Well actually it happened when I got to my inbox and read this email regarding Mike Filsaime giving away the source code to his ButterFly Marketing Script.

First of all disbelief struck me. After all Mike’s been selling this script for sometime now and the people who bought it have done quite well with it.

The other reason disbelief flooded through my veins was the fact that our group at Internet Niche Lab have been developing a much smaller version of a membership script over the last few weeks and this drops in my lap!

You Can Modify this script and resell it!

That’s right, you can make it your own, promote it and sell it. Using the script itself to do it of course. Well that falls right up my alley.

I’m looking over this script!

I’ve installed the script and it worked straight out of the box as you would expect and I’m going over it to see what it has. Plus what we can do to improve/ add to it.

It’s Free So you can get your own!

Yep, you can go and grab it right now at ButterFlyOpenSource .

Is there a Catch?

You bet there is! But it is a clever one. Mike has started up a “Developers Network” which costs $200USD one time payment.

The reason behind this is simple, Mike will be building a community of developers and I’m guessing, any improvements will be available to the members.

For me, I’m going to sit back on that offer. First of all I’ve got to take a good look at this code.

But if you have a spare $200USD and want to join in on this community I’d strongly suggest that you do.

The Downside!

The downside is, if you do choose to resell the script, all support etc falls upon your shoulders. Which is only fair. You get it for Free, it becomes your baby along with everything you need to do to support it.

This is another clever example of list building by giving away a very neat script with the aim of getting people to join the Developers Network. So there is a lesson to be learned from all this.

What’s Next?

Well I’m going to show this to the gang at Internet Niche Lab and see if we should persure using this script for what we want to do. And if you join us at Internet Niche Lab as a paid member, you’ll get the changes / modes we will be making,  plus you’ll have access to all the other useful scripts we develop.

In my PHP Classes, that is  what we do. We find a problem and write a script to solve it. The membership script being one of those. Now we have access to use the ButterFlyOpenSource script as a basis to solve this issue.

I’ll have a follow up to this as soon as I delve further into this amazing script!

Till then, happy marketing and website building etc.

Cheers

Tim Brownlaw

Well it’s certainly been an exciting Easter Break!

I had all the intentions of getting a huge chunk of my new website up and running but that sort of came unstuck.

The site is coded up to the point of accepting registrations and being able to edit/update your profile.

It is all working wonderfully well on my development box…

[Oh, I like to write my own projects for a bit of fun just in case you haven't caught on yet.]

But then…

I decided I’d throw it up on my webhosting and see how it flies and to show some folk my upcoming masterpiece.

So I did just that, I created my hosting account – changed the DNS settings and it instantly popped up on the webpage.  So things were looking grand.

But then…

I got that very sad error message that I didn’t have execute script permissions on my database!!!!

Just to enlighten you if you are sitting thinking….”What does executing things have to do with this…”.

Well all my database “stuff” is written as Stored Procedures, which means – the functions that talk to the database are actually a part of the database itself.  Not to worry if that’s confusing… It’s something I will be showing you later if you are interested…

Apart from it being a very useful programming feature,  it does give you some added security. In short, it’s how it should be done.

So getting back to my dismay when I saw that hosting company had it disabled!!!!!!!!!!! What The!!!!! I promptly contacted support and they said “Yes, you can’t”. Most helpful.

After asking Why, I promptly joined up with another hosting company. And it all worked like a treat!

But then…

After I had successfully registered, I decided I had better update my profile. That’s what the instructions suggested I do. But this was the part where some new technique was being used. And… well a bit of it didn’t work!

By the way, remember that the script works flawlessy on my system.

Going back a week in time!

I’m using a PHP Framework called Codeigniter which I quite like even if it does have a few shortcomings.  Hey nothing is perfect but it is good to know what those imperfections are and how to fix/cope with them…

I knew it wasn’t going to do what I wanted it to with returning multiple data sets from the stored procedure. Which in another language means – I ask the Database two questions and should get back two answers.

In it’s current state, CodeIgniter only liked to deal with one answer at a time.

So I modified it to work. How I did that was to go right back to basics and so I wrote an installation script to create a new table and stored procedures based upon what I was using. Then I created a number of sample php scripts so I had a known starting point. It all worked nicely…

From that I created the changes needed in CodeIgniter to make it all happy and it was. It uses the same function calls deep down in it’s database class…

Back to now.

