asking them to prove they are a real person. This effectively knocks out everything, which is a breather because it was costing me plenty just to erase all the shit while checking through my mobile. Not to mention that I may have accidentally erased real emails, and I can't afford that if I start to get some good webtraffic. Discovered some errors on my site, changed many pages, and now I'm back in the top ten for "translating resources". All my other sites were pumped up as well. That's a breather, because I didn't understand why I dropped down. Shit, looks like this is turning into another longer letter than I originally intended. I guess it's a product of me being alone too much. Anyway, I have this great program I use on the PC. One of the things it can do, besides a billion others, is to search within files for a certain search string. So, for my web directory, I did a search for http://kenax.cz. It then created a list of all files within that directory and all its subdirectories (trust me, a LOT of files) having that text within it. Once that list was created, I saved it, and then opened them all so that I could use another program to search and replace the above to http://001yourtranslationservice.com/, which was the problem. Once I changed each file, I used the first program to hook up to the various subdirectories by FTP. Could be useful if you ever want to make similar such changes to a lot of your webpages.

In my attglobal mail box, I use the provider's feature of dumping suspected spam in a separate box, in combination with programable filters they also provide. This works fine for me. Seems to have a good algorithm - in the beginning I used to check the gray box but never found anything there I would want to read. The company email address, on the other hand, long ignored by the spammers, now seems to have been discovered and is overflowing with spam. Will have to do something about it - perhaps our systems guy can fix it by using filtering features built into Notes. Jens had told me he was using an antispam program with good results; you may check with him if that could be your solution.

Howdy. So I finished testing out Vanquish and I'm fairly happy with it. I get about a thousand spam a day, so a normal filter like Jens's is not sufficient and I need the system Choicemail offered, meaning a challenge email is sent out to anyone who is not on the approved whitelist. With your Lotus notes, you might get your programmer to create a script which would send out a challenge message requiring only a Reply, and not to follow some weblink to punch in some numbers online. A lot of people don't bother or have the time to do this, so legitimate emails can get lost this way. But just pressing Reply is easy, but the only programs (which were also free) which I could find worked on Unix, and I could not find anything which worked under Windows. Another good thing about Vanquish is its "smart subjects", meaning you can tell it to let through on a permanent basis or for a defined time emails which have a certain subject. This is good for me when I post translation jobs on the internet. Many translators simply would not bother with the challenge/verification process, and I do not want to lose them. The spam industry is getting out of control. I have an online contact form which looks like it comes from x@yourhostingcompany.com, on my whitelist. This email address sometimes appears when I respond to incoming emails, and obviously one of the recipients sold this email address to a spam company, because now I receive spam from this email address (had to change my online form settings). So be careful. Try not to post your email address, if possible, and only use an online form. Otherwise, you can post your email address as an image as opposed to text, or use the format kenax AT kenax.cz, as they have scripts which search the web collecting email addresses automatically. But maybe you already know this. Hope I may have helped ya.

seems like I am getting more hits and responses on my hypermart account, so I'll focus on that for a while. But at least I'm getting good rankings on my kenax site in a few key words. Concerning my translationagencies.com forwarding domain, I recently made some changes to the destination page on the kenax account and it shot back up near the top, now in the top ten for both "translating agency" and "translating agencies". I'm guessing I was over compliant before and hence blacklisted as spam or something. So looks like I am starting the tweaking process and will apply it to other pages. But what I'd like to ask you now is that I am learning something about .asp and the possibility of setting up a web based database pages using MS Access (MSA), which I know half decently, and thus VBA and subsequently perhaps VBS. Right now I'm trying to get the payment practices site online, but I just started thinking about the project pages, which I also eventually wanted to put up. The project pages (PP) are to help project managers (PMs) organise work when there are many active translation projects at once. They would be logging into your communication script to manage files and communicate with the translators, but there would need to be an entirely separate system to help with overall management and accounting. For example: - they would need to see which projects are still active and not finalised and delivered to the client - they would need to see their state, and the state of each file within it (translated but not proofread, or vetted but sent back to translator because of missing text, etc.) - then they would need to punch in the accounting data online

This is just a basic overview. Anyway, I am wondering if it would be possible to incorporate some .asp system within your scripts system. Perhaps a separate browser window would pop up while they are logged into your pages, so that the PP part could be managed like a separate system. For the payment practices site, I think I have figured out how to branch off to that system while logged into the cgi/pearl translator application form, and keep the url hidden. Hence I have worked around the registration process. Perhaps I could figure out the same with your scripts, by feeding the username and password from your php pages to my .asp scripts when jumping into a new browser and separate system? Or do you see potentially greater compatibility, since .asp is apparently somewhat similar to mysql? Or perhaps you could expand your scripts a little bit to create a table reporting files which have been uploaded by the translators? Meaning, when the automatic email is sent to the proofreader at the point when the translator uploads his file to the Translated folder, a record could also be saved in the Situation table showing that the translation of that file in that project has been completed? And my asp scripts somehow feed off that mysql table?

