Funktastic Programming Adventures in Web Development

There is a problem with the cable TV industry here in America.  These companies have a virtual monopoly when it comes to high-speed Internet in many of the big cities.  For the consumer there are no other options when you are stuck with poor cable Internet service and lousy customer service.  They know they have a monopoly and they use this to their advantage to charge outrageous fees, increase them every year without providing anything additional in return.

In most cities you don’t have any other choice for high-speed internet unless you count DSL.  DSL or Digital Subscriber Line is a technology that utilizes phone lines to transfer Internet.  This is a system that is inherently flawed.  For one thing, they use the same connection that your phone uses.  This means that voice and Internet communication are all shared on the same line.  Another issue is that speed varies based on your distance from the ISP hub.

The typical speed of DSL is 256Kb to 40Mbit/s for downloads and even slower for uploads.  Compare this to 15Mbit/s download speed for cable Internet and you see how huge the gap is.  In worst cases, using DSL is not much better than using dial-up Internet that we used to have in the old days.

Let me get back to what Internet companies have been taking away.  One example is Usenet newsgroups which were one of the original applications written for the Internet.  Imagine a massive collection of message boards shared throughout the Internet (if you don’t know what I’m referring to here).  This service was taken away from Time Warner high-speed Internet customers at the same time they raised their fees.

Another thing that Time Warner is horrible at is customer service.  They often keep customers waiting for 45 minutes by placing them on hold.  I’m sure this keeps their call volume down when 90% of their customers hang up the phone in disgust so they only have to deal with about 10% of all customer service calls.  For the amount of money we all pay for cable TV and Internet services, you would think companies like Time Warner could provide a modicum of quality customer service to their customers.  But then again, they have a monopoly so why bother!

One of the things I really find discouraging is the page ranking algorithm created by Google.  I’ve been hosting web sites for well over ten years now and I have a handful of sites that have been continuously hosted during that period.  During the early years, I saw my page rank grow to a respectable number along with the number of backlinks. Business was good and I was relatively happy during that period.

I did a little bit of work on SEO for my sites to help improve my rankings a bit in those early years.  I made some mistakes along the way venturing into schemes that are known today as black hat SEO.  However, some of the things considered black hat today weren’t deemed that just five years ago.  Another error I made was migrating sites to another host and scripting language.  This is an operation fraught with many perils in itself.

The net result of these actions is that when the new page algorithms were launched, my sites started going downhill.  It didn’t happen all at once either.  My site rankings gradually decreased over time as each new algorithm was launched.  The purpose of the Google changes was to eliminate irrelevant results from their search results.  The problem was that my sites are very content rich so they deserved a little bit of page rank.

So today my main business site is doing okay with a page rank of three.  This is not a very good ranking for a website that has been around since 2000 and has had hundreds of valid backlinks.  As of today, my website has backlinks of zero, yes that’s right, zero!  Just a few weeks ago, my backlinks stood at five which is still an insult.

I’ve taken a few steps to rectify the situation.  After studying good white hat and black hat SEO techniques, I took steps to clean up my website and make it more search engine friendly.  I have all of the correct title and meta tags on all of the different pages.  I eliminated a lot of the duplicate content that appears on the site.  I also removed any links on the site that were part of a paid linking scheme as well as any links that may be considered irrelevant (unrelated) to my core business.  After doing all this, I then petitioned Google to reconsider my site for inclusion in the search engine.

Actually, my site already does show up in the search engine, its just that I felt I was being penalized due to my black hat SEO techniques.  It has been less than a month since I submitted this petition.  I haven’t seen any positive effects of doing this.  Hopefully, there will be some positive changes coming in the future.  Otherwise, I think I should consider exiting this business and getting into something else.

The major change launched by the latest page rank algorithms was to mark down the page rank of content farms which just scrape (steal) content from other sites and then republish that content on their own site.  Sometimes, this content is manipulated to change the grammar and structure.  The purpose is to score big points for having lots of content and keyword-rich content that search engines love.  The downside of this approach (for searchers), is that non-authoritative content is given to searchers when it would have been more appropriate to show them the original article.

Subversion Client for Windows

I recently came across the need to create a new branch for my Subversion repository.  Below are my notes on how to perform this task using the SVN command-line under Unix/Windows and also instructions for performing the same task using TortoiseSVN (a windows GUI interface and client for Subversion). I hope this information is helpful for others needing to branch their own source repository.

1)    Checkout at the top-most level (above the trunk) into a working folder

$ svn checkout http://svn.servername.com/repos/reponame mybranch

2)    Create a copy of the project in the repository using SVN COPY command

$ cd mybranch
$ svn copy trunk branches/my-development-branch

$ svn status

A  +   branches/my-development-branch

3)    Commit the newly added branch to the repository

$ svn commit -m “Adding a new branch of /reponame/trunk.”
Adding         branches/my-development-branch

Committed revision 255.

4)    An easier method combining all of the three steps above!

