Bhupendra Kunwar Blog

How to Guide:  Setting up a Cron Job in Linux

1. Enter the following command in the console
crontab -e

2. Adding the cron job. Edit the cron file. You cron job shall look like this
1 2 3 4 5 /path/to/command

eg

10 3 * * * /root/backup.sh

This will run the cron job at 3.10 am

* 1: Minute (0-59)
* 2: Hours (0-23)
* 3: Day (0-31)
* 4: Month (0-12 [12 == December])
* 5: Day of the week(0-7 [7 or 0 == sunday])
* /path/to/command - Script or command name to schedule

3. If you want to execute a php script instead of a shell command, your cron job shall look like this

1 2 3 4 5 /path/to/php/interpreter -q /path/to/command

eg.

10 3 * * * /usr/bin/php -q /var/www/html/cron.php

1. SEO friendly URLs and non-www URLs

While using SEF Plugins with Joomla, one of the common issue encountered is that the default urls are without www i.e. http://domain.com (assuming that Joomla is installed in the root domain)

This might irritate webmasters causing duplicate urls indexing
Solution:

a. Change your Live Site URL to http://www.domain.com

Download the config file “configuration.php” and edit the variable $mosConfig_live_site value to set it to http://www.yourdomain.com.

This will cause all base URL to change to http://www.domain.com, hence all your internal page urls would be linked through urls with www

b. Use htaccess/Mod_Rewrite to redirect your domain http://domain.com to http://www.domain.com

Here is how

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^uttaranchalmusic.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.uttaranchalmusic.com/$1 [R=301,L]

1. Rewrite All URLs on one domain to new domain

Put the following code in the .htaccess file of your old domain

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

2. Rewrite non-www urls with www

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

22 Feb 2007

With the U.S. online travel marketplace approaching $70 billion, Burst Media’s survey of some 2,100 web users 18 years and older who plan to travel in the next three months found that nearly half (47.2 percent) of respondents who will use the web to plan their upcoming travel say the internet will be their primary travel resource.

Among age segments, respondents 25-34 years are most likely to say the internet will be their primary travel resource (53.2 percent); respondents 55 years and older are least likely (41.4 percent). Half (51.8 percent) of respondents reporting household income (HHI) of $75,000-$99,999, and nearly two-thirds (63.1 percent) of respondents reporting HHI of $100,000 or more, say the internet will be their primary travel resource.

Burst found that two-thirds (66.9 percent) of respondents will conduct travel research as well as make an online travel transaction - and 33.1 percent will use the web solely as an information resource. As household income (HHI) increases so does the likelihood that a respondent will use the internet to conduct both travel research and travel transactions: 72.3 percent of those reporting HHI of $75,000-$99,999, and 79.7 percent reporting HHI of $100,000 or more, will conduct both research and transactions.

Of those who will conduct a travel transaction on the web, about three-quarters (74.0 percent) will purchase airline tickets, 72.9 percent will likely make hotel reservations, and over one-third (40.4 percent) will likely rent an automobile. Those who plan to make transactions online will also conduct travel research online - 59.7 percent will research travel destinations, and 28.6 percent will research travel/tour operators.

Among survey respondents who use the internet solely as a research tool, the most popular topics of research are hotel accommodations and prices (50.1 percent), travel destinations (45.8 percent), airline flights and fares (39.2 percent), tour/travel operators (24.4 percent), and car rental availability/rates (12.2 percent).

Respondents were asked what features of a travel resource website make them want to return to it: The most cited were the ability to check flights, hotels and rental car’s rates/availability (55.1 percent), destination information (49.9 percent), and travel promotions and specials (49.7 percent).

Women placed much greater importance than men on travel promotions and specials (55.4 percent versus 44.5 percent). Older respondents placed greater emphasis than younger respondents on destination information:Over half (56.5 percent) of respondents 55 years or older say destination information is essential for a website to continue to draw their attention - compared with 51.8 percent of respondents 35-54 years, and 43.1 percent of the 18-34 year segment.

