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Cookies and sessions in WordPress E-mail
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 08:11

Two points to note in working with cookies and sessions in WordPress:

  1. You can't set cookies from the template header file.  It has to be done from functions.php.
  2. You can't start a session from the template files.  That should be done from wp-config.php like so:

//start a session
if (!session_id())
 session_start();

 



Tags: WordPress  themes  templates  sessions  cookies  PHP  
 
Hey, Google, are you spying on me? E-mail
Thursday, 05 August 2010 12:25

I've noticed a lot of visits to my site lately from Mountain View, California.  More specifically, Woopra analytics tells me the ISP is Google and the IP address they're visiting from is 66.249.71.184.  The visits are brief (under a minute) and generally span over 1-4 pages.

 

This has been going on for at least a week.  What I find curious is that these visits don't show up on my Google Analytics accounts page for the same site, which makes me wonder:

  • Why is Google visiting random pages on my sites?
  • Why isn't their own analytics program tracking those visits?

Below is a partial screenshot of what I see in Woopra for the last two days:

woopra-google

 

In comparison, here is a list of the cities in California Google Analytics says I have received visits from in the last week:

google-google

Notice how there's no mention of Mountain View.  My common sense tells me that Google Analytics should include the visits I see above in Woopra.

 

So is Google spying on me?
 
Adding a "Feedback" button: A brief comparison E-mail
Wednesday, 04 August 2010 08:09

I've seen the "Feedback" tabs on several websites, tethered to either the left or right edge of the browser window, and I think it's a nice unobtrusive way to offer your visitors a chance to quickly interact with you and offer their input on how you can improve your website.

 

I wanted to add such a button to my websites.  The most popular of the offerings seems to be Get Satisfaction.  I searched on AlternativeTo.net (a very useful service) and found several other similar services:

It came down to choosing one, possibly two, to check out, and I decided to go with UserEcho for now (deployed on this site and at p()thesis) and later check out VoxPopuli.  My reasons why are outlined in the table below:

 

GetSatisfaction Uservoice UserEcho CrowdSound VoxPopuli
Free account Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes - self-hosted PHP/MySQL script
Unobtrusive "Feedback" button Yes Yes Yes No - the demo on the frontpage shows a widget (and not a button) that embeds on your site Not sure - but I'm thinking not because there is no mention of it anywhere
User doesn't need to leave my website to use the service Yes - everything is done in the GetSatisfaction widget No - users can view current ideas but need to visit the site page to add new ones Yes and no - can type new idea inside widget but submitting redirects to the forum on UserEcho site Yes - everything is done inside the widget Yes - from the demo it looks like everything is handled by the widget
Observations
  • The widget didn't open in Internet Explorer at Write.fm
  • They don't emphasize that they offer a free account, which makes me think it has very limited functionality.
 It could be considered a bit deceptive, but since there is an input box in the widget and no notification that "Submit" will redirect them to a new page, the user is more likely to use the service than if there weren't an input field in the widget at all.
  • Project is open source
  • I haven't looked at the script yet but you can probably customize it to a great degree if you know your way around PHP.


 
WordPress plugins for convenient deployment E-mail
Monday, 02 August 2010 10:12

I've been developing small WordPress themes lately, and I want to share two plugins that allow me to quickly add widgets in a way so I don't have to reconfigure paths when moving from the development to the production server.

 

The two plugins are Widget Logic and PHP Code Widget.  You can see in the screenshot below how simple they are to use:

 

wp_widget_plugins
 
PHP/app developer w social media skills (intern) (Westminster, Colorado) E-mail
Wednesday, 28 July 2010 00:00

PHP/app developer w social media skills (intern) (Westminster, Colorado)

Date: 2010-07-22, 1:28PM MDT
Reply to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it [Errors when replying to ads?]
We are offering a six month paid internship for an PHP app developer and avanced web designer. You'll be working in our office in North Denver (Westminster). You will be working 32 hours per week. This internship pays $750 per month. Please do NOT reply if you are not located in the Denver/Boulder area.

ABOUT US
We are a non-traditional agency with offices in Denver and Cologne, Germany. All our projects involve various aspects of social media. Many of our clients are larger entities. We constantly develop new ideas for apps (Facebook, mobile, weaving various API's together, etc.) We specialize in tailored solutions for our clients, many of them being larger international entities. Our work includes this includes managing Twitter and Facebook accounts for our clients, community building and management, designing and running word of mouth campaigns, and monitoring the results. We started 8 years ago and are one of the household names for Guerilla Marketing in Germany and are making a name for ourselves with an awesome campaign here in the US.

We are out-of-the box thinkers that constantly monitor current and future trends and apply it to our workflow.

We are looking for a person that adds to our creativity pool and can turn our ideas into reality.

YOUR POSITION
* Brainstorm for new ideas
* Building enhanced Facebook fan pages including apps that run within Facebook or external microsites
* Developing location based solutions & mobile apps
* Creative use of social media APIs
* Identifying new trends and developments
* Localization and internationalization of websites
* Exploring the opportunities of geo targeting, QR codes, games and the creative use of digital coupons
* Adding functionality to the websites of our clients (Javascript, Ajax, PHP)
* Building mobile versions of websites and iPhone apps
* Building & enhancing WordPress blogs

You will be working with our local team and our team in Germany - no worries they all speak English. You'll be working on numerous prestigious client projects that will help you to build your resume. You will also meet some leading social media experts.

REQUIREMENTS
* Knowledge of PHP, Ajax, Javascript, HTML 5 & CSS 3
* Existing web development background
* You are self driven and understand that this environment requires constant self-education
* You have your own social media accounts and keep maintaining them
* Strong written and verbal communication skills
* Ability to meet changing demands and to adapt to frequently changing priorities
* Owning a Macbook


PLEASE NOTE
Please send us URL's that show your work. You need to be able to show us an existing web development background, that is much more important than a BS or a masters in science.

You will NOT do extensive backend programming that takes months to complete. Your focus will be on projects than can be completed in a week.

Your passion for programming could turn this internship into a permanent job. So far all of our interns turned into permanent employees. We do have the deal flow to make it happen.

We are looking forward to hearing from you :)

  • Location: Westminster, Colorado
  • Compensation: $750 per month
  • This is a part-time job.
  • This is an internship job
  • Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
  • Please, no phone calls about this job!
  • Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 1857401860

Tags: denver  colorado  cologne  germany  internship  
 
Find and replace text in MySQL E-mail
Wednesday, 26 May 2010 22:10

Say you're moving a site from the development server to the production server, and the client has been making updates (adding content, etc.) while the site's been under development.  The problem is that they've been using absolute URLs (http://www.somesite.com/some/somepage.htm) instead of relative ones (some/somepage.htm), so you have to go in and change anywhere from several to several thousand links to either the new site's full URL, or make all the URLs relative.  What do you do?

 

You can do a simple find-and-replace in MySQL using the following statement:

UPDATE table_name SET field_name = REPLACE(field_name, 'text being replaced', 'replacement text');
 
Useful websites and tools - 5/12 E-mail
Wednesday, 12 May 2010 00:00

Other

  • PDF-Xchange Viewer - Need to comment and annotate a PDF document?  Adobe Reader can do it but it's a 30+ MB download, and makes you download Adobe Download Manager.  Foxit Reader's free version adds a red stamp to the top of your document.  PDF-Xchange viewer is a free download that doesn't install extra crap and doesn't mark up your document.
 
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