About Web Development by Activo » Web Development http://www.activoinc.com/blog Web Development in a Web 2.0 World Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:16:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Response to Sitepoint Podcast #40: A Googol of Googles http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2010/01/29/response-to-sitepoint-podcast-40-a-googol-of-googles/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2010/01/29/response-to-sitepoint-podcast-40-a-googol-of-googles/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:16:07 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=370 I wanted to respond to Sitepoint’s podcast #40 since I did not see a way to add a comment on the podcast page.

First let me say that I really enjoy the podcast produced by Kevin Yank and discussed by his colleges: Patrick O’Keefe, Brad Williams and others – keep up the great work guys!

Here is what I wrote in an email to Kevin, explaining what I think are some points that were missed from the podcast:

Hi Kevin,

I had a few comments about your podcast about the Google apps and services, #40. Sorry, to respond so late as I listen to the podcasts in my spare time.

I think you totally missed the point on a few items. What Brad, Patrick, and you often miss about Google’s moves is that you have to remember that Google is a business. So, if you try to look what makes them try new services you should not be naïve in thinking that they are simply ‘trying to make things better for everyone to use’. The catch is how are they going to make more money as a result of offering these services to the world. Here are a few points you may have missed in your show:

  1. Google Public DNS service – you forgot to mention that if many people use their DNS service, they can now tell where these people browse and spend their internet time even when outside the Google universe. For an internet company this gives tremendous insights on what to focus next and get a head of the competition.
  2. Google changes to the home page – notice how many changes Google has introduced in the last 12 months? Or 6 months? It seems to me that Microsoft’s Bing is causing a lot of these changes. Notice how Google changed their input box size and button shine after Bing was launched. This is all to not lose market share in the search game, etc. This is hardly a UI decision at heart.

When you start thinking on the business side, many other issues come to light. Please do not miss that in future podcasts as you may be doing disservice to your listeners.

Sincerely,

Ron Peled

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2010/01/29/response-to-sitepoint-podcast-40-a-googol-of-googles/feed/ 3 3 Interesting Trends in Web Browsers http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/11/26/3-interesting-trends-in-web-browsers/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/11/26/3-interesting-trends-in-web-browsers/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:14:19 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=367 1. Opera is on the rise, especially in Europe

Recently I am reading more and more articles about the Opera browser. This browser is well known in the mobile space and is pretty much under the radar in the desktop space. However, recently I have been noticing a change upwards, especially in Europe. Opera has hired the graphic designer who worked on FireFox, has improved significantly its set of features and design, and keep introducing new innovative features such as the Opera Unite. As a web developer, I would keep an eye and make sure new site do not break in Opera, especially global sites with European audience.

2. FireFox’s (Mozilla) revenue is tapering off

According to a post “State of Mozilla” by Mitchell Baker, Mozilla has increased overall revenue in 2008 but at a slower paste. This along with large dependence on revenues coming from the main competitor, Google, brought a slew of articles and questions from Analysts and Enthusiasts. The main question from a web developer’s perspective is the long term validity of the FireFox project. At the moment, it does not seem to be in jeopardy at all and according to the article, perhaps even in a better state due to increased innovation and development as a result of fierce competition. In most cases, competition is a good thing. The dependence on Google revenue is a problem, and if I was running the show – working on decreasing this dependence will be my main priority.

3. IE9 – Performance is one of the main improvements

According to the IE team, the new IE9 which is currently being developed will be much faster then its predecessors. This is great news as speed is now the main advantage of using its competitors. Now that Microsoft is in favor with the public again due to Windows 7 and since it is continuing to push new features to IE, I think the rate of market share decline will decrease if not reverse itself and we will see a rise in market share. As a web developer this means no change: still utmost respect to IE, make sure that all websites (new or old) work on IE. Soon, we will need to test for IE6, IE7, IE8, and IE9 and notice that none of them pass the acid test. The good news is that we will drop support for the painful IE6 browser soon (will depend on the rate of adoption of Windows 7 in corporate).

Happy Thanksgiving!