Just doing some forward thinking.

I managed to convert the Payment Practices info you gave me into an MSA database, and now I'd like to get it on the web somehow. I've been reading a bit about asp pages and all that, and trying to download some developer's info. Have any suggestions? I managed to get some VBA and VBS tutorials, but I'm a bit unclear about transferring the database to the web. Someone told me that MSA data access pages can be used by only one user at a time. Do you know anything about this? I will look into whether Hypermart or Agava allow for Data Access Pages in their folders, as I read was required. But if all else fails, I was thinking about the possibility of getting it running on my own server, although I'd like to install your scripts on my server to force the registration/login process, since I can't figure out how to force this with the MSA pages. Is my server already set up to run your cgi scripts, or could you get them up and running if I will need it?

pursuant to your email I read on my mobile, I am sending you my latest tender scripts. I upgraded the scripts since you've changed it for Firefox, so these should be the final versions. I made some changes to the join and thank you page, and hence a little bit to the b.cgi, but nothing more. Several times translators have complained that their tender bid was not there, so I assumed it was because when I changed the Number from Panasonic Te to Panasonic. Are you saying that you submitted a bid to the Panasonic tender when it was General, and that it is still there after I changed it back to Panasonic? I guess I'll have to experiment with this further, logging into your and other accounts, changing the Number and comparing. I'd like to use this bid as a general test, eventually for all languages. So I'd like to keep it there permanently. Hence the Panasonic name is not ideal. Not a catastrophic situation, but just better, and if many submitted samples are indeed hidden from when it was called Panasonic Te, I'd like to recover those.

Have you any suggestions how I can change my email to
x@kenax.cz
in your mass email script? I want to approach a bunch of companies but know that many do not bother fighting against the spam protection of xx@kenax.cz, so I have created certain emails which are exempt from the rule. But eventually they might get spammed as well, so from time to time I will make up different spam free emails, and hence occasionally need to change the return address of your mass email script.

I changed the password again so that you can have access to my server, and changed the colours how you had it last time. Please get the script running so that it can send out from xxx@kenax.cz as I have it, and inform me what I have to do if I change this address. I need to change this from time to time for spam purposes. Also, I noticed you removed one line near the top which previously you suggested I put there to ignore errors. This is because, out of several thousand emails I would like to send to, roughly every 50 has some error to it, meaning that your script stops, and I have to constantly babysit it, which was not the purpose of the script. Please fix so that I can send out these emails. I need to approach some potential customers.

I use your product constantly and appreciate it very much. My licence expired, but as soon as I get some work again, I intend to renew it and receive new upgrades for a while. One of the reasons I like you product so much is because I do much of my work from my ppc, but I am still having problems uploading files from it. I downloaded and installed your module as suggested from http://desknow.com/upload.html but when I installed it, my ppc said it might not work properly because it was written for an older version of Windows CE. I rebooted my device and it still does not work. Hope you can sort this out, and inform me when you do. It is an important stumbling block in your program for me.

hope you don't mind a technical question. Been researching and if I can't get the MSA thing going, I'm thinking of trying dhtml, because it seems easy enough for dummies. But whether I use dhtml, asp or whatever, once the data is loaded into the browser, is there any way to prevent the user from copy/pasting all the records for their own personal use? Not a great problem, but would rather not make it easy for others to set up a similar database like me. Getting nice and warm here! Reparked my truck closer to the girls' dormitory and now my internet signal is nice and strong. Think I'll move here.

can't seem to get the .asp/MSA thing going, so I started experimenting with dhtml, because it looks a lot easier, and attached you will find what I have accomplished so far.

One thing I can't figure out how to do is how to put visible borders in the bottom table, and more importantly, how to make the combo box in the upper frame functional (I'd be willing to position the combo box on the same page as the lower frame if necessary).

The msdn pages talk about some VB script below, and thought you might be able to help me.