So having encountered this “Database deafness” on the second question, I loaded my original test scripts up on the same hosting account using the same Database etc.

Guess What???

Everything Worked!

Head scratching time.

I contacted the new webhosting company explaining my dilemma and they asked to see some code to replicate the problem. Of course they would! So I created a new page up on the site explaining everything…

So why am I smiling?

I still don’t have it working, but I did end up creating a wonderful script that works like a little framework of it’s own allowing you to create your code snippets with an accompanying HMTL file with some blurb and it creates the webpage display the “instructions: then it shows the actual PHP Code cause it reads in the actual file and then it executes and displays the results.

Now that has major applications for so many things. It’s a great tool to use to demonstrate some of the finer points of PHP and how you can make it work for you. Actually some of it came from another script we are working on in our PHP Class. That was good timing!

So what started out as some rough knockup code only I could love and appreciate, turned into something anyone can read it and follow along all built with a nice modular system.

You can see the results…

The result of all that is viewable up on the new website. Well the site itself is still under construction..

It’s located at Demonstration of Stored Procedures using MySQLi

So I’ve now got a lovely way to demonstrate my code, allowing the world to see it. There is link at the bottom regarding the Forum I’ve posted on about this so the conversation can continue there.

I’m still stuck though.

Everything works except for the CodeIgniter script on the webhosting account, where it has to work!

It’ll be a simple problem but I have gone to all the trouble to “write it out” and see what falls out.  It’s just this time I would appreciate some other eyes to view the problem and see what they can see that I cannot! It does happen sometimes!

So while I got stopped dead in my tracks on what I wanted to do, I’ve actually created something nice and useful.

If you do want to see/hear how I made the script, just come along to one of my classes. I am meant to have the details up on the webatories.com site.  So I had best go and fix that bit up.

Webatories.com

There is a LOT planned for this website – so feel free to register and you’ll be kept notified on it’s progress.
http://www.webatories.com

[Update]

It’s fixed – The problem was I had made some changes to the members database table which were being installed with a separate SQL file through phpmyadmin. And guess what – I hadn’t run it in this particular installation.

Long story short – when the Stored procedure was attempting to read back the results from the members table it encountered an error due to the table missing some fields. But the error is “silent”.

The affect is it never returns anything… which is exactly what was happening. So there you go…. It was simple and writing it out finally led to the solution. Also a good rest helped as well.

Well I must say that the first time I tried to setup an account on Thunderbird 3.0 running on  Windows XP , I was mentally creating a post that wasn’t going to be very nice!

They’ve changed it, and it’s going to throw a lot people out that had managed to figure it out on the older versions. For one thing, all my screen shots now need updating and I’ll need to add messages in big bold Red Characters that say “Do Not Panic”!

I’ve only tried using this on my HP netbook running XP (head hung in shame…) as I was called up on the phone by a mate that was struggling to get it running on his new laptop. So of course I installed it to see what all the fuss was about.

Summary of the phone call.

Does it work on your Desktop? -  Yes the older version works a treat…

Does it work on the old laptop? – Yes the older version works a treat…

But it’s not working on your new Laptop? – No, cause it’s all different!

So I installed it and looked at it myself and offered a few choice words I’ve learned from the kids. I was puzzled by the changes and this “Auto” Detection system – for some reason – smacked of M$ cleverness ( yes, that last word was sarcastic!).

I played with it instead of fighting it…

And I finally got it to work… Now I’ve got all my hosting with GVO ( formerly Kiosk ) on their titanium package so I can pretty much Create Websites to any size or shape at will. But it appears now, in hindsight, that my newer hosting accounts do indeed support IMAP.  Something I didn’t know and I was wondering why Thunderbird thought it was there and working…. After telling it that the SSL Certificates weren’t bogus it all worked.

I did find that my older  – pre Titanium accounts – dont play well and so I have to use my ISP mail server as my SMTP, and they use POP3.

Where did the Tick Box for Global Inbox Go?

On my Kubuntu 9.10, I do have Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 and I’m very used to creating lots of accounts for my various sites. One of those processes involved “Un ticking the Global Inbox” Box so that each account has it’s own folders.

Folder groupings have changed

Where each account used to have a separate  Inbox, Sent, Trash folders grouped under the account name,  it’s reversed!