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/11/26/3-interesting-trends-in-web-browsers/feed/ 3 Updating iNove to work with KeywordLuv plugin http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/10/05/updating-inove-to-work-with-keywordluv-plugin/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/10/05/updating-inove-to-work-with-keywordluv-plugin/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:00:33 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=347 Last week I discussed a new wordpress plugin that got me excited: KeywordLuv. I also promised to show you how I fixed the issue with iNove theme. Here it goes:

fixing-inove-toolbox

The main issue is that the iNove theme uses the get_comment_author_url() and the KeywordLuv works on a different method, the get_comment_author_link(). So, here are the steps to update your iNove theme in a way that the author will show the Author name and the keywords properly:

  1. Go to your Wordpress admin area
  2. Install the DoFollow plugin
  3. Install the KeywordLuv plugin
  4. Go to the Appearance tab
  5. Click on the Editor (Themes Editor for wordpress)
  6. Click on the ‘Theme Functions‘ file (functions.php)
  7. Look for these lines of code around line 230:

    <?php if (get_comment_author_url()) : ?>
    <a id="commentauthor-<?php comment_ID() ?>" href="<?php comment_author_url() ?>" rel="external nofollow">
    <?php else : ?>
    <span id="commentauthor-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
    <?php endif; ?>
    <?php comment_author(); ?>
    <?php if(get_comment_author_url()) : ?>
    </a>
    <?php else : ?>
    </span>
    <?php endif; ?>
  8. Erase the above lines and instead insert the following code:

    <?php echo get_comment_author_link(); ?>
  9. Save by clicking the ‘update file’ & check your work

That should do it. Notice that this site already has it installed and working properly. Disclaimer: the steps above are provided with the intention that it may fix an issue – there is by no means a guarantee. Each blog is slightly different.

Let me know how this worked out for you.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/10/05/updating-inove-to-work-with-keywordluv-plugin/feed/ 5 KeywordLuv: a must have wordpress plugin http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/10/02/keywordluv-a-must-have-wordpress-plugin/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/10/02/keywordluv-a-must-have-wordpress-plugin/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:00:52 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=339 KeywordLuv is the latest hot wordpress plugin. It did not officially catch on fire yet, but it will. I won’t be surprised to find it built in next versions of wordpress. So what is it anyway? From the publisher’s website:

Description: Reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text.

- Stephan Cronin

keywordluv-google-wonder-wheelIn other words it lets commentators leave a comment and allow area for their name and keywords while showing clear separation.  Instead of having Dedicated Advanced Hosting or Magento Plugins post comments on your site, the author of the comment can leave their name and get the credit they want with the keywords they selected. Three immediate benefits arise from this plugin/feature:

  1. Clear separation between author name and the keyword.
  2. Since the plugin needs a DoFollow plugin installed and the keywords entice authors to comment on your posts, more people will potentially join the discussion.
  3. Ability to separate between spammers and non spammers easily (for now).

There was a tiny issue with inove and the usage of this plugin. Next week, I will share with you how to address the issue in the iNove theme.

Let me know if you find this plugin useful or not.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/10/02/keywordluv-a-must-have-wordpress-plugin/feed/ 6 Required PHP Extensions for Magento eCommerce http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/27/required-php-extensions-for-magento-ecommerce/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/27/required-php-extensions-for-magento-ecommerce/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:00:47 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=318 When I setup a new linux server I make sure to set it up lean since performance is always on my mind. I usually install packages manually, so here is the list of PHP extensions that are needed for the latest stable version of Magento:

  • PHP
  • php-mysql
  • php-mcrypt
  • php-hash
  • php-xml (will be required for Magento 1.4.xx)
  • php-gd
  • php-pdo
  • php-mhash
  • php-soap

Here is the command line that will do the job:

yum install php php-mysql php-mcrypt php-xml php-gd php-pdo php-mhash php-soap

Tip: you should use PECL extension APC. Also known as Alternative PHP Caching. This little extension can speed things up significantly. Assuming you have setup Atomic as a repository in yum, you can run this command:

yum install php-pecl-apc

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/27/required-php-extensions-for-magento-ecommerce/feed/ 0 A Quick Way to Download, Install, and Setup pdnsd (local DNS Caching) http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/26/a-quick-way-to-download-install-and-setup-pdnsd-local-dns-caching/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/26/a-quick-way-to-download-install-and-setup-pdnsd-local-dns-caching/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:00:25 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=313 Back in December of last year I posted an article about setting up pdnsd. This is a revised version of the same howto, but with a shorter approach for fast setups. I also changed the IP addresses to point to the OpenDNS servers which has proven to be both effective and reliable.