News Source: http://www.marketingvox.com

1. Download SEF Extension
   http://www.artio.cz/en/joomla-extensions/artio-joomsef
   http://www.artio.cz/en/downloads/joomla-extensions/artio-joomsef-1-4-0/download
2. Install SEF extension
   i) Login to Joomla Administration Panel (http://www.yourdomain.com/administrator/)
   ii) Installers > Components > Upload the package file (downloaded zip file)
   
   
3. Customize the links
   i) Edit the file /joomla installation dir/components/com_sef/joomsef.php and
   ii) Comment the following line of php code:
   if (isset($sefConfig->excludeSource) && $sefConfig->excludeSource && $sefConfig->reappendSource & isset($Itemid)) {
   $sefstring .= (strpos($sefstring, ‘?’) !== false ? ‘&’ : ‘?’).’Itemid=’.urlencode($Itemid);
   //$URI->anchor .= (($URI->anchor) ? ‘-’ : ”).urlencode(’ii’.$Itemid
   }
   
   
4. To Edit the links manually from the Joomla panel, go to Components > ARTIO JoomSEF > View/Edit Custom Redirects

23 Mar 2007

Web search leader Google showed a marked acceleration in U.S. market share gains in February, online audience measurement firm ComScore Networks said on Wednesday.

Google’s share of the U.S. Web search market grew to 48.1 percent in February from 47.5 percent in January, the monthly survey showed. The company had gained just 0.2 percentage points, from 47.3 percent, from December to January.

Google has experienced surging growth in its share of the U.S. search market over the past two years, according to ComScore data. In January 2005, Google had 35.1 percent of that business, compared with 31.8 percent for Yahoo. In January 2006, Google had a 41.4 percent share.

Yahoo, Google’s closest rival in Web search, had 28.1 percent of the U.S. market in February, the same as in January, while Microsoft’s share dipped to 10.5 percent from 10.6 percent, according to ComScore.

IAC/InterActiveCorp’s Ask.com saw its share slide 0.2 percent to 5.0 percent in February. Time Warner’s network of Internet properties, which includes AOL, dipped 0.1 percent to 4.9 percent.

The ComScore statistics showed Google users conducted 3.3 billion of the 6.9 billion Web searches performed by U.S. consumers, followed by Yahoo with 2 billion and Microsoft with 730 million.

News Source: http://news.com.com/

23 Mar 2007

Google is testing, on a limited basis, a pay-per-action ad form that ties publisher payment to a specific action by those who click the ad, reports ClickZ.
Advertisers define the action - an actual sale, signing up for more information or something else - and the publisher on whose site the ad appears would be paid only when that action is completed. Though that means publishers don’t get paid as frequently as in pay-per-click ads, the PPA model usually results in higher single payments.

Publishers will have more flexibility in choosing the ads that run and in encouraging visitors to take action on the ad. That sort of encouragement has been forbidden by Google as part of the AdSense terms of service (TOS) for other ads.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch points out that a move to PPA model lowers advertisers’ potential exposure to click fraud, since they would only pay when a specific action is taken and not when an ad is clicked (a click is easily automated). He also predicts that this will have a severe and negative impact on ad networks already operating on a PPA model simply because they can’t compete with Google in terms of scale of reach.

Arrington also catches a smaller announcement in the Google AdWords blog post announcing the PPA test. Google will begin testing in-text ads, similar to those already offered by Intellitext and others. When visitors to a site running these sorts of ads mouse over the linked text, a box appears with the ad displayed along with “Ads by Google” text.

This would be the first ad offering by Google to break out of the separate ad box and into the text of the site’s content.

News Source: http://www.marketingvox.com

22 Feb 2007

With the U.S. online travel marketplace approaching $70 billion, Burst Media’s survey of some 2,100 web users 18 years and older who plan to travel in the next three months found that nearly half (47.2 percent) of respondents who will use the web to plan their upcoming travel say the internet will be their primary travel resource.

Among age segments, respondents 25-34 years are most likely to say the internet will be their primary travel resource (53.2 percent); respondents 55 years and older are least likely (41.4 percent). Half (51.8 percent) of respondents reporting household income (HHI) of $75,000-$99,999, and nearly two-thirds (63.1 percent) of respondents reporting HHI of $100,000 or more, say the internet will be their primary travel resource.

Burst found that two-thirds (66.9 percent) of respondents will conduct travel research as well as make an online travel transaction - and 33.1 percent will use the web solely as an information resource. As household income (HHI) increases so does the likelihood that a respondent will use the internet to conduct both travel research and travel transactions: 72.3 percent of those reporting HHI of $75,000-$99,999, and 79.7 percent reporting HHI of $100,000 or more, will conduct both research and transactions.

