Blog

Preventing Spam Members and Links in Expression Engine

2011-11-27T04:49:50+00:00

One thing EE developer forget is that, membership is always set to “ON” in the configuration. Even the membership triggering word is set to “member”. This can lead to a lot of spam member registrations, and these members post links in their signatures. In EE, member profiles are public by default. So when you google for your site, these spam links appear in the results as well.

I came across this issue when i was checking AWstats for my website and i saw a lot of spam links in the search keywords. This website illustrates how spammer use inurl method to scan for EE websites

Most of the sites we did didnt use membership at all. What i did to fix these spam links is to

Turn off membership in the site
Create a random profile triggering word

Hope this helps everyone who are sick of these spammers.

Simple Expression Engine Database Backup

2011-07-01T11:28:48+00:00

A simple Expression Engine database backup solution using php in templates and Codeigniter database Utilities.

All you have to do is create a EE template and enable php. Add the following code and viola, visit the url in your browser and download the full database backup.

$this->EE =& get_instance();
// Load the DB utility class
$this->EE->load->dbutil();

// Backup your entire database and assign it to a variable
$backup =& $this->EE->dbutil->backup();

// Load the file helper and write the file to your server
$this->EE->load->helper('file');
write_file('SERVER_PATH/mybackup.gz', $backup);

// Load the download helper and send the file to your desktop
$this->EE->load->helper('download');
force_download('mybackup.gz', $backup); 

?> 

You can customize the filename, tables etc. Follow this guide : http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/database/utilities.html#backup

Do remember to password protect the template to prevent unauthorized access.

Good luck

Canon Ixus Style featured on Show-ee

2011-06-01T08:13:24+00:00

We are proud to have Canon Ixus Style, an EE2 built by us featured on Show-ee. You can read the details here.

The site was designed by my good friend Preston Tan from Juxido.com. Props to him for designing such a clean and elegant site.

Working with Git and SVN Repository

2011-01-15T05:58:36+00:00

Lately I have been working on some projects where the files are hosted in svn repository, and since git has built in support for svn, it was a breeze to set it up. Clients use Versions to commit/log the changes and UnFuddle is where all the svn source files are hosted.

Some of the git commands are different when working with svn. The basic changes are

git clone  => git svn clone -s

git pull => git svn rebase

git push => git svn dcommit 

Cloning the svn repo using Git

The First and foremost step is to Clone the SVN Repository to your local machine using git-svn clone. Given that you have created your repository in Unfuddle.


git svn clone -s http://project.unfuddle.com/svn/project_repo/

Git will create a full clone of your svn repository with all the branches, trunks and tags

Setting up .gitignore

Set up your gitignore file as normal. I usually have the following in my .gitignore file

.DS_Store
.gitignore 

Create a Branch and Committing

I usually dont do this, unless i am creating a new feature for the application. Eg: A javascript carousel, or a new user authentication system. You can work as per normal with the files and when ready to commit, use


git commit -a -m "Modified aa.html and added a smiley face :)"

Before i push the files to the svn remote repo, i always make sure to update my local files using git svn rebase. I will fix any conflicts that may occur and push the files to remote svn using

git svn rebase
git svn dcommit 

Git Stash

Git stash has been my livesaver for all my projects. Lets say you are work on something important(A.html) which is like half complete, and your collegue says “He there is a bug in one of your files(B.html), can you fix that ?”. I dont want to commit my A.html changes since it is a uncompleted version. I use git stash here which records the changes in A.html and goes back to clean working directory. Now i make the edits to B.html, commit it and push it the svn repository. When i am done with fixing the bugs, i take back A.html using:


git stash apply

It will bring back all the changes i had done to A.html and i am ready to roll.

Reverting a file

It works the same way as in git


git checkout -- filename

These are some of the basic commands i use to manage svn repository with git. No complex stuff here.

Git and Expression Engine

2010-12-18T06:50:22+00:00

How do you configure Expression Engine to run with the most powerful version control architecture Git.

I have had experience using both EE 1.6 and EE 2 with git. EE 1.6 was a real headache mainly because of template synchronization. Let me give you a walk-through to using Git and EE2 on Eleven2 servers.

What we are doing is a fully version controlled and command line deployment of EE2.

Add/Edit Files Locally -> Push to Remote Server -> Deploy

Before we begin, lets make the following assumptions.

You have installed git on your local system
You have a git enabled remote server

Step 1

The first we do is set up EE2 in our local system and git it. We need to create a .gitignore file as we have to exclude config.php and few other folders from being copied over to production.