$ svn copy http://svn.servername.com/repos/reponame/trunk \
http://svn.servername.com/repos/reponame/branches/my-development-branch \
-m “Creating a private branch of /reponame/trunk.”

Committed revision 255.

Of course if you are using the TortoiseSVN for Windows, you can simply perform the following steps:

1. Right click on the main repository folder, under “TortoiseSVN” select the menu item: “Branch/tag…”
2. Under “create copy in the repository from:”, select “HEAD revision in the repository”.
3. Enter the new URL for the branch folder like “http://svn.servername.com/repos/reponame/branches/my-development-branch”
4. Enter a comment for your new branch like “Creating a new branch of the repository”

That’s it, your branch has been created and you can check out this new branch into a new working folder using the normal SVN checkout procedure.  Just make sure to specify the new branch URL that you entered in step #3 above.  Good

This is the first article in a series of articles that detail some of the business ventures that I have been involved in over the course of my 10 years of running a technology company here in San Diego.  Most of the articles will detail my post business pursuits including many ideas that have failed and many more that just never got off the ground.  My goal in writing about this is to underscore the importance of never quitting and also to seek some sort of closure on many projects that are just hanging in limbo.

Let me start this article series with my original business idea which was begun in the early days of the Internet.  My first online venture was a small site named GoldFire Internet Services.  For this business venture, I acquired the domain name gfire.com (no longer in my possession).  At the time, this website was pretty well designed.  It had a clean interface with rounded boxes to hold the navigation and the site news.

In these early days, I was creating websites using Perl CGI since it was easy to administer under a Linux server.  CPAN really allowed me to install and update modules necessary to create advanced functionality on the website.  Another related technology I used was Mason which allowed you to mix Perl and HTML together just like PHP does it today.  It also had the added benefit of being very efficient and a high performance server-side scripting language.

On my website I offered professional services for creating and designing web sites, creating e-commerce applications, and helping with database design and administration.  Without doing much Search Engine Optimization, I was still able to obtain pretty good exposure on the search engines.  Back then, Google was still being developed in a garage and the best search engine was AltaVista (remember those days?)  A lot of the big search engines back then are no longer around.  Website directories were more important in those days and Yahoo’s front page had a directory of websites along with a search box.

This website was mostly a content site with a lot of marketing materials and promotional ideas.  I did take out some advertising for the business in a local publication.  Responses to the ad were not great.  My first exposure to print advertising was not exactly a good experience.  Like most other online businesses, I prefer to advertise online now.  With certain services, the amount you pay directly corresponds to the number of click-throughs you receive.  This seems like a fair way for both the buyer and the seller.

This business was in operation for a couple of years while I also worked on other projects.  A few of which I will detail in a future post.  It was a good exposure to starting a new service business and the many difficulties you will encounter.  I definitely just got a taste of what running your own business is like with this venture.  I don’t have many regrets with this project.  The amount of knowledge I gained included: Linux, MySQL database, Perl, CGI, and Apache administration.  Most of this knowledge I am still using today in most of my current projects.

At the same time I worked for a small Internet startup in San Diego that was also building web applications.  Our technology consisted of mostly Windows servers and a horrible scripting language which has thankfully died out called SMX.  We did some good things back in those days and had a lot of fun doing it.  Together with my startup business, I got a well-rounded knowledge of the different website hosting platforms.  GoldFire was run on a FreeBSD system (technically not Linux) but I had previous experience with RedHat that helped me in various different projects.

Recently, I’ve been using the Google Voice product to place free phone calls within the United States and Canada to a land-based phone from your computer. I have been very impressed with the quality of the service and the convenience of making phone calls right from your computer.  Using a headset, I can easily talk to someone while working on my computer.  The voices sound so clear it seems to even rival my land-based phone.

Google has said that calls will be free to U.S. and Canada until the end of this year.  I hope that they decide to keep it free a while longer so I can continue enjoying their service.  It is also great for international calls.  Other popular countries like the U.K., Mexico, France and China only cost $0.02 per minute which I consider very reasonable.  Google seems to give you a $0.10 credit the first time you use their service.  So go out there and try it out!

http://www.google.com/voice/

iTunes University

I just had a chance to check out iTunes U (short for iTunes University) on the iTunes store.  I checked out an introductory Computer Science course from Stanford.  Actually, it is just the lectures that are placed online as far as I can tell.  The lectures are well done and include many major universities.  This information should be a great benefit to a large number of people if they are willing to devote time to it.

Lectures in the form of video podcasts seem to be the only content available through iTunes U.  However, the lectures often mention the website for the class which can be used for downloading assignments and handouts from the class.  This allows anyone to follow along with the class and perform all of the assignments.  However, even though you can do the assignments and projects, you won’t be able to submit your assignments for grading.  Therefore, there is no real way to measure your progress as you follow a class.

This is a major shortcoming of iTunes U and I think it is their biggest issue at the moment.  Without some form of mentoring system to guage students feedback, the value of iTunes U is diminished somewhat.  Doing some searching on Google, I did find that some universities have been addressing this issue.  Brown University has a page on their Wiki which summarized their discussions on the issue.

