Archive for category Web Development
Updating Whats-hot-weekly
Posted by Randy in Web Development on May 3, 2009
My task for this morning is to add additional site codes to whats-hot-weekly.com. It’s not an easy task. At least, it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. All of the categories are pulled from a database that I refresh every so often. The database only contains the categories for the US eBay site. This is where it gets hairy because I wasn’t aware before now that the other countries used didn’t categories. So, now my task is to add all the categories so I can implement the additional sites.
This is going to take a while. The US along takes around half an hour. There are many other sites. I’ve recreated the database adding a field to record the site_id. Next I’ll run my scripts to populate the database with API calls. After I populate the database for the US, I’ll switch the site codes manually and add the next site. I would automate this but I would rather monitor it anyway so I thought I may as well do it manually.
The big issue that will come up later is currencies. I’ll have to adjust for that. I’ll also have to recreate the same code on the static version of the site.
While I wait for the database to refresh, the old site is still running as normal. I have a development environment that is a working copy of the production environment. I’ll make the switch there, then simply move it over to production from there. There should be exactly no downtime to the site. I hope.
Just How Relevant is Google
Posted by Randy in Internet, SEO, Tips, Web Development on May 1, 2009
We have all come to expect good things from Google. In fact, many of us have come to believe that Google is the best at everything they do. This is especially true with their original application, their search. For the past few years Google has ruled the search market. It got there by making the most relevant search results appear every time a user executed a search.
Those days may be over. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend that Google isn’t giving very relevant content. I don’t think I’m alone, and I have a pretty good idea why we are getting such bad results. It’s not entirely Google’s fault. There are many “white hat” and “black hat” search engine optimizations that are being used to manipulate the results. Marketers are trying to draw content to their sites. That’s how they make money after all. SEO has been used ever since the first search engine. If you check this page, Google just seems to be lagging behind in making their algorithms detect unwanted SEO.
This isn’t to say that those marketers are doing something wrong exactly. It’s just that most of them are concentrating on Google. Google is, after all, the most popular search engine. They know what works to get ranked on Google, so they do it. They do a lot of it. This skews Google’s search results, but doesn’t necessarily effect Yahoo search results because Yahoo uses different algorithms to determine where a result ranks.
Google also is notorious for de-indexing RELEVANT sites by mistake. For instance, this site seems to have been de-indexed, and I’ve not been attempting to SEO this site much at all. It could be due to my use of a WordPress plugin called All-in-one SEO pack, though that really shouldn’t have anything to do with it either.
Here is my single example that has been perplexing me for a month or so:
Once upon a time, there was a script for the XChat IRC client, called “XLack”. This script is my favorite system information script for XChat. I’ve used it for probably 4 or 5 years. The home site for the script used to be xlack.tk. This was where everyone would go to download it. That site is now a parked domain. It has been that way for close to a year. If you search google for “Xlack”, xlack.tk is still the number one site. It is no longer relevant at all. It’s a parked domain. In fact, if one tries to find a site from which to download the xlack script, one finds that there are none listed on Google.com.
Now take that same search over to yahoo.com. A simple search for “xlack download” gives you this site, which has the relevant download link of the actual script. Yahoo.com provides more relevant results. Try it on any of your search and see if you don’t get better results from Yahoo or even Live.com. I guarantee you’ll have more success from them these days than you do Google.
Programming ideas
Posted by Randy in Applications, Open Source, Programming, Web Development on April 17, 2009
I’m not a very good programmer. I think the biggest reason for that is that I’ve not had enough practice at it. I’ve written plenty of apps and web sites but most were very simple. My latest app, whats-hot-weekly.com is actually a simplified version of another app I wrote that is located at givemeaniche.com. There are many differences between the two apps even though they basically do the same thing. The exception to this being that givemeaniche actually shows the most searched for terms as well as the most watched items.
The hardest part of it all is coming up with new ideas for serious work projects. I have a few but being a solo developer, designer, etc means that I’ll have to put some time into them. Any ideas for apps and websites would be much appreciated.
Twitter and me
Posted by Randy in Internet, Web Development on April 16, 2009
I first tried twitter about a month ago. I wasn’t very impressed, at the time. I have this theory that we are actually going backward in usefulness on the web. Back in the 90’s we had web apps that did a lot more than twitter, yet twitter is supposed to be sooooo amazing.