wget http://www.phys.uu.nl/~rombouts/pdnsd/releases/pdnsd-1.2.7-par_sl5.x86_64.rpm
rpm -i pdnsd-1.2.7-par_sl5.x86_64.rpm
echo "server {" > /etc/pdnsd.conf
echo "label=\"opendns\";" >> /etc/pdnsd.conf
echo "ip = 208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220;" >> /etc/pdnsd.conf
echo "}" >> /etc/pdnsd.conf
service pdnsd start

echo START_DAEMON=yes > /etc/default/pdnsd

Edit your resolve.conf file and make sure that the first row has nameserver=127.0.0.1, the rest should remain the same. Here is how:

vi /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 127.0.0.1

Restart your network service:

service network restart

Last: make sure that pdnsd auto starts on boot, I use ntsysv for this.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/26/a-quick-way-to-download-install-and-setup-pdnsd-local-dns-caching/feed/ 0 Setting noatime and nodiratime for improved disk performance http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/25/setting-noatime-and-nodiratime-for-improved-disk-performance/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/25/setting-noatime-and-nodiratime-for-improved-disk-performance/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:00:46 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=305 This is great if you have a server that performs plenty of disk access operations and you are interested in speeding things up a bit. Here is how to do this in three steps. First some assumptions:

  • You have root access
  • You are the only one that will ever need to mount or unmount this file system
  • Running CentOS (this may work, but was not tested on any other linux server)

This is what we are doing:

  1. Editing /etc/fstab to set the noatime and nodiratime flags for the file system
  2. Remounting the drives/file systems (without rebooting)
  3. Checking our work

Step 1: Edit the /etc/fstab, type:

vi /etc/fstab

Add the noatime, nodiratime flags right after the defaults flag in the “/” root mount partition. Repeat to all the partitions that you wish to speed up. Here is how my fstab file looks like after the change (click to enlarge):

etc-fstab-in-vi_with_noatime_nodiratimeStep 2: Remount the file system:

mount -oremount /

Step 3: Check our work:

cat /proc/mounts

Tip: the following command will perform a tiny benchmark test, in case you want to see how fast your hard drives perform. If you want to compare, you should perform a before and after tests.

hdparm -tT /dev/sda

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/25/setting-noatime-and-nodiratime-for-improved-disk-performance/feed/ 1 Magento: Hard but not Impossible http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/04/magento-hard-but-not-impossible/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/04/magento-hard-but-not-impossible/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:16:11 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=288 magento_hard_but_not_impossibleIn the last few weeks I have been hard at work on a Magento plugin that extends the eCommerce app to become a front end of a POS (point of sale) system. With over 6,000 files Magento can certainly be intimidating at first, but as you get familiar with its architecture you find it less and less intimidating. One main design feature makes it easy to find a class by its class names.

For example, the class Mage_Catalog_Model_Product will be located in the /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Model folder and the file name is Product.php. If you ever need to instantiate the class, use Mage::getModel(‘catalog/product’).

Another useful tip about the architecture is that most everything is handled in the various session objects and every operation is basically an event that occurs which then calls a certain method within a particular class. Some of these events are dispatched and can be used by Magento’s event/observer architecture but most are not and therefore one needs to override the class instead.

I know this is very vague but will make sense if you are knee deep inside the magento code.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/04/magento-hard-but-not-impossible/feed/ 0 PHP SimpleXML Rules! http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/01/php-simplexml-rules/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/01/php-simplexml-rules/#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:12:37 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=280 Last week I was debugging an xml parsing utility in PHP. Debugging can be enjoyable when it goes well but in my case it just wasn’t happening. It felt like chewing mud. The issue was actually a bug within the libxml library which is a native PHP extension. Apparently it was a bug that was introduced in PHP version 5.2.6 and was addressed in version 5.2.8 or 5.2.9. The bug presented itself when using the xml_parser methods which are built into the PHP. It is the old way of parsing XML with PHP, the new way is using SimpleXML, SimpleXMLElement, or XMLReader objects.

