AUGUST 12th 2004

NEW VERSION OF ASPBANNER IS BEING RELEASED THIS WEEK

ASPBanner Unlimited Version 8.0

It is completely finished.

http://www.aspbanner.com/

This new version has more features and is selling for $99.95

Unlimited Version 7.3 is now named "ASPBanner Standard"

Owner's of Unlimited Version 7.3 can get an upgrade to Unlimited Version 8 for the difference in price (based on current pricing)

It is available now for purchase at the following link .

http://www.aspbanner.com/purchase_unlimited_v8.1_classic_upg rade.asp


The new version can use your existing database so it is a fairly easy upgrade.

If you are not an existing ASPBanner Customer you can use the following link to purchase the application normally.

http://www.aspbanner.com/purchase_unlimited_v8.1_classic.asp


Notes on the new version:

ASPBanner Unlimited Version 8

Improved graphics and some new icons

New reports screen... 4 reports total   3 of which are new

New Iframe Banner Calling method with built in auto refresh feature so banners can rotate at a specified interval on their own

New Zone Order Informaion Page
Visually shows you what the current rotation looks like for a zone

Banners can now be stopped at a certain date and at an impression limit
Whichever is hit 1st.. before it was just one or the other

New "data" folder... this new directory is the only directory that needs permissions
this should make setting up the system and permissions a breeze.. all cjwsoft applications will
eventually use this same folder

New configuration text file... eliminates config table in the database and allows us to easily
add more config options in the future without changing the database.. means easier upgrades down the road
and faster loading of the configuration data

New application data connection wizard
makes setting up the data connection a no brainer

more overall emailing methods supported

CDONTS
CDOSYS
ASPEMAIL
ASPMAIL
ASPSMARTMAIL
DUNDASMAILER
JMAIL
SASMTPMAIL
Bamboo Mail
Simple Mail
ASPQMail
QuickSoft EasyMail Objects
OCXMail

Persists ASPEMail now supports outgoing SMTP authentication.
Simple Mail now supports outgoing SMTP authentication.
It is becoming popular for ISP to use this.

Emailing code now uses functions so we can easily add more email component support down the road

Flash files (.swf) can now be previewed and used in new banner right from the upload page
before this could only be done with image files

Users page now has a notes popup feature
when you hold the mouse over the icon you see all info on a user without needing to edit that user

Edit banner page now shows the color of the banner status in the dropdown menu

New clone banner feature.. allows you to easily create similar banners

Banner application page has been optimized to be even more efficient

Javascript popup calendar date selectors

Ton of misc little things & Improvements...


Some Screenshots

I think I've found the problem..

The password "abcdefgh" works

The password "abcdefghi" does not

(username "ace45")

Passwords can obviously only contain up to and including 8 characters... By some coincidence I only used short passwords with MS Access.

I've downloaded this neat little app, but I'm having troubles understanding what I should be using.  Cassinni or IIS, can you help?  I've tried to look at the help, but it is very vague on what to use in each situation. 

Any help is appreciated. 

Cheers

here is a thread that may help you if this is what you were getting at

http://support.cjwsoft.com/code/moreinfo389-1.htm

ConnectionString = "DBQ=C:\TradersReportsCom\aspprotect\data\database\ASPProtec t_access2002.mdb;Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};UID=Admin;Password=temp"

I have already set the folder permissions as indicated in the documentation.

Disallowed Parent Path

The Include file '../dataconn_inc.asp' cannot contain '..' to indicate the parent directory. 

When you get an error like this it is because parent paths are disabled on the web server. This is a setting in the IIS console for your website.

If it is not enabled on you server you will have to ask your host to enable parent paths for your website.

This is what the settings screen looks like on an XP Machine

Additional Information:

It is enabled by default on IIS4-IIS5 but in IIS6 it is disabled by default.
It is a minor security risk to have enabled and some hosts can be difficult about setting it.

Truth is, if your hosting ASP for customers you need to enable this setting if the customer requests it. Especially since 90% of the ASP applications out there require the setting.

Hosting companies should if they are serious about hosting ASP.


If they won't your only option is to go through all the code and convert the file includes to virtual includes.

http://www.powerasp.com/content/code-snippets/includes.asp

The trouble with virtual includes is they are different depending on the layout of your website. (that's why web application developers generally don't use them)

Basically if you are in a sub domain the path for the virtual include is going to be different then if you were in the root.. etc etc

Also.. someone developing on a local machine would need totally different virtual includes on the development server than they would on the live server. Server Side includes are processed before ASP so there is no way to make them SMART, so to speak. Server Side includes are hardcoded and that's that.

