We found a few websites and apps that make Pinning easy and more fun by giving you the ability to pin a screenshot of the website or make a text quote into a Pinable image.  

4 Websites and Apps that Make Pinterest and Pinning Easier and More Fun

1. Pinterest Goodies Official Pinterest page for apps and tools. 

The Pinterest goodies page has handy apps and the HTML code to install a Pin It button on your Chrome bar, iPhone app (see below), Pinterest Follow button for websites (cut and paste the HTML code), and our favorite and perhaps the most important a Pin this button for your blogs and website.  

2. Pinstamatic

Easy way to Pin sticky notes, calendar dates, Twitter profiles and screenshots of websites. 

3. url2pin.it

Want to pin a screen shot of a website or maybe a different image that what Pinterest grabs, use this handy website to do it.

4. PinaQuote

Found a cool quote and want to pin it, but wait, there’s no image or the images doesn’t make sense?  Use PinaQuote to Pin quotes to Pinterest.  

Mobile Apps for Pinterest

iPhone app for Pinterest

Reviews complain about it freezing up. 

Android App

we only found one Pinterest app for Droids and the reviews and other blogs complained about spam and had concerns about security.  So for now, sorry fellow Droid fans, no good app for our phones.  Pinterest said they are working on it, but that was in Sept 2011.  We recommend waiting for the official Pinterest app to come out.  

Mysql Tidbits:

GROUP_CONCAT

You can GROUP_CONCAT multiple result sets from multiple LEFT JOIN’s to create a single result set when using a primary table and relational “meta” table by using DISTINCT.

In order to get multiple result sets from this type of action you need to GROUP BY your results.

The following example is pretty complex. It takes 3 tables, combines multiple (left joined) rows from table2, gets the relevant (left joined) row from table 3 based on table2, then comma separates the values per ‘key’ value queried in table2 as a single column in table1 along with table1′s result set, showing only unique values.

Example:

SELECT column1,

column2,
column3,
column4,
GROUP_CONCAT( DISTINCT group_definition.value ) as 'definitions', 
GROUP_CONCAT( DISTINCT group.value ) as 'ids'
FROM table1
LEFT JOIN table2 AS group,

ON table1.user = group.user
AND group.key = 'some_key'
AND group.switch = 1

LEFT JOIN table3 AS group_definition,

ON group.value = group_definition.id

GROUP BY table1.id

This is an example of a query that accesses 3 Tables. Table1 is the primary table, which has unique information row by row by id (primary key). Table2 is a relational table, which is tied to table1 by the user column. Table2 uses a standardized but non unique ‘key’ column with  ’value’ column unique to the ‘key’ and ‘user’. Table2 has a unique index on ‘user’, ‘key’ and ‘value’. table2 uses ‘switch’ as a boolean to decide whether or not the record is active or not. table3 holds the definition of table2′s ‘value’ as its own ‘value’ based off table3′s primary key ‘id’. The entire operation is grouped by table1′s primary key ‘id’, otherwise we do not get more than 1 result set.

The GROUP_CONCAT will collapse the result set that would normally be generated when finding multiple values in table2 related to table1, and instead place them as comma separated values which is MUCH more handy to deal with. We can use PHP or some other language to explode the ids and the definitions (ids, and definitions). This also allows us to query the database by table2 and table3 because they are included via LEFT JOIN, giving us exceptional flexibility with this query.

With this I can find a user from table1 that has a key, value and switch combination in table2, and return both the value as id number AND the definition value of table3 from those values, all in one row. It also allows me to pull multiple records unique only to table1, preventing duplicate data.

I know this may sound confusing, but it really is. I only hope my example will shed some light on a very complex query that can make your database ultra fast, sharp and flexible. I found many examples of this around the net but never at the complexity that I ended up with. 

ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE

You can use the INSERT INTO with ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE and VALUES() function to insert data in a database, or insert it, if a unique or primary key would be violated. It is a good idea to use a properly defined multi column unique index with this method. 

For example, lets say that user, key, and value are unique, and the table has a primary key of id. If we index user,key and value together, we can use this statement:

INSERT INTO table

( user, key, value, switch ) 
VALUES 

(row1val1, row1val2, row1val3, row1val4), 
(row2val1, row2val2, row2val3, row2val4),
(row3val1, row3val2, row3val3, row3val4), 
(row4val1, row4val2, row4val3, row4val4),

ON DUPLICATE KEY 

UPDATE switch=VALUES(switch);

This would update the value that would have gone in as row1val4, row2val4, row3val4, row4val4 of that record if val1, val2 and val3 existed respectively, otherwise it would insert a new record and auto increment the id.

