Help with a website...

[byrne86]

Hi, I haven't used any php for a while, but i am making a website, and i need some advice on how to do the following:

 

I want the website to change an image once every 24 hours, the image will revert back to the original image after 2 minutes.

 

Does anyone have an idea how I could start doing this?

[Pikachu2000]

So, for example, you want to display image #1 from noon to 12:02, and image #2 at all other times?

[byrne86]

Yeah, basically, I forgot to mention though, that the time of day when the page displays image #1 is completely random. I don't even know where to begin on this task...

[Pikachu2000]

I'm thinking along these lines:

 

One script runs on a cron job at midnight daily, generates the random time for the image to display for that day, and inserts that value in a database.

 

The script that calls the image can then check the database, and if the time is between the random time and 2 minutes later, the alternate image is the one that gets served.

[byrne86]

OK, I understand most of that, but what is a cronjob? I know how to generate random numbers, but how would I generate a random time?

 

Thanks for the help btw.

[Pikachu2000]

A cron job is a scheduled action on the server (I think it's called a 'scheduled task' in WinD'ohs). I've never had to generate a random time, so I haven't put much thought into it. Initially, I'm thinking you could generate a random between 0-23, and one from 00-59, and concatenate them into a time value, but somehow I'm not sure that's a good idea. Maybe someone else has a better way . . .

[byrne86]

It turns our I can easily use cron jobs with GoDaddy, so I can sort that out.In regards to the random time, I found this website:

 

http://sqa.fyicenter.com/Online_Test_Tools/Random_Date_Time_Value_Generator.php

 

but it doesnt explain how they get the random times very well.