Maybe a community of users should get together and do mentoring of students interested in learning online.  This way people would be able to take courses online without official credit.  It would provide a free means of getting an education for many people.  Without any degree from an accredited university, the benefits may seem minor.  For technical professions such as engineering, it may be a great way for people to keep their skills up to date.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone, hope that you are having a good one.  Today, my company is having a party.  Today is also the day I return to bloggins on this site.  In case you haven’t noticed, I have been away for quite some time.  During that time, I’ve been busy running my Hosting and Web Development company.  I have a lot of stories that I will be sharing with you here on this blog.

Another part of my return to writing will be authoring various articles which will be beneficial to both business owners and budding entrepreneurs alike.  Hopefully, my 10 years of experience in running my own technology company will help others to get started quickly and be more effective once they do start.

Our company today is providing us with a catered lunch from a local greek restauarant named Pat and Oscar’s.  It will be nice to have a free lunch from my company.  Hope that everyone out there has a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Recently, I implemented a star rating system on one of my websites. The system uses CSS and simple javascript code to create a dynamic rating control. When the user rolls over the gray stars with their mouse, the starts light up in a gold color. For those of you who have seen these before, they are very simply to use and surprisingly easy to implement.

I added a rating system to my San Diego Business Directory so that users could add reviews of companies in the San Diego area. It works like a charm to enter ratings for businesses. I was able to add my own embellishments to the script that allows users to reset the control after the user has locked in their rating. This way users can make a number of changes in the process of editing the review before making the final submission.

You can test and download the star rating script at ReignWater Designs. It is very simple to add to your website and modify to suit your needs.

Just like much of the rest of the E-bay auction site, the checkout system is totally broken and noone is doing anything to fix it. E-bay has just recently launched a new checkout system which works with PayPal (also owned by E-bay) to process payments. By default the system asks you to deduct money directly from your bank account. After you enter your PayPal login, you will see a little box on the right of the screen (during step #3) where you confirm your payment:

You will see there are two options on this page. One for “More Options” that allows you to change to a different payment option and another to use your “PayPal Credit Card” to do this payment. First, lets try to click the “More Options” to change the funding source for our payment. When you click this, the following PayPal screen comes up:

Of course, this page is totally useless, clicking on “Click Here to Retry” doesn’t help at all either. It jus brings up the same page over-and-over. You would think that E-bay would have tested this feature before they launched their new checkout process. Of course, they probably don’t care, and probably prefer to only get money direct from your banking account so they don’t have to pay any fees. Remember, this feature has been broken for several days now, and nothing has been done to correct it.

Now, lets revisit the original E-bay checkout screen and this time try to change to “PayPal Buyer Credit”. This should use my PayPal credit card which I received over a year ago and I’ve already used to make purchases in the past. This should work right? Just click the link that reads: “Switch Now to Use Your PayPal Plus Card”. So when I clicked this button (and I have tried this around 20 times so far already on different days with different browsers and different computers), I get:

Okay, great, it looks like this is working, should be smooth sailing now right? So, I click continue to finalize my payment and up comes:

Thanks a lot E-bay. Once again, you’ve proved your incompetence. I’ve always been dissatisfied with your service, because of your wreckless price gouging of your customers and endless fees and upsells. It turns out your service is not worth my time, and I have vowed never to use your services ever again. Your multi-billion corporate greed, has finally destroyed you and you will rapidly decline over the coming years just as Yahoo has fallen to Google.

I encourage everyone to flee from this sinking ship before it screws you over and steals all of your money like it did mine (that’s a topic for another day). I am developing a free auction site available at www.goswap.com which provides a free auction service for everyone. What E-bay has done is appalling and an insult to the world.

Yesterday, Microsoft paid $240 dollars for a 1.6% stake of the social networking site Facebook. Ever since the success of MySpace, social networking sites have been the new investment darlings. The estimated company value is derived from companies such as Google, whose value is largely based on the large audience of web surfers it draws.

Social networking has been growing at an exponential rate. Initially made popular by teens in high school and students in college, it has grown to encompass all demographics. It has also been helped by the popularity of blogging, and to a lesser extend, Wikipedia. Many schools have configured their Internet filters to block these social networking sites because their systems are intended for educational purposes and not socializing.

Given the price paid by Microsoft, the total estimated worth of Facebook would be around $15 billion dollars. Not bad for a company started by a 23 year-old only 3 years ago. The application that Facebook has built is simple and easy-to-learn. It makes it easy for anyone to create a profile and connect with their friends. Although instant messaging and e-mails also accomplish the same goals, there is something special about putting yourself out there for the whole world to see.

Part of the deal that Microsoft made with Facebook allows them to partner on advertising displayed on the site. Microsoft will manage the ads and split the profits 50/50 with Facebook. This is a pretty sweet deal for Facebook, since the Microsoft advertising machine can get some high paying clients and allow Facebook to focus on serving their community. Only time will tell if Facebook can stay on top – if the history between Yahoo and Google is any indication, being the first to market is not the most important criteria for success.