Tips on Using the Form; Explanations of the Output
Rather than retype your title, just highlight it, copy, and then paste into the shorter boxes and modify it to fit. Most sites accept up to 60 characters, so the shorter ones aren't that crucial.
Although it would be nice to see exactly what the results look like, this is no longer done, because the time required to load graphics for all those pages slows things down to a crawl. Therefore, the raw HTML is shown instead (the same as it would be on your PC and in HSPost.LOG if you were running your own copy of HSPost).
There are several clues to look for to judge whether your submission to a site was successful (although even these aren't foolproof):
- "HTTP/1.1 100 Continue" simply means that the host responded. Unless you see more information, you don't know whether either the page or the script exists or works.
- The caption "Moved Temporarily" usually indicates success. The page is taken out of circulation during the brief period when it is rewritten. This is the most common indication of success. Copying and pasting these links into your browser is one way to check.
- In a few cases, you actually do see the entire page and can look for your link (if you have the patience to wade through all that HTML).
- If you see a message that tells you that you've just posted, it may mean that the page doesn't get a lot of traffic, and you (or somebody else using the demo) were the last one to make a previous post there - this is determined by the IP address, in this case, that of hspost.com. (If you see it with the PC version, it probably mean that you were the last one to post there, because the likelihood of a duplicate IP - even between two posters using the same ISP - isn't that great.)
- A message about a "Repeat URL" or title means that a link already on the page is sufficiently similar to your current one to be regarded as a duplicate. This is a failure of your link in this case, not of HSPost.
- The messages "HTTP/1.1 400 Not Found" and "HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error" obviously show that something went wrong at the site. Either the page or the script is missing in case 400; message 500 means that the script that manages the page may not be working correctly - even if it's just something it "doesn't like" about your post and isn't prepared to handle gracefully (i.e., it "crashed").
- Getting an e-mail acknowledgement is a positive sign, but depending on how the script is set up, e-mail might go out before any problems prevent the page from updating. (This usually isn't the case, though. The Matt's Script Archive "cookie-cutter" pages are by far the most common, and these all send e-mail at the very end.)
- Having a site not respond for a long time (which would time out in the PC version) tells us nothing one way or the other, but some sites say "Server Busy - Come Back Later". When you see that, it's likely the script never even saw your post.
This list by no means exhausts the possibilities, but it gives you some of the most common indications. To return to the form,