Random Email Signature

Random Music, Tip, Phrase or Link

Want a cool effect for your email or newsgroup signature? Or would you like to add a different song to your webpage every time is is visited? It's not hard to do, but you must have access to a server that allows CGI & SSI. For the best choice, I suggest Dream-Server, it's not free, but it will be the best $5 a month you ever spent on-line. For a good free option, you might try VR9.com. If you use a host that uses banner ads on the pages, this will not be a problem when added to an email sig because WebTV will kill the JavaScript and the banner will not show up after sent.

Let's begin, first upload this file in ascii (as a .txt file) RandomScript.txt make sure the path to Perl matches your server. Next, set the path to what will be your database page. This page will contain the selections that the script will choose from.The script is now set to random.txt and can be left at that as long as your database page will use that URL. Rename the script to anything.cgi or .pl then set the permissions (CHMOD) to whatever your server uses to run scripts. (700 for Dream-Server, 755 for most others)

Now set up the database page for the random script to chose from. This script uses %% as the delimiter to separate each choice, but if you would like to change this you will need to change it in the Perl script. Here is a Sample Database page. It is just a simple .txt page with the codes for each entry choice and the delimiter (%%) placed before each new choice.

You can use full sig codes, or use embedded pages, or you can also use it for random music codes by adding the <embed> music tags for each one choice.

Adding this script to your page

To add the random script to your webpage, you will need to use Server Side Includes (SSI) to pull the CGI script to a page. It is this page that can later be embedded into your email sig. You can simply make a page like this. Notice the SSI include, that is what adds your script to the page. Create the page, name it something.shtml
.shtml is needed by most servers if you use SSI) and add this code:

For random music, quotes or links, you can continue to build your page with the SSI include tag placed where you want the script added.

For the random sig, you can use an embed tag to add it to your signature box like this:

That's all you need. I just want to add that the script used for this came from Matt's Script Archive. I just wanted to make this as easy and painless on you as I could. This project is not for beginners, but if you are ready to "take the next step" this would be a good place to start.