Well it is. Here’s the thing. As the internet get more and more crowded, certain things become more and more popular. Marketing is getting extremely popular on the internet. That’s not to say that marketing hasn’t been popular on the internet for many years. It’s just getting exponentially more popular. Twitter is a marketers dream. Facebook is another that works great for marketers. After all marketing and social media presence is a major factor in whether a site succeeds or not. One can have the best site on the internet, and if no one knows anything about it.
You see, these apps are just less robust versions of old forum software. They are also meant to grab a larger audience where forums are meant for a smaller niche. This broad audience and simplistic design make these apps extremely useful for advertising. Unfortunately, the normal user will see less functionality from these apps than software from 15 years ago. Those users won’t understand this, however, because they have never been exposed to that older technology. They just know that all of their family is on facebook or myspace. So they join the sites and start getting bombarded with new advertisements.
If you are smart, you’ll jump on the marketing bandwagon soon. There’s a lot of money in it.
responseXML.documentElement is null or not an object
Posted by Randy in Programming, Web Development on April 5, 2009
Ok I have yet another reason to loath IE7. I had an error on Whats-hot-weekly.com earlier in regard to this error message on my ajax XML object:
responsexml.documentElement is null or not an object
Everything worked in Firefox, Chrome, and even my Nokia N810’s browser, but IE7 just wasn’t going to cooperate. I knew that it was working last night, but I made a few changes before going to bed.
Two of the changes I made was in relation to the meta tags in the HTML of the main index page. I added keywords and description for search engine optimization. Little did I know that one of these was the culprit.
After much Googling, I came upon this article. In it I immediately found the reason for the error. It should have been a little obvious but I had overlooked something simple. My search box for entering in keywords had an id(and name) of “keywords”. The new meta tag for keywords also used the “name=keywords” attribute.
In the article, it was the “description” meta tag that had caused the conflict. Upon evaluating that, I realized my mistake. This effected IE only because IE checks the name attribute when you call document.getElementById. It was grabbing the meta element instead of the search box.
I hope this helps someone else, in the event that all the variables fall into place for this to happen again.
eBay Most Watched Items
Posted by Randy in Programming, Web Development on April 4, 2009
Well, after a few days of serious development, I’m releasing the beta of my site. It’s called whats-hot-weekly.com. It is basically a “most watched items on ebay” site. With it users can find what everyone else is looking at.
One can search by keyword/keyphrase, by category, or by both. The interface may need a little polishing, but it’s functional. There is at least one minor bug that I’m working on. The site will continue to improve, and I’ll be adding forums soon, so that people can report bugs and discuss what they find. If you are using my site to find what products to buy on eBay I’d also recommend visiting https://www.raise.com/coupons/ebay to find the best coupon codes and use them on your purchase.
Just make sure to read reviews
Feedback соmmеntѕ аrе a vаluаblе tооl when dесіdіng whether to dо business wіth an еBау ѕеllеr. If a ѕеllеr hаѕ ѕеvеrаl nеgаtіvе feedback comments, you may not wаnt tо dо buѕіnеѕѕ wіth him.
Tо read аn еBау ѕеllеr’ѕ fееdbасk соmmеntѕ, gо to thе ѕеllеr’ѕ Fееdbасk Prоfіlе bу сlісkіng thе fееdbасk number (beside thе ѕеllеr’ѕ uѕеr ID іn thе Sеllеr Infо box) when you vіѕіt an auction/item раgе. Bеlоw thе Rесеnt Fееdbасk Rаtіngѕ, Detailed Sеllеr Rаtіngѕ, аnd Mеmbеr Quісk Lіnkѕ аrе tabs thаt you сlісk to ѕее (аnd rеаd) thе асtuаl feedback соmmеntѕ. Bу default, уоu ѕее thе All Fееdbасk tаb selected. Yоu mау uѕе the оthеr tаbѕ to ѕоrt the соmmеntѕ for rеvіеw:
Fееdbасk as a Sеllеr: Thеѕе comments аrе frоm people whо bоught something from thіѕ ѕеllеr.
Fееdbасk as a Buуеr: Whеn уоu buy аnd рlау bу the rules, уоu gеt ѕоmе роѕіtіvе feedback that ѕhоwѕ uр hеrе.