This should be helpful when trying to create database queries that add and update information, without having to go through the extra step of querying the database to see if the data already exists…shaved an extra step off my programming process, and a TON of queries by doing so!

Just finished writing this very handy Script for updating all links in a wordpress site should you choose to move your domain.

This goes through every column of every table in the database and replaces string searched with the desired string.

This code should be placed in “functions.php” in the base directory of the theme you are currently using in WordPress.

You should place this code in the functions file and then load your site only ONCE. Remove the code once the process is complete. You will see the results of the query echo out line by line.

This code will also work on any site using the ezSQL wrapper. *Note: If you have serialized arrays that may be effected, this will not work, as the length of the string may be different than what was originally set…

• $global $wpdb;
• $find_this = “/home/”;
• $replace_with_this = “/”;
• $database = $wpdb->get_results(“SHOW TABLES”);
• foreach($database as $database_tables):
• foreach($database_tables as $database_table):
• $table = $wpdb->get_results(“SHOW COLUMNS FROM $database_table”);
• foreach($table as $column):
• $wpdb->query(“UPDATE $database_table SET $column->Field = REPLACE($column->Field,’$find_this’,'$replace_with_this’)”);
• echo “UPDATE $database_table SET $column->Field = REPLACE($column->Field,’$find_this’,'$replace_with_this’)”;
• endforeach;
• endforeach;
• endforeach;

Our previous blog discussed how to repair a reputation damaged by negative content, in this blog we discuss what action you can take if your online assailant crosses the line.

 Copyright and Brand Protection

One way you can ensure your name is protected is to diligently enforce your copyright on your content. Your site content is the key to revenue for your company. The more unique the content you post the better ranking you will receive. If others are using your content, your search rankings may be affected and their content may rank nearby yours.

Such duplicate content, if not properly attributed to your company, is a violation of copyright. To be clear, you do not need a registration to hold a copyright on your content. As soon as your work is made public, you own the rights to that work- the registration however, affords you stronger protections and higher damages if you register the your work before the infringement occurs.

The first step to discovery Copyright infringement of your web content is to use a site such as http://www.copyscape.com/. This site scans the web for plagiarized content and gives you a list of all sites which might have stolen your content. If the goal is to preserve costs, you should first attempt to contact the site owners yourself and notify them of the content you believe they have stolen. If this proves to be unsuccessful you should contact an attorney and ask them to give you a cost benefit analysis of enlisting their services to achieve removal of the content.

 Defamation Protection

Courts are beginning to recognize rampant defamation on the internet as a serious problem. If a blogger or reviewer goes outside of pure opinion or fact to slam your brand then they are well on their way into defamation territory. For example, stating “The mechanic is a jerk” is likely safe on the opinion side; however, stating “The mechanic is a thief” sways dangerously close to defamation. By monitoring reviews and content on the Internet for negative postings you can keep your brand name clean. While one review may not do much damage, if you begin to notice a smear campaign against you by an angry customer you may want to consider contacting an attorney to weigh your options for putting an end to these damaging statements.

The above is a simplified summary of complex topics of law. A quick and reasonably priced Cease and Desist Letter can solve these problems a majority of the time. If you suspect infringement, defamation you should seek professional legal advice regarding your options.

About the Author:

Brittany Grunau is an attorney licensed to practice law in California. Brittany can be reached by e-mail at brittany@brittanygrunauesq.com. The above is not to be construed as legal advice. Communication with Brittany Grunau by e-mail or telephone does not cause you to become a client of Brittany Grunau or afford you to the protections of confidentiality or attorney-client privileges.

Below we explain why some website hosts love proprietary platforms, how to identify if you got roped into one, and how to select a website platform.  If you somehow got sweet-talked into a proprietary platform don’t panic, the move is painful and difficult, but you can migrate away from it.  We have done many successful migrations from proprietary platforms and legacy websites to open source and portable platforms such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal which is what inspired this blog.

Why some Website Hosts & Design Firms Love Proprietary Plaforms!

