Postcards

Use your favorite photos and images to provide postcards on your site, which visitors can send to others with an accompanying message.

Postcard images can be promotional for your business, or a collection of your favorite photos for your friends and family. As you provide the postcard images, the choice is yours.

Users provide their email address, the email address of the recipient, enter their message, and select their preferred image. The recipient then receives an email with a link to the postcard on your site. The postcard will remain accessible for 14 days, after which it will be automatically deleted.

A postcard sample is available:

How to Add Postcards

Follow these simple steps to add postcards to your web site:

Basic Method

Use this method if you are not familiar with HTML, and you wish to configure a simple postcard interface using the default settings.

1. Create a "postcard" directory in your document root ("htdocs") directory.
    
2. Create an "images" subdirectory within your "postcard" directory.
    
3. Upload the images you wish to use for your postcards to the "postcard/images" directory (these can be either .gif or .jpg images).
    
4. To access your postcard script, simply place a link anywhere on your site pointing to "http://www.yourname.com/cgi-t/postcard" (replacing "yourname" with your actual domain name).

Custom Method

Use this method if you wish to customize the postcard interface to match the appearance of your site.

1. Create the "postcard" and "postcard/images/" directories, and upload your images as above.
    
2. Create a new file called "template.html". This is the final page that the recipient will see when they view their postcard, not the page for sending postcards. Edit this page to match the appearance of your site. You can use your preferred HTML editor, or edit the code directly. Add the following variables where you want the content to be displayed:
    
   • $from - the sender's email address
   • $email - the recipient's email address
   • $message - the sender's message
   • $image - the sender's selected image

   Upload this file to your "postcard" directory.

3. Visit your standard "Send Postcard" page at "http://www.yourname.com/cgi-t/postcard" (replacing "yourname" with your actual domain name). Right-click the page and select "view source", then save this file to your computer as "postcard.html".
    
4. Edit this page to match the appearance of your site. You can use your preferred HTML editor, or edit the code directly. Make sure you leave all form elements in place.
   
   Upload the "postcard.html" file to you domain. If you place this file outside of you "postcard" directory, remember to change any relative URLs accordingly.
    
5. To access your postcard script, simply place a link anywhere on your site pointing to your "postcard.html" page.

Warning

Please note that FastVirtual's Acceptable Use Policy strictly applies to the use of this script.