Now, once I read over the documentation I realized how easy it is to use the new SimpleXML. Additionally, I reduced my XML related code size from 100+ lines to less than 20. Fun!

Here is a short example of how to use it, let’s say we have the following XML structure:

<webservers>
 <webserver>
 <hostname>dev1</hostname>
 <purpose>eCommerce LAMP Development</purpose>
 <os>CentOS</os>
 <applications>
 <application isInstalled="1">Apache</application>
 <application isInstalled="1">MySQL</application>
 <application isInstalled="1">PHP</application>
 </applications>
 </webserver>
</webservers>

Now lets observe how to use the SimpleXML class:

//We'll assume that the above xml is represented as a string and located inside $xmlDoc
//Here we create the SimpleXML object named $xml from the xmlDoc shown above
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xmlDoc);

//Now we can loop through the nodes
//Notice how the node translates to a property of the object)
foreach($xml->webservers->webserver as $webserver)
{
  //Here we can use $webserver as a sub-node
  echo "My Web Server Info:\n";
  echo "Hostname: " . $webserver->hostname . "\n";
  echo "Purpose: " . $webserver->purpose . "\n";
  echo "OS: ". $webserver->os . "\n";
  //Now we'll see how we can use the xml node attributes
  foreach($webserver->applications as $application)
  {
    echo "Application: ". $application;
    echo ($application['isInstalled'] == 1 ? " is installed" : " is not installed");
    echo "\n";
  }
}

That is it! easy right? I thought so. At least it is much easier than working directly with the old xml_parser methods which turns to be buggy in recent versions of PHP.

A word of caution: I found it is necessary to join the values of the SimpleXML object to a string, sometimes even to an empty string in case that I am sending it to a function. In other words, i had to use:

myFunction($webserver->hostname."");

instead of simply:

myFunction($webserver->hostname);

and the reason is that otherwise PHP would pass a copy of the object instead of triggering the toString() method. By adding the empty string we force PHP to first convert it to string and then send it to the function or method.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/08/01/php-simplexml-rules/feed/ 0 New: Download Essential Configuration Files for CentOS, HTTPD, IPTables, and ZenCart http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/21/new-download-essential-configuration-files-for-centos-httpd-iptables-and-zencart/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/21/new-download-essential-configuration-files-for-centos-httpd-iptables-and-zencart/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:00:22 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=277 Yes, we have a new downloads section on our blog. In it we offer some free configuration files that simplify our daily routine work, shorten the time it takes to perform these tasks, and since we tweak them all the time it is relatively safe to use them. I certainly use these files almost every time I setup a new server.

Improved ZenCart Config Files

Improved ZenCart Config Files (184)

Improved config files only need DB information. URL related information and Folder location information are auto populated by PHP functions and server variables. Great for keeping the same file for both dev and production environment.

The default ZenCart config files lack some flexibility. In the last two years my team has developed these config files which we wanted to share with you. The main difference here is that the URL and the folders of the ZenCart website is auto-determined and there is no need to change them or edit this file if either one of these changes. One great usage is if you want to be able to copy your ZenCart files from one machine to another or from a dev environment to your production environment. These improved ZenCart config files make it easy.

Script to Configure IPTables on CentOS for WWW server

configure iptables on CentOS for WWW server (161)

In order to simplify my work I have created this simple script that automatically configures iptables on CentOS for WWW server. It blocks everything except ports 80, 443, and 22 (http, https, and ssh respectively).

Script to Configure IPTables on CentOS to block certain IP ranges

configure iptables on CentOS to block specific IP ranges (148)

Once I configure the iptables to only open the ports I need on the specific server, I use this script to block any suspicious activity like failed unauthorized ssh login attempts or spam blasters trying to abuse any contact form on the website. I usually trace the IP and if it is outside of the US I block the entire 255.255.x.x subnet. Sometimes the entire 255.x.x.x range. As long as you don’t block your own users, you should be fine.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/21/new-download-essential-configuration-files-for-centos-httpd-iptables-and-zencart/feed/ 0 Speed Optimized Websites Rank Higher with Search Engines http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/16/speed-optimized-websites-rank-higher-with-search-engines/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/16/speed-optimized-websites-rank-higher-with-search-engines/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:56:18 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=267 Website performance should not be taken lightly. Now, when I say website performance optimization in general I mean the time that it takes a webpage to fully render in the browser. Many different factors can influence that including the number of files that make your page, the size of the files, whether it renders in standard XHTML or quirks mode, etc. But, for search engines all that matters is the raw HTML output of your site. One of the ways that search engines measure a site’s validity is by measuring the speed it takes it to serve the HTML portion. Yes, raw web server power. Why?

