As a webmaster you have to upload files to your web site. These files can be simple .html or .php files or script files. Script files can be .pl, .cgi or .php …

Sometimes you need to upload zip files to your web site when you are uploading script files, backup files or moving data from one host to other etc.

Once you upload zip file there are three ways you can unzip it.

1. Using your web host panel ‘Extract’ function.
2. Using telnet.
3. Using a small php script utility.

1. Using your web host panel ‘Extract’ function.

1. Login your cpanel or any host panel.
2. Go to ‘File manager’.
3. Open up the folder where you have uploaded the zip file via your ftp software.
4. Select the file with left mouse button.
5. There is a link called ‘Extract’ on top of the page or on right menubar. Click on it.
6. You will be prompted where to unzip the files. Select the location or leave it default. If you leave it to default, files are extracted into the same folder.
7. Click ok. You will see the list of files extracted.

2. Using telnet.

1. Open your putty.exe application and SSH into your web site.
2. Go to your script directory where the zip file is.
3. Run the following command based on the file type:

If a file ends in .zip (for example, file.zip) type:
unzip file.zip

If a file ends in .tar (e.g., file.tar) type:
tar -xvf file.tar

If a file ends in .gz (for example, file.gz) type:
gzip -d file.gz

If a file ends in .tar.gz (e.g. file.tar.gz) type:
gzip -d file.tar.gz
and then
tar -xvf file.tar

3. Using a small php script utility.

Here is a php script that unzips the zip files in a directory.

1. Copy the code and and paste it in a text file and save it as unzip.txt on your computer.
2. Upload the text file into the directory where the zip file is. Rename it to unzip.php.
3. Access the script like – http://www.yoursite.com/script/unzip.php
4. You will see the list of zip files. Select the file and click on ‘Unzip’ button.

.

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What are domainkeys?

DomainKeys is an email authentication method designed to verify the DNS domain from which the email is coming from.

Domainkeys are very important authentication criteria for Yahoo email. Yahoo developed domainkeys in 2007 to stop spam for their users. Any person can spoof other email addresses from other domains and send email. Ex: Some spammer can send email from his computer or server with your email address – you@yourdomain.com. This is called spoofing.

Domainkeys technology when implemented on a server sends email with an authenticated signature added to the headers. Yahoo recognizes the key in the headers and determine that the email is coming from the claimed domain.

Cpanel recently implemented Domainkeys in their hostpanel interface. Enabling domainkeys in cpanel is very easy …

Implimenting Domainkeys in cpanel:

1. Login into your cpanel.
2. Click on ‘Email authentication’ link under ‘Mail’.
3. Click on ‘Enable’ button below ‘Domainkeys’. That is it!

Recently after my host upgraded the cpanel for my VPS, suddenly domainkeys stopped working and all the email going out from the server are going with ‘domainkeys=neutral’. See below -

I searched the cpanel forums with lot of complaints about Domainkeys not able to work … So cpanel people know this bug and they are saying there is no FTA to release a fix for this …

So till then downgrade to previous version of cpanel? I think this might work!

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What is a Text based Autoresponder?

Recently I got this pre-sale question – “Is your Follow up Autoresponder PRO is text based software? Because I don’t know much about complicated phpmyadmin databases.”

I guess by ‘phpmyadmin databases’, he means Mysql databases … I explained him Follow up Autoresponder PRO is php script with Mysql backend.

Most of the scripts when installed on your web site needs to write the data into some kind of database. If the data is stored in text files, the script is refered as ‘Text based script’. Same way if the subscribers details, your autoresponder and messages are stored in text files. This type of autoresponder which uses text files to store the data is called ‘Text based autoresponder’.

Data will be stored like-
autoresponders.txt
messages.txt
subscribers.txt
etc.

Advantages of these text based autoresponders:

* Very simple to install.
* No need for the databases.
* Easy to manage (For web masters who don’t like mysql to deal with …)

Disdvantages of these text based autoresponders:

* Easily timed out while you running the scripts.

* Most important disadvantage is, text files can not hold much data. Ex: If you have like 50,000 subscribers, the text database runs very slow. On the other hand Mysql databases have good amount of speed and scalability.

When your business is growing you need a good backend of your web site to store your data. Mysql databases can hold large amount data and easy to manage if you have a good front-end interface.

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Most of the marketing gurus tell us to send email format in text. Means the content will be displayed in simple text in your subscribers email clients.

In contrast, in html emails you can use images, colors, tables etc. to display the email content which can be very appealing to your subscribers eyes..

