I was recently asked, as a commercial request, to create a WordPress plugin that would allow users to click a button and copy text the clipboard. It seemed an easy enough thing to do – 2 weeks later, though, and I’ve thrown in the towel.

Using JavaScript to capture contents is the easy bit – adding it to the clipboard is a lot more difficult. IE has a JavaScript command built in, other browsers vary. Unfortunately, other browsers (e.g. Firefox) also restrict this ability for security reasons. This is because the ability to write to the clipboard also comes with the ability to read from it as well – quite why this functionality can’t be detached and restrict just the reading I don’t know.

So, using JavaScript is problematic.

Thankfully I’m not the first to come across this problem and a third party script named ZeroClipboard is available. This uses Flash to update the clipboard, which doesn’t have the same security limitations. Of course if you’re viewing from a device that doesn’t support Flash (cough, splutter, iPad, iPhone, cough) then you’re still out of luck. None-the-less this seemed a perfect solution.

Unfortunately, my limited JavaScript skills failed me – I found the program to be over-complex for what I needed and failed to be able to get it to work.

At this point I found an alternative – ZClip uses ZeroClipboard but is controlled via JQuery (which is built into WordPress) and provide a much easier and friendly method of access.

I was now in a position where I had a working plugin. Until I used Admin Bar. That seemed to affect the positioning of the Flash overlay so you had to click slightly above the “Copy to clipboard” button to get it to work.

The customer, though, didn’t have an issue with this and I could only hope that they didn’t have anything else within their theme or plugins that could affect it in this way (I did try contacting the developer of Zclip but got no response).

What really ended it all though was the limited way of capturing text in zclip, which I hadn’t appreciated earlier on. ZClip can capture in 2 ways – from static fields (e.g. the text between a SPAN) or dynamic (e.g. from a field). The first doesn’t capture any formatting, even paragraph breaks – returning everything as one long line of text. The second did, but by capturing the HTML.

The customer wanted the customer to be able to copy to the clipboard long paragraphs of text – neither offered a neat solution to this.

Then I gave up. One day I may return to it – certainly ZeroClipboard will probably allow me to do what I need it to, but I’ll have to get my head around how to first.

Image courtesy of Michal Koralewski

Somebody once described NTL (now, Virgin Media)  to me as “excellent, until you need any help”, due to their poor support.

When it comes to Streamline.net hosting I wouldn’t even go that far. Their hosting is quite cheap and that’s the only good word I can give them.

The Copy+ website, owned by the software author Stuart, are hosted by Streamline, but I manage the site. As huge profits aren’t made from the Copy+ site we stuck with cheap hosting. We also needed a big bandwidth due to the size of the software being downloaded – it’s often only the lower end of the hosting market that offers this.

Apart from site speed issues it’s been, okay-ish. But when we have needed support it’s not been brilliant. They also have a lot of restrictions – e.g. .htaccess files can only consist of redirects – everything else (including caching) is ignored. I was never able to upgrade phpBB 2 to phpBB 3 due to “out of memory” issues. Instead, I installed it on my own personal site (hosted elsewhere) and transferred over the resulting files and database, which worked.

However, we started being told by customers at the beginning of the year that they had problems signing up for the forum. Over time it got worse and some testing by myself showed that emails sent from the site simply weren’t turning up at their destination.

On the 22^nd March I sent them a support request, asking them to investigate why email was not been sent via my site scripts. I sent them a very basic piece of code using the PHP mail facility to send a mail, so that they had an example (and wouldn’t simply assume it’s my code that’s wrong).

The response was…

To ensure that no spam messages are sent from our network, Streamlinenet filters all outgoing e-mail. These must have a ‘From’ or ‘To’ address that is a domain hosted with Streamlinenet. Any e-mail not fulfilling these criteria is stopped.

For more details, please refer to the link below:

http://www.streamlinesupport.net/index.php?page=show&id=150

We would recommend that you change the destination email on your mailer script to an email address hosted with us.

Ok, so the FROM or TO field needs to be one that is from our domain name – in this case skycopyplus.co.uk. Except the code I sent them had a FROM email from that domain.

I pointed this out.

Can you please provide us the password of the email account support@navpoint.co.uk, so that we can check if it was able to received the test email that we are going to do with the php form on your website?

Quite blatantly they hadn’t looked at the example code as it was using the support@navpoint.co.uk email address as the FROM address, not TO. I pointed this out to them too.

We are already aware with the issue that you are encountering right now, this is because of the SMTP server (authsmtp.streamline.net) intermittent overloading issue. The symptoms of the issue is you are going to encounter delays in sending out emails and sometimes you are going to received bounced back emails.

In order for us to further check the issue, can you please provide us the bounced back emails that you received?

As an alternative solution you can use the outgoing server of your local ISP (internet service provider) or use webmail.domain URL (http://webmail.phit-consultancy.co.uk) in sending out emails, because this is not encountering any issues in sending out emails to any types of email accounts.