My .gitignore file looks like

// File .gitignore : Make sure its in the project directory
    
.DS_Store
system/cache/*
system/config.php
system/config.local.php
images/uploads
images/avatars/uploads
images/member_photos/
images/captchas/*
images/*.psd
images/contestphotos
images/forum_attachments
images/country 

cd /wamp/htdocs/ee2
touch .gitignore 

// Next copy and paste the content into .gitignore 

Now we are ready for initializing git

cd /wamp/htdocs/ee2
git init
git add .
git commit -a -m "Initial Commit" 

This will gitify your EE2 installation.

Step 2

Next you need to set a remote repository in your remote server. This remote repo can either be on your own server or github.com. Its always advisable to set up the remote repo on

// SSH to Remote server : Username : app
ssh -p 1122 app@server.com
cd /home/app/git
git init --bare 

This will create a bare remote repository in the server.

Step 3

In your local repo, we need to add the remote server. So navigate to your local directory

cd /wamp/htdocs/ee2
git remote add origin ssh://app@server.com:1122/home/app/git
git push 
// This will push all the files from local to remote 

Step 4

So all our local changes are now migrated to remote repository. And now we need to pull all those files and deploy it in remote server public_html

ssh -p 1122 app@server.com
cd public_html/
git clone /home/app/git 

This will create a full fledged repository in the publc_html and will get all the files from the remote repo /home/app/git.

Final Step: Deployment

What i do to deploy is

// Local
    
git commit -a -m "Commit message here"
git push origin master
ssh -p 1122 app@server.com "cd public_html;git pull origin master" 

Thats it easy peasy. I dont have to upload any files using ftp. Just 3 lines and my site is synced.

Less css ..My First hand experience

2010-12-17T15:22:52+00:00

Less CSS is an object oriented approach to CSS development. Just like any programming language, we can use variables, functions and re-usable codes with less.

I am using the JavaScript version of less called less.js which is still under development. The whole idea of using a sass stylesheet came about when my close coding buddy Choon Keat started talking so highly about less. It happened that every time we meet, we would talk about it.

So the css of Artminister.com is run by less.js. Frankly speaking i finished the css in less than an hour and it turned out great.

Let me tell how i am using less to drive my css.

How to run less

As simple as adding the following code in of your site

<link rel="stylesheet/less" href="{site_url}css/artminister.less"> 
<script src="{site_url}js/less-1.0.38.min.js"> 

Or if you want to use the gem, have a look Less Site.

Do remember to set the rel attribute of the css to “stylesheet/less”. Once set the .less file will be parsed using less.js.

Update
The file extension doesnt have to be .less. Css files will also be parsed by less.js

Setting Variables

What i have done is set the common variables such as site width, column spacing, and fonts in the beginning of the css file

@site-width:960px;
@gutter: 20px;
@font-heading:'Vollkorn', serif;
@font-nav:'Nobile', serif;

#Wrapper{width:@site-width; margin:@gutter/2 auto;} 

The above code translates to


#Wrapper{width:960px; margin:10px auto;}

Mixins

One of the most useful feature of less is mixins. Its a group of code which can be re-used in your css file. So you can edit-once and the changes are reflected all through out.

.last-child{
    margin-bottom:0; border-bottom:0;
  }
  
  .text-shadow{
    -webkit-text-shadow:-1px -1px 1px #fff;
    text-shadow:-1px -1px 1px #fff;
  }

// Textshadow 

nav a{.text-shadow;} // This is how you use a mixin 

You can even set variables in mixins using

.text-shadow(@size:1px, @color:#fff){
 -webkit-text-shadow:-@size -@size @size @color;
    text-shadow:-@size -@size @size @color;
  }

// Call the above mixin using

nav a{.text-shadow(5px,#fff);} 

Sweet right.

Write less css

Nesting is one of the main plus points of less. Take the example below

// Without less

nav{text-align:left; margin:0 20px 0;}
nav ul a{color:#444;}
nav ul a:hover{color:#111;}

// With less

nav{
 text-align:left; margin:0 20px 0;
 ul{
     a{color:#444;
       &:hover{color:#111;}
       }
    }
} 

Although there are more lines in the above code, its still simpler. You don’t have to write parent selectors for every line of css.

Which one should you use ? Ruby or JS version

When you have the less ruby gem installed, the .less file is compiled server side. So css is generated even if JavaScript is disabled in the browser. Although according to tests conducted by Choon Keat, JS version is much much faster than the gem.

If you ask me, i am going to go with the JS version. I love to see my hand-coded .less css file in browser source. And its much faster too. I dont really worry about js disabled browsers.

Anways this is just my short review of less.js. If there’s anything you would like to know, post in the comments. I will be happy to answer.