The dhtml - Dinamic html, is mean html-pages with scripts inside. Any script can operate only on client side. So if you make page in such manner then your visitors will be forced to download _all_ your database each time they come to this page. For client-server application on the web usually use some CGI (common gateway interface) program. Well-known are PHP, ASP, Perl. Also it is possible to make cgi-program even on VB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface If you wish, I can make perl-script on your template and database.

yes, I have been learning the above and starting to understand things. If you can make a simple perl script I would be very grateful, because there seems so much for me to learn no matter which direction I choose to go. Attached you will find the MSA database I put together. In the Favourites you'll find Company Synopsis, which I was trying to make into a webform. Basically I'd like the combo box so the viewer can choose which translation agency they want to view. The default would be some blank one we can choose (I should have created _blank record_). When they click on an agency, I'd like them to see it as I have prepared it: showing the moderator section and detailed info about the company; and then the individual comments from each of the submitters below that, from which the AVERAGE would be computed of the various values. I can save it in .db or whatever format you want, from this MSA I have prepared, because at least I know this much. I just can't figure out how to put it on the web. Hypermart told me their system does not support .asp, and Agava never responds to my emails. Would be great if you could get this working. My plan was to make it viewable only when someone logs into your b.cgi script, and I have already partially set it up for that. The important point is that the info is not openly available to the internet without having to log into something. You can incorporate it into the b.cgi, or perhaps just some html link which can remain hidden within the b.cgi system. It is up to you. Looking forward to finally getting this operational.

<<< check third party outlinks

through your form I seem to get a lot of the following mail. I just changed the form to have a different email address, in case someone managed to get a hold of x@kenax.cz and as such get past my spamguard. But within a few hours I already received this message. Is it possible that someone made a script which fills in the fields automatically and presses the Send button without a human being required to do this process? It seems strange that someone would bother to copy/paste this useless information every time.

There is the script. I remove frames from template and replace listbox by simple search field. Use '%' anywhere you need - "%Canada" or "%Translat%Montreal" ... Adjust settings yourself us needed on server, I'm believe you

> $cgiurl = "$siteurl$ENV{'SCRIPT_NAME'}";
> $siteroot = "c:/htdocs";
> $database = "$siteroot/data/pp_data";

I tried the weblink you sent me and it wasn't loading after a good five minutes. Anyway, I uploaded everything and made changes as shown at the bottom of this email (only changing the siteroot seemed necessary, when I compared it to your b.cgi script), but Agava said "CGI script error: Execution of CGI script failed. Try again later." when I accessed
translator application
I copied the data files where your script suggested (including the file pp_main.htm), Chmoded 744, spent about 30 minutes carefully analysing everything, and I can't figure out what is wrong. I assume I only have to upload the pp.cgi script but not the dbi.pm, Xbase.pm and the dbd folders etc? They are already up there from the b.gi script, so I assumed I would not have to overwrite them. (Any ideas what could be wrong?

okay, I made some progress by incorporating your script into the b.cgi script, and now it seems to work better, except at the top of the page it says:

Table PP_DATA not found: Missmatch in header of /home/transla2/newsystem/database/PP_DATA: record_len 0 but offset 21

At least the website is now hidden and requires the person to log in, so as to protect me from getting sued. Now just to work out the kinks and get it working properly.

So far I copied:

$searchstring = param('searchstring');
$searchstring .= '%';
just after:
sub ShowSearch {

okay, figured out as much as I could, but now I have to end with internet. The initial load page seems to work, except that when I punch in a string to search, it always ends back at the Join page, not logged in. An excerpt of my latest attempts are at the bottom of this email. I tried to make an action based on the form button "Search" but I'm just guessing.

Sure no problem - I just answer when I can though. Not sure what you mean with MSA. DHTML is a programming "package" that uses the language Javascript and it is processed from within the browser. ASP is a programming "package" that uses the language vbscript (visual basic script) though it can also be written in jscript (Javascript script). Javascript is completely different from Java. All of the above are languages that are compiled as the user moves through them. Java, C#, C++, Delphi, etc. are languages that are compiled before hand and then just run when the user uses them.

Thanks for the tips. Looks like dhtml could be for me, cause I actually figured some stuff out and got something working, amazingly. Everything else requires setting up scripts and a database. Hypermart Unix based doesn't even support .asp. By MSA I meant MS Access - something which I'm fairly good at. But a lot of these webhosts don't support that. Another option is to set it up on my own server, as MSA is dummy enough for me, and I think I'd be able to figure it out. Anyway, looks like my programmer pulled though again and got his notorious Perl scripts going. I guess a big problem with dhtml is that it has to download the entire database every time before you can start sorting or filtering with it. ideal for only smaller databases. The more the programmer makes his perl scripts for me, the more I understand it and I'm starting to take excerpts from what he created in the past and make my own shit. Like now when someone logs in, it says "Hi [firstname] [lastname]" Simple shit like that, but an important personal touch. The look and feel of my little virtual office. Anyway, I'm glad I finally got this database up, where translators can post and view comments about the payment reputation of translation agencies. It's a rinky dinky system, but seems the best on the net. Now I want to expand that into other fields, and eventually for all products. One of my dreams is a website where the consumer can learn about the ethical implications of every product they consider buying. The big corporations are exploiting the planet - its natural resources, people and poor countries - and I think only such a website could make a difference. We certainly cannot depend on our governments, who are basically hired by the big corporations, and waiting around for the UN and all that to do something about it, well, I think Greenland will melt by then. Needs to be attacked from different angles. More interesting than just managing translation projects. later dude

