The Psycho Webmaster from Hell Answers Your Questions

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I am the Psycho Webmaster from Hell. I work for Acme Web Services, Inc., administrators of the biggest offshore data haven in the Azores. I am responsible for user support. In this document I will attempt to answer all your questions. (The Boss says that if you have any questions that aren't answered in this FAQ you are to ring me. Please bear in mind that as our corporate offices are in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, our support hours are 11pm through 5am EDT, and we are closed Tuesdays and every other Thursday.)

 
0. Contents

1. What do you sell?

We sell space on our web server. If you don't know what a web server is, get a copy of Nerdscape and put it on your computer, then surf the net a bit. If you don't know what a computer is, get a surf board and stand on it waving your arms from side to side and think about glossy adverts. It's a bit like that. Alternatively, pay me lots of moolah and I will fly in from Ulan Bator and show you what the web looks like, with the aid of a whizzy colour laptop and a large collection of carrier pigeons.

NB: You don't need to pay for our web space. You can run your own web server. However, this will cost you lots of money and you will have to learn something about computers. As this is probably beyond your natural abilities, my advice is to give up now and hand over the money.

2. How much does it cost?

For a mere $5 per year, tax free, we will rent you a hundred gigabytes of disk space on our server, which is a HyperMegaCraySuperComputer with more processors than you can shake a shitty stick at. (Actually, I tell a little white lie. That's the story you feed your manager when it wants to know who you're paying all the money to. The server is really a PC 386/16sx with 4Mb of RAM, running the CERN 3.0 daemon off a redundant array of inexpensive (i.e. obsolete) disks. But as we all know, web server throughput bears more relationship to bandwidth than MIPS, so this is okay as long as we have a big fuck-off T3 line to pump the data out over. As we're based in Mongolia we don't have a T3 line, but our implementation of RFC???? is second to none.)

NB: As pigeons are considered a delicacy in parts of China, occasional packet loss is an inevitable problem. Not to worry, though. If you suffer any throughput problems, notify us and we'll update our routing tables in time for the next batch of eggs.

There is an 80% rental discount for new users, as an introductory offer which expires in early 2018.

There is a tiny $1 surcharge per web hit per month above the basic number included in the package (currently, zero). Don't worry about it; your site is very unlikely to be busy enough to incur this charge, and if you _do_ have to pay it, you'll be doing enough business to be able to afford it.

3. How do we use your web server?

When you pay us your money we will give you a username (for example, B020) and a password (for example, 1U5ER). You should then use a telnet program to log into our server. From our server, you should ftp to your own ftp server (yes, you need to be running one -- our web server doesn't have room for ftpd) and pull in your files.

Once you've got all your files onto our server, you should change all their names to lowercase and add the suffix ".html" to all HTML files. This can be done quite easily by typing something vaguely like:

ksh -c 'find . -name '*.HTM' -exec mv {} {}L \;; find . -name '*.HTML' -exec mv {} $(perl -e "$_ =~ tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/" < {})\; -print'

-- although this might not work if your environment isn't set up correctly.

(For a brief introduction to UNIX, which you will need in order to use our server, see J.S.Bach, "Design of the UNIX System".)

Once you've renamed all your files, move them into the 'public_html' directory. For example:

copy -R *.html *.gif ~/public_html
cd ~/incoming
rm -rf *

(The last line tidies up your ~/incoming directory. You _DID_ remember to create an upload directory, didn't you?)

NB: If you are new to UNIX, we will be pleased to help you by providing a full range of tools (mv, rm, copy, dd, perl, awk, sed, and ksh) which are adequate for any task you may need to perform. If you are experienced, you can do everything with dd and we don't want you trying to hack our server. In any event, your login account is in a change-rooted environment with /bin/sh symlinked to /dev/null, /bin/csh symlinked to /dev/zero (we don't like Sun) and vi symlinked to /bin/teco.

Hope this helps.

Subsidiary questions:

3.a What is telnet?

A tool for facilitating long-range cock-ups. (As in: you no longer need to be in your own back yard in order to shit in it.)

3.b What is ftp?

A tool for annoying network administrators. (As in: "you decided to download the entire sources for the new release of Slackware Linux over our V32.bis modem? Are you MAD?")

3.c I do as you tell me, and I type in my username and password, but then telnet opens this window with nothing in it but a dollar character and a square. What's wrong? What should I do?

Go back to your Windows 95 box and weep.

4. I want to put a form on my web site that mails a user's credit card number back to me. How do I do this?

Very easily. See my cookbook example at:
http://acme.nowhere.mo/howtodoit/credit-card-fraud.html.

All you do is copy the HTML form to your public_html directory and it will use my automatic form-to-email gateway to send the credit card details to me^H^Hyou via standard, secure, SMTP mail.

NB: When installing the form in your public_html directory you need to edit the following line:

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="MYADDRESS" VALUE="luser@bozo.org">
Replace the string "luser@bozo.org" with your email address.
Do not, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, delete the following line:
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="PWFH_ADDRESS" VALUE="pwfh@cc_database.acme.com">

5. What happens if I need support outside of office hours?

We maintain a full 24-hour response service in all localities. You can request on-site support by dialing 911 (or 999, or the local emergency code). Our trained troubleshooters wear blue uniforms and will be with you immediately. Remember: they're there to shoot trouble.

6. I want to put my Pin-up of the Week site on your web server. This will get you lots of hits. Won't you give me some space for free?

No. We are not a charity.

However, we will be happy to host your web site in return for a cut based on the volume of traffic it generates. In general, our cut will be greater than the cost of the hardware required to support that level of throughput. Thus, if you wish to place your "Hot bi babes of the week in slinky chocolate bubble-bath sex" page on our server, we would be glad to put you in touch with an agency who will help you to use your site to generate sufficient advertizing revenue to pay us. We recommend Acme Inc.'s in-house internet advertising specialists, Gallop and Sleazeball.

7. Whose minion are you? I want to complain.

I am Lead High Senior Perl Guru for Acme Web Services. I am not a minion. I report directly to The Boss From Hell. His Satanic Majesty will be glad to deal with your complaints at any hour of day or night.

However, I know more about the web than he does, and he knows it, so you won't get very far. Moreover, if you complain about me, you will piss me off. I am very temperamental and virtually impossible to replace, and The Boss From Hell knows it and can live without the stomach ulcers and recruitment agency fees. Thus, if you complain about me, you will piss off His High Luciferousness. This is not a recommended course of action.

He might arrange for your account to be transferred to the Schedule B "De-Luxe" payment and support schema. This is our upmarket web contract package for thrusting corporate enterprise executives with a yen to be seen in the right circles and more money than sense.

If you annoy The Boss From Hell and he transfers you to Schedule B, you can expect the following benefits:

NB: We employ British Army plc, debt collection agency. All bills due in advance. No debt rescheduling available.

8. How do I make cheap funeral arrangements?

Post your ashes to us in a cheap unlabelled cardboard box and we will conduct an intranasal assay of them in case they are pure cocaine.

If they aren't, we'll pull your site.