[thelist] no MySQL options

[Simon Willison]

Roger Harness wrote:
> The main site is hosted by Earthlink, and they do not support any type of
> database.
> 
> I have my own stuff hosted on a server that *does* support MySQL/etc. I had
> originally asked if it was possible to set it up so that a script on the
> earthlink site could access the database on my site.
> 
> Some folks on here told me even if it was possible, it probably wouldn't be
> a very good idea, because of security, and speed issues.
> 
> SOOOO...short of switching hosts, does anyone have any suggestions to
> accomplish this?

Why are you keen on avoiding switching hosts? Hosting is a buyer's 
market these days - if you shop around you can get an excellent Linux 
based hosting package with MySQL, PHP and all the trimmings for a very 
low monthly price ($10/month or less is pretty common).

If you really don't want to move, I wouldn't suggest using frames simply 
because they will prevent your users from bookmarking items in your site 
or accessing the URL for pasting in to emails etc. In my opinion, access 
to the URL is far more important than the vanity detail of ensuring your 
domain name is in the title bar at all times.

One other option, provided the content you don't need the users to 
interact with the content from the database (by searching it for 
example), would be to write scripts running on another server that 
generate static HTML files from the information in the database then 
have an automated script that transfers those generated static files to 
your Earthlink server via FTP or SSH. PHP, Python and Perl all have FTP 
capabilities. Once written, the script could be set up to run 
automatically every 24 hours or so.

The ideal solution though is to simply find another host.

Cheers,

Simon Willison