Thought you could use that description. As for copying records from a website. I assume you mean some text you have on a website. You can disable the mouse right-click-menu through Javascript, but there are ways to get around the limitation (like turn off javacsript in the browser and then go to the page). Data isn't really ever safe once it is on the web. So if you don't want people to see it, you'd have to set up some login and restrict access to pages you consider sensitive.

I managed to accomplish some stuff, but I am having problems to stay logged in. I set it up so that the browser would be taken to your pp script from the b.cgi script, meaning it takes you to translator application So if someone copies this above link and tries to access it directly, like your bt.cgi script, they are taken to a page saying they do not have access. This will protect me from getting sued. If logged in the b.cgi script and then go to your pp script, it works, but if I try a search then it goes to the No Access page, meaning I am no longer logged in. Attached you will find what I managed to accomplish with the pp script. Can you finish it for me?

Glad to hear that you solve this yourself. Want to ask you perhaps you have more experience, I have collection of films on hard disk, all of them it is in mpeg format. I got it by decrypting with dvddecrypter, sometimes I just copy VOB to the hard disk and now want burn all it as dvd-video. I don't need in fine menu or other beautiful feature just want 'titles' and 'chapters' for quick searching while watching. Maybe you know some software for quick preparing such files for burning back as dvd-video? I tried ULead, InterVideo, CyberLink and other software but they are going to convert files again and again. I don't wanna spent time for this when I know that the file is in good format (just copy of .vob). Dvd-player understand when I rename vob to mpg and burn it as dvd-data, but some files are to big and it lose his counter and don't allow to move forward more then 1,5 hour.

hope you got my follow up letter where I was trying to stay logged in. Perhaps just a little more work and the script should be completed. For the above, I only use Nero. I think I have it on the server, so I can look if you want, so that I can prepare it for you to download. With this you can burn DVDs with menus etc., and there is a section for when the files are particularly large (something like Data disk with UTF). Perhaps you could analyse the menu structure it creates and then simply copy/create a data disc that way? Changing the .ifo files in Notepad or something?

Perhaps I don't learned Nero enough. I only know that it can burn dvd-video when all files are prepared and named correctly. I have Nero 6.6 Enterprice Ed. Is it good?

you have a later version than me. For the larger files, try choosing DVD rom (UDF). This is for large files on a data disk. Then for the DVD menu, the only thing I can think of is to create the data disk but in a structure as when creating DVD discs that can play in machines, and I guess change the .ifo etc files in notepad first. I am just guessing.

I will try your tip how to remain logged in next time I'm on the internet.

For now I've started playing around with the following:
translator application
I changed the search box to a combo box. Everything works so far, but I would now like to add data from another table, so that the final product will look like:

where basically the top half will show the details of the company, and the bottom half will show what we have prepared so far (comments about the company by translators).

I tried to add something like

my $sth = $dbh->prepare("

     select ID, AGENCY_COM, PAYMENT_DU, FAIRNESS, PLEASANTNE, OVERALL_AS, COMMENTS, DATE_SUBMI
     from PP_DATA where AGENCY_COM like ?")
#              select ID, AGENCY_COM, CATEGORY, WEBSITE_AD, EMAIL_ADDR, MOD_OVERAL, MOD_COMMEN, AVGOFPAYME, AVGOFFAIRN, AVGOFPLEAS, AVGOFOVERA, COUNTOFPAY
#              from PP_COMPA where AGENCY_COM like ?")
                or print $dbh->errstr();

$sth->execute($searchstring) or print $sth->errstr();
while ( @data = $sth->fetchrow_array() )

but it didn't want to work. I am trying to include data from a second table PP_COMPA so that I can arrange the individual cells as shown in the picture above. Any tips how to accomplish this? I am attaching the script I prepared. Once this is done, then the page will show all the info I was trying to accomplish, from the two tables. I will make a separate search form if someone wants to find all the translating agencies from %London%, for example, but this particular page I'd like to focus only on one company at a time.

