Tudo sobre os spamtraps

Para quem se interessa sobre deliverability aqui está uma boa descrição http://blog.briteverify.com/the-truth-about-spamtraps

Wordpress modal box

I was trying to create a modal box for a wordpress blog where after 30 seconds a user has arrived the blog, a modal box would automatically show up asking the user to subscribe a newsletter.


After some research and using this article as source I came to this result (in this example there are 5 seconds delay):


<div id="boxes">

<div id="dialog" class="window">
<b>Testing of Modal Window</b> |

<!-- close button is defined as close class -->
<a href="#" class="close">Close it</a>

</div>


<!-- Do not remove div#mask, because you'll need it to fill the whole screen -->
<div id="mask"></div>
</div>
<style>

/* Z-index of #mask must lower than #boxes .window */
#mask {
position:absolute;
z-index:9000;
background-color:#000;
display:none;
}

#boxes .window {
position:absolute;
width:440px;
height:200px;
display:none;
z-index:9999;
padding:20px;
}


/* Customize your modal window here, you can add background image too */
#boxes #dialog {
width:375px;
height:203px;
background-color:#FF0000;
}
</style>
<script>

$(document).ready(function() {


//if close button is clicked
$('.window .close').click(function (e) {
//Cancel the link behavior
e.preventDefault();
$('#mask, .window').hide();
});

//if mask is clicked
$('#mask').click(function () {
$(this).hide();
$('.window').hide();
});

setTimeout('showbox()',5000);
});
function showbox()
{
var id = '#dialog';
var maskHeight = $(document).height();
var maskWidth = $(window).width();

//Set height and width to mask to fill up the whole screen
$('#mask').css({'width':maskWidth,'height':maskHeight});

//transition effect
$('#mask').fadeIn(1000);
$('#mask').fadeTo("slow",0.8);

//Get the window height and width
var winH = $(window).height();
var winW = $(window).width();

//Set the popup window to center
$(id).css('top', winH/2-$(id).height()/2);
$(id).css('left', winW/2-$(id).width()/2);

//transition effect
$(id).fadeIn(2000);
}

</script>

Hadoop Hive

Interesting information regarding Hadoop and Hive:

Hadoop and hive in Facebook

Infosys regarding Hadoop and Hive for DW

Hadoop Hive in EC2 example

While researching Hadoop and Hive (for dw purposes), I found that

- Cloudera has some AMI which include Hadoop and Hive for Ec2 - I was able to easily use one of these AMI and perform some basic tests (hadoop was already installed in this instance, and all i had to do was "apt-get install hive"). The AMI was for a x86 server with AMI ID ami-ed59bf84

- sqoop is a tool to transfer data from and to RDBMS (Mysql or Postgres for example)

- Here is a project for tracking trends (using data from wikipedia) that uses Hadoop, Hive and EC2. I will give it a try soon.

I'm trying to perform some tests with these technologies, it's not easy because documentation is not easy to find. If you are doing the same please, comment this post and let me know your progresses.

Proxies for other countries

I was searching for a solution for testing some websites, emulating my location. I wanted to pretend that I was, for instance in Italy.

This task was difficult, because there are many "proxie" lists in the internet, but many of those proxies do not work, or are very slow.

Even some payed services offer a monthly list os proxies, however these lists usually have 1/3 of the proxies working, so it's not really an option!

After searching a lot, I found this provider: overplay which is a vpn provider serving over 20 countries and giving the possibility to visit other sites with an another country IP.

As they say, this is interesting if you are testing websites, or services, or even when you are trying to buy online in a different country that will filter your IP address (or does not accept your credit card because you are visiting the website from a different country).

This service also provides encrypted connection that protects your data while browsing the internet or making a transaction. Let's see how it works.

From what i've seen they are now giving access to many European countries: Spain, France, Italy, Dutch, Germany, United Kingdom, Poland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Swiss and Sweden. There are also non-European countries like Australia, Japan, United States of America, Canada, South Korea, Brazil and many others.

----> Update: tried this software, works very well, however the offer (free month if you post with a link) is not working!

Mais uma do google: Google Square

Não é nada do outro mundo mas a forma de apresentação pode ser muito interessante para alguns temas. Exemplos:

countries
mp3 players
car
desktop computer

é só usar a imaginação... afinal parece que o google sabe mais do que mostra no search...

Mas o melhor de tudo é que ele não sabia o que era um "computador"... Então disse-me "don't give up yet (...) entering up to 5 example items"
Eu adicionei :
asus,
sony vaio,
dell,
mac

o resultado:
computador

Há coisas fantasticas não há?

Google optimizer - objectivo click

O Google Optimizer é uma ferramenta integrada com o Google Adwords que permite fazer A/B Testing (e tb multivariate testing). Normalmente este tipo de testes são aplicados a sites cujo objectivo é vender produtos (ecommerce), preencher um formulário de contacto ou mesmo executar o download de um ficheiro (por exemplo um software trial).

No entanto, em algumas situações, o objectivo desse site pode ser direccionar os utilizadores para outros sites ou páginas, ou seja, fazerem um click em determinado link dentro do site.

Nestes casos é possível contabilizar a conversão no Google Optimizer através do evento de javascript onclick no link, ou seja, href="url destino" onclick=""

Detalhes de como fazer esta implementação em :
google website optimizer answer