January 7th, 2010

For CPanel Servers, ConfigServer firewall a must

The crew at ConfigServer have created an awesome (Free) firewall plugin for CPanel that makes security a breeze. I’ve loaded it on all our servers and am really impressed. You can hop over to more information about ConfigServer, or follow the simple instructions I’m archiving here:


###############################################################################
# Copyright 2006-2009, Way to the Web Limited
# URL: http://www.waytotheweb.com
# Email: sales@waytotheweb.com
###############################################################################

cd /etc/csf
sh uninstall.generic.sh


January 7th, 2010

Custom 404 Error Pages in Codeigniter (the easy way)

For those who have worked with the Codeigniter framework, you may have wanted to customize your error pages, specifically the 404. It looks like most of the developers on the forums are coming up with more complicated ways then necessary. The easiest way is to edit the following file:

/includes/application/errors/error_404.php

I opted for a customized background image, specific link and some modified copy. You could of course treat this like a view and do more dynamic things… but really? it’s a 404 page, let’s keep it simple people.

Here is an example of the one I put together: http://www.campuslive.com/somecrazyjibberishurl

March 24th, 2009

Fix Youtube Videos from Overlapping Thickbox in Chrome and Safari

On CampusLIVE we have all the site logins prompt users with a thickbox. Recently we added a Youtube video to one of the pages on the site and it produced some problems in Safari and Chrome. The thickbox would come up, but was half covered by the Youtube video.

I tried altering the Z-Indexes of the modal thickbox and the video itself with no luck.

Here’s the fix. Just add wmode=”transparent” into the embed tag.

March 23rd, 2009

Virtualize all major web browsers for easy cross-browser testing

Anyone who has tried to test multiple flavours of Internet Explorer knowsthat it’s close to impossible to run multiple versions on the same machine. I came across a company called Xenocode that virtualizes all major browsers so that you can make one-click and run any major browser.

Just a few downloads and you’re off to the races:

IE6, IE7, IE8, Safari 3, Chrome, Firefox

November 19th, 2008

Show / Hide with Google Maps

For the new release of CampusLIVE we’re adding auto-geocoded maps using the GMaps api and a few custom php classes. We’re using the CodeIgniter framework, coupled with a custom version of the PhoogleMaps class (hacked into a custom CI library).

Our team agreed that we should hide the map under a “show/hide” link since most users wouldnt need to see them. Unfurtunately after placing the map in a hidden div and opening it up with a javascipt link the map would display half of the images and not work properly.

After a lot of thrashing the keyboard, I found the solution. Technically the gmap is drawn to the size of the parent block element. This means that when the map is inside a div with the style “display: none” initially, the map will not completely load. To fix this, use the “new GSize” function to override this and set the actual size of the map. Works great.

Original GMaps Code

var map = new GMap(document.getElementById("map_canvas")); 

With Fix Fix (use GSize(width in px, height in px))

var map = new GMap(document.getElementById("map_canvas"),{size: new GSize(653,348)});

August 8th, 2008

Using htaccess to remove / redirect a folder in a url

At CampusLIVE, we completely overhauled our codebase which resulted in all of our urls in Google to incorrectly go to our homepage. Here’s an example along with the solution

The Goal
The goal was to redirect any request to CampusLIVE.com/home/(anything) to CampusLIVE.com/(anything) so that all links in Google would work again.

Example of Old Url
http://www.campuslive.com/home/umass/restaurants

Example of New Url
http://www.campuslive.com/umass/restaurants

The Solution
Open up you .htaccess file in any text editor. My code can be substituted to work with your domain/folders.

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^home/(.*)$ http://www.campuslive.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Summary

The above code will successfully redirect permanently any requested to /home/(anything) to /(anything).By using the 301 redirect, you are telling the search engines to permanently use the new address.