All Feedback: A conglomeration оf аll fееdbасk lеft for thе раrtісulаr mеmbеr, rеgаrdlеѕѕ оf whеthеr that реrѕоn wаѕ a buуеr or a ѕеllеr in a trаnѕасtіоn. You can tеll whісh раrtу left thе feedback bесаuѕе thе wоrdѕ Sеllеr оr Buуеr арреаr оn thе right оf еасh comment.
Fееdbасk Left for Others: Checking thе tуре оf feedback thаt a ѕеllеr leaves аbоut others can give уоu аn insight іntо hіѕ реrѕоnаlіtу.
Don’t forget to let me know what you think by commenting here or by emailing me at the address listed on the site’s home page.
AJAX Cross Domain Work-around
Posted by Randy in Programming, Web Development on April 4, 2009
Any of you that are AJAX developers can skip this post. I’ve just recently started concentrating on AJAX for a project I’m working on. In the past, I’ve used PHP to parse XML returned from various web services and it goes off without a hitch. I also wrote my own web service in PHP for this project.
The project is basically a site that works with the eBay API to pull the most watched items for any keyword search phrase and by category. I’ve pulled all the categories to a local database. This will allow me to avoid using an API call every time someone clicks through different categories. All the categories are in an AJAX menu system I wrote. The menu is completely dynamic and loads the categories and subcategories using calls to my web service. This part was fun because it gave me the opportunity to create a web service and this in itself was worth the time I’ve spent on the whole project.
I ran into a road block however, because I wasn’t aware that AJAX doesn’t allow cross-domain calls. At least from what I see, it doesn’t. I started getting an error 1012 “Access to restricted URI denied’.” This means that the actually calls I would like to make to the eBay API won’t work through AJAX. I wrote the code to try to do so and kept getting this error. That’s when I found out that it wasn’t possible to do this using AJAX. It’s fine in PHP, however. So, here is the work-around I’m brain-storming. I know it’ll work. It’s just a matter of doing it.
The work-around is simply to write another web service in php that makes the calls for me. Then use AJAX to pull the info dynamically from the localhost. The up side to this is I can also log various stats about the calls within the web service as well. I could create a table in my database to log the searches, time of day, IP address of user, and so on. This will allow me to understand how the app is being used, who’s using it, when they are using it, and what they are using it for.
This is also known as using AJAX through a proxy. Where the proxy is the web service on the localhost from which one can make an AJAX call to.
So, I’m off to code another web service.
Tips for Finding Cheap Website Hosting
Posted by Randy in Web Development on March 20, 2009
Starting a website isn’t hard. It’s much easier than one may imagine. There are many things to know before starting, however. By asking key questions like how the site will be used, who will be accessing it, and what features it will need, will make the task much easier.
Websites start out as an idea the anatomy of paystubs. There are three main types of website. Personal websites normally are used to display family photos, communicate with relatives, or display a personal interest. These websites have been very useful for many to get more familiar with building websites. They are the modern scrapbook. However, they are becoming less common these days due to another form of website. The community (Web2.0) sites have been taking the place of many personal sites. These online communities try to replicate real-world socialization. The final type of website is the business website. These are used as store fronts or to display related information about a company. They can also be used as portals for business employees. Knowing which of these types of one wishes to create is the first step in finding appropriate hosting like this professional wordpress hosting service.
For personal sites, a small hosting package is normally good enough. Minimal money will be spent on this type of site. If one plans to set up a community-based website or a business website, other more expensive hosting options will be needed. No matter which type of site is being built, the first thing that will be needed is a domain name. You should also look into how making use of a crm can help your business grow.
The very best place to grab a domain name is GoDaddy. For around the price of lunch, a domain name can be purchased for a year. So, it’s cheap to buy a piece of the web. The hard part is finding the domain name. The big three top level domains are .COM, .NET, and .ORG. Finding a domain name within these three TLDs is the best, but very difficult. There are many people called “squatters” who buy up domain names just to resale later. Try to think of something clever and catchy that is related to what your site is going to be about. Limit the length of the name as much as possible. It’ll be essential that visitor be able to remember the name for later. Godaddy has a great tool for checking the availability of a domain name and suggesting ideas for other names related to your search.
