** Safe Mode ... or servers for from dummies **

We have noticed that  some customers have been having  difficulty using some of our mods when various "Safe Mode" settings have been enabled by their hosting companies. We have now incorporated solutions for the most  common "ridiculous settings" into our mods to overcome this "lack of knowledge" or "extreme paranoia" exhibited by some hosting administrators. To check if you have "Safe Mode" active on your store, login to Admin, click on "Server Info" and look for the "safe mode" directive under PHP CORE. This value should be set to "off". If it is set to "on" then you have our sympathy and we will be offering hosting solutions starting Jan 2008. As for Safe Mode, this mode is considered to be so useful (NOT) that it has been deleted from the next version of PHP (version 6) over 12 months ago. If you are uncertain about your configuration just send us an email and we will send you some instructions on how to check suitability. Fortunately our experience is that less than 2% of servers have these issues so the chances are that you're fine.

** Warning: Fraudulent sales**

It has been brought to our attention that some of our mods are being advertised for sale by "phpwebmagic.com". Please be advised that they are not authorised to sell our mods and will be unable to offer  support or assistance on our mods without breaching copyright. In addition we have been made aware of content posted on that site which has been stolen from this site and we will be taking action to have the offending material removed. Anyone who has purchased one of our mods from "phpwebmagic.com" is encouraged to contact us with details of their purchase.

** GoDaddy and 'Free' web hosting **

As the adminstrators (or whatever they are) at GoDaddy just cant seem to work out how to configure servers we have decided (after wasting enormous amounts of time) the following. Any mods of ours placed on GoDaddy servers or servers that offer 'free' web hosting as part  of the package are not warranted past purchase. You purchase these and install and use them 'at your own risk' and no refunds will be made available under any circumstances. If you're too bloody cheap to pay for decent web hosting then we suggest that you use someone else for your mods and waste their time, not ours.

** Shared SSL and "wannabes" **

It appears that anyone that can string two words together on a keyboard these days wants to claim that they are a  "server administrator" or "programmer". Whilst we believe that aspiring to these positions is laudible, claimimg that you are one when you are not is not laudible but laughable. The recent spate of servers with shared SSL and idiotic restrictions attached has forced us to also take some drastic actions. If you are using shared SSL with our mods you will be required to purchase two (2) licenses for each mod. This is to prevent fraudulent use of our mods on shared SSL setups. Purchases made with us prior to May 15th 2008 are exempt from this condition. Why are we doing this? It seems far easier to penalise people who want to do things on the cheap than increasing our overall prices and penalising our customers who do the right thing. Consider the extra license as a fee for having a non-standard setup. The obvious alternative is to get a REAL SSL certificate. (These are available from under USD15 - we even give them away with some of our hosting plans).

As for the "self promoted programmers" if you are unsure if a mod is compatible with one of ours just ask. If we dont know we will asses it for you if possible. The chances are that we have one that is compatible (and usually has more features) for a much lower price than you originally paid, not everything we have is advertised on this site. As we are sick of "dumbing down" our code to work with other mods we will, in general,  no longer be doing this (modifying our mods to suit other mods) and suggest you discuss the matter with us before purchasing any mods. Having been a programmer now  for over 30 yrs I'm continually horrified by the standard of numerous "modders" and fear that if the decline in quality continues we wont have anyone qualified to fix a "toaster" by the year 2020. (Also please remember that "graphics artists" are as qualified to write mods as plumbers are to perform surgery on your kidneys - even if they do work in waste disposal)

if the above comment upsets any of the "skinners" out there I'm happy to agree that "I won't design skins if you don't try to write code".