FormMail on Plusnet Webspace

[#1]

For many years I used to use a standard code to create a FormMail to use on my Plusnet Webspace.  It was a standard script published by "Matt's Scripts".  It was a very useful too when I was working, but I have had no reason to use it for the last few years since I retired.  In fact, the first time I used it was in 2002 and the last time in 2016 for the Queen's 90th birthday, when we organised a street party.  I needed a way to co-ordinate all the volunteers and the FormMail enabled me to publish an online questionnaire on my Plusnet Webspace to get the volunteers to advise me how they could help - lending tents and marquees, erecting the site, providing transport, offering equipment and clearing up afterwards.  I could not have managed it all without the form.

Well, I have a new voluntary project where that form would come in very handy, and which I could adapt to my currrent needs.  Before I did anything else, I thought I would give the old form a whirl, to see if it still works.  Unfortunately, not but I do not know why.

It has crossed my mind that technology may have moved on and Plusnet no longer supports this type of FormMail.  So I wonder if anyone could tell me ?

The code looked like this :

<form method="post" action="http://homepages.plus.net/cgi-bin/form"><div>

<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="New Website Form">
<input type=hidden name="recipient" value="test@test.plus.com">
<input type="hidden" name="redirect"
<input type=hidden name="required" value="mail,Telephone">
<P>Names</p> <p><TEXTAREA name=Names: rows=6 cols=80></TEXTAREA></p> etc.etc.etc.

Has anything changed in the meantime that would not enable me to run this script on my Plusnet webspace these days, or am I doing something wrong ?

No doubt some of you will suggest trying something quite different, which is no doubt much better, but I am an old dog now and you know what they say about new tricks !  I would really rather stick to my knitting, if you will excuse the mixed metaphors !

I hope someone can advise.

[#2]

I don`t know the answer to your problem.... however... if, ... if ... it cannot be resolved...perhaps you could use a "BLOG" site instead of your PN website.

There is facility for "readers" of your blog... to add comments at the bottom, of your "text"  which you have control over whether they are published or not... so that may be a way of getting responses back to you from your readers.

It is FREE... and you can have separate pages or just keep the blog one page and keep running it on..

Here is the linky to the start page to get you on the way...

https://www.blogger.com/about/?r=1-null_user

[#3]

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@shermans wrote:

... the first time I used it was in 2002 and the last time in 2016...

You tried to use it in 2016 

[#4]

I don't understand, I am afraid, but just to clarify that I used this form in 2002 for the first time.  I used it regularly after that until I retired  and after that only for social occasions.  The last time used it was in 2016 for the Queen's 90th party very successfully; it was not a matter if "trying"; I used it to great effect.

That is why I was surprised to find yesterday that I could not get it to work, using the same setup taken from my archive without changing anything.

Hence my question.  Has Plusnet introduced anything which would prevent it working now ?  Equally, I wonder if I have inadvertently turned something off on my Plusnet settings which might be stopping it from working ?  It has also just occurred to me as a result of writing this that I now have Avast ! running as anti-virus.  (Most irritating software as it keeps interrupting, but there you are ! )  I wonder if that is causing the problem ?

So, I am sorry if I cannot understand your comment but I hope that clarifies it.

[#5]

Oh, apologies.  I see now.  I did not appreciate your comment contained a link.  Anyway, I did not remember having had a similar problem in 2016 because eventually it worked; don't ask me how or why but it did, and I still have all the emailed forms to prove it.  Evidently there was a work around then, so I hope there is now.  I wlll turn off the anti virus first to see if that helps.

[#6]

I used to use this script many years ago. I seem to recall the PN group of companies needed the script to be called something other than formmail though. There were some big threads about it at the time, but now the forums have all been merged, not sure if they will still be available.

Mark

[#7]

The email headers of the submitted forms you still have may contain a clue as to how they were sent. I'm confident it wasn't using the Homepages form though. 

[#8]

Ah... the days of formmail and those insecure email targets being inputted straight into the html... you could send mail to anyonie using that. It was a totally insecure script and was probably abused by millions around the world.  

Do yourself a favour, don't use it. Anything that lets you set the target email address in the html source is open to abuse. That should be coded on the server side.

[#9]

"Ah... the days of formmail and those insecure email targets being inputted straight into the html... you could send mail to anyonie using that. It was a totally insecure script and was probably abused by millions around the world.!"

Thanks.  This advice now makes sense to me.  I had no idea there was a security risk... I knew everyone face -to-face when I used it while I was still working and at the time of the street party, but this time it is a much wider audience.  I need to ask about 100 people to complete a simple questionnaire giving some basic details.  I expect at least 80% to respond as it is in their interests, not just mine.