Once the domain name is found and purchased, it’s necessary to have a hosting service. Godaddy also offers hosting, however hosting is a very competitive market and it’s easy to find unlimited shared hosting for very little. For instance, here are some examples of very cheap unlimited website hosting on eBay. If one needs good support it would probably be better to go with a company like HostGator. While the eBay hosting packages will cost around $10 per year or (in some cases) for life, HostGator will cost around $10 per month. It can not be stressed enough, however, that HostGator is a reputable company that will deliver the best product. “You get what you pay for” is very correct in this case. The HostGator plan also allows one to host as many sites as they want all for the same month price. Omnis Network also offers great deals on domain names and hosting plans.
This hosting is great for any of the three types of websites, but if the site has potential to receive a lot of traffic, it would be best to go with either dedicated servers, colocation servers, or VPS.
Dedicated servers and colocation servers are the most powerful of the lot. These are real servers that the user has full control over. They are, of course, more expensive. Dedicated servers are basically servers one can rent that are in a data center on a dedicated internet connection. Co-locations, “Colo” for short, are dedicated servers that are owned by the customer and placed in a data center like those used by the dedicated servers.
VPS is just alphabet soup meaning Virtual Private Server. It’s a dedicated server in a virtual environment. VPS is usually cheaper than true dedicated servers, but offer many of the same features. The customer is the owner of the server. They have full admin rights and can do whatever they want with it.
VPS, dedicated, and colocation servers are typically harder to maintain. They require more technical know-how than shared hosting or managed hosting. The customer is the administrator on the server and with the complete control comes complete responsibility. Unlike shared hosts however, dedicated servers and colo servers are completely dedicated to a single customer. There is always potential, while using a shared host, that the server will become slow due to heavy load from all the many sites it is hosting. Proper load balancing usually takes care of this but it could still happen.
So in conclusion, if someone wanted a small site for personal or small business use, the cost could be as little as $20 bucks for the domain name and hosting for a year, using Godaddy and eBay. For best results, however, it’s recommended to buy hosting from a reputable company like HostGator or Omnis. One hosting account will allow for as many websites as one wishes.
Posted by Randy in Applications, Programming, Web Development on March 18, 2009
If you want to finance your career you should learn about students loans because it’s one of the few loans you will be able to take out in the future. When you are a student you will have to work for years at a high salary before you are able to begin making payments. The average student loan debt for undergraduates is $25,000, and it is expected that there will be about $1.3 trillion in student loan debt by 2020.
We all hope that our kids won’t have to take out loans to start their lives off in life, but it is the reality of today. That said, there are students out there that find the loans and work out how to avoid it altogether. For that reason we have compiled a list of the 7 things you should be doing if you are thinking of a career in student loans.
#1. Get Started ASAP
Just because you can’t afford a student loan doesn’t mean you can’t start your education. The sooner you start working towards a career in student loans the better. The last thing you want to do is spend years working towards an internship before you have made a commitment to something, because then you will never get that opportunity to work. There are plenty of places you can start right away. Check out this list of student loan companies. You can get started with a one-year option or you can work your way up to a five-year plan. #2. Understand The Loan Terms When you are looking at a student loan company, you will want to understand the terms of the loan so you can make the best choices. Some of the terms are specific to the type of loan you are getting and others are common in all types of loans. A good rule of thumb is to take a good look at the terms of any loan you are considering because all of them will be a part of the agreement. You will want to have a basic understanding of the loan terms so you can make the best choices for yourself when it comes to paying back the loan. Let’s look at the following information about paying back a loan:
A Good Loan Terms
The term of the loan is usually a couple of years. Usually the lender will tell you the exact length of the term and the payment schedule. Some banks will give you an estimate of how much you are going to pay every month.
The loan interest rate is the interest rate you are going to be charged when you make your monthly payments. You can expect to pay about 3% to 4% on your loan. You may find a lower interest rate on a savings or checking account at a branch of the bank. You can also try using the calculator on the lender’s website or by calling the lender to ask.
The term of the loan is usually a couple of years. Usually the lender will tell you the exact length of the term and the payment schedule. Some banks will give you an estimate of how much you are going to pay every month. The loan interest rate is the interest rate that you will pay each month on the loan. The interest rate will increase as the length of the loan increases. Generally, if you can get a lower interest rate, you may be able to get a loan for a shorter amount. It is a good idea to ask the lender what the interest rate is on the loan you are considering.
Before you start your loan application process, check with your bank to see if they offer loans in the states where you live. Get more info here.