Howto track outgoing links with Google Analytics using jQuery

Simply include these lines and the jQuery library in your document.

$(document).ready(function() {
$('a[href^=http]:not("[href*=://' + document.domain + ']")').click(function() {
pageTracker._trackPageview('/out/'+$(this).attr("href"));
});
});

(please indent them!)

Cheers

May 29th, 2009 / Tech Talk / tim

SVN update made easy

subversion logoPHP Subversion Updater

In our company we use Subversion for version control.

Using a GUI for Mac gives our more graphical team members easy access to common tasks, such as committing changed files to the repository.

However updating the working copy on a (test-) web server still requires knowlegde of a unix shell and having to log in and running it manually can be a full time position.

After doing some research I found the official PECL SVN bindings. These are still very experimental and a hussle to install.

So I decided to use the simplest solution that just executes a “svn up” on the server and does not require any server-side modification:

exec("svn up ".dirname(__FILE__), $out, $ret);

Which serves perfectly for this purpose.

Wrapping this line in a (30secs) self refreshing file makes sure the working copy stays updated.

And the best thing is:
it does not require anything, except installed svn binaries that are executable for the apache user and write access to the webroot.
Download

May 25th, 2009 / Tech Talk / tim

A common approach to browser compatibilty

firefox_eats_ie

The Situation

Its been a while since everybody stopped complaining about the standards compliancy of Internet Exporer 6. In fact there was no way of having a website that was not working in the most popular browser.

However.

Times have changed.

Read the rest of this entry »

May 20th, 2009 / Tech Talk / tim

Microsoft revolutionises Rich Internet Applications

logo-silverlight7One of the most criticized factors of modern web-applications is their resource intensiveness.
Especially modern Object Oriented Applications, like Magento, produce huge overhead and require therefore powerful hardware.
A step closer towards a solution comes, unexpected wise, from Redmond:

Microsoft adds dynamic language support to Silverlight 2.

This enables Python and Ruby scripts to be executed on client side and offers developers to build much faster and interactive Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Reducing cost on server-side.

Read the rest of this entry »

May 18th, 2009 / Tech Talk / tim

Open source to cut 35% from e-commerce costs

A recent article on computerworlduk.com talks about the fact that the usage of open source software in e-commerce cuts down the ongoing costs in maintenance and licensing by 35%.
Read the full article.

May 18th, 2009 / Tech Talk / tim

Howto downsize product images in Magento using Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image

or

“How can I downsize large product images but not enlarge small images?”

simple as:

syntax:

$this->helper('catalog/image')
->init($_product, 'image')
->keepFrame(false)
->constrainOnly(true)
->resize(650);

example:

$this->helper('catalog/image')
->init($_product, 'image')
->keepFrame(false)
->constrainOnly(true)
->resize(650);

Read the rest of this entry »

May 13th, 2009 / Tech Talk / tim

Wolfram vs Google?

wolframalpha

There’s a brand new shiny search engine due to be released this May, which many have tipped to rival Google.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 13th, 2009 / Tech Talk / Lexi

How to get from A to B using Google maps

Have you every been stuck for directions or unsure about what roads to take? It’s a common problem that people (in particular men) hate to stop to ask for directions. Google maps can be a great tool to alleviate this problem (and guys, you can even do this before you get on the road; a great way to impress the ladies).
Read the rest of this entry »

May 13th, 2009 / Tech Talk / Lexi