In my opinion virtual includes are pretty useless for commercial web based applications...  Since you don't know where the customers plan to install the apps.
And YES there are some tricks when designing the applications that make it less of an issue but they are not perfect solutions.

For example...

The virtual include below would work if the application or code was installed in the root
<!--#include virtual = /somefile.asp"-->

But if the application or code was installed in a directory called "somedirectory" the virtual include directive would need to look like this

<!--#include virtual = "/somedirectory/somefile.asp"-->

Has anyone used the aspmail function to send and recieve emails from within your forms? If so what string did you use in the aspmail_host field in the connections database.

thank you
adam

Hi

I have purchased the Standard version about a week ago. Its a great script.

I have been able to select  uploaded banners from day one... but just now i dont seem to be able to select...

i know its hard for you to trouble shoot with such little information.. but i had to ask..

Should i maybe upload the site again ( but same the database first)?

regards

Domenic

Sydney, Australia

The application automatically generates all the code for you for each method of calling banners. It does this on the zones screen.

If you are using flash it also possible that the actualy flash file is what is causing things to slow up.

It really all depends... it could also be server resource related

using sql server or access.. ? etc etc

all important details

I'm getting errors when clicking the Update Config Button in the System Info page and when clicking the log files button.

I'm not sure if it's a permission thing or not.  ASPNET and IUSR both have modify access to the _database folder and childs, yet I'm still getting the error:

Access to the path "D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\aspprotectnet\_database\xsd\aspprotectne t_config.xml" is denied.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\_database\xsd\aspprotectnet_config.xml" is denied.

ASP.NET is not authorized to access the requested resource. Consider granting access rights to the resource to the ASP.NET request identity. ASP.NET has a base process identity (typically {MACHINE}\ASPNET on IIS 5 or Network Service on IIS 6) that is used if the application is not impersonating. If the application is impersonating via <identity impersonate="true"/>, the identity will be the anonymous user (typically IUSR_MACHINENAME) or the authenticated request user.

To grant ASP.NET write access to a file, right-click the file in Explorer, choose "Properties" and select the Security tab. Click "Add" to add the appropriate user or group. Highlight the ASP.NET account, and check the boxes for the desired access.

Any ideas?

Thanks

It appears there was a flag problem. When reading it into SQL Server, it converted the True/False in Access to 1/0 in SQL Server.

Is this the full version 7.
Did you make any changes to the code ?
Is the User_ID field still an autonumber field in the Access database ?

I do not see how this could happen unless somehow the autonumber field setting for User_ID was changed in the database?

Chris, that fixed it.  Found 2-references to guestbook2 in the file show_messages_inc.asp located in the \guestbook\ directory.

Suggestion for future release.  Create an option to email the admin when a message is posted.  If this code already exists please advise.

Thanks, Lance

also.. the log out page shouldnt really need this
but you can try adding this to it where all the other ones are set to nothing..

<% Session("Groups") = "" %>

If things are not perfect there will be no log files and no errors.. it can only be one of these things really
http://support.cjwsoft.com/code/moreinfo313-2.htm

You may also want to make your the filesystem on the server is working and not disabled by norton script blocking or anything random like that. Testing the filesystem object is best done by writing a simple text file to a folder. Plenty of examples of doing that can be found at www.aspin.com

Recent activity is temporary and admin activity in the admin area is not tracked. If your application in IIS has reset or there has been no activity in the users area or in pages you protected there will be nothing there. The busier your site the more chance something will be there. For example usually our online demo has something there except right after 4am when my server does an iisreset.

Hello,

My guess your having trouble setting up a system dsn because the database has a password set on it. Your hosting company most likely sets up DSNs without using the advanced tab which is where the authentication information goes. Or they have some sort of web interface for the customers to use that doesn’t allow setting up that information.System DSN’s are actually difficult to set up correctly when the database has a password on it. There is of course a password on the database for security reasons so if someone ever downloads it somehow they will not get your information.

System DSN’s are not the way to go regardless as you will see mentioned at our support site.

http://support.cjwsoft.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9&P N=1

You really should try setting up a DSN-less connection. It is the best way to go. They are easier to set up, perform better, and are less load on the server. Any host that wants it customers to use system dsn’s is not on the ball as far as server performance and server resource conservation goes. They are really asking for trouble down the road.

All you need to do to make dsn-less connection is the following.