If there are so many problems with proprietary platforms why do some website companies push them so hard?  The answer is simple and two fold.  First and foremost it locks clients in and makes it costly and painful to change.  Secondly, and much more subtle, is the fact that many of these proprietary platforms have an architecture where the client websites create more traffic and improved search rankings for the hosting company platform since the client websites are often sub-domains of the hosting company website.  This does two things for the hosting company, it gives them more traffic to brag about to prospective clients and if a client leaves they loose all of their traffic since no SEO or search rankings have been developed for their own domain!  Again, locking the client in.

How Identify Proprietary Platforms

1. Sub-Domain urls or your own:  Look at the urls for the client for your website.  If the domain name is www.ExampleHostingCompany.com/Your-Company-Name or www.Your-Company-Name.ExampleHostingCompany.com then your website is a sub-domain of the hosting company and you are building ZERO SEO for your own domain and website.  Your are trapped and building a legacy website.  Traffic, SEO, and search rankings are not being built for your website and your domain name.  Not to mention that they own that subdomain and you can’t take it with you. The minute you leave traffic and rankings from the subdomain are lost forever.
2. CMS (Content Management System):  This is vital, is the CMS opensource or used throughout the industry or is it a proprietary CMS the hosting/development company created.  If it is proprietary, you guessed it, you are locked in.  If it is proprietary and hosted by the company, then it is almost certainly not portable. If you decide to leave that company, you can’t take your files with you without migrating to another platform. If it is a proprietary CMS and it has a good website architecture you may still be in luck .  While migration is not simple or seamless migrating from a CMS is much easier than a pure HTML site where each page is designed separately and uniquely.
3. Who owns the code:  Who owns the code for your website.  This can be tricky as you will not own the code for plugins or applications, but you must ensure that you own the code and copyright for graphics and content for the website design itself.  We have even seen some agreements stating that the client has the right to use the design, BUT the copyright is owned by the design company.  Make sure you own the copyright for your own website!

How to Choose a Website Platform and Hosting Company

1. CMS:  Ensure your website is designed on a CMS (Content Management System) platform where your company can manage the content on your own.
2. Open Source or Commercially Available CMS:  Make sure the CMS is a system that is publicly available and commonly used and not a proprietary system.  We use WordPress which is an Opensource platform and the most popular website platform in  use today.  In fact 51% of all blogs use WordPress.  Drupal and Joomla are other Opensource platforms and although not our preferred platform, they are open source and portable.
3. Website and Design Copyright : Make sure you own the copyright and design of your website, or at least have license to use it and that you can move it to a new host or platform if you choose to.
4. Website Transfer:  Make sure your hosting agreement or agreement with the design firm states that they will transfer or export your code and website design to a new hosting or design company should you choose to change firms.

tl;dr version (assuming you’re using OpenSSH):

• useradd username
• groupadd sftponly
• usermod -a -G sftponly username
• usermod -s /sbin/nologin username
• usermod -d /path/to/jailed/dir username

modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config as follows:

# override default of no subsystems
#Subsystem      sftp    /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server
Subsystem       sftp    internal-sftp

# Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis
#Match User anoncvs
#       X11Forwarding no
#       AllowTcpForwarding no
#       ForceCommand cvs server

Match Group sftponly
        ChrootDirectory %h
        ForceCommand internal-sftp
        AllowTcpForwarding no
        X11Forwarding no

• service sshd restart

All done. Now all users that are part of sftponly will be jailed to their home directory.

Now for the longer version:

The objective of jailing a user is to keep him from changing directories into a folder he doesn’t need access to. This is the case when you want to give SFTP access for someone using Dreamweaver who can edit a website’s files on your server without giving them access to your system files.

So what’s the concept behind what we’re doing? Well, we want to grant SFTP access, and ONLY SFTP access, while simultaneously disabling any shell login attempts through SSH itself. To older admins this was a nightmare, since you had to copy all that the user needed into his own accessible directories. Be glad this isn’t the case anymore!

So first thing is first, you create a user, specify his shell, and his home directory (which he will be jailed into):

useradd -s /sbin/nologin/ -d /path/to/home/dir username

Good. Now, assuming you haven’t made a group for SFTP users, let’s do that:

groupadd sftponly

Fantastic, not so hard. What comes next is adding the user we made into this group. Just in case he’s part of other groups, we’ll use the append flag:

usermod -a -G sftponly username

Alright, so we have our user set up. Next is making modifications to the SSH daemon config files. Don’t be afraid, it won’t affect anything until you restart the service. Open up the folder and let’s vim it (or nano or vi or whatever text processor you prefer):

cd /etc/ssh/
vim sshd_config

Now you should see, in pretty colors, something like this:

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem      sftp    /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server

# Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis
#Match User anoncvs
#       X11Forwarding no
#       AllowTcpForwarding no
#       ForceCommand cvs server

If you don’t, I suggest you don’t continue, as your config file and/or paths are customized or were installed in different locations and you may need some extra help.

