I made a HUGE mistake and bought Soft Biz's joke script.

I spent literally 24 hours disecting the code in this thing before I finally realized the portion of the script where you would really customize anything layout wise etc is the part that is 'encoded' so you don't steal their precious code. Don't get me wrong, I udnerstand protecting your business etc.. But this is a crock of *********************

I have also literally nearly purchased about $500 worth of other scripts over the year plus since I bought this script from them and refuse to do so because the experience I had with this script and the fact that nearly every one of their scripts has the same engine with basically layout tweaks - pry why they are so protective over modifying their layout etc ...

Anyways, I am looking for a script that I can customize more, use mod rewrite for static urls that allow me to change the meta tags etc .. If possible being able to import the DB easily or for a fee by the script seller would be nice as well..

I am seriously considering using Word Press and just customizing it - but am looking for something else before I bite the bullet and go that route. I did have mod rewrite in use but the problem was since I couldn't really change the main layout of the script, the search engine results (although better than now w/o mod rewrite) still ranked me poorly because it showed the cateogires as the first portion of the page the way it was setup. I could of stuffed a random keyword stuffer in there somehow I suppose but yeesh.. I hate piecing so many pieces of puzzles together to get scripts working.

To boot, their regular HTML coding is horrible confusing to wade through they must have tables nested 200 deep lol ... Sorry about the venting, do not but Soft Biz Scripts programs if you can avoid it at ALL costs !! No joke ..

Anyone with other recommendations on joke programs theya re using or know work well ? With my domain, funnyassjokes.com, also have funnyassjoke.com I am literally wasting away what should be a kick arss site - Would like to get it running as it should be, including optimizing the adsense/YPN ads

I don't know of many joke scripts, but the one you have running look very similar to a CMS like Joomla.

I would think it would be a lot easier to create/modify a Joomla template to get the desired effect that you are looking for (and it's free to boot).

Joomla has many of the features that you are looking for including the ability to use static addresses, create unique keyword and description Meta for each page, and you can add Adsense and banner rotations for advertising.

Plus there are many website already devoted to Joomla support. That is the direction that I would go.

Would the one at 10kjokes dot com work for you?

My guess is the text at the bottom of their site has something to do with obfuscating their code:

"NOTE: All scripts sold at softbizScripts.com come with single domain license. You will be required to provide the domain for which you want the script to be licensed. Script can not be used on any other domain except the one you provide during the purchase process."

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

My guess is the text at the bottom of their site has something to do with obfuscating their code:

"NOTE: All scripts sold at softbizScripts.com come with single domain license. You will be required to provide the domain for which you want the script to be licensed. Script can not be used on any other domain except the one you provide during the purchase process."

Yes, indeed - however they don't state that customization of the script will only be available through them and will require payment for things suck as changing layouts even if you can do the code yourself. My guess why is because every single one of their scripts seriously has the same engine they have just changed the DB a little bit as well as the layout. Which are things someone with some common sense and a little bit of experience could handle.

In my eyes it shows a lack of creativity on their part - especially when they make it so completely obvious ... That is neither here nor there I guess though, I bought the script, so ..

Joomla is a direction I had never thought of .. I love open source products so I will take a closer look at that this afternoon. The one at 10jokes.com may work, if you can categorize the jokes which I couldn't tell with a glance whether or not you could - off hand it didn't seem liek you could. I did however like the arcade integration. If I could use Iframes to pull them off my other domain I have licensed for use that would make that script ideal (before you go off about breaking their TOS, this company told me I could do that and they had no problems with it .. when I purchased their arcade stuff originally)

Originally Posted by newagerml

Yes, indeed - however they don't state that customization of the script will only be available through them and will require payment for things suck as changing layouts even if you can do the code yourself. My guess why is because every single one of their scripts seriously has the same engine they have just changed the DB a little bit as well as the layout. Which are things someone with some common sense and a little bit of experience could handle.

In my eyes it shows a lack of creativity on their part - especially when they make it so completely obvious ... That is neither here nor there I guess though, I bought the script, so ..

A few comments race to mind. They're showing lots of creativity, you're just confused about their motivation. It's to get your money from you, pure and simple. You being happy isn't even the icing on the cake. You should start reading Dilbert, it's very educating. Many "ISV"s, that's independent software vendors, "lowball" their prices and make amazing profit on the number of "mods" they sell you. This is very common stuff, and why a lot of people hate tech consultants.

Second, I'd need to see the script to make sure that's what's going on. But Forest made a good point, if they're only selling it to you for one domain, then, somewhere in that code there's a function that figures out what domain it's on, and whether it's being licensed. Kind of like shareware that nags for a while, and then stops working. They're going to make it hard for you to figure out how that works, right? They don't want you to buy the script once and use it on 20 domains. And they don't want you to just change the domain name in a string variable 20 times to get around their copy protection. Right?

At least part of the code is all mashed up for that reason. If all the script does is serve up jokes I'm not sure why it can't just read them out of a text file, though?

And if that's all you need, well, why don't you write it yourself, with a little help from the friendly people here?

try my www.vietjokes.com its an asp and i wrote it myself...

I didn't see any special method of joke script compare to other kind of scripts, its still alwasy concern to navigation or database browsing.

what do you need...I will build a php joke site for you...and if you have a database you want to import let me know...i can add that to the admin...what kind of $$$ you talking about...PM me