Preserved Topic: addressing by name

Hello all,

great forum, very informative...

For a while now I am planning to create a website and am in the final stages of planning. I have seen many pages where the visitor is greeted by name, and I know that this can be achieved with JavaScript and manual input - now I am wondering if there is another way for me to address the visitor by their name without a popup window asking for it, since the relevant information is already stored on the PC somewhere...

Is there a way to achieve this, or am I too ambitious and far ahead of my time??? Any help would be appreciated...

thanks

Stuggy

i have never seen that done before so i doubt it's possible. The closest you can get to it without having a popup is having the visitor sign up. Like, in many websites(yahoo does this too i think) if you sign up for a service liek free e-mail, everytime you comeback to the website it says like Welcome Mike.

I don't think yuo have access to a visitors name.. perhpas you can log there IP addy , but thats not quite friendly...

what you might be able to do.. well not might... what you could do is get them to enter their name on their first visit and then store that information via setting a cookie on their machine.. then the next time they visit you could retrieve the cookie and greet then using their name...

just a thought

~Vp~

That was quick...

you both confirmed my fears... shame, maybe in another two years then...

thank you

Stuggy

hehehe... that would be cool...

Hello 209.63.204.81!!

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Get back to us soon, 209.63.204.81!! We're really anxious to hear from you!!!

tskull@techie.com">
"War is a series of disasters which result in a winner." --Georges Clemenceau
ICQ: 67751342

Ooh...access to personal information on my computer? Yikes, that's a scary thought.

Once had a client who asked me to find a way to grab visitors' e-mail addresses out of their browsers to sign them up for a mailing list. He wasn't too happy when I told him I couldn't do it, and even if I could, I wouldn't.

These esteemed personages are correct, it is currently legally impossible to grab that kind of information off their computer. To actaully do it would come under the heading of 'Hacking'. I wouldn't even try it, you could be fined alot of money and go to jail for 5 years per offence, which means if just 12 people visit your site, you could be in jail for 60 years, not a fun experience.




Executing a person who has done something wrong as an example to others is often a couse of action that leads to ordering the last person to cut their own throat as an example to themselves - Terry Pratchett

I've seen that done(on really poorly designed pages no less, so i don't think its that hard) by using cookies and a alert window thingy that asks you for your name. None come to mind though, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard, try to find some references on cookies.

Well, cookies is a good idea, I also have a relatively good javascript to ask for the name and place it in certain places to address the visitor more personally...

I wasn't thinking of the legal side of things, and to be perfectly honest when it comes to creating projects I am in a world of my own and just concentrate on the things that I would like to make possible rather than thinking of the legal implications... Not that I want to hack into the users system, but the thought struck me that there are so many places where the username of the vistor is stored that it would be cool to make use of it in a productive way...

So I might as well forget about the personalisation then, because I know from personal experience how annoying those pop-up windows are...

again, thanks to all that offered their advise and shared their thoughts...

Stuggy

to Petskull...

(like the handle)

don't you think putting a number on somebodies head is even worse than intruding into their computers? Besides, many people will be assigned different IP's every time they sign on, so they still wouldn't know that I am talking to them...

But it is food for thougth...

Stuggy

well if you could log there IP and then assign a name to them? then when they returned you could recheck their Ip addy and then use the name that was asssigned?..

admittedly it would work for poeple who dont ahve a fixed IP addy.. lol.. more food for thought! heh <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">

stuggo, I was kidding....
Humor's the food of the gods, my friend..

EDIT: and if you want to find the US's legal code for hacking, try http://www.happyhacker.org/crime/


"War is a series of disasters which result in a winner." --Georges Clemenceau
ICQ: 67751342

[This message has been edited by Petskull (edited 11-13-2000).]

hand me an extra portion please.. can I super size it too? hehe

to Petskull...

thanks for the link, maybe they have the answer to my problem ;-)

Stuggy

to vogonpoet...

one could use it to discurage the use of certain ISP's I suppose, so something good comes from it...

btw - do you want fries with that?

Stuggy