Getting close!

DHTML is used for front-end GUI. Loading the database into the user's browser is pretty crazy as a) sending all your data including usernames and passwords to the user, who can save and hack it b) how do you sync up the data back at the server when you have 2 users modifying their own downloaded database at the same time.

Thanks for the tips dude. I'm starting to understand things better. The websites I'm working on are read only. Sorting stuff and reading records. The user inputs stuff on another end, where I moderate it manually first before adding it to the database. There is no password to hack into, but just information I want people to look at (the payment reputation of translation agencies - I am going to war against such companies who have not paid me in the past). So the dhtml thing can work, as the user can then sort and screw around with the records faster once they download them. But I managed to get something working with the help of my Perl programmer. This mysql and setting it up is a major learning curve for me, and will have to wait. The perl and dbase seems simple enough, albeit much slower than mysql. But the database is not that large, so it is okay. The programmer helped me out with some tips, and I am learning from how he set up things on my previous pages. So I have gone server side after all. Most importantly, I have incorporated it the translator application form, meaning the viewers have to log into something, pressing the login button next to a statement "You agree to our policies by entering this site". This should protect me from getting sued libel, otherwise I would not want to post such information on the net. So it is quite interesting for me to learn this perl stuff, and copy/pasting little snippets from other pages, learning the logic, and getting it working. Can show you the final result if you like, once its done. Then I'll apply the same approach to some of the other projects I've been dreaming of putting up these past few years. And when I get the cash one day and the database too large, I can go mysql, for speed. Well, that's enough techtalk for now. Back to working on it. Not a paying thing, but I find it exciting putting it together. laterdude

MSA isn't used for websites as it is specifically made for on-the-computer use. It has the limitation that only one user can access the file at a time, so its hardly suitable for web use where you need to give access to multiple people at the same time. Go online and do some research on how internet technology works. You're mistaking some of the fundamental concepts. Fine, as long as you pay for someone to do this for you, but you'll run into a lot of difficulty trying to use something for what its not meant to be. I just found this short read, click on the topics within as well:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/dreamweaver/8/using/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html
/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=gs_12_u5.htm
If you want an online website with database, you need to use a server language (PHP, JSP, ASP, ASP.NET) processing data in a database (MS SQL, MYSQL, etc.) and serving data to the user using some browser scripting (JavaScript, DHTML, etc.) for GUI stuff. Anyway good luck. Have to go!

it's amazing but I actually figured it all out according to your instructions. Thank you very much. Two points remain.
One minor one: at the top of the page -

$searchstring = param('searchstring');
$searchstring .= $agency_com;

I did this and then the data from the second form popped up, but it still did not show in the combo box, which was my intention. How do I get it so that the value chosen in the combo box will stay there/be visible/load once the records all load?

And more importantly, would it be possible to change the join page to show something like this?

Perhaps the "I do not accept" would be selected by default, but I'd like to make sure I do not get sued so if new people registering to the system have to press "I have read..." before they can press Continue, I think it should protect me sufficiently. Not for already registered users who are just logging in, but only for new people registering.

concerning the submission form for the PP site, I made it in FrontPage, but it seems that someone has hacked into it so that they can fill in the fields remotely and then press Submit, presumably without even visiting the site. My other programmer said this was possible, as his .php contact form has been abused in this way. I am also concerned if someone makes a similar script for your join field, polluting the database with nonsense records that I am not even able to erase at the moment. Do you know if it would be possible to modify your cgi scripts to prevent this from happening, including your email form, and possibly think of something for my FrontPage PP submission form?

hey dude, getting hot here, and my laptop is heating up, and the fan isn't running. I'm wondering if anything is wrong with it. Once when the fan was stuck and didn't want to spin (I guess I was spending too much time near the salty sea), it wouldn't even start and just read "fan error" and the laptop turned off. I found that, when I blew into the fan and got it spinning, it loosened it and started working. Anyway, I looked at the Device Drive thing and the IBM Configuration and Access but could not find anything to control the fan. I'd like it to just keep running when it gets hot like this. Or I'd like to play with it. Once I logged into IBM online and noticed a billion updates I could download for the computer, but was afraid to install any of them, lest something would go wrong. I'm wondering if your newer version has some control over the fan, or if you have any suggestions. Go to BIOS? For my server in Prague, I have a program which monitors the motherboard, but not sure if it can control the fan, or even recognise this laptop's motherboard. I generally have this thing running at least 10 hours a day and am getting worried. Recently I tried turning on my old thinkpad but the thing is totally kaput, so now I don't even have a backup. Scaaaaaaaaaryyyyyyyyyy.