Can anyone suggest an alternative solution that even I, in my dotage, could handle ?   It would require simple boxes like name and address and ideally a couple of drop-down boxes.  There would be about ten questions to answer.  The data would then be used to feed a spreadheet.

I want to keep it as simple as possible and easy to access without putting people off .  Most of the audience are going to be retired people who have already written to me by email.  We all have a common interest to get compensation from a holiday company who let us down badly.

So any help would be most appreciated.

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Is https://www.surveymonkey.com/ any use to you?

[#11]

At times I cannot help thinking there is such a thing as telepathy.  About the same time as you were writing this message, I was doing what people of my age do after lunch, and as I started to nod off, I remembered someone once talking years ago about Survey Monkey.  While still just conscious, I decided I would Google for it when I awoke from my snooze.  Then I had a Plusnet message to advise that you had posted on the Forum, and I could not believe what I read !

Anyway, I have tried it and it does appear to do exactly what I wanted free.  I have designed a questionnaire more or less along the same lines as I used to do with FormMail ,and it does seem to work.  I have not yet seen any data responses, and so I do not know yet whether I can auto-feed a spreadsheet like I used to do, but that does not matter; it would be nice.

So a load off my mind.  Thanks very for the suggestion anyway.  I do not know whether it was coincidence but I like to think it was not !  It does happen to me a lot but not quite like this.

This is going to attract a lot of weird comments on the Forum !  Should be fun.

[#12]

Having successfully created a dedicated website for the Survey Monkey Questionnaire, I have hit another problem unfortunately.  It must be resolvable.

Most people have been able to complete the questionnaire using the link from the invitation email. I have had 40+ responses so far, which is about half the number expected.  However, I have had several people write back to say that they cannot even get to the website at all.  Some have said that the reason is evidently because my website is not secure.

What I then have to do is to tell them that instead of entering "www.******.com" into the browser / Chrome, they should enter "http://www.******.com" instead.  That seems to work.  But why ?  Can anyone please suggest what I should put on in the invitation email as my link to the website ?

[#13]

Possibly change the link to https://yoursurvey.com. Depends how they have their site set up, it may not automatically default to the s protocol. Just because there is no s, doesn't mean your site isn't secure. I have Chrome and am home now, if you want to send me some urls's, I can check which work for me if you want? Just PM me, I won't look, honest 

Mark

[#14]

Although you shouldn't need to: https://help.surveymonkey.com/articles/en_US/kb/What-is-the-enhanced-security-option-SSL-encryption

[#15]

Thanks for the offer.  But first, the problem is not with the Survey Monkey survey.  It is with my website which is :

www.blockedbyice.com

For your info, this website concerns a passenger pressure group on a Hurtigruten cruise to go through the North West Passage in the Arctic, to visit the history of the explorers like Sir John Franklin, who died in 1847 with 130 men trying to get through after spending four years blocked by ice (hence the name of the website), and Armundsen, who was the first to achieve it.  Having spent the cost of a new car on a journey of a lifetime, we ended up with a tour of Greenland instead, because the North West passage was blocked by ice - as it has been throughout history.  Since 1900, only nine cruise ships have ever made it.  Only four have made it since 2016 accompanied by Ice Breakers, and NONE this year.  But we were never given any warning, nor were there any disclaimers.  This was the first year that Hurtigruten had tried it and they had no contract with the Canadian Government or anyone else for Ice Breaker escort.  None of the 200 passengers on board were ice experts and just trusted to Hurtigruten's expertise.  The fact that the North West Passage was unnavigable was in the public domain from all sorts of sources - Canadian Coast Guard Ice Charts, four other cruise ships (including Hurtigruten) who had abandoned it, and even the fact that Michael Palin, while writing his new book "Erebus" about the North West Passage, failed to get through at exactly the same time last year !  (BBC Radio 4 Book Reading two weeks ago) !  There were far too many other sources to list here.

So we, the passengers, some of whom have legal expenses insurance, are starting a group legal action against Hurtigruten for full compensation - one family travelled all the way from Tasmania, Australia because Sir John Franklin was the Governor of Tasmania before he set off on his tragic last voyage, and they had all been brought up learning about his heroism; they just wanted to pay their respects at his resting place in the North West Passage, but all they got was a tour of Greenland !  There are many other sad stories of people for whom this was what they had put life-savings into.

So now you will appreciate why the questionnaire is important !