Technical FAQ

My site is mainly based on just html. I am an amateur and I run it myself. Is your software too complicated for me to use and set up?

No, we don't think DynAds family of scripts are too complicated. Installation is easy with the provided setup program and installation intructions. With DynAds, there are cases where you need to read the documentation in order to complete some tasks. However, all basic tasks are managed via the web based administration panel. Besides, if you have any question/problem you can not solve, just drop as an e-mail, our support team is ready to help.

I noticed that some versions use MySql. Do I have to know how to mess with that or does the script do it all for me?

You do not have to know anything about MySql. All you have to do is entering the MySql server name, MySql database name, and MySql user Name/password during the setup. If you do not know these values, then just contact to your hosting provider and they will supply them to you.

Does your software co-exist well with PHP scripts and a site running on PHP?

Yes. Currently DynAds is available as Perl scripts. It does not matter whether you pulled the ads from a PHP page or static HTML page.

How does your program integrate with other CGI Perl programs? I want to rotate banners on CGI generated pages.

There are two alternatives for you. If your page generation script is using template files to format the output page, then you can insert browser side ad rotation codes (such as java script or IMG tag) into the template. Alternatively, you can retrieve the rotated ad content itself from DynAds via a Perl rotation code, and paste directly the ad content to the output page, in your Perl script.

I would like to know how I can synchronize text links with ad banners. For example, I have a picture and a title text to go with it, how do I rotate it so that the title goes with the right picture?

DynAds family of scripts are content rotators, not just a banner image rotator. Thus, enter the ad html code into DynAds database as if you are writing it to the page itself. Then use a rotation code other than the IMG tag rotator.

Can I run several versions of the program under different directories (same domain), or will they conflict?

The different versions of DynAds do not conflict. But if you install the same version more than once, you need to create a new database for the new installation.

Does your script allow multiple user sign-ups?

All DynAds versions V2.10 and above support unlimited user accounts.

How many Mega Bytes of disk space does it take on my server?

Typically DynAds consumes less than 0.3MB excluding the help files and data.

On which platforms does your script work?

Any platform providing Perl. Operating system is not important. MySql versions require a MySql database on your account.

Does your software provide any form of online payment handling?

No, not yet. You should accept payments separately. If you already have e-commerce capability on your site, then accept advertiser payments through that interface. If you are new to e-commerce, you should have a merchant account in order to accept online credit card payments. Alternatively, you may out source the payment processing to third party processors such as Paypal.

Does this system allow the potential advertisers to create an account automatically?

No, not yet. You should create the user accounts manually.

Does this system allow for advertisers to bid for ad positioning?

No. There is no bidding mechanism integrated into DynAds.

Wondering if you have any info on load testing? How many hits can the script handle before it starts to bring my server down?

The following performance figures were obtained on a test. The test platform was a PC with PIII 500MHz and 256MByte memory running Win98SE, Apache V1.3.19, and ActivePerl 5.6.
DynAds TDB > 100Khits/day = 3MHits/month
DynAds MySql > 170Khits/day = 5.1MHits/month
DynAds MySql mod_perl > 2Mhits/day = 60MHits/month
DynAds MySql fast cgi : untested but should be similar to mod_perl

The big difference between the mod_perl and cgi versions shows that the limiting factors in the CGI versions are the Perl compiler load and script compilation tasks.

If I purchase the text database version of DynAds and later upgrade, is it easy to transfer the ads or do I have to manually transfer them all?

All upgrades comes with a data transfer utility from all earlier versions. All you have to do is to click some buttons.