Thank you, Daniel Brown, Richard Buskirk, Robert Cummings, David Giragosian ~ and anyone else who may have jumped in to my message within the last minute or two, trying to help me. Below is the message I was writing to ask someone (who I didn't know) just how to participate in a mailing list. I've never done this - but it seems all I had to do was send a message to this address. Strange. For me, strange indeed. But - I am appreciative of the concept and a little bewildered by the options that seem to be available... OK - stupidity aside - I have a real question and don't know how to find an answer. I write html, have for years. I have many web sites, and lately have run aground trying to determine how my competition is able to load pages exceedingly fast. It appears the site uses php, and crosslinks to pages within the site load blindingly fast. There does not appear to be frames involved, but the tables that contain the web page bracket a display area in the center of each page that makes the site appear to be frame oriented. My question: how is php able to load this page so quickly? I realize that I might not be permitted to show a page (provide a URL) as an illustration of my point - I am certainly not advertising anything. The site in question belongs to a volunteer fire department, and I am donating my time trying to create a comparable page for my own volunteer fire department. I just can't seem to figure out what this php is all about and how it might help load a page so fast. Below is from that original behemoth of a message that you all laughed at... Thank you for your time! John B. Moss I feel so stupid! I am trying to learn php, so am attempting to get involved with a php-related mailing list. The problem: I have no familiarity - none - with mailing list protocols. So - it seems simple - get on a mailing list, ask for help in getting through what I need to know, then participate as my need to know directs me. I find a mailing list related to php - I think. Seems right - "lists.php.net". I 'subscribe' (I think) to a 'General user list' which suggests "This is a really high volume general list for PHP users". I think this is what I want - but I have no idea what subscribing to it means, other than to suppose that I will get some emails from the group. I chose to get the 'Digest', as opposed to the 'Normal', list since I interpret this to mean I get 1 (or 2) mailings a day with many messages embedded, as opposed to many many messages all day long, all the time. Since I have no idea (and doubt) that I am interested in all of these, and since I want to pick and choose what I read, I'm guessing the 'Digest' suits my purpose. Problem: how to see what's actually involved, once I receive my subscription confirmation? It seems to me that a 'help' function is the answer, but - look below - when I send mail to php-general-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - I receive this message in response! Repeating the request means getting this response each time! Apart from feeling that this is insane, where do I turn? How do I find out what is on the list, begin receiving messages, and determine the protocol for participating? For folks who have been on mailing lists since the beginning of the web, this all seems foolish I'm sure. But if I can't take the suggestion for accessing help literally (why not?) it seems there should be a logical substitution argument that would apply. To explain: if in the example I am to replace 'lists.php.net' with something else, in order to get general help, what might that something else be? Where do I deduce the name/replacement value? Why don't the instructions for doing this exist? Why isn't there 'Help' for getting 'help'? I can read as well as the next person: "This is a generic help message. The message I received wasn't sent to any of my command addresses." What is meant by the term 'my command addresses'? I sent the message as explicitly directed. If the 'command address' is something which replaces 'lists.php.net' how am I to understand that, if directed to get help and a description of available commands from that address? I am attempting to send this message directly, but if this fails I will attempt the 'Forward:' technique, as explained also below. John B. Moss -------------------------------------------- My mailbox is spam-free with ChoiceMail, the leader in personal and corporate anti-spam solutions. Download your free copy of ChoiceMail from www.digiportal.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
