Author Archives: Amir Shevat

How to check where your site visitors come from using javascript

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Where do my visitors come from? That is always a question bloggers, site owners and advertisers want to know. Knowing who has referred the visitor to my site tells you a lot about that visitor. This information might help you drive better, more finely tuned content to this user.

Demo

Code



<script type="text/javascript">

        if(document.referrer){

           document.write("Hello, Thank you for arriving from: "
                                                   + document.referrer);

         }else{

           document.write("Hello, 
                  Thank you for arriving directly to this page");

}

    </script>

This topic is covered in detailed in this interesting article.

IPWEditor – In-Place WYSIWYG Editor with FCKeditor and JQuery Editable

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An In-Place editor, such as jQuery Editable plug-in, lets you seamlessly replace texts on web pages with inputs, for on-the-spot editing (see example 1). WYSIWYG editors, such as FCKeditor, provide easy, word-like editor on the web (see example 2). Basically, the two are advanced User-Interface JavaScript tools that help users edit content on the web in an easy, intuitive and productive way.

Wouldn’t it be great if we combine the two to create a really cool, web 2.0 user experience for editing content on the web? Unfortunately, FCKeditor and Editable are not fully compatible and some tweaking is required to make them interoperable.

In this article will demonstrate how, with little modification, FCKeditor can be integrated into Editable to create an In-Place WYSIWYG editor (see example3).

If you want to skip this documentation and just go to download the code and examples you can do so here.

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Software As A Service Takes The “Free Beer” Out of Open Source

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Free software means that computer users have the freedom to cooperate with whom they choose, and to control the software they use. To summarize this into a remark distinguishing libre (freedom) software from gratis (zero price) software, Richard Stallman said: “Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’, not as in ‘free beer’.1

The reality is quite different from this philosophy. Up until now open source software was, for most people, free beer rather than free speech. Well, the beer party is over, and cooperate companies have a new business model strategy called SAAS.
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Apache Crashes on Windows – Check Your Ports

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Apache is one of the most popular web servers in the market today. It usually runs on Linux-based machines but lately there are more and more deployments, for development as well as other reasons, of Apache on Windows. Nowadays, running Apache web server on Windows is very common for PHP developers. Many developers develop their PHP application on their home windows or Mac and deploy to a remote Linux server.
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How to Get Free Open Source Photos for Your Website and Presentations

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Visuals aids such as photos, are very important because they help you pass information and feelings, attract attention, maintain concentration, and help explain abstract concepts. Most professional presenters use photos and other images in their presentation. I personally find that the audience is better tuned when I present images than words.
The problem is that most images cost money – most photographers want you to pay royalties for the images you use.
Lucky enough, there are many images released under an open source license called creative commons
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Save Money on Your Web Host with HostMate

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The cost of common shared hosting starts at 3$-10$ per month. While this is a cost many can afford, there are many out there that find it hard to spend 120$/year. Well, in the past 4 years I have used the idea of hostMates very successfully, saving money and learning from my mates.

Please note: HostMate is an idea, best practice if you want. It is not a product or a service, although someone might want to provide this service.

The simple idea of HostMate

Share the same host account with other people (preferably friends) in the same manner we use to have a roommate in the university.
Most hosting accounts support multiple domain names, MySQLs, email addresses and FTP accounts.
Why not share the cost and enjoy this multitenancy with a few ‘virtual roommates’?

A very similar set of rules should apply both for roommates and for hostMates:

  1. Respect the other mates privacy
  2. Keep the file system/ living room clean
  3. Don’t do anything that will bring the police
  4. Do not abuse common resources
  5. If you bring a date back to the room hang a ‘do not disturb sign’ on the door knob – I guess this is more relevant for roommates than for hostMates

At some stage, very similar to roommates, you will outgrow your hostMate arrangement and move out of this deal into a new, posh hosting all by yourself.

Good luck.
1

Make money blogging by making blogging a part of your job description

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I have been making money blogging. A lot of money blogging. In the last 5 years I have calculated that I have earned above 70,000 USD in blogging alone. And I have managed to do so very easily and without marketing or any other related costs. The money was guaranteed every month and I got free editing and proofing services.

Here is my simple secret.

I have made Blogging a part of my job description. In the last 5 years I have been working for an open source company with only 20 employees, and for the one of the biggest and most profitable hi-tech companies in the world, with more than 80,000 employees worldwide. And they both paid me to blog as part of my job.

And you can do it too:
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Will Oracle kill Java and MySQL?

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Oracle is going to buy Sun and control Java and MYSQL.1
2
In an interesting post in ZDNET ,Mr Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu is claimed to state that:

“.. he doesn’t seem too worried that the proprietary software company will kill Sun’s open source Java, OpenSolaris and MySQL jewels, in spite of Oracle’s hold on the database market.”

I am not sure I completely share his optimism. I am not so much worried about Java, there is no competition there. But think of it -If you were Oracle’s CEO, You just got the chance to kill the number one competitor product- Wouldn’t you want to kill MySQL?

Even if you do not do it immediately, would you want to invest in two competitive technologies? It just doesn’t make any sense business-wise.

Additionally, I don’t buy the “so what? Open source products can be forked” story. I do not think Java and MySQL would have been so successful without a solid company backing them up. I really hope that Oracle will provide this solid support and investment in the future of Java and MySQL.

My hope it that Oracle cares about its public image in the open source community and that this will drive Oracle to keep MySQL and Java open and alive.

No Dolphins were hurt in the making of this post.