Now the different email accounts Inboxes are grouped under the Inbox. The different email accounts Trash Folders are all grouped under the “Trash” Folder. And so forth, which at first seems a little strange. <pause for time to adjust> Hmm, I can kind of see the logic of what they’ve done.

It probably makes much more sense if you have a number of accounts to be able to view all the inboxes as a group. Usually you don’t need to see the other folders. One thing  I need to try though is what happens to those other folders that you sometimes create under an account – Where do they go? To Silicon heaven, where all the dead calculators go?

I’ve not been watching too much “Red Dwarf”!

So after the initial shock and the internal battle to resist these  changes  I never asked for, I must say that now I can come to terms with it and even go as far as saying – “Not bad”!

That’s about as far as I’ve got with it so far… So next step is to get back to my mate and get him sorted out. Now I know a bit more of what’s going on….

A New Social Network Adventure

Nope, MyLot is a new discovery of mine – prompted by my good friend Lou Roggio. It’s rather interesting, in fact it could very addictive and for a lot of Good Reasons.

I think Community is a more appropriate term for MyLot

You can open Discussions, you can start up your own little blogs, you can ask for help on getting articles done etc (you have to pay of course). But it’s number one feature as I see it is it’s ability to expose you to a whole new world. I say a Whole New World as you are going to read and participate in a very broad range of topics.

It’s much much better than FaceBook and MySpace.

It’s a very well laid out, easy to use system and in my opinion it’s going to outshine the likes of Facebook and MySpace.

It’s quite “busy” as there are a lot of things you do – useful things. Umm there is NO Farmville and all thoes games that have polluted facebook. I do hope MyLot does not go down the same path.

So join and open up a discussion on your Niche!

It’s as simple as joining up and starting a discussion on your Niche. What better way to start building interest in your Business.

Make sure it’s a fair discussion.

Those that haunt MyLot are either going to love you if you play fair or if you choose the path of being pushy with your business you’ll be promptly dispatched. There’s no other way to say it.

It’s just a fun place.

I’ve been in there for about 10 minutes and I’ve learnt alot, about stuff I’d never get to read anywhere else. It’s very interesting just to see what people are finding popular topics. Could be an idea for a Niche waiting for you in there. I know I’m scouring.

If you are into Being A Social Spectator

This is definitely the place for you.

Now I am looking to build a group in this..

And I would really love for you to be a part of it. For one it’ll give us a presence on there and let us have discussions on various matters. There are a number of folk looking for Biz Ops on there. Plus it’ll give you a great place to research and have fun at the same time.

How to join?

Simple – go to MyLot (clicking on my link ) and sign up and start experiencing MyLot.

Now that is My lot on MyLot for now! Promise…

PS- I have to change this font and color scheme on this website – YUK

Yes, out of the box, it’s one of those fill in the blanks and we’ll show some Clickbank (using Clickbank AD Rotator**, Amazon, PayDotCom, Ebay, Resale Rights Products, and Adsense.

But it does have a bit more to it than other scripts of this kind. You can see that it is well thought out. There are enough instructions available as “you go” to lead you through all the steps required to set up a site.

The first time I did it – from scratch – I built a site in about 45 minutes – taking it slow and documenting it as I went.

I created an Open Office Writer File to capture the information as I went, so I know what’s there.

Something I noticed with a couple of sites I have.

The main reason I’ve even bothered to look at this, is to get some life out of my parked domains. I had used a similar kind of script on a couple of websites which had been showing some Adsense income. Not a lot, we are talking about less than $10 USD each. BUT they were getting traffic and appearing in Google. Search for “LivePlay” on Google and one of my sites shows up on the first page.

Now that site is using a “different” kind of monetized script.

But the main points were,

1. It’s being crawled by Google and appearing in searches
2. It’s getting Visits, although the Adsense conversion is very low.
3. It’s not gathering dust on a parking service getting minimal search traffic and paying a percentage of any revenue it generates.[That's one way parking services make their money].

ClickBank Ad Rotator** – a Product which led me to create a bit of website magic to cloak the links – http://www.cb-ad-rotator.com – It’s Free!

I’ll be using this for many of my “parked domains”.

So the plan is to use this new script and set it up on my remaining domains. So bye bye parked page service and hello to creating a bucket load of new websites accounts.

It’s really a simple process.

So he said….It’s something I do on a regular basis. But here’s what I do, to give you and idea.

