How It Works

I'm sure I will be asked at some point how the site works, and it may allay fears over exactly what we do here at The Voices of Many.

The exact processes and things that go on at this site are very complex, and unfortunately I will be resorting to using technical terms, abbrieviations, jargon and/or code to explain exactly how it works. If you're curious, please do read on - and please direct any questions to my contact page

I am actually going to go through the whole of what we do (although not necessarily how specific translations work, particularly, because some of them are my creations, others are just standard implementations)

Here are the parts of the site, which deal with processing text entered by you, the user:

1. The user supplies content to be 'altered'
2. Our server receives that content
3. Our server applies any modifications
4. Our server returns the page to you

How we process a page when you supply the website:

1. The user sends website address
2. Our server receives the link
3. Our server checks whether we can and should do the link
4. Our server attempts to download a copy of the page
5. Our server modifies the original page
6. Our server inserts a banner
7. Our server returns the new page to you

On a related note, this site is fully powered by the following: (the normal 'LAMP' system)

[Linux]	Linux is the wonderful operating system at the core of the server which runs this site. Only Linux's power at scheduling tasks, managing memory and performance could cope with the demands of this site, and indeed many, many others on the Internet.
	Apache (httpd) is the server software which handles the incoming requests for pages, and sends the processed content off to you. A recent Netcraft survey suggests that Apache is responsible for 62% of the Internet's web server systems.
	MySQL is my personal favourite database, and the store of some of the global data which runs the site, not least the hit count information.
	PHP: Hypertext Processor is the heart of the site, all of the things that happen on this site depend on PHP's flexibility and power. It could have been written in, say, Visual Basic Script under ASP but would have been far more unwieldly. Or it could have been written in Perl or Python - if I a) knew either language and b) was sure what flexibility my host had. Everything would, pretty much, have to be reimplemented, I wouldn't get anything so wonderful as choice of Perl modules installed. This one, folks, is the key to The Voices of Many.

I did want to put all four logos down the site menu, but I didn't want to lose too much bandwidth to the site.