Our deepest apologies about this matter. Rest assured that we are working on this issue to solve it soon as possible, as we already received lots of complaints from our customers.

With regards with the issue of the form with your website, we found out that the contact.php and sendmail.php file does not contain any action script to send out emails. Please double check the script of your website and create an action script to send the emails.

Note: We would like to remind you that scripting issue is already beyond of our scope of support.

So, they now wanted bounced emails. Except there weren’t any – they simply didn’t turn up at their destination. They now suggesting this was a problem with my coding too. None-the-less they were now admitting they had a problem with their SMTP server.

My response begins to show my frustration…

We are not recieving any bounced mail responses, so are unable to forward these onto you.

Using an alternative outgoing SMTP server is not a solution for PHP mail, which will use your own SMTP server – as per the code example I sent you.

It would appear that the outgoing mail issue has been going on for weeks – I do not see an open support ticket for this and I am dismayed that you still do not have any ETA for a fix.

At the end of the day I need PHP mail to work. Not to lose mails when I use the correct email structure, as per your demands (i.e. using a FROM or TO mail from our domain).

If you have no intentions to fix this, please let me know now and I will make arrangements to move to another company who can provide the most basic of functions, such as working SMTP.

Their response didn’t help…

We are very sorry, we don’t have the ETA of the sending emails using the main SMTP server which is authsmtp.streamline.net

Please use the alternative SMTP below:

authsmpt1.streamline.net

As I pointed out to them – again – I can’t change the SMTP server that PHP uses without changing the PHP configuration, which they don’t allow me to do.

They responded by ignoring this but instead creating another test program which they told me worked. It worked, but only because the TO address was going to a navpoint.co.uk domain email address. As soon as you change this to go elsewhere it fails.

They then pointed out that they had alternative SMTP servers available. I blew…

Did you read my last message when I clearly explained this?

I am using the PHP mail command, which you cannot configure to use a different SMTP server. That can only be done via the PHP configuration file, which I am unable to change – that is something you have to do.

Have you thought to change this in config.php?

Please stop asking me questions that I keep answering and you ignore.

The response, though, finally told us what we wanted to know…

The destination email on your mailer script (test.php) is still showing as [REMOVED] which is an external email address. Please be reminded that the ‘From’ and ‘To’ fields should be Streamline hosted email addresses else it will be stopped. We have changed this to support@navpoint.co.uk and it now appears to be working fine.

So what they’re telling me is that I have to send mails to the navpoint domain. Which is no good for website contact forms or running a forum which requires users to validate their email address.

Unfortunately, there is no other way around it as these limits exist is so we don’t open ourselves up to abuse.

At this point the Copy+ owner, Stuart, not a web expert in any way, responded. He’d got it, why couldn’t Streamline?

With respect, your statement that BOTH the TO and FROM addresses must be streamline hosted is clearly nonsense. Our own tests (and also direct experience of this mainly working most of the time over many years) have proved this.

The reason for the INTERMITTENT problems we are currently experiencing is it seems, by your own admission, due to an issue with authsmtp.streamline.net.

In Ticket Number: 639751 you kindly provide us with a workaround for this issue – specifically to use authsmtp1.streamline.net.

However the configuration required to do this is part of the PHP server configuration and so outside of our direct control!

We simply ask that you configure our sites at navpoint.co.uk and skycopyplus.co.uk to use the alternative SMTP server of authsmtp1.streamline.net.

They responded back to pointing us to 2 pages on their site which mentions the limitations of their mail system. Except it states the from OR to email fields must have the owners domain and, at no point, makes mention that the TO field must have.

Stuart responded back to ask them – again- if they could configure our site to use their altnerative SMTL server. They responded by saying that they didn’t write scripts for users.

To say we are dealing with IT illiterate imbeciles would be an understatement.

It was now the 31^st March. Between Stuart and I we decided to switch hosts – the hosting was due to finish in August. Unfortunately,  Streamline still had something in store for us when we requested for the hosting not to auto-renew (there is no option in their provided control panel to stop it).

So we can complete the closure please confirm the following:

-That the package you wish to cancel is: skycopyplus.co.uk

- That you have taken all required backups of your website and hosting space, including emails. Please reply to this ticket to confirm this has been done in order that we can proceed to cancellation for you.

- Also if you are able to provide any feedback on why you moved this away would be appreciated

We will close the account on receipt of your confirmation, so please ensure that you complete any backups before replying to this mail, as we are unable to schedule cancellations for a future date.

Please be aware that closure of a hosting account does not entitle you to a refund of any charges already applied to that particular service, including any additional service charges already incurred

In other words, they would close it there and then, with no option to simply cancel the auto-renew. Even this pushed the patience of Stuart.

I am sorry, but that is totally unacceptable. I have paid for my hosting on this account up until the renewal date of 15/08/2011, and I should be entitled to receive the remainder without having to cancel early or run the risk of automatically being charged for a further 2 years at £119.76 as a result. Which appears to be what you are telling me will happen if I fail to cancel exactly on time?

