Internet websites & web programming

This site

The site you are viewing right now is meant to be, also, but not only, a showcase of what I can do so far with the Internet.

First of all, this site is hosted on a low budget hosting provider: namely, €9.99 plus VAT per year. At this price I found some limitations, not many indeed, but it is not bad to show what can be done even from this challenging investment. Moreover, it is very interesting, although sometimes challenging, to learn to work around obstacles. It is up to your judgement to tell if I have succeeded.

It looks simple, but it touches several interesting topics.

First, it relies on a database (MySQL, but it could be MSSQL, or Access, or whatever). This database is used to store a registered users table, a products price list, a tabel for the PayPal transactions, and more files to store informations about sold software and ativation and registration informations as well.

Also, it uses some clinet side programming, but without exaggeration. The client side programming, implemented by means of JavaScript functions, makes your browser, that is running on your machine (the client, actually), to execute some functions. You can get very nice graphic effects, and client side programming is required, for instance, for ajax functionality. The pop dow menus you can see on the top are working by means of JavaScript. I added them just to show you I can give them to you, if you like them,

However, this site is perfectly working even if JavaScript is disabled. Actually, this site can be navigated usin Lynx, a browser with no graphics at all. For example, if you try to contact me from the contact page, sending a message using an invalid email address, a JavaScript check is attempted on your browser: this check is very fast, and an error is immediatly reported. But what if the control is not possible because your browser does not support JavaScript, or because you disabled it, for whatever reason? The control is duplicated on the server, and you will receive a page that tells you about the error. This is, of course, much slower. But it works anyway.

This site does not use any popup window, on pourpose.

A partial list of this site features:

• A users table. You can register on the site, and perform a login. If a user is classified as an administrator, he will have access to reserved areas that a normal user can not see. Password management, password recovery, integration, modification and deletion of personal data.
• Management of a reserved area for administrators (not webmasters), with, among other things, the management of the database tables via the internet.
• Sending email without publishing my email address (very useful to avoid spam and junk mail).
• Automatic generation and sending of email messages, on events occurrence: for example, user registration, or forgotten password request.
• The menus are structured on PHP classes, and are therefore they are easily customizable.
• The entire site is multilanguage. So far, Italian and English, but to add another language requires only the translation of texts. None of the pages are duplicated on each language. Only texts are, the application code retrieves the texts and composes the pages.
• A "breadcrumb" system is managed (probably, you know the story of Tom Thumb), which is a trace of where you are at any times within the site: you see it in the top left corner, just under the header.
• For the purchase of software products, the connection with PayPal payment system is managed. And working.
• The generation of activation codes and licenses verification are managed, all without any system administrator intervention, and all starting from the PayPal payment transactions.
• The pages layout, here on three columns, can be immediately changed by the substitution of style sheets. No grid based layout is used.

All this represents the current state of this site: that is evolving, and new features are added in time.