Of those who will conduct a travel transaction on the web, about three-quarters (74.0 percent) will purchase airline tickets, 72.9 percent will likely make hotel reservations, and over one-third (40.4 percent) will likely rent an automobile. Those who plan to make transactions online will also conduct travel research online - 59.7 percent will research travel destinations, and 28.6 percent will research travel/tour operators.

Among survey respondents who use the internet solely as a research tool, the most popular topics of research are hotel accommodations and prices (50.1 percent), travel destinations (45.8 percent), airline flights and fares (39.2 percent), tour/travel operators (24.4 percent), and car rental availability/rates (12.2 percent).

Respondents were asked what features of a travel resource website make them want to return to it: The most cited were the ability to check flights, hotels and rental car’s rates/availability (55.1 percent), destination information (49.9 percent), and travel promotions and specials (49.7 percent).

Women placed much greater importance than men on travel promotions and specials (55.4 percent versus 44.5 percent). Older respondents placed greater emphasis than younger respondents on destination information:Over half (56.5 percent) of respondents 55 years or older say destination information is essential for a website to continue to draw their attention - compared with 51.8 percent of respondents 35-54 years, and 43.1 percent of the 18-34 year segment.

http://www.marketingvox.com

ComScore Networks says holiday season helped spending increase over the $100 billion threshold.
By Keisha Lamothe, CNNMoney.com staff writer
4 Jan 2007

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Online shopping jumped this past year as spending accelerated during the last two months of the holiday season, according to the latest report from market research firm ComScore Networks.

For the full year 2006, total online retail spending, excluding travel-related purchases, reached $102.1 billion, marking a 24 percent increase versus 2005, the firm said.

Shoppers waiting until the last minute accounted for the surge in online retail spending during the final three weeks of the season. Spending surged 31 percent from a year earlier, while sales the week before Christmas increased 45 percent.
Online retail spending saw 12 days during the November/December holiday season surpassing the $600 million mark. The heaviest online spending day of the year was Dec. 13 with $667 million spent.

Online holiday e-commerce accounted for $24.6 billion, up 26 percent versus last year. ComScore initially had expected holiday sales on the Internet to grow 24 percent to $24.3 billion.

“2006 was certainly an exceptional year for online retailers as e-commerce spending eclipsed $100 billion for the first time, and growth remained very strong with a 24 percent increase versus last year,” Gian Fulgoni, chairman of ComScore Networks, said in a statement.

“The online holiday shopping season of course played a vital role in the year’s success, as spending accelerated during the final two months of the year, helping push total online retail spending over the $100 billion threshold.”

News Source: http://money.cnn.com

04 Jan 2006

For the full year 2006, online retail spending (non-travel) reached $102.1 billion, a 24 percent increase from 2005, and online holiday (Nov. 1-Dec. 31) e-commerce accounted for $24.6 billion, up 26 percent from last year, according to comScore Networks.

“2006 was certainly an exceptional year for online retailers as e-commerce spending eclipsed $100 billion for the first time,” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks. “The online holiday shopping season of course played a vital role in the year’s success.”

Twelve days during the two-month holiday season broke the $600 million mark for e-commerce spending. Just six days in 2005 reached $500 million in online sales, with the top day registering $556 million (Monday, December 12, 2005).

Wednesday, Dec. 13, marked the heaviest online spending day of 2006 with $667 million, followed by Monday, Dec. 11 ($661 million) and Monday, Dec. 4 ($648 million). Cyber Monday (Nov. 27) was surpassed 11 times during the subsequent weeks of the holiday season.

Online consumers delayed their holiday buying later than ever. Spending growth during the first third of the season (weeks 1-3) rose a modest 23 percent above 2005 levels, despite spending during the week before Thanksgiving, which grew 30 percent growth versus the corresponding week in 2005.

The middle third of the season (weeks 4-6), during which the greatest share of holiday e-commerce spending occurred, was consistent with the 26 percent growth demonstrated during the course of the season as a whole. The final three weeks of the holiday season (weeks 7-9) saw a major surge in spending as the procrastinators came out in full force, driving a 31 percent increase versus the corresponding weeks in 2005.

The week leading up to Christmas (week ended December 24) saw the biggest surge with a 45-percent increase versus the corresponding week a year ago, with consumers relying on online retailers’ ability to deliver the goods in time for Christmas.

http://www.marketingvox.com