I was asked the following question today, and thought it might be useful to write it up for everyone :
I have an existing web site which is written entirely in HTML. I have taught myself how to write dynamic code using PHP, and I want to add some PHP code to pages on my existing site. Here’s the problem : when I upload a page and view it through a browser, I can actually see bits of the PHP code and it is not parsed as PHP. What do I need to do ?
OK, it’s pretty common to have a site written in plain HTML. A lot of simple sites start out this way.
Now the problem here is simply that the HTML pages are saved as .htm or .html and the web server is not recognizing the need to parse PHP code embedded in those pages.
An easy change to the configuration of the web site will force .htm or .html to have their PHP code parsed and interpreted using PHP.
Simply add the following lines to your .htaccess file :
AddType application/x-httpd-php htm
AddType application/x-httpd-php html
There is some pretty cool software available on the web, but it can take some hunting down and a bit of trial and error before you find exactly what you need.
A nice way of finding software that you need is to go for software that someone else has tried out before you and written a review about it. Most reviews give an unbiased overview of the software along with a list of good and bad points. You can use this information to help you determine whether you want to try the software out. Even more importantly, a good review can help you decide whether you want to actually spend your hard earned cash and purchase a license for the software.
Over time, I will be writing reviews of software that I find useful, and posting them here under the category of … you guessed it … Reviews
This should benefit a large number of people, from end users through to software developers and marketers.
If you are an end user looking for software, or someone who likes to keep up with new, good quality software then subscribe to the RSS feed for this site by clicking on the RSS icon 
at the top right of this page.
Software developers / software authors, if you would like me to review your software and post it here on site, I am happy to do so. Generally speaking, I would be looking for a single user license for my personal use in exchange for doing this. Contact me with the details of your software to be considered for a review.
Yep … a great question. When I talk about what I do with friends and colleagues, I am often asked the question ”… but, if I was to write software, what software should I write ?”.
As a wise man once said to me :
Write about that which you know …
If you know about a topic, problem, situation it is often easy to write about it. Likewise with software … which is usually written to solve a problem or make something a lot easier.
A lot of successful shareware / trialware authors started out writing a piece of software for themselves to solve a particular problem they were dealing with or something they were trying to make easier for themselves.
Take WinZip as an example. This started off in the early 1990′s as a simple GUI frontend to the PKZIP compression software. WinZip has been marketed as try before you buy (shareware) since day one and over the years has become a household name.
Since the advent of WinZip, compression support has been built into Windows and there have been many compression programs written, some free and some marketed as shareware. There are even programs that help you recover your password from password protected ZIP files if you have forgotten it.
I write software … I have done so for many years, and I’m pretty good at it.
I wrote my first software program when I was 10 years old. It was written in BASIC and was part of a science project I was working on. The challenge was to classify an insect based on a set of Yes / No questions prompted to the user. It worked, it was fun, and I was hooked …
Some 30 years later I still enjoy writing software … and now I make money doing so … 
For the past 15 years, I have been writing software and marketing it and selling it as shareware or trialware. (See the FAQ posting on What is Shareware ?)
During that time I have learned a lot. There have been many successes and there have also been failures. In my opinion it is good to fail from time to time. It means you have tried things. If we never failed and only succeeded at everything we did then we would have to question whether we could have done more … did I try hard enough on that one ? What if I had risked a little bit more … tried something out of my comfort zone.
So … yes … I’m quite willing to admit some failures on my journey through the world of writing software and selling it on the internet.
That journey is an ongoing one, and it’s time to share some of the successes and failures with you. A quick bit of organisation on this site :
- Postings such as this one are categorized as Musings
- There will be FAQs, How To articles as well as Technical articles
Feel free to comment and ask questions …
I have been asked that question a lot over the years. The term Shareware has been used, mis-used, abused and bandied around as a bit of ‘buzz’ over time.
I had to explain it to my parents (who are not technical people by any stretch of the imagination) when I told them what I was doing. Of course they had read the occasional media piece which mentioned the word, but they just didn’t grasp the essence of it.
Shareware is simple … it is a generic term for a method of marketing software …
The term shareware is synonymous with trialware and try before you buy.
All three refer to the fact that you, as the potential customer, get to download the software and try it out before you actually commit to spending any money.
The ultimate goal for most (not all) software authors is to get people to buy their software. It’s the simple old commerce thing … I’ll provide you with something useful … you may me some money to compensate my for my thought and hard work.
Without large marketing budgets and the ability to get boxed software in pretty packaging in front of retail consumers, authors who write software need a method of getting there software purchased by the end user.
Most users would not be happy to pay money for something that :
- Is not a household name
- Is not proven and reliable
- May not do what they want
… unless of course they could try it out for free before having to commit their hard earned cash.
Software developers, there are many resources you can find on the Internet which will help you with developing and marketing your software :
Welcome to SoftwareSites.info !!
If you have found this site for the first time, then we welcome you as a new visitor and hope that you will subscribe to the RSS Feed to receive regular updates, and that you will continue to return to the site to read the latest articles, musings, how to’s, technical information about software sites.
So, what is this site all about ?
Well, hopefully that is pretty well summarised by the domain name “SoftwareSites.info”. The primary purpose of the site is to provide a place for me to impart my knowledge of and information about software sites … to you !!
What do you mean by Software Sites ?
There are squillions of software sites on the World Wide Web, where software authors provide you with information about their software. Some software is free … some is able to be tried before you buy … some is commercial and must be purchased before you can use it. Regardless of whether the sites are shareware sites showing you details about author’s software, or whether the sites are the author’s sites showing off their own software … we are here to share our thoughts. knowledge, experience and technical know-how about these sites.
Welcome along and enjoy the ride …
Recent Comments