This is a general "help" file to hopefully help guide you through the installation, modifications, and offer some helpful tips in regard to the program and your new or improved SuperSurf site:

GENERAL INSTALLATION INFORMATION:

The installation is pretty straightforward. If you should encounter an error, it should appear in one of two ways: a direct message on the screen or an entry in an error log file created in the directory of your website.

It is suggested that once you have successfully installed the script/program that you do the following:
-- Log in as admin and create at least one website and one advertisement that is set to "active".
-- Create a user and create at least one website while logged in as the user.


Here are some problems we have encountered and possible ways to fix them:

-- Deprecated error on screen: your version of PHP on the server is set at a version higher than what the script wants to run. Most webhosts allow you to adjust the PHP version for your particular folder where the site/program is located through the Control Panel. This script has been successfully installed and ran with PHP 5.4.

-- Page not found errors: Possibly due incorrect information in your require.inc.php file.

-- 403 Forbidden page when running checkframes: This is a Mod_Security issue and would need to be addressed with your hosting provider in order to correct it.

-- Banner ads not showing: There has to be one active banner ad for the system to "kick in" the banner routine.

-- Websites not showing or the "default" website is the only one showing after surfing for several minutes: If this error occurs just shortly after the install process, you may have to create an active "dummy" website (a real address which works in a normal browser, but one that is really not there for surfing purposes). The program is set up to NOT show sites which were submitted by the user which is logged in. So if you created let's say 5 websites to show under the admin login but no user has created any websites to show, when you log in as admin, you may either see no websites at all or only the default website showing up constantly. Same works vice versa if you log in as a user, etc. etc.

-- Created a user but user not receiving email: Your webhost may limit how many emails you can send out at any given time or day. In some instances, depending on the receiver's email address, it may land up in the user's spam/junk/trash folder.

-- Website submitted, but will not show when either checked through checkframes or user reaches that particular site during the surfing process: we have discovered that in some instances subdomain websites (i.e. mysubdomain.maindomain.com) encounter issues when running through the surfing process or checkframes process. It is suggested in order to correct this problem if it should occur, site should be entered as maindomain.com/mysubdomain.....


SECURITY MEASURES AFTER INSTALLATION:

This has been mentioned in the readme file, but is worth re-iterating: As soon as you are satisfied with the installation, you want to REMOVE the install.php file. You may want to also remove the readme and helpful tips file as well as store it on your computer (more on this later).

Although the installation program should take care of permissions, it may not hurt to double-check permissions, especially in admin. They should be set to 755 or at the very least, 644.

Currently, the script is set up to run off the admin folder when admin functions are called so it is not advised at the moment to change the name of the admin file. However, you CAN do the following to further secure the admin directory:

-- either through your webhost's Control Panel panel or through an .htaccess file, create a user name and password to access the folder itself in addition to the normal admin logon/password that you created during the install process. It is suggested that the additional user name in no way match or be associated with the login/password created through the install process. (i.e. don't pick admin for the folder user name and don't pick "blue" for the password if the password chosen during the installation process was "pink"). 

-- if you are savvy with MySQL database, you can also go in and manually change the user name and password for admin for the program itself, but make sure you'll remember to use the new info when logging in the next time and that point forward.

Once you are satisfied with the installation, it is suggested that you store a local copy of the files on your webserver to another device such as a computer, tablet, etc. If you plan on toying with or modifying the files, it may be a good idea to have TWO copies -- one marked DO NOT TOUCH which you can store for safe keeping, and another that you can actually play with. That way, if you overwrite something on the webserver and it does not work, you can go to the DO NOT TOUCH folder to restore the original file.


Be sure you have a good antivirus program on your computer (we suggest Avast Anti-virus) and run the checkframe utility on any submitted sites whenever possible. If you have Avast installed and checkframe a site, Avast should warn you and block the site if it is suspicious or possibly contains a virus. In some cases, these could be false positives, but for the sake of yourself and the users who will be surfing, you may want to delete such suspicious or flagged sites.


