|
Assume for a minute I have a website of 10 pages, and each page displays a navigation frame/layer that allows the surfer to go to any of the other 9 pages on the site.
I am trying to put an "updated" indicator next to each item in my navigation bar for each webpage that has been updated since the surfer's last visit to that webpage. I put a cookie on the surfer's client (PC) whenever he/she visits a page on my site. Theoretically, they will end up with 10 cookies, one for each page. Each cookie contains a timestamp of their last visit to that cookie's related page.
The next time they visit my site (any page of my site), I want the navigation bar to indicate which pages have been updated since their last visit to my site.
I can set the cookie using javascript on the client side (assuming scripting and cookies are enabled). So, the cookie will contain a timestamp of the local time on the client.
I can use ASP to pass down from the server the last modified date of each of the 10 pages on my site (using filesys.GetFile(fileName) DateLastModified). And then theoretically, I can compare the the client-side cookie values with the server-supplied "last modified dates" to see which pages should be marked "updated". (Of course, I have to be aware that a javascript timestamp is in a different format from the UNIX server's filesys timestamp, so I have to do some manipulations in order to be able to compare the two.)
However, I discovered that the server is in a different time zone. So, now depending on where I am in the world, my timestamp can be off 1-23 hours.
I even tried passing the ASP Now() value {converted using the function DateDiff("s", "01/01/1970 00:00:00", Now())} down from the server to be used in the cookie timestamp, expecting that now I was comparing apples to apples (given both timestamps came from the server and expecting the time zones to match). However, I found yet another timezone issue. I'm not familiar with how timezones are managed, but the filesys timestamp I receive for the files last modified times are off from my personal timezone by 3 hours. What is weird is that the DateDiff() timestamp is off by 7 hours. Help!!!
Anyone else tackled this problem and have a solution? It you have a solution that works (or can point me to one), I'm happy to abandon my approach.
My web host is a UNIX box running Apache web server.
Thx.
|
