Opinions, oh technical ones?

[winterthunder]

In return for her forgiveness of around $400 in boarding fees for Tyler, I have agreed to take on the maintenance of my breeder's website. It is, to put it bluntly, a mess. The person who is "maintaining" it now is overcharging for the domain, hosting and work, and hasn't updated anything since July. Kristy plans to tell her she's fired when her bill for the new year arrives, and she isn't at all sure that this person won't trash the entire thing on her way out the door. Kristy, unfortunately, does not have the passwords to access the actual files, nor does she know where the site is actually hosted. Thus, I am trying to pull as much information from the site now, so that I have it if I have to reconstruct it later. I've run in to somewhat of a wrinkle, which I'd appreciate your thoughts on.

The pages were initially coded in HTML, then re-coded in Java. During the re-coding, whoever was working on it at the time added a hiding function.

script language="javascript" !--begin hiding
function

The hiding function does exactly what it sounds like and hides every bit of code that goes into the actual page when I try to view the source code. I'm not as familiar with Java, but as far as I can tell the hiding function is intended to prevent non-java enabled browsers from seeing a tangled mess when they view the page. I'm running Firefox 2, which is Java enabled, so is there any way to get around the hiding function and view the source code without knowing the passwords to retrieve the actual files from the host?

In lieu of the actual source code, I've taken screen shots of every portion of the website and saved all the images. I caught a lucky break in that there's an older version of the site, coded in HTML, still present on geocities, so I've pulled down that source code wherever it's practical. Is there anything else I can do to make the transition as smooth as possible if the current person tries to wreck the place on the way out?

Also, in the event that this woman refuses to give up the passwords to the hosting company, what are my options for re-creating the site elsewhere? I'm not certain whether the domain name is registered to Kristy or this woman, so we may be looking at purchasing another domain. If Kristy owns the domain, can I move the domain to another hosting company without it being removed from the one it's currently on?

Comments

[metricula.livejournal.com]

I use 1&1 hosting for metricula.com and others and I've been happy with it. Also, you might want to check your . :)

[metricula.livejournal.com]

Nevermind, it was probably just my browser.

And OMG, I looked at the Web site and it's hideous. I don't even want to think about the shitty code for something that poorly visually designed. Ugh.

[roguejam.livejournal.com]

Nah, there's a slash missing in the </a> tag

[winterthunder.livejournal.com]

Really? It's showing up normal to me. *goes to check coding*

[roguejam.livejournal.com]

The problem looks to be the frames. In firefox, try right clicking the content and "This Frame->View Source"

If Javascript is still the issue, what you can do is the following

1. In Firefox, disable Javascript in Tools->Options->Content
2. Click Okay
3. Open a new Firefox window into that page
4. Do the same thing as above

[winterthunder.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll try that. :)