Search engines try to guess which websites out there should gain more respect than others, one characteristics is speed. If you think of it, the speed it takes to serve a page reflects how much the owner invested in it and hence reflects on the ranking that it should get in a backwards way. In other words, a site that is served on a dedicated server with serious horse power should get higher rankings than a site that is served on the cheapest shared hosting plan. Another fact is that major search engines researched user return rate and have found that the return is higher for faster sites and even microseconds count. That is why the best search engines focus on speedier results and favor results from faster websites. Really?

google_webmaster_tools_crawl_stats2

Look at the graph above, you will see a direct correlation between the website’s speed and the number of indexed pages. There might be a delay and it is not 100% accurate because the speed is not the only factor here, but over time it seems to have an effect. These graphs are from Google Webmaster Tools, under the crawler stats. Ok, how should I increase the performance of my site?

Here are a few things to consider:

  • Invest in a good hosting package. If you are serious, get at least a VPS with your own IP address (dedicated IP is also a measure). A VPS or a dedicated server will always trump the performance of shared hosting over time. Notice that some shared hosting environments reach 500+ websites on the same piece of hardware.
  • If you use PHP make sure to use APC: Alternative PHP Caching.
  • Always turn on caching at all levels: Apache, PHP, and your application. All levels usually have some sort of a caching mechanism – use it!
  • Research your biggest bottleneck and tackle it, always repeat over time. Just like you do with SEO – it is always work in progress.
  • Look in the logs: every time that your server experiences an error or a warning it has to trigger the error handling mechanism which in most environments require additional resources. Especially unhandled exceptions in ASP.NET/IIS7 environments.

The list is really long and can get very technical but in general you always want to keep website performance optimization in the back of your head. It is well worth it!

What is your experience with speed optimized websites? how did it affect your SEO results?

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/16/speed-optimized-websites-rank-higher-with-search-engines/feed/ 0 Take a Look at Dell’s Fortuna Server http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/09/take-a-look-at-dells-fortuna-server/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/09/take-a-look-at-dells-fortuna-server/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:01:33 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=242 As web traffic grows constantly and will continue to grow, I am always on the lookout for better ways to host a robust websites. Our clients always demand the best hosting solution but with an eye on the price. Currently the biggest price tags when it comes to hosting data centers is the power consumption and second is the actual space. Note that a side benefit to lower power consumption is reduction in the need of cooling, since logically increased power consumption means more generated heat.

In other words, to remain competitive hosting providers will strive to provide servers with lower power consumption and smaller form factors while assuming a certain level of processing power. This is exactly what DELL’s R&D is working on these days. Here is a video of what is in the works:

What is interesting is that the fortuna will supposedly place 12 of these mini servers in a single enclosure that fits in 2U space. This makes it a 1/6U server. 6 Servers per 1U of space. Here is a photo of a prototype:

dell_fortuna_server

Now, can you imagine each mini server hosting 2-4 VPS with CentOS serving the LAMP stack and either a Joomla, WordPress, or ZenCart on it? Nice!

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/07/09/take-a-look-at-dells-fortuna-server/feed/ 0 Method Overloading Workaround in PHP5 http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/06/25/method-overloading-workaround-in-php5/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/06/25/method-overloading-workaround-in-php5/#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:35:50 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=237 This past week I had the need to use overloaded methods in PHP 5. Overloading a method in object oriented design is especially helpful when trying to achieve the same operation while the code needs to be triggered from different states of the application or even different locations of the application. In my case, I needed an overloaded constructor to a PHP class. Yes, constructors are also a bit different in PHP 5 but still workable.

overload_cargo

To make a long story short, in PHP 5 there is no real way to overload a method like you can with Java. However, it seems like the developers of PHP 5 did have overloading methods in mind and allowed some form of it. It seems like allowing a real method overloads in PHP would be a special case of what the core developers actually allowed to do. The reason behind the current syntax is beyound me. I even tried to look for a PHP roadmap and see if proper method overloading will be introduced in the future but I could not find anything relevant.

