Category Archives: web

Problem with Mobile Exchange Server Sync with google apps?

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Since google changed their service agreement on google apps. I noticed the mobile exchange sync on my iPhone is no longer working. At first, i thought the google mail service is down, and it wasn’t fixed for few hours. Therefore, I tried to see if the service agreement change affected the setting.

Bingo, google reset the mobile sync option to inactivate. All you need to do it’s go to google apps administration page(you can manage the domain if you are the admin for the google apps) and choose Setting => Mobile => Check “Enable Google sync” (as the image below)

Wait for 10 – 30 minutes, disconnect from internet (by switch “airport mode” on and off or reboot your iPhone). You will get ur push mail back. Time to send the emails you wasn’t able to send!

Skype Heartbeat

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We rely on the web services more and more these days. There is no system which is 100% uptime since we are not living in Utopia. Therefore, have a service status report to the users is crucial. Skype has this interesting concept of using “heartbeat” as their status report. It’s simple to understand and lovely.

Need a landing page?

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Since my thesis will be a revolution tool for people organize their online life, a landing page is needed to give people the general idea about my project. Hopefully, they will be interested and use the website.

I did some research on the landing pages from the websites/application i liked (used) the most. Please let me know if you have any landing pages you like, so i can add them here..

First, there are 9 tips/rules for the successful landing page. I am sorting the information i research online into a list.

  1. Make sure your page loads quickly: Strive for an 8-second or less page load.
  2. Leave Plenty of Whitespace (Think simple) – Visitors don’t read – they scan the text.
  3. Put your most critical landing page elements in the upper 300 pixels of the page: Usability research shows over half of your site visitors will NOT scroll “below the fold.
  4. Have a Clear and Direct Headline + Make your first paragraph short , no more than 1-2 lines - Your landing pages should designed so the headline is first thing a user sees upon landing. First impressions on landing pages are as important as the offline world.
  5. Use a recognizable layout
    Users don’t want to think about finding the information. Place the information in the most obvious spot.
  6. Don’t have too much navigation – Don’t overload the user with navigational possibilities. Both SEO-wise and usabilty-wise too many links on a page is a bad thing.
  7. Write to deliver a clear, persuasive message, not to showcase your creativity or ability to turn a clever phrase. - This is business, not a personal expression of your art.
  8. Amplify Buttons – Attracting attention is what the main action buttons are all about.
  9. Soften the Call to Action – Direct words like “Buy,” “Add to Cart” or “Subscribe” indicate a commitment that the visitor may not be ready to make and can lower conversion rates.

Here are the screen shoots of the pages i like.

Any Crash is probably Flash

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I worked for a Flash based Interactive Design company before, but I still have to admit most of the users got ABUSED by misuse Flash everyday. Oh well, for mac users, the day has ended. Say Hello to ClickToFlash.

Basically it’s replaced all the Flash with an default icon. So the site won’t load the flash in the first place until you click on the Flash you would like to play. I have been using for few days, and it truly make my Macbook Pro runs cooler and faster when I browse the websites.


The good thing about it is you can add the sites you would like to allow to open the Flash by default (eg.theFWA or youtube). Enjoy and tell Flash to Kiss my Ass now.

Finally Flash external resource is indexed by google

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Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/flash-indexing-with-external-resource.html Google just added external resource loading to our Flash indexing capabilities. This means that when a SWF file loads content from some other file—whether it’s text, HTML, XML, another SWF, etc.—Google can index this external content too, and associate it with the parent SWF file and any documents that embed it. This new capability improves search quality by allowing relevant content contained in external resources to appear in response to users’ queries.

Prior to this launch, this result did not appear, because all of the relevant content is contained in an XML file loaded by a SWF file.

To date, when Google encounters SWF files on the web, we can:

  • Index textual content displayed as a user interacts with the file. We click buttons and enter input, just like a user would.
  • Discover links within Flash files.
  • Load external resources and associate the content with the parent file.
  • Support common JavaScript techniques for embedding Flash, such as SWFObject and SWFObject2.
  • Index sites scripted with AS1 and AS2, even if the ActionScript is obfuscated. Update on June 19, 2009: We index sites with AS3 as well. The ActionScript version isn’t particularly relevant in our Indexing process, so we support older versions of AS in addition to the latest.

If you don’t want your SWF file or any of its external resources crawled by search engines, please use an appropriate robots.txt directive.

Finally Flash external resource is indexed by google

Posted on by

Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/flash-indexing-with-external-resource.html Google just added external resource loading to our Flash indexing capabilities. This means that when a SWF file loads content from some other file—whether it’s text, HTML, XML, another SWF, etc.—Google can index this external content too, and associate it with the parent SWF file and any documents that embed it. This new capability improves search quality by allowing relevant content contained in external resources to appear in response to users’ queries.

Prior to this launch, this result did not appear, because all of the relevant content is contained in an XML file loaded by a SWF file.

To date, when Google encounters SWF files on the web, we can:

  • Index textual content displayed as a user interacts with the file. We click buttons and enter input, just like a user would.
  • Discover links within Flash files.
  • Load external resources and associate the content with the parent file.
  • Support common JavaScript techniques for embedding Flash, such as SWFObject and SWFObject2.
  • Index sites scripted with AS1 and AS2, even if the ActionScript is obfuscated. Update on June 19, 2009: We index sites with AS3 as well. The ActionScript version isn’t particularly relevant in our Indexing process, so we support older versions of AS in addition to the latest.

If you don’t want your SWF file or any of its external resources crawled by search engines, please use an appropriate robots.txt directive.

LinkedIn API is available

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LinkedIn today announced that they will be opening up their API to developers. A key can be easily obtained by going to http://developer.linkedin.com/

I crave the clarity of many new data visualizers mashed up with the LinkedIn API and OpenAmplify’s Natural Language Processing capabilities via our API.

Source: http://community.openamplify.com/blogs/ampthis/archive/2009/11/23/linkedin-opens-api.aspx


Test if MySQL table exists with PHP

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I was building up the prototype of my thesis, and wondered how to test if a table exists in database. so I googled.

[php]
function table_exists ( $table , $db ) { $tables = mysql<em>list</em>tables ( $db );
while ( list ( $temp ) = mysql<em>fetch</em>array ( $tables )) {
if ( $temp == $table ) { return TRUE ; }
} return FALSE ; }
[/php]

/ ** How to use it ** /
[php]
if ( table_exists ( test_table , my_database )) {
echo " Yes the table is there. ";
}
[/php]

Source: http://www.oxyscripts.com/itemdisplay.php?id=1003&code=yes

And a shorter, much more elegant method.

/ / here is a much more elegant method to check if a table exists ( no error generate )
[php]
if ( mysql_num_rows ( mysql_query (" SHOW TABLES LIKE ‘ ". $table ." ‘ ")))
{
/ /…
}
[/php]

Source: http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/3369