Andrei DANEASA » Web

Old geek… more than 5 years of blogging

andreiash — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:11:30 +0000

I was doing some insane browsing during my vacation and realized that my oldest blog post is 5 years old!
… and my domain, webxpert.ro is 8 years old. It had quite a few versions and in the end I decided that nothing worth to be on the first page.
… and I don’t even call myself “blogger” or anything else.

I am proud not to put all kind of garbage on my blog, proud of most my posts and proud that I kept my interest in this so many years. And yes, I want this coffee mug:

Drop-off in Google storage pricing

Passed Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ)

Few words on Google Chart API

Wuxing – un exemplu de profesionalism

Internet archive – website as it was sometime ago

Drop-off in Google storage pricing

andreiash — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:19:45 +0000

I am a huge fan of Picasa, moved from Flickr due to their stupid limit of 200 photos in free accounts. After one and a half year of using Picasa Web, my web space reached its limit and I had to buy 10 GB of space for $20 per year (this was the cheapest option).

There was a post on Google blog saying they are now offering twice the space for quarter the price. I went immediately to my account and saw that I now have 80 GB of quota !!

… and the first option is to buy 20 GB for $5 ! Long live Google !

One funny thing here: check the “round” prices for bigger plans: $512, $1024, $2048….

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Passed Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ)

andreiash — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:02:48 +0000

I’m a constant user of Google Analytics. It’s a great piece of software with lots of useful reports, easy to read and to understand. However, I was never curious how far I can go with it.

Last week I had a discussion with someone in Oracle about Real-Time Decision (RTD) Server and Real User Experience Insight (RUEI), so I decided to find out first all the capabilities of Google Analytics.
After half of day of reading the course materials on Google Conversion University, I decided that a challenge might worth 50$, so I took the exam.

More than an hour later I passed the 70 questions exam, much difficult than I expected, with a score of 87%:

Now having the proof I understood correctly what’s happening with Google Analytics, I can jump into conclusions:

GA it’s a great piece of software for analyzing trends, keywords and content.
GA it’s staying on another server than your web server and the communication is uni-directional. This means GA will get information about your site, but you cannot implement real-time decisions based on GA
GA it’s free, same Urchin, so if you own a blog or have a small budget, these will be your choices
Both RTD Server and RUEI are licensed products with a price per processor over 80K USD, which makes them a choice just for big enterprises
RTD Server will be able to serve real-time content based on your behavior, just like Amazon is doing
GA is not able to track 404-pages, loading times, code execution times

To summarize: if you’re big, go with RTD and/or RUEI. If you’re not so big, stay with GA, Urchin or other free stuff like them.

Achieved OCP DBA certification

First post on 2011

Upgrade Oracle APEX 3.2.1 to 4.0.1 on Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (XE)

Old geek… more than 5 years of blogging

Few words on Google Chart API

andreiash — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:27:32 +0000

There’s no way to develop a web app and don’t need a chart/pie, even this is for the backend. Google offers this Chart API and it’s fabulous. No need to install anything, just call a web page with your set of parameters. Now they offer maps and I can, for example, to keep track of the countries I visited.

Example:

Europe countries I visited so far

People say that one picture worth more than a thousand words. This is true: just change, or offer charts as alternative to your long and boring tables and you’ll see the result.

What have I done here:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?

chs=440×220 *dimensions – this is the maximum size for maps
chd=t:100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100, 100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100 *color levels, one per child (chld)
cht=t *some default parameter for maps
chtm=europe *if you want to show just a region
chco=FFFFFF,FF0000,FFFF00,00FF00 *default color and color limits
chf=bg,s,EAF7FE *if you want to add a background color for water
chld=ROBGTRGRITHUESPTFRNLBECHDEATGBPLSLSKNOCZLVLTRUBAMKSIHRGRCYCS *list of children (countries here)

!Note: It seems that google does not map Serbia correctly. The last country listed there is Serbia (RS) and it is not shown on the map. Strangely, changing this to CS is working. Currently waiting for a response from google (from a human, not the search engine )

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Wuxing – un exemplu de profesionalism

andreiash — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:53:48 +0000

Cine a avut cont la wuxing.ro (da, la ei comandai decat daca aveai cont) nu-l mai are. El trebuie recreat pentru ca au avut “probleme tehnice majore”

Acum n-o sa zic nimic de problema tehnica “majora”, se poate intampla oricui, insa nu ma pot abtine de la cateva intrebari:
- in tot acest timp nu s-a facut nici un backup al bazei de date?
- baza asta de date unde o fi stat? pe un server sau pe undeva pe sub vreun birou…. sau aragaz
- oare o fi fost facuta de chinezi ?

Restul de intrebari sunt retorice, venite mai ales de pe urma workshopurilor Oracle:
- nu exista strategie de backup zilnic incremental si saptamanal full?
- dar strategie de disaster recovery? sau high availability?

Inca o data se confirma ceea ce stiam deja: in .ro toata lumea face site-uri, insa putin respecta niste standarde minimale. Site-urile nu stau in data centere, ci pe PC-uri, impreuna cu baza de date, costa cateva sute de euro si valoreaza mai putin de atat. Daca propui o suma normala pentru o aplicatie web se uita cu totii mirati pentru ca au deja 2-3 pusti-minune care au cerut jumatate sau chiar mai putin. Neah… nu se merita sa faci web pentru .ro, las onoarea celor care au facut si wuxing.

Enjoy!

Internet archive – website as it was sometime ago

andreiash — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:48:02 +0000

Did you ever want to check a website as it was 1 year ago for example? I do want, because lots of websites that I initially developed were redesigned during the years and it was nice to find my work in the archive.
How it’s working? It’s a search engine that takes a snapshot of every website on a regular basis, normally every month.
Where? At: http://web.archive.org

Lots of people are asking me about MPMCostumes.com. They decided to remake the website with their initial partners, even that with my platform they sold more than 20K USD in a few months. Unfortunately on http://web.archive.org the images and flash animations do not appear, but you still can check it as it was 2 years ago.