Get permissions set for the folder the database is in (by your host)… then figure out the physical path on the server to the database by using server.mappath or you simply ask your host for the info.

An article I wrote on using server.mappath

http://www.powerasp.com/content/hintstips/physical-path.asp

Then your connection string will look something like this.. (of course you edit the path to match what server.mappath tells you. And you make sure the database name is correct)

ListingsConnectionString = "DBQ=C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\asplistings\_database\asplistings_ac cess2000.mdb;Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};UID=Admin;Password=temp"

Another option would be to simply remove the password from the database using MSACCESS.. then try to connect to it using a System DSN without the password. If your host is storing the databases outside of your web in the root of the server then removing the password on the database is not that bad of a thing to do as there is no way anyone will be able to dload it from your site. Of course there is a still a performace loss when using a system dsn with an Access Database

far as I can tell it does... that session abandon thing called in the logoff page should be enough to cover everything

once thing to be careful about

If you log in.. then log off... then go back to a page and do a refresh... you  may in fact be reposting the username and password from before.. thus logging yourself right back in

Perhaps not.. all depends on what your doing... but it is something to be careful of when testing 

Version 8.1 can work with MySQL
http://www.aspbanner.com/aspbanunlimited_v8.asp
It is just not supported at all.

The standard version can not work with MySQL.
There were a lot of changes to make the new version work with it and I really only did ift because I have a couple friends with busy sites that could only use MySQL.

It sounds like your site is way too busy for using an access database as you mentioned.

The problem was that I did not have

ConnectionString = "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}.... in the connection string.

Thank You.

the menu file.. "menu.asp" or something... just follow the logic of the code to find things like that. Look for server side include files and what not in the source code.

This is a good article on figuring out what pages to edit as well as other things.
http://www.powerasp.com/content/hintstips/common_sense.asp

If it was working and you changed code you could have possible messed up how all of that works... you may need to revert back and be really careful as you make changes testing every step of the way.

Hello,

I really need more infomation..

for starters

what is the server ? iis4,5, or 6 ?

what is the version of aspbanner.. aspbanner standard or aspbanner unlimited ?

what was the error message before you removed the "on error resume next"

was the sql database created using the sql creation scripts we provide as that is VERY important.

and lastly what are the the regional settings of the server ?
what is the date format ?

ok... lets forget about all this redirecting business for a minute

when I go to "GP01.asp" directly via your web site I get a big nasty error that says this

Microsoft VBScript compilation error '800a0411'

Name redefined

/protect/config_inc.asp, line 15

Dim  Address_Required,CDONTS_Installed,City_Required,Registration _Type,VerifyURL,Log_Off_Page
----^ 

then when I look at what you did in that file I see why

you have this code which is totally wrong because you cannot include the password protection file twice

<%@ LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" %>
<!--#INCLUDE FILE="check_user_inc.asp"-->
<% GROUPACCESS = "*1*" %>

<!--#INCLUDE FILE="check_user_inc.asp"-->

it should be

<%@ LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" %>

<% GROUPACCESS = "*1*" %>
<!--#INCLUDE FILE="check_user_inc.asp"-->

and that is probably the root of this entire problem.. the redirection was working...
but you were sending them to invalid pages with errors

all those pages are wrong...

if you dont see the real error above see this

http://support.cjwsoft.com/code/moreinfo11-1.htm

if you look over the aspprotect 7 installation instructions that is the very 1st thing I tell people to do

hopefully this is the info you need to continue and get some work done

This issue came up once before and when I investigated I could find no error in the html that aspprotect generates and those files do exist where they are supposed to. We concluded it was a parsing error from the log file system.

There just really isn't anything I can do about it. I spent a week trying to figure it out. It is just the log parser screwing up under certain circumstances where there is no reason anything is wrong. They have trouble dealing with some of the complex URL/querystrings that the ASPProtect admin area uses. They think there is a 404 eror when there isn't... etc etc

Hi Chris,

I tried changing using Notepad in the config_inc.asp

from:

If  Application("SERVER_SOFTWARE") = "" Then
 Application("SERVER_SOFTWARE") = Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_SOFTWARE")
End If

To

Application("SERVER_SOFTWARE") = "iis/6"

and the albums still do not show up under the categories

Rhona (rookie)

I assume that if I am using this product, search engines such as Google cannot access and index my content. Can somebody confirm that; I want to be 100% sure.

In case it matters, I am using a basic, cheap ISP setup where my site is on a shared server.

Thanks in advance.