Tag: cookie

Categories
General

How come Facebook is able to show me ads for something I was searching on Google?

How come Facebook is able to show me ads for something I was searching on Google?. I’m also curious about this question. And got a great answer.

So, when you log into Facebook, you would be shown an ad from Apple. It does not matter that you were logged out of Facebook when you visited Apple’s website. The ad will be shown based on your browsing habits outside of Facebook. In a sense, Facebook might not even know that you visited Apple’s website, as the ads are created using your data (using tracking cookies) complied by the advertisers. In addition, you might see the same ad on other websites, too (not just on Facebook), as the same advertisers engage with different ad exchanges.

Categories
General

Google Chrome's Incognito Mode

chrome incognito

Google Chrome offers another type of window/browsing mode called “incognito mode”. When we’re using Google Chrome in incognito mode page information (website addresses, downloaded files will not be stored/logged in our browsing and download histories. And, when we close the “incognito window”, all new cookies will be deleted right away.

Read mode details about incognito mode at Google Chrome Help page.

In simple definition, it means we can use incognito for more private browsing. It’s about information on your side, not server’s. If the server logs your data (IP address, user agents, etc), your data will be recorded.

But, I don’t regularly — well, almost never — use it. My main reason is because I’m using Google Chrome — and other browsers — in a private computer. And, sometime browsing histories are useful. The download histories, too.

Categories
General

vBulletin Performance Optimization

I have been dealing with vBulletin for almost a year now. I manage a vBulletin installation for my friend at Fashionese Daily forum. Anyway, Fashionese Daily forum have used other forum/discusion engines like punBB and MyBB. It’s now using vBulletin 3.7.3 Patch Level 1.
It’s a pretty busy-traffic forum anyway. In average, there are 1,000 new posts everyday. According to forum stats, there are 500 – 600 online users during the prime ours (registered and guests). From the very beginning, I try to maintain its performance so that the forum is available.
Based on many articles about vBulletin optimization, here are what I did:

Continue reading “vBulletin Performance Optimization”
Categories
General

WordPress Troubleshooting: WordPress Admin Area (Dashboard) Redirect Loop

Yesterday, I helped one of my clients with her WordPress-powered blogs. When I tried to find the solution — using search engines — I could not find any exact solution.
Problem overview
Okey, here’s the problem: When I tried to login to WordPress dashboard — not WordPress.com, but self-hosted — I always got these errors:

Redirect Loop
The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete.
The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete.

  • Have you disabled or blocked cookies required by this site?
  • NOTE: If accepting the site’s cookies does not resolve the problem, it is likely a server configuration issue and not your computer.

I’m not sure what caused this problem. I thought it was my browser (Firefox), but I got the same problem on other browsers.

Continue reading “WordPress Troubleshooting: WordPress Admin Area (Dashboard) Redirect Loop”
Categories
General

WordPress 2.6 Upgrades


Today, WordPress 2.6 is available with code name “Tyner”. You can read what features shipped in this version at WordPress Development blog. I have been following WordPress 2.6 since the beta release from Sub Version, and it looks good. So, I upgraded my WordPress install right away. The upgrade process — from WP 2.5.1 — was smooth, without any issues. If you not using the latest version, it’s time to upgrade.
Probably, there are few things to consider before upgrading like plugin and compability. I was there too. If you have plugins that are not supported in the latest version, and you need them so bad, you probably need to wait until the patches are available. Luckily, I have all installed plugins work great here. If you’re still not sure, please do a complete upgrade mechanism: Backup everything. Not only the database, but also the entire WordPress files. It should not be difficult.
After upgrading, I made some adjustments on the settings. For example, the Remote Publishing Settings, and let’s not forget about some other features. If you haven’t touch your wp-config.php files, there are some other settings managed from the configuration file like Post Revisions and some security definition settings. Anyway, WordPress 2.6 has full support of SSL in the core and it has the ability to force SSL for security. Read Ryan Boren‘s post about SSL and Cookies in WordPress 2.6.
So far, my favorites are the Gears for faster browsing experience and Press This. The “Press This” is really smart!

For example, if you click “Press This” from a Youtube page it’ll magically extract the video embed code, and if you do it from a Flickr page it’ll make it easy for you to put the image in your post.

If you like posting short entries in your blog while browsing, make your life easier by this feature. Just drag the link — you can find it on the entry creation page — to your browser toolbar. Want to try it? Download WordPress 2.6 now.

Categories
General

Stop spammers and unwanted traffic

If you have your blog installed in your own webhosting account, there is another nice strategy to combat spammers and also unwanted traffic by Donncha O Caoimh (he is a WordPress developer). It’s because sometime antispam plugins like Akismet or TypePad AntiSpam are not enough. They can blocked comments, but do they also block unwanted traffic? I mean, they can filter comment spams, but that’s after the spammers’s comment being processed by the system (blog engine).
I think the approach offered by Donncha is very useful. Right now, I use another method to fight the spammers (and also unwanted traffic). For my WordPress, I have TypePad AntiSpam and Yawasp (Yet Another WordPress Anti Spam Plugin). I decided to remove WP-SpamFree for now. It’s a great plugin, anyway. But, sometime it caught real readers from sending comment, just because their browser settings are not cookie-enabled.
About dealing with unwanted traffic (it’s not directly related to spams), I use hotlink prevention using .htaccess. Another method is by having list of IP addresses in my .htaccess. I got the IP address from antispam plugins. If I got spammers, I just put their IP address into my ban list. I have some of them.
By this, I have less visitors (if I checked from my webhosting analysis tool). Probably, it’s because it checks all visitors (spammers and human). But, I’m fine with that. I think I will try the strategies mentioned by Donncha now.

Categories
General

FEBE

FEBE backs up your extensions, themes, and (optionally) your bookmarks, preferences, cookies. and much more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up — It will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files. Now you can easily synchronize your office and home browsers. A great tool; if you need to roll back.