A user with the name Noel has posted on DZone a little snippet of code that shows exactly how method overloading in PHP5 can be achieved.

Do you know of any intentions on including real method overloading in PHP6?

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/06/25/method-overloading-workaround-in-php5/feed/ 0 The Case for ZenCart: Supporting the Long Tail of eCommerce http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/06/18/the-case-for-zencart-supporting-the-long-tail-of-ecommerce/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/06/18/the-case-for-zencart-supporting-the-long-tail-of-ecommerce/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:52:43 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=232 While Zen-Cart is one of the best open source ecommerce platforms it has plenty of deficiencies, however I recently understood that it will always be able to keep its niche and therefore always have a market.  Of-course this will remain the case as long as its leaders remain true to its spirit.

the_long_tail_of_open_source_ecommerce_platforms

Zen-Cart is an unwilling offspring of the popular osCommerce. Like all offsprings, it is an improved version of its predecessor with better templating system, class oriented design, and notification systems but still maintains its characteristics of spaghetti code and somewhat convoluted and non-flexible checkout process.

Zen-Cart’s strengths are its simplicity which gives many non-programmers the opportunity to tweak and add (or remove) features to their likings with no major effort. This means that implementing a Zen-Cart ecommerce website is usually inexpensive and fast. Another great benefit of the system’s simplicity is speed. Zen-Cart is many times lighter than many other ecommerce systems even without complex caching technologies. Together, these benefits support a specific market: the market of light ecommerce. I am talking about online shops with 1 to 100 daily transactions or even less. It can obviously support more than that but the simplicity and the light weight features will attract the small business which is budget oriented.

The light ecommerce market while being small in terms of overall sales figures is relatively large and will get larger and larger with time. This is also known as the long tail of any market, in our case it is the long tail of the ecommerce market. This means that the numbers of installations will most likely be large and not insignificant. It also means that it is a valid market and will not vanish overnight with any other solution such as Magento who now charges a hefty amount for licensing its Enterprise version.

Before you rush to declare this light and feature packed ecommerce platform the kind of the long tail ecommerce market, don’t underestimate the challenges that it is facing. With over a year and a half of no significant updates its market share is shrinking fast. The default template and the admin panel need some serious reworkings to get up to par in UI and design with other open source challengers and a major cleanup and reorganization of the backend configurations is way overdue. While it supports XHTML and validates correctly, the default template needs to be reworked without the tables.

In any case, Zen-Cart still serves its purpose as a free and light open source ecommerce platform. And here at Activo we have recently developed a Recurring Orders payment module that comply with PCI requirements and integrates well into the ARB module of Authorize.net. I’ll soon post links to an initial free version, a commercially licensed version should be available in about a month or so.

What do you think of ZenCart? here to stay or yet another open source project that will be lost in oblivion? somewhere in the middle perhaps?

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/06/18/the-case-for-zencart-supporting-the-long-tail-of-ecommerce/feed/ 1 Avoid editing ‘hosts’ file by using FoxyProxy plugin for FireFox http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/15/avoid-editing-hosts-file-by-using-foxyproxy-plugin-for-firefox/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/15/avoid-editing-hosts-file-by-using-foxyproxy-plugin-for-firefox/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 04:55:21 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=223 I love it when small utilities like this make web development so much easier. In my everyday development, I religiously edited the ‘hosts’ file. Yes, that file hidden away in the Windows folder that also requires special Admin security elevation in Vista. I managed to overcome all these items by locating a shortcut on my desktop that would open it in Notepad and be ready for editing. That was great for a while.

foxyproxy_patterns_screenshot

This method had a few downsides to it. When I try to switch between the localhost version of a site and a remote site many times within a short amount of time, the not so many steps that are needed all of a sadden seem a lot. More problematic is the fact that there is no indication as to which state a specific site is set at the moment: localhost or remote? and in some cases I ended up sending a completely broken site to the client who probably thinks I am a rookie with an internet connection. Don’t forget that when you change your hosts file, you also need to either restart the browser or go to the file menu, choose ‘work offline’and then ‘work online’ and refresh the site. None of that is necessary with a simple add-on to FireFox: FoxyProxy.