If you do, great, that just means it’s a copy-paste job for you. Turn that text from above into this (hit INSERT first, otherwise you’ll miss a few characters from the beginning of the text):

# override default of no subsystems
#Subsystem      sftp    /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server
Subsystem       sftp    internal-sftp

# Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis
#Match User anoncvs
#       X11Forwarding no
#       AllowTcpForwarding no
#       ForceCommand cvs server

Match Group sftponly
        ChrootDirectory %h
        ForceCommand internal-sftp
        AllowTcpForwarding no
        X11Forwarding no

Done? Great! So what did we change?

1. We changed the subsystem for the SFTP protocol. This just means any SFTP clients will now use “internal-sftp” rather than the sftp-server protocol provided with openSSH.
2. We established a Match rule, which will check each user logging in to see if they belong to the group “sftponly” before jailing them (ChrootDirectory) and forcing them to use only “internal-sftp” as their method of interaction. We also prevent them from forwarding ports and changing IP addresses so they can’t tinker with our valuables. Note that this match text should be placed at the BOTTOM of the file if it isn’t there already after the paste.

The last thing left to do is restart the SSH daemon (which takes about 3 seconds for those concerned about down time) so that the changes to the config file take effect. Assuming you don’t have a strange configuration on your server (like one of the servers here in our office did…) it should have restarted just fine and any users that you created that are attached to the sftponly group should be jailed to their home directories when accessing via SFTP and politely denied access to their shell via SSH.

… You’re welcome. >_>

I’m almost positive many of you web developers have had to move a WordPress site in your day. Well, sometimes the domain changes, and you realize how much pain you’re in for since that involves scouring the database. Fear not! WordPress has a simpler alternative, a feature that is nearly as awesome as the picture above! Courtesy of the WordPress Codex:

Relocate method

WordPress supports an automatic relocation method that will figure out and update those values for you automatically. This method is intended to be a quick assist to getting a site working when relocating a site from one server to another.

To use it:

1. Edit the wp-config.php file.

2. After the “define” statements, add this new one:

define('RELOCATE',true);

3. Go to the wp-login.php page in a web browser.

4. Login as per normal.

When the RELOCATE flag is set to true, the Site URL (NOT the home setting) will be automatically updated to whatever path you are using to access the login screen. This will get the admin section up and running on the new URL, but it will not correct any other part of the setup. Those you will still need to alter manually.

You should remove the additional line after the site is up and running. Do NOT leave it enabled.

Simple, quick, and easy. Now fix the rest of the links that you forgot to make relative. Yep, you’re welcome for reminding you.

Google In Page Analytics;
example of website with poor click throughs

This is the same website we used in our previous blog as an example of a website with good traffic, but poor visitor flow and poor click throughs.   We are in the process of designing a new website for this client and we used both Visitor Flow and In Page Analytics as part of our SEO Analysis to better understand how the current website is performing and what needs to be improved.

Something very important to observe here is that the Top Navigation (colored diamonds) has zero clicks.  This is because it is not obvious that it is navigation and also because the titles are not compelling or interesting, bottom line, the eye just passes right over it!  This is an excellent example of why “pretty” or “clever” website design is often ineffective from a performance and functionality standpoint.

Google In Page Analytics;
example of website with good click throughs

This is a great example of a website with excellent click throughs as well as good Vistor Flow.  You may have noticed that good click throughs = good visitor flow.  This is absolutely true, clicks leads to flow and the two are directly related.  The Visitor Flow graph show the flow through the website, the In Page Analytics shows how they are getting there and what they are clicking on.  To fully understand what is going on with a website you need to review both.

What we like about this website is that not only are visitors clicking and going into the interior pages, BUT they are clicking on what the client wants to them see, THE BOATS!  This is a result of both good website design AND good SEO.   The SEO is targeting the right keywords and delivering the right traffic and once the visitors are there the website is enticing them to look further.  This is exactly how it is supposed to work!

