For a smooth transition two things are vital:

1. You *need* an second domain. One that points to the same data, but won’t hurt you if it’s down for a few days.
2. You *need* a web provider that allows you to configure things as soon as you initiated the transfer.

With the help of the second domain you can test the transfer without haste, because customers won’t notice. Set up the new server and take your time to test everything. Keep in mind that scripts may behave differently, because of:

• Different software versions (of Perl, PHP, MySql, etc.)
• Different settings for sending automated mails
• Different handling for protected directories
• Different handling of write-access for temporary local files for scripts

Don’t forget to test subdomains and invisible features (like automated updates for your customers). If everything’s working, make some preparations against problems

• Set up a hint on your contact page that there may be temporary problems
• Check the e-mail on your website. If possible change it to an address on some other server (or to the second to domain) to make sure it’s always accessible.
• Create a hidden page that only exists on the new server. This allows you to check if the transfer was done.

If you’re ready start the transfer. Immediately start configuring your new hosting account and set up the domain’s root folder and create the required e-mail addresses.
Okay, time to relax, wait and check the site every now and then. However, then transfer times for domains can very a lot, for example:

• Some TLDs transfer much faster than others (e.g. .de is faster than .com)
• If you start transferring multiple domains at the same time, they may arrive quite differently (many hours in fact)
• Different nameservers update at different times. Maybe the domain isn’t transferred for you - but for your customers it already is.

I hope this helps you a bit to get a smooth transition to your new server.

1. You can add / modify / remove a tray icon with Shell_NotifyIcon. You can specify a callback message (for example WM_USER) to react to left/right clicks on the icon. To hide your program when minimized simply use ShowWindow.
2. To minimize to the tray when your user click the minimize button, handle the WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN message and watch for the HitTest HTMINBUTTON (or HTCLOSE if you want to override the X-button).
3. If you want to prevent Windows from hiding the icon, make a tiny chnge to the icon every now and then. (Do this only if you have good reason!)
4. You can use DrawAnimatedRects for a minmize animation. Use FindWindow(”Shell_TrayWnd”, …) to find the location (= target reactangle for the animation)
5. If the windows explorer crashes, the tray icons are gone and your user can’t get your application back. To detect this, use Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_MODIFY, … every now and then and check the return value. If the function fails, then your icon is gone and you have to add in again.
6. Don’t forget to remove the tray icon if your program closes while being minimized.

A deeper look however showed that the website placed the usual affiliate cookie not just on the pages displaying my software, but on all. Each and every page that I visited (it’s a big site), had the cookie-setting-code. And not just for me, but for a number of other software vendors, too. The cookies expire in half a year.

In other words: Every person that visits any page of that website, would bring the website owner a provision if the visitor should decide to buy any software from any of the listed vendors within the next 6 month.

Previously I had thought, because of the sales, that this was my best affiliate. Now however, I have my doubts how many sales he *really* generated and for how many he just got the money.

Is this okay?

I don’t think so. Is this a violation of the terms or even illegal behavior? Well, so far Share-it (who handles the affiliate system) says that this okay and that I’m free to terminate my cooperation with the affiliate.

I’m no expert (even though I’m probably involuntarily on the road to become one, sigh) on this topics but on this seems similar to Cookie-Stuffing, so I won’t give up so easily on this and post updates on this.

But untill then, if you have an affiliate program, you should check your affiliates’ websites, especially those that you think are your best ones.

I had gotten used to it and didn’t see the problem any more.

And I think that this is a common problem when you’re developing a program. In the end you know it so well, that you’re not noticing any more when anything isn’t solved properly. This applies mostly to the user interface, but it can also apply to programming and performance. The best way for this is to have somebody elso use the program and just sit next to him. Don’t explain. Just watch. You’ll be surprised…

However, sometimes there’s an easier way.

Currently I’m developing a new software and I noticed that there is a short time span before you get used to a bad solution. I noticed several times that I clicked at the wrong location, that I thought a dialog wasn’t easy to understand or that it would be great if the user could do this or that here (for example drag a file into the dialog instead of entering the path). For my new software (for a change) I try to note these thoughts and improve the program right away, hopefully creating a better first version.

So, if you’re creating a new software, notice your own problems and thoughts. And fix things before you get used to it.

A signed installer name “test_demo.exe” will generate a red warning. If you rename it to “test_trial.exe”, you’ll only get a yellow warning. Don’t ask me why, I got no idea (please contact me if YOU have). But I don’t call my demo “demo” any more…

If you’re lazy (just like me, I admit it), automate that with a tiny piece of PHP:

Copyright &copy; 2003-<?php print date("Y")?>

To make sure you’re always “alive and kicking”…

The nofollow attribute was introduced by Google to cope with the problem of spam links, for example comment spam in blogs. Links in comments should be marked as nofollow, thus won’t count for Google’s rating and thus would be worthless for the spammer.  That was the idea.

But it might backfire for Google. Nowadays you can find the nofollow attribute not only in blog comments, but also social networks, forum postings and in Wikipedia articles. (It’s ironic: With Web 2.0 finally everybody could have his say - Too bad that it doesn’t count any more.) And with the spammers focusing on the sites that don’t use nofollow yet, these sites are likely to use it, too, soon.

So what’s the consequence?

By effectively abolishing the opinions of the small users only the website owners and journalists remain. Most website owners have their very own ideas about links: Their own products & services. And considering the journalists an interesting trend has evolved: Whenever they want to spice up their text with a few links for credibility, they link to Wikipedia. That’s easy and safe because they don’t have to check their sources for spam, fraud, etc.

The result?

Less diversity and less competition probably. The big fishes in the pond are bound to be the winners under these conditions. And Google is going to loose, too, because they’re missing the small, upcoming sites and trends. And just linking to Wikipedia instead.

Here’s a trick that is easier. It requires that:

• The different blogs should be on different domains or subdomains
• The blogs should take up the entire (sub)domain (so they shouldn’t start in a subfolder)

Then it’s quite easy. Simply configure all the blog’s domains to point to the same Wordpress installation folder. You can probably do this in the configuration panel of your webspace provider.

Now edit the wp-config.php:

Before:

$table_prefix  = 'yourblog_';

After:

$domain  = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
if (stristr($domain, 'yourblogname1'))
   $table_prefix  = 'yourblog1_';
else if (stristr($domain, 'yourblogname2'))
   $table_prefix  = 'yourblog2_';
else
   $table_prefix  = 'yourblog_';

As a nice side effect you’re only needing one database instance for this (they’re often limited in rented webspace) and just have more tables in the same database. All blogs use the same installed files, but have different content and can have different layouts and activated plugins.

Happy Blogging!