FoxyProxy acts as a proxy server between the Firefox and the internet. You set a ‘proxy’ which essentially allows you to direct traffic to a single point – I use one that directs traffic to ‘localhost’ – then you can add as many patterns as you want that will be associated with the Proxy. Once all is setup, you can then turn this Proxy on or off with a single right click at the bottom of the browser. For me, the setup is quite simple and it works great.

Ok, so there is one caviat here: sometimes I do need to test the websites in different browsers. In this case, this browser add-on will simply not cut it. But for most of my daily web dev needs – it is great!

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/15/avoid-editing-hosts-file-by-using-foxyproxy-plugin-for-firefox/feed/ 0 Cleaning an entire subversion working folder from ‘.svn’ folders http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/12/cleaning-an-entire-subversion-working-folder-from-svn-folders/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/12/cleaning-an-entire-subversion-working-folder-from-svn-folders/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 19:11:22 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=220 Rarely I need to clean an entire folder from all the hidden ‘.svn’ folders which makes it a working copy of an existing repository. Unfortunately my projects tend to be large in the number of files and fairly complex. When I upgrade the project, say from Ektron 7.0.4 to Ektron 7.65 SP2, there are a lot of changes in the files. In the upgrade process, some folders loose their ‘.svn’ subfolders which makes it difficult to use the ‘SVN Update’ + ‘SVN Commit’ walk in the park method. What we need is a ‘SVN Reintegrate’ option, lets create one.

subversion_svn_reintegrate

Until now, what I end up doing is removing all the ‘.svn’ subfolders, checking out the project to another folder, removing all the files from the checked out folder (SVN Delete), copying over all the current set of files/folders, and checking the whole thing back in to the SVN repository. This works well but it requires some serious file manipulation efforts. Here are two usefull tools I just recently discovered that can help tremendously with this process:

1. Cleaning an entire subversion working folder from ‘.svn’ folders:

Ryan Christensen describes how to remove all .svn subfolders from a SVN working copy. In short, you need to create a small ‘.cmd’ file that will live in the top folder that you want to detach from SVN and write this command in it:

for /f "tokens=* delims=" %%i in ('dir /s /b /a:d *svn') do ( rd /s /q "%%i" )

I saved it as cleansvn.cmd and run it from a command line window after changing the current directory to the project folder. You will need to wait until the TortoiseSVN checks all the subfolders because it keeps a bunch of info in cache and with this util – it doesn’t refresh veru quickly. But it works great.

2. The new Rsync for Windows, called RichCopy:

Apparently, Microsoft has recently (April 2009) published this free utility called RichCopy which comes to replace the RoboCopy GUI tool from 2006. According to the article, this utility is also many times more efficient and handles multi threading, network connections, etc. I tried it and it worked great for me.

Here are the new steps for my ‘SVN Reintegrate’ procedure:

  1. Backup all working copies before proceeding
  2. Clean working copy from all ‘.svn’ folders
  3. Checkout latest project from SVN repository to another folder (not a subfolder)
  4. Use RichCopy to copy over all the files, these are the settings:
    1. Source: the new clean working folder
    2. Destination: the latest SVN checked out folder
    3. Use the ‘Purge’ option
    4. Exclude all ‘.svn’ folders from this process
  5. SVN Commit the SVN folder that was overwritten by the working folder

A bit confusing but if you know what you are doing it can save you a few white hairs. Enjoy!

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/12/cleaning-an-entire-subversion-working-folder-from-svn-folders/feed/ 2 Browser Wars: IE Share Dropping while User Base Still Growing http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/05/browser-wars-ie-share-dropping-while-user-base-still-growing/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/05/browser-wars-ie-share-dropping-while-user-base-still-growing/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 06:26:54 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=218 What am I talking about? First you need to look at this graph of browser usage over time since 1996 by Asa Dotzler. Please note that the sources for this graph are not clearly identified but still this makes a strong point of paying attention to the entire picture, not only market share.