Google In Page Analytics;
another example of good click throughs

We choose this website as an example for two reasons, firstly it is getting very good click throughs to the pages where the client wants visitors to go to (again a result of good SEO plus good website design); but secondly for a more subtle reason.  This is a very simple and clean website design.  It is very straight forward, not “sexy” from a website design standpoint, and it is performing very well, in fact, it is performing better than most sexy website designs.

This is a great example of how simplicity is often a better design than an overly busy and complicated one.  The visitors to this website are professional clothing buyers, they are busy, too busy for a bunch of gimmicky Flash animation, video, or a complicated website that is hard to navigate.  They are looking for clothes, and want the information quickly.

Google Analytics In Page Analytics Menu

To see In Page Analytics  for your website you must have Google Analytics installed on your website and a login, usually a gmail account to access it.  If you do not  have Google Analytics installed or do not have access to it ask your webmaster to set it up for you.  This is very easy for a webmaster to do and should be running on every website.  Our team can set this up for on your website or do a complete SEO Analysis of your websites performance and ranking.  Click on Jump to contact us about this or any other questions you have about our services and of course we welcome blog comments and are happy to answer questions here as well.

Below is the Google Analytics menu where you will find In Page Analytics, from Home or the Dashboard click on Standard Reporting to see this menu:

Traffic figures alone really don’t reveal much about what is going on with your website.  The Visitor Flow graph shows where visitors go on your website and how they navigate your website.  Used in conjunction with In Page Analytics you can see a clear picture of the traffic through your website as well as which icons and menus are getting the most clicks.  Visitor Flow and In Page Analytics are very useful when designing a new website.  By looking at past traffic flow patterns you can identify what is working and what is not, what is drawing visitors into the website, and where they are dropping off and leaving.

Below are three examples of Google Analytics Visitor Flow graphs; the first is for a website that needs a redesign as it is performing very poorly, and the next two examples are websites that have excellent visitor flow and traffic conversion.  At the end of this blog we show the Google Analytics menu where Visitor Flow is located.

Visitor Flow Graph Example:
Weak Flow & High Drop Offs/Bounce Rate

Below is a website (not designed by our team) that we are in the process of redesigning.  This is a excellent example of a website that is not performing well.  Although the website has good traffic over 1,000 out of 1,450, nearly 70% of visitors, dropped off the homepage without visiting any other pages!  A quick look at the flow shows that only 367 visitors clicked for a 1st interaction (going beyond the homepage), and only 198 went on to a 2nd interaction and so on.  The Visitor Flow shows where your visitors are going and the flow of how they got there.  The red column is a visual indication of the magnitude of drop offs from each page, not that on the homepage the red column for this website is very large whereas on the next examples it is much smaller indicating far fewer drop offs.

(click to expand image) 

Visitor Flow Graph Example:
Excellent Flow & Extremely Low Drop Offs/Very Low Bounce Rate

This is an excellent example of a website that has both excellent traffic, over 30,000 visits to the homepage, and also has excellent visitor flow with very low drop offs and a low bounce rate.  Note that for this website nearly 60% of visitors went past the initial landing page and on to a 1st interaction.  Likewise nearly 80% went on to a 2nd interaction.  This is easily seen by looking at the flow to the inner pages and the red drop off columns which are very small.  Looking at this flow graph by itself would not be so enlightening, but when compared to the one above, the contrast and distinction between the two is very clear.

Google Analytics Visitor Flow Example Excellent Visitor Flow - Bridal Site

Visitor Flow Graph Example:
Excellent Flow & Low Drop Offs/Low Bounce Rate

Below is another example of a website that is converting traffic into visits very well (just so you don’t think that a high performance website is a one shot thing).  This website is for a yacht manufacturer and demonstrates excellent visitor flow for a very niche product and highly targeted customer demographic.

Google Analytics Visitor Flow Example Good Visitor and Traffic Flow - Yacht Manufacturer

Google Analytics Menu; Visitor Flow

To see Visitor Flow graphs for your website you must have Google Analytics installed on your website and a login, usually a gmail account to access it.  If you do not  have Google Analytics installed or do not have access to it ask your webmaster to set it up for you.  This is very easy for a webmaster to do and should be running on every website.  Our team can set this up for on your website or do a complete SEO Analysis of your websites performance and ranking.  Click on Jump to contact us about this or any other questions you have about our services and of course we welcome blog comments and are happy to answer questions here as well.

Below is the Google Analytics menu where you will find Visitors Flow, from Google Analytics Home or Dashboard click on Standard Reporting and you will see this menu: