This
page is a work in progress.
Installing The Program
Q. You say that cURL needs to be enabled. How will I know if cURL is enabled on my site?
A:
This is normally enabled for you by most web hosting companies, but you
can tell by installing a little file on your site. Open a text editor
(such as Notepad), create a new file and add the following line of text
to the file...
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
... then save it as something like phpinfo.php and upload this to your site. Then go to this page on your site, i.e.
http://yoursite.com/phpinfo.php
... where yoursite.com
is the name of your site. You should be given an information page which
lists all of the PHP information about your site. Scroll down or search
for a section entitled "curl". Next to "cURL support", if it says
"enabled", then your site supports cURL. (See image below)
If it's not enabled, then you can usually ask your web hosting company to enable cURL for you.
It is recommended that you delete this file once you've finished with it, for security reasons.
Using The Program
Q:
I've forgotten my username and password. How can I get access to my
Admin Panel?
A:In the “install” folder which contains the TweetFurther
files on your computer, you'll find a file called “!users.txt”. Simply
upload this file over the one in your “data” directory, and your
username and password will be reset to the default (i.e. “username” and
“password”).
Q:
How do I get the campaign link?
You can find the link on the "View Stats" page. Under the "Options"
menu, select the name of your campaign, select "stats" and press "Go!".
The name of the campaign is linked, and this is your campaign link
which you can give to your visitors.
Q: Why am I only limited to 1 campaign?
That's
because you're using the free version. If you'd like to create more
campaigns, and 8 weeks technical support, as well as funding the
development of the paid version and my ability to buy food, then
upgrade to the paid version when it becomes available!
Q: How much can I edit the campaign page?
The
campaign has a fairly fixed format, which has been written to make the
instructions as easy to follow (and as foolproof) as possible. However,
you can generally edit the top part of the form (in the "main message"
field), where you can add graphics (such as your logo or picture) and
descriptive text.
Q:
I'm testing out my campaign, but the stats aren't increasing - how come?
TweetFurther does
not record stats from your own IP address as the Admin. This is to
prevent you from accidentally inflating the statistics every time you
visit the campaign link.
Q:
My visitors are having problems claiming the reward. What's up?
There
are a number of possible reasons for this, and it's a good idea to
provide your visitors with some means of contacting you (such as an
email address) in the “not found” message, so visitors can alert you if
they are having problems.
The most likely reason for problems is
that Twitter Search was down, or not serving results correctly, when
they tried to claim their reward. Unfortunately, there is nothing that
can be done by TweetFurther
during any periods in which Twitter Search is down or not functioning properly.
You
should also check to make sure the “match” string that you've specified
is exactly what appears in the message being tweeted by your visitors.
Be especially carefully with URLs over 30 characters long, since
Twitter tends to shorten them automatically. If your long site, ie. Whatwasithinkingbuyingthishugedomainname.com
is automatically shortened by Twitter to bit.ly/shorty, and
your original site name was the “match” string, then TweetFurther
won't find a match because Twitter has
shortened it when the visitor tweets it.
To
prevent this, you should use an already shortened URL as your “match”
string, and make sure visitors send out that exact same shortened URL.
(I recommend bit.ly
for this).
Please
note that a small number of your visitors may not be able to claim
their rewards automatically, because their tweets are not indexed by
Twitter Search. For these visitors, you will need to be able to give
them the reward manually.
Q.
My visitors are getting the following message: "We are currently
experiencing high
volumes, and so cannot process your claim at the moment. Please try
again in a few hours." What does this mean?
A:
The program limits the number of claims that can be made in any one
hour, and displays the above message if the limit is reached in that
hour. This is because the program uses Twitter Search's resources to
determine if the tweet has been posted, but excessive use of their
resources could result in your site's IP address being blacklisted from
accessing Twitter Search. So the program limits the number of claims
that can be made in any one hour, to minimize this risk. The limit is
300 claims per hour.
Is It Possible To...?
Q:
Is it possible to require my visitors to follow me, before claiming the
reward?
A:
Due to the limitations of Twitter's interface, this is not possible.
Other applications may be able to do this, but they require the
visitor's Twitter password, which I feel opens up the visitor to
greater security risks, and reduces the likelihood that they will trust
the application, and hence the viral or "buzz" nature of your campaign.
(c) 2009 TweetFurther.com
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