I find a domain – one I already have – Umm yeah well, I have over 200 at the moment – Yes I hate selling them ( but that’s now a better option as I also bought the License where I can resell sites using this script).

So I find the domain in a niche – for example – I bought http://www.personalwatercraft.info and is been parked not doing much. This is the website that’s getting the treatment with this new script.

Back to the process.

Find the domain – change it’s DNS Settings to point to my hosting, upload the script, bring up the website in Firefox, Log into the Admin section, fill in the info and Bob’s your Aunty.

Ok it’s kind of fun the 1st time, but anymore than that is going to become a chore and I hate working too hard…So I’m looking at a solution to that problem – stay tuned!

It’s early days, but from what I’ve seen of “other” scripts, this one has a fair chance at helping get traffic and possibly increase the conversion rates. We’ll see. I can see it does need a few tweaks. Being a Professional Tweaker, I’ll probably loose a few hours tweaking to get the desired effect.

This won’t suit everyone.

Seriously, don’t get all excited when you see words like – “Builds your site for you…”

These kinds of scripts work very well with product type niches. You do need to do your homework.

For instance – with Personal Water Craft, you need to find keywords that get relevant results back from Amazon, Clickbank, Adsense, Ebay etc. You don’t need to use all of these “Vendor” services. You might just want to use Adsense…

It does have a built in article facility.

This was one of the things that made this script stand out. It allows you to make some serious changes.

For instance, from the admin section you can add articles, add blocks ( like new sections). You can modify existing ones. You can add in your own affiliate links for relevant programs. It’s like a mini Blog in a way.

Problems.

The fact that the majority of the websites content comes from – other sites – can cause the page to load slowly. The other point is that if the site is down or “undergoing maintenance”  it can cause issues. I’m guessing that some form of caching would be nice to have.. but that has it’s own set of problems… For the “stuff” that isn’t likely to change that often, there’s no need to run off and fetch it on every page refresh. Hmm more thinking time is needed on this.

But it’s not a major problem. I’m just a fussy bugga!

Resources:

Domain Registration : I primarily use Dynadot .You can drop a domain name within 7 days so if you Whoopsie. Plus after $500 USD in purchases the price plummets. AND the user interface is Simple and won’t leave you sitting there for hours PLUS it’s wont up sell you on anything that can be thought of.

In summary – its log in – search – buy – and you are DONE!

Web hosting: I use GVO. i can create a individual Cpanel accounts for each website I’m hosting plus I can tailor the packages to suit. This also allows me to sell a website – hand it over and keep hosting it as a reseller. Plus it’s got an affiliate program that pays you monthly and has a bunch of other “Marketing” tools…..

Which takes me back to the point of having bought the “Site Resellers License” for MPW. So I can setup and sell ready to go sites using the script. Anyone interested in Personal Water Craft?

I’ve just got to update my website manager for this new site so I can leap into my AWStats with a click of a button. Ahhh Nice!

To read more about this amazing system click here

This program is being closed off to the public in the next few days. And it will be. I’ve seen them do it before.

But it “may” be re-opened at a later date. If it’s successful in all its claims then it will make a reappearance but I’m sure the price will be higher.

Now would be the time to get in on the low “LifeTime” purchase price.

There is a great amount of info on getting up and running with this application and I did get as far as hooking together all my relational tables to generate the correct queries. So for those of you that attend my classes, Yes I gave it a go.

There are some little differences ( as expected ) between the SQL, it wants to generate as opposed to MYSQL which I’m more familiar with. I Never really got too deep into using Microsoft’s Access only because I didn’t have a real understanding of proper Database Design at the time.

Time has fixed that. I’m at home with MySQL and Stored procedures. Not everyones cup of tea but I enjoy creating useful, safe applications with it. The only problem is with the Data Sensitive stuff is you really don’t want up on a Website. There are various ways to make a Desktop application ( NOT Windows only based…) that works on all platforms and OpenOffice is a quick and easy and FREE way to do just that.

Anyway, I’ve got somewhere, rather quickly with it and it’s probably a very good platform for explaining the correct way to design a Database. I was impressed.

Now I’ve just got to get a handle on the interface ( forms ) and interacting correctly with the tables and enforce proper data entry rules across tables. Should be a fun excercise.

So while I’m in Hospital this Saturday (my time) getting my Infususion, hopefully the wireless connection will hold up and I can demonstrate database basics a lot more clearly. Got to love Desktop sharing conference calls.