If I wait until the renewal date to cancel (as you seem to imply I need to), how I am supposed to know on what exact date you will have taken the payment, or indeed how long it might take you to respond to my support request so that I can cancel in a timely fashion beforehand to avoid further charges?

I notice that my card payment details that you hold on file have expired. I trust this is sufficient to ensure that I will not be charged on this card? However should you attempt to submit a payment to my card anyway, I will have no hesitation in contacting my card company and demanding a charge back for my card issuer of any monies so taken.

As you happen to ask – one reason for cancelling is that we have been unable to get a reliable service for sending mail via your SMTP servers and a total lack of any coherent responses from your support department regarding this long standing issue on the last 2 tickets we raised. In fact we were totally going round in circles with you as nobody seemed to be reading the history of the ticket before replying. So we are moving our hosting elsewhere where we can get decent support and they do not have ongoing SMTP mail server issues.

But I shall now add to my list of reasons for cancelling your completely inflexible approach to a polite and entirely reasonable request to opt not to renew one of our accounts.

I don’t think a huge amount now needs to be said. The site has been moved to HostPapa who are also cheap and offer unlimited bandwidth. However, their email appears to work and, so far, their support seems a lot, lot better. In time I’ll publish a review about them. Meantime, they hosting is quite a bargain with many features above those that Streamline offer.

My intention for the site is to install WordPress and a brand new forum – a nice bit of stress testing. Next year we have another site to potentially move to a new host so HostPapa may be a possibility there too.

Whatever happens, they surely can’t be worse than Streamline.

A few more “reviews”…

• My legal battle with Streamline.net
• Streamline.net taking money from my account
• streamline.net are crap
• streamline.net are still incompetant

Summary of Streamline.net hosting

Cheap but not cheerful. They don’t seem to be able to grasp the most basic of customer requirements and have all the technical savvy of my 2 year old. Avoid at all costs.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 27th July 2011.

Screenshot of DVD Ripper in progress

iToolSoft produce a wide range of ripping and conversion software. And, at the moment, they are giving away their popular DVD Ripper software – it’s 100% clean of viruses, etc, and is restriction free.

It’s a 15.5 MB download and 60.9 MB once installed.

It’s quick to start and uses it’s own GUI, rather than the Windows “standard”. It’s not too different, so isn’t too bothersome (I hate it when software operates totally different to everything else – Apple software is a good example of this). One thing I wasn’t keen on was that the fonts used were not smoothed by ClearType, obviously showing that the GUI was “doing it’s own thing” rather than being handled by Windows (and I’m sure if it was, the download and install sizes would be smaller!).

It’s let down a little by some spelling and grammar mistakes, but its very easy to use. Simple choose the DVD drive that you wish to rip and then either select a profile or create your own. There are profiles for all sorts of devices in different categories, and selecting one of these chooses suitable conversion formats, including resolutions, file types, etc. There’s lots for Apple devices, but when it comes to mobile phones it gets a bit more general, so in my case I’d have to set up my own for my Android phone. Obviously, there are a lot of phones on the market, but catering for some of the more popular, other than Apple, would have been nice.

There’s a preview window, from which you can take screenshots, and a few user-changeable options. But not many. You can also edit video – this is a very simply editor which simply allows you to “clip” parts from it where needed. There are no instructions as part of the installation and the website has some sketchy help, but it’s not a great deal – you’re going to have to work out most of it for yourself.

Star Trek Generations - playback after rip with standard .MOV profile

To test it, I ripped a region 2 copy of Star Trek First Contact to .mov format. Obviously, depending on the various profile options selected, and the length of the film, conversion time will vary. In this case it took around 70 minutes – but this is certainly something you can leave and come back to later. You’ll probably struggle to use the computer at the same time, as it will attempt to use maximum CPU usage (across all cores). There is a “background” option, but this seems to simply send the program to the system tray, rather than reduce CPU use so that the computer can be used for other things (which is what I assumed it was for).

The rip results were very good and I had no complaints about the quality.

I then tried Star Trek Generations – specifically because I have this on Region 1. Windows Media Player refused to play it unless I change my region number (and you can only change this a number of times). However, DVD Ripper had no issues and played and copied it without a problem.

A couple of little foibles – it wasn’t unknown for the time remaining (of the rip) to go into the negative. Also, when you select the option to “check for updates” (assuming because there were no updates) no message was returned, so you wasn’t sure if it had done anything or not.

Please Note

This review was for the FREE version of the iToolSoft DVD Ripper. A commercial version is also available with the same name for approx $26, and includes additional options such as video editing facilities.

Summary of iToolSoft DVD Ripper

Good, solid DVD copier – lots of conversion options, although a few more that weren’t Apple themed would be nice. Lacks decent instructions but it does its job easily and with a minimum of fuss. And, best of all, it’s free.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 26th October 2010.