I remember when I first started on the Internet as a webmaster. I remember I was so scared I was going screw something up, I was scared to death to install scripts into my website.
My First Experience With Online Script Customization
In those days, I had a mailing list with more than 2000 people subscribed to my newsletter. I remember thinking that people may think I was less professional, if I keep my mailing list on Yahoo groups. I remember that I had the bright idea to operate the mailing list from my domain. My web hosting company offered mailing list software, within my web hosting account.
Because I had the ability to operate my own mailing list from my server, I decided that I should move my Yahoo groups mailing list to a mailing list on my own domain. That was in 1999, the year that I had purchased my first domain name.
My very first experience with Perl scripts was when I was managing my mailing list. I recall that there was some customization that I desired to do within the coding for that script. I read the documentation for that mailing list software, and the programmers make it sound so easy…
I read the documentation several times to make sure that I understood what I was trying to do. I recall that in Perl scripting, a comment tag is denoted by the #, in front of the comment.
After three days of preparation, I opened up the Perl configuration file to customize how my particular mailing list operated. Once I opened the file and found hundreds of lines of code, I have to admit, I was deeply intimidated by the task that lay before me…
After seeing the code, I went back to the documentation and started reading again… I was so scared that I was going to screw something up that I felt I needed to make absolutely certain that what I thought I was doing was actually what I should be doing…
I was scared I was going to screw something up, and I was intimidated by the process…
To be honest, it took me more than one week to comment out three lines of code and to un-comment another eight lines of code, because I was so uneasy about what I was doing…
I Can Fix Anything I Break
Finally, I took the attitude that I could not screw up anything too bad… I took the attitude that if I broke something, then I could fix what I broke… That was the real turning point for me when dealing with computer scripts…
I figured that so long as I remembered what I changed, I could fix anything that I broke…
So, I kept good records in a notepad on my desk, documenting every change I made and where I made it…
Customizing Existing Website Scripts
For the first couple months, I only played with other people’s Perl scripts… If I found something that I wanted my website to do, I would go find a Perl script that was designed to do that task for me… Then I would install that script on my server and customize it if I needed to do so…
Customization of Perl scripts was painful and slow, because I would have to look for sample online that would show me how to do what I wanted to do… Then with a sample in hand, I would try to make my website jump through the hoops I wanted it to jump through…
In my case, I spent a couple years customizing other people’s scripts for my websites… In those early days, I only played with Perl scripts, because that is what I was familiar with… I had heard people talk about how easy and efficient PHP was, but it was unexplored territory for me, so therefore, I remained intimidated by PHP and stayed away from it for much too long…
In the spring of 2005, I was looking for a particular solution that I could only locate in PHP scripts… Literally, I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone and to start looking at code written in PHP…
Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone Into PHP
Using online tutorials for PHP, such as those found at PHP.net, I got to speed really quickly on PHP…
My first impression of using PHP for online programming was that I could do one line of code in PHP for ever 20 lines of code in Perl… Of course, that could only be
Related posts:
- Facing The Fear And Anxiety Of The Unknown
All most everybody worries about what will happen in the future. The prospect of not knowing if something good or bad will happen to you in the near future can produce a lot of fear and anxiety. As a result, here is a list of techniques and suggestions on how... - When Someone You Know Struggles With Fear And Anxiety
What do you do when someone you know has to deal with persistent fears, anxieties, or even depression? Well the first thing you need to do is to get the person to seek the services of a professional who can lead them in the right direction and give them the... - Are Your Websites Secure Or Is The Back Door Wide Open?
One of the topics that all of us online business people are aware of but usually don’t feel totally on top of is website security. Coming from a background of having spent over 20 years in the U.S. military, and having spent four years as a software tester, I have... - Beginner’s Guide To Multiple Domain Web Hosting
Gone are the days when you had to open a separate account for each of your website. Since the past few years website owners have been able to enjoy the various advantages offered by multiple domain hosting services. As the name implies, this kind of hosting plan allows you to... - All The Good Domains Have Disappeared! Find Me A Good Expire Domain Name!
It is becoming increasingly difficult to buy a good expired domain these days, because almost all words in a Standard English dictionary have been used to register domain names! Generic and single, two or three letter names are no longer available, unless you buy them at a hefty price. Most... - Tips For Building Your First Website
New people are coming online everyday. And many of those people desire to turn their spare time into spare cash. So begins their journey. Selecting a Webhosting Provider Many begin their journey on a free website. There are actually many companies that offer these “free websites.” Here are a few... - How To Choose A URL By Conducting A Domain Name Ownership Search
A successful web site or blog is always made meaningful by its domain name. The web address that you choose must suit the theme and tenor of the web site or blog. Make sure that your domain name matches the subject of the web site or blog. Almost all well-known... - Your Assets Building Outsourcing
When you are building your business online, you must be able to build assets if you want to quit your job. Allow me to explain: A 9-5 job is only short term income. It can be a lot or a little, but fundamentally it is still short term… Why? Because... - Post-buying Management of Expired Domains – Tips and Suggestions
Buying an expired domain is as easy or as difficult as any other buying activities. When you buy a product from an online portal, you will be on your track to confirm that what you buy is actually good for you. There are times when you buy an exceedingly good... - Action List For Video Blogging
□ Acquire the tools that you need for quality video. This includes a good digital video camera, a tripod, and editing tools. Choose a place where you will shoot your video blog episodes (if it will be the same place each time), and get it set up with the appropriate... - Test Your Web Site Before Go Live
You just finish your website, and you are excited to see it “live”. But first you should test if everything on your website works correct. Remember that the website is your corporate identity on Internet. Testing your website gives you a chance to fix errors before they destroy your business... - How to Use a Good Domain Name Suggestion Tool
Domain name is an important part of your online business. Without a good and meaningful domain name, you can never expect to make your business a success. You can choose a good domain name by using a number of online domain-name suggestion tools. Here are some simple tips to choosing... - Expired Domain Market – Realities and Perceptions (Part I)
Expired domain market offers you several advantages and benefits of making money out of expired or expiring domain names. This business is unique in a sense that it originates from using something that is considered dead and wastage by a number of people. It is almost like a product recycling... - Online Brand Protection – Must-Know Tactics to Safeguard Your Business
Intellectual property, trademarks and copyrights–if you are in business, you probably know what these are and how important they are. However, an online business has additional factors that must be considered to protect its brand within the Web’s wide exposure. What follows is an excerpt from a Brandsplat Video Report... - What’s Your Excuse For Still Not Having A List?
One of the excuses we hear most often from struggling online marketers is that they don’t make more sales because they don’t have a list. We even hear that excuse from marketers who have been online three, or even five years. My question to them is always, “What are you...