TIPS ABOUT MODIFICATIONS:

"Plus" status:
In addition to the current "Gold" status which was offered with SuperSurf2.0, there is now a "Plus" status. You can give someone "plus" status through the menu on the left side of the Admin panel. Gold and Plus operate independently of each other. You can give a user, nothing, Gold Only, Plus Only, or both Gold and Plus. If a user is "plus" status, it will show in a column marked "Level" under the user listing. If a user does not have "plus" status, that field will be blank. Currently, plus status allows a user to autosurf instead of manual surfing. The autosurfer does not have to click next when the timer counts down. Currently, plus status needs to be assigned by the admin and can also be manually taken away from a user account if the need arises; there are no "pay to upgrade" buttons currently although that may change in further revisions. It is also intended that the plus status will be used for other things in future revisions.

Administration of Advertisements:
We have added a "Show Until" field in the advertisements as well as the ability to deactive ads. Currently,the show until date must be entered manually. It is provided as a way to better track advertisements if you offer them on a per month basis, etc. It will be up to you to pay attention to the dates and decide whether you want to continue the ad or halt/deactivate it until payment is made, etc. The program will NOT automatically deactivate the ad once the date has come and gone. If you do halt/deactivate an ad, when the banner routine calls on that particular ad, the default ad specified in the require.inc.php file will be shown in its place.

Editing spam, privacy, FAQ files:
Before editing any of the files mentioned above, it is suggested that you have a copy stored elsewhere which you will not touch (i.e. the DO NOT TOUCH folder as mentioned earlier) if you don't already have one.

We have found that the easiest way to edit the above files is to follow the steps below:
-- Go to your "play" copy the site (as mentioned above in "Security Measures")
-- Change the name of the file you want to change to an html equivalent (i.e. change spam.php to spam.html).
-- Open your favorite html editor, search for or open the file mentioned above.
-- Edit the text as you see fit. Be sure to NOT delete or move the "tags" which may appear in the file. In fact, we have found that sometimes a tag requires two spaces before it or some type of punctuation at the end of the preceding text to keep it from butting up again the text around it. (i.e. modified copy may show as "Welcome toMy Surf Site" instead of "Welcome to My Surf Site" without the leading spaces.
-- Once satisfied, save the file using the same name and save it to your "play" copy.
-- Go into the folder of the play copy and rename the file to the php equivalent (i.e. rename spam.html back to spam.php).
-- Using your webhost File Manager or your favorite FTP program, copy the resulting file back into the folder on your webserver with the surf program. In most cases, it will ask if you want to really overwrite the file since it should already be there.


Editing the index page information found in the require.inc.php file:

Similar to above but a little trickier:
-- Make sure you have a good copy stored elsewhere
-- Open your "play" copy of require.inc.php.
-- Carefully go to the section titled "this is shown on the main page"
-- Edit text to your preference making sure not to move or delete any of the characters other than text you want to change.
-- Save this play copy using the same file name and location.
-- FTP or use your webhosts' File Manager to copy file to server location.
-- Be sure to open main page (index.php) to see if text and information is to your liking and there are no problems/errors.
-- If problems or errors, copy DO NOT TOUCH file to the "play" folder and try again.
-- If text and info is not to your liking, open the "play" folder require.inc.php file and text portion to your preferences.


This file may be updated/edited from time to time; the most updated version will be found at softservbiz.open4biz.biz





Currently, we are further developing the SuperSurf script on our own time and with our own resources. If you find the current version of SuperSurf to be of benefit to you and would like to see us further develop it, we would appreciate any donations. Go to softservbiz.open4biz.biz not only to donate, but to find more information in regard to this script.

We welcome all suggestions for future enhancements, etc. but keep in mind that implementation may depend on scope, time and resources available.

*****DISCLAIMER*****

This script is provided free of charge. All we ask is that you keep the information on the bottom of the pages in regard to original author, provider of modifications, etc. intact and donate for further development if you feel this script is of value to you.

You are free to pass this script on to others but we ask that you do not sell this script.

That being said, this script is provided "as is". Although we will provide limited support whenever possible, there are no expressed warranties or guarantees.