MTVWebdesign MailPage- An Excellent Free Send Page by Email Script
by Rich Deem

Introduction

After testing many different free page mailing scripts, I have determined that MTVWebdesign MailPage is the best, since it allows the user to send either a link, an HTML page or an attached page to a friend or to himself. The script is a good way to advertise your site, since sending the HTML page ensures that the recipient can click on any link on the page to visit your site. Visitors to this site send an average of over 200 pages a month to their friends.

Installation

This is a simplified, "quick and dirty" instruction set to get the program up and running.

  1. Download the program at MTVWebdesign MailPage (link no longer active) or below.
  2. Extract the downloaded program using Win Zip or other zip extraction program.
  3. Open the "mailpage" folder. Open the "mailpage.cgi" file with a text editor (like Notepad, BBedit, etc.). Edit the first line (Path to Perl) if necessary. For most hosts, the setting should be "#!/usr/bin/perl" (default is "#!c:/perl/bin/perl").
  4. Open the "mailpage.conf" file with a text editor. You must edit six settings within this file. If your hosting service uses CPANEL, these are the settings you should use:
    1. $servicename = "Your Website Name";
    2. $servicelocation = "http://www.yourwebsite.com/";
    3. $mtvwebdesignlib = "/home/yourusername/public_html/ cgi-bin/mtvwebdesign.lib";
    4. $privacy_file = "/home/yourusername/public_html/ cgi-bin/privacy.txt";
    5. $use_flock = "1";
    6. $mailprog = "|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t";
  5. Upload the contents of the "mailpage" folder ("mailpage.cgi", "privacy.txt", and "mtvwebdesign.lib") using an FTP client into the cgi-bin directory where your html files go. Change the permissions of the "mailpage.cgi" and "mtvwebdesign.lib" files to 755.
  6. Put a link on each page of your site to the "mailpage.cgi" script (e.g., "/cgi-bin/mailpage.cgi". The script automatically detects the referring page and sends that page when the user completes the form.
    OR
    Include the script through SSI (e.g., name the page as "send.shtml") and add the code:
    <!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/mailpage.cgi" -->
    OR
    Include the script through PHP (e.g., name the page as "send.php") and add the code:
    <? virtual ("cgi-bin/mailpage.cgi"); ?>

Customizing the script

Mailpage does not offer templates, so I edited the script directly to change the formatting of the sending page. I changed the table organization and layout along with the default sending method (from "As a URL" to "In the body of an email"). This way, the entire HTML page will be sent by default. Your site has a much better chance of being visited if the user finds a link that interests him.

You can download the script package below. No technical support is provided.

mailpage.zip

Otherwise, download the script at:

MTVWebdesign MailPage (link no longer active)

Update

The script was being abused by spammers, so a subroutine was added to block any messages containing a URL. In addition, a feature was added to restrict referring URLs, so be sure to specify your domain in the @okaydomains variable. However, the script is provided "as is" with no particular warranty for usefulness or even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Conclusion Top of page

Let your visitors advertise your site for you by putting a "Email Page" link on your site. MTVWebdesign MailPage is the best available, since it has the option of sending the page as HTML, a URL or an attachment.

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http://www.godandscience.org/general/mailpage.html
Last Modified March 18, 2009

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