Installation instructions
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The installation instructions are brief and assume that you have a fair knowledge of databases, asp and ftp.

1) Create a Database to store the tables required by Forest Blog. This can be MSSQL, MySQL or Access database *.

2) Adjust the database connection string in the inc-dataconnection.asp file in the Includes folder with your database servers details.

3) Uncomment the lines that reflect your chosen database and language from inc-dataconnection.asp.

3) Upload the Forest Blog files** to your webspace*** . Once the files have been uploaded open yourdomain.com/setup.asp and follow the setup instructions.

4) All done! Now you just need to log in to the admin panel and setup your blog.




Updating Instructions
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Updating Forest Blog is easy, simply follow the instructions below:

1) Delete the /Admin and /Includes folder from your webspace.

2) Adjust the database connection string in the inc-dataconnection.asp file in the Includes folder with your database servers details. Also make sure to uncomment the line that reflects your database.

3) Upload the Forest Blog files to your webspace* . Once the files have been uploaded open yourdomain.com/update.asp and follow the setup instructions.

4) All done! Now you just need to log in to the admin panel to setup the new configuration options.




Update notes
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Unfortunately there was a slight omission from the database setup/update script in all earlier versions of Forest Blog that means that the Block_Address column of the FB_Blocked table is not long enough for a full IP address.

1) MSSQL\MySQL users: If you are using either MSSQL or MySQL then youcan use the following SQL query to increase the column length, simply execute it through your database management studio.

ALTER TABLE FB_Blocked ALTER COLUMN Block_Address VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL

2) Access users: You must open your Access database manually and increase the field length to 15.






* If you are using Access you do not have to create a new database, simply use the included blog.mdb file. We recommend renaming the Access database and uploading it to a secure folder that is not accessible from the web.


** If you are installing Forest Blog to a sub-directory of your webspace you must perform a search and replace for all virtaual file includes to include the sub-directory name in the file include path.

For example, search for:

<!--#include virtual="/Includes/

Replace with

<!--#include virtual="/Folder_Name/Includes/


*** Forest Blog requires read/write permissions on the installation directory part or all of Forest Blog may fail to operate correctly if these permissions are not set.