I’m never satisfied when I conclude something doesn’t work because it’s complex. The best thing to do is to snap into diagnostic mode. The first rule of diagnosis of the problem is start simple and work from there. The saying of getting to the root of the problem is accurate.

I looked at the CMS code and concluded that the function being called to send mail is the PHP function of mail(). So I needed to check the PHP mail function by itself, without the complexity of the CMS. If the mail() function sends mail, then the problem is the CMS or my email. If the mail() function does not send mail, then my provider has something that they can work with and I can present the problem to them. Simple I created a simple PHP script called testmail.php with this short little string of code:

<?php
$to = 'youraccount@youremail.com';
$subject = 'Sent on '.date("F j, Y, g:i a");
$message = 'Test message';

mail($to, $subject, $message);
?>

This routine will send mail to the $to variable and also tag the date in the subject. This is all done via the sendmail variable in php, you can do a phpinfo() to find which program sends mail. This can be handy if you need to see when it left the other system and came into yours. Just look the original header and you will be able to see all details.

In the end my problem resulted in my SPAM filter catching the email thus never showing up in the Inbox. Stupid problem, but until you verify the flow of mail with your hosting provider and scale your complexity back… You won’t solve the problem.

You can modify the code to accept arguments and make a VBScript replacement for wget the UNIX command. However wget is much more versatile and allows for a lot more features like agent string and referrer string modification. I use the “msxml2.xmlhttp.6.0” object, but you can replace it with “msxml2.xmlhttp.3.0” if you run into a problem. I had tested it on XP and Vista, so I think the “msxml2.xmlhttp.6.0” is tied to the IE version of IE version 6. Maybe someone can clarify that. The code does work and enjoy.

Dim FSO, dFile, sHTML

sHTML = Get_HTML ("http://www.google.com")

Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set dFile = FSO.CreateTextFile("SaveFile.html", True)

dFile.Write UniToAsc(sHTML)
dFile.Close

Set dFile = Nothing
Set FSO = Nothing

Private Function Get_HTML (up_http)
 Dim xmlhttp
 Set xmlhttp = createobject("msxml2.xmlhttp.6.0")

 xmlhttp.open "get", up_http, False
 xmlhttp.send
 Get_HTML = xmlhttp.responsetext

 set xmlhttp = Nothing
End Function

Private Function UniToAsc(sString)
 Dim nLen, nPTR, sAsc
 nLen = Len(sString)

 For nPTR = 1 To nLen
  sAsc = sAsc & Chr(Asc(Mid(sString, nPTR, 1)))
 Next

 UniToAsc = sAsc
End Function

The hyperlink command in excel actually does the reverse of what I needed; it creates a hyperlink out of the URL and a friendly name and I needed the URL from the friendly name. So I dug in a little deeper and treated the URL like an object. It has properties and those properties can be exposed. The hyperlinkcell object has a type of range so it is passed to the function of GETURL. The first hyperlink in the range we will want the property of the address. Then we simply pass it back to the function so that we can display it.

To install this all you need to do is:

1. Hit ALT + F11 (Opens Visual Basic Editor)
2. Click on Insert -> Module (adds a module to your excel file)
3. Paste the code below for the function of GETURL
4. Hit ALT + Q (Closes the Visual Basic Editor)

Now use the =GETURL(cell) to get the URL

Example: =GETURL(A1) will return the URL for the Hyperlink displayed in cell A1

Function GETURL(HyperlinkCell As Range)

 GETURL = HyperlinkCell.Hyperlinks(1).Address

End Function