Basically, while Internet Explorer’s market share continues to drop drastically and FireFox’s market share continues to increase the rate of new internet users is so vast that the total number of IE users is still increasing. In addition, it is obvious that Microsoft is paying a lot of attention to its browser and packs it with features. Furthermore, it will be the default browser in the highly anticipated Windows 7 new operating system, which is expected to gain significant higher adoption rate than Vista. In short, it is wise not to write IE off and keep the Virtual Machines with the various IE versions handy.

Another observation is the market share that FireFox has commanded and the short amount of time it did so. Remember that users who download FireFox and use it do so because they truley believe it is a superior browser. Unlike other browsers that come bundled with the OS (IE, Safari), or have a deep-pockets corporation behind it (Chrome).

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/05/05/browser-wars-ie-share-dropping-while-user-base-still-growing/feed/ 0 Visual Studio 2008, Run as Administrator, Application Cannot Start http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/04/30/visual-studio-2008-run-as-administrator-application-cannot-start/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/04/30/visual-studio-2008-run-as-administrator-application-cannot-start/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 07:37:41 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=215 If you ever wondered why is this happening there is a nice blog post written by Alex Riley. Alex explains and shows how to copy two DLL files that are needed and expected in a certain folder. This description helped tremendously, however I wanted to make things clearer and distinguish between 32bit and 64bit environments:

If you get the error “Application Cannot Start” when you try to ‘Run as Administrator’ VS2008, this is what you need to do:

For 32bit environments (follow Alex’s steps):
Copy dte80.dll and dte80a.dll from “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSEnv” to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE”

For 64bit environments:
Copy dte80.dll and dte80a.dll from “C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\MSEnv” to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE”

You should be good to go now!

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/04/30/visual-studio-2008-run-as-administrator-application-cannot-start/feed/ 1 Will Visual SVN Server remain a for-Free product? http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/03/30/will-visual-svn-server-remain-a-for-free-product/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/03/30/will-visual-svn-server-remain-a-for-free-product/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:17:42 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=211 After writing about Visual SVN Server, I was wondering will the software remain free… Since I was thinking to myself, what is the logic behind giving it away like this. I already though of some reasons but I wasn’t sure and their website did not indicate any future plans but niether it indicated that the product will remain free. Hence I emailed the sales team and got this response back:

we’ll always keep VisualSVN Server free with the current set of functionality. We’re not going to take money in future for the functionality that we distribute free of charge now.

This means that we should expect another version that is a paid version of this product. It also means that we can certainly enjoy using this version without getting blocked from future upgrades or locked in to this solution with no way out.

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]]> http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/03/30/will-visual-svn-server-remain-a-for-free-product/feed/ 0 iNove theme from mg12: Pros and Cons http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/03/29/inove-theme-from-mg12-pros-and-cons/ http://www.activoinc.com/blog/2009/03/29/inove-theme-from-mg12-pros-and-cons/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:12:06 +0000 Ron Peled http://www.activoinc.com/blog/?p=205 As you can see I am using the iNove theme offered free by mg12. I have spent about an hour this weekend to tweak and set it up to my liking and overall it is a great theme. The look and feel of this theme is awesome, clean, and easy to read. While playing with it over the weekend I did find some room for improvement. I am going to limit  my pros/cons to max 5 for each and please remember this list is provided with constructive intentions only. So here is a short pros/cons list for the iNove theme:

inove_theme_on_activo_blog

iNove theme Pros

  • Clean look & feel.
  • Allows for custom meta tags, google search, notices, rss feed, and email feed.
  • Neat usage of icons.
  • Well balanced main content area versus sidebar.
  • Fantastic set of default hard-coded widget set for the sidebar.

iNove theme Cons

  • Not using the wordpress widgets engine, hence it is difficult to edit and tweak. In some cases will require editing theme files.
  • Scalability and performance is impacted due to the large number of css and javascript files. Using local jQuery file instead of the google hosted one.
  • Not using CSS sprites while having a classic example of one such possible usage (icons).
  • Javascript files are not minified.
  • Some external plugins are required for all the functinoality to work.

Overall, it is a thumbs up for anyone who is considering this great theme. However, like everything else, there is always room for improvement.

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