Recently I want to see how many people prefer text format and how many prefer html format. Did a small autoresponder experiment … Details are here.

Note: Only the outline of the procedure is explained here. No personal details of any subscribers are revealed.

STEP 1:

I created an autoresponder where the visitor subscribes to get free ebooks. I copied the form code on one of my sites.

See the image? I want to tell you about couple of things that eliminates biased selection of format by the subscriber …

1. Radiobuttons of BOTH formats are unselected. People tend to go with ‘default’ selection most of the times. So to let them click one radiobutton, both are left blank intentionally.

2. Both formats are presented by radiobuttons instead of dropdown to eliminate the chance of selecting the first format by the subscribers just because it is first and easily accessible.

3. Both radiobuttons are in same line. So subscriber can reach either one of them with same effort.

4. It has been stated clearly that all three fields need to be filled. This is to avoid frustration of the subscriber as he gets any error, it might alter the option of format as he clicks nearest radiobutton.

STEP 2:

The subscriptions are followed for 2 months. Details are as follows …

Total subscribers – 281
Subscribers who opted for text 227 (80.78%)
Subscribers who opted for html 54 (19.22%)

What caused this drastic difference?

There certain myths(?) on why people don’t prefer html emails to be delivered to their inboxes.

* Html emails are used by spammers: Spammers tend hide links to redirect the readers to a wrong site or wrong download link. Like as in the example of Paypal … Sometimes people receive html emails exactly like emails sent by Paypal saying that your account was hacked, please login and check the account. Newbies tend to fall for this and click on the link in the email which redirect them to a fake Paypal site. They login with their details and those details are captured by spammers to hack your real Paypal account. Enough said …

* Html emails caries viruses: Hackers send html emails with virus exe files attached. Ofcourse they use text emails too for this purpose, but html emails are more easily blammed for this.

* Subscribers like plain links: Subscripbers especially who are used to Internet marketing are like to see plain text and plain links rather than links hidden by html.

* Html emails takes up more inbox space: Because of the attached images and html code, html emails tend to occupy more space in subscribers inbox. So subscribers who have the idea of this inbox space, they tend to go for text emails.

But there are certain percentage of subscribers who like to see html, I guess. That is why 54 out of 227 are opted for html emails.

You as an Email marketer, have THREE options:

* Either go with Text format emails as most of the subscribers will be pretty happy with text format.

* Or offer both formats as an option to select for your subscribers.

* Send MIME email messages.

Any drawbacks to this study?

This is very short 2 months study. So there might be little difference of values if study is done with large group which can alter the results either way … But as overall I think we can see a trend towards text emails.

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Usually I get this pre-sale question frequently from potential buyers to this site – “How is your Follow up Autoresponder PRO differs from autoresponder services like aweber?”

1. Complete control with Self-hosted autoresponder:

Follow up autoresponder PRO is hosted on your web site. That means you are in control of the admin backend. The script can be installed on your site like -
http://www.yoursite.com/autoresponder/index.php

Advantage of the own self hosted autoresponder script is you can personalize the emails with your domain address. No more you@othersite.com addresses. You can use your own web site you@yoursite.com email addresses.

All redirect urls and unsubscribe urls point to your web site. So you can customize these urls with ads and extra affiliate links to increase profits.

2. One time fee and free upgrades:

You just pay once! No monthly fees and no more upgrade fees. This is very useful for webmasters who can not afford monthly fees. Most of the third party autoresponder services charge the customer based on the number of subscribers and out-going email from your account.

Follow up Autoresponder PRO can hold unlimited subscribers and unlimited email messages.

3. Unlimited email campaigns, autoresponders and messages:

Many third party services charge you based on the autoresponders you create or number of subscribers or number of email you sent out per month. With Follow up Autoresponder PRO, you can create unlimited email campaigns, autoresponders and messages.

All autoresponders can have default or customized redirect urls and custom fields. All email messages can be in text or html format. You can create unlimited email messages for each autoresponder as follow up messages.

4. Integrated Shopping cart and download protection:

Our customers asked for a shopping cart so buyers will be assigned to an autoresponder so they can follow up their customers. So we integrated a basic shopping cart that works with Paypal and 2checkout.com. You can follow up your buyers by series of messages or weekly newsletters. Once the buyer bought your product, he will be entered into your autoresponder system automatically.

Integrated download protection can be used to protect your digital downloads like ebooks, software etc. You can also create member folders and protect them with .htaccess.

These are just few differences … Read what our customers are saying …

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