Announcing the Zferral WordPress plugin with Chargify

Posted by & filed under blog, plugins, wordpress, zippykid.

I’d like to announce the beta availability of our Zferral + Chargify WordPress plugin. Let’s describe why the plugin was necessary.

We had a client, who wanted to credit any of their affiliates for a sale once a customer had purchased something from the hosted payment page at Chargify. Normally, this can handled pretty easily with Chargify as they’ve already integrated things, but this client had more questions to ask the customer, once they paid with their credit card. Here’s where the plugin comes in.

Once Chargify sends the customer from the payment page to the “thank you page” back on our clients site, we needed to make sure:

  • If the customer id in the request string was indeed a valid chargify subscription id
  • who the affiliate is, so we can throw up the right image for zferral to track
  • depending on which page they landed on, the zferral tracking pixel needed to show the right campaign id
  • make sure we only show the image when someone comes from a chargify.com hosted page.

We’ve verified this plugin works, but I’m sure there are bugs, or it’s missing some other nice to have functionality. You can download the Zferral Chargify plugin and test it. Feel free to discuss bugs, and feature requests in the comments below, once it matures, we’ll submit it to the WordPress plugin repository so people can download and install directly from there.

the Zferral Chargify Integrator

Click activate once you've uploaded the plugin

Options to configure for the plugin

Accessing the remote ip of the user via Rackspace Load Balancers

Posted by & filed under blog, php, rackspace, wordpress.

Rackspace recently launched their load balancer service to the public, it’s an awesome service/appliance. It’s easy to setup, and works out of the box for most things. One thing we noticed that changed was that the REMOTE_ADDR of the visitor was no longer visible, most comments were being posted from the ip address of the load balancer, instead of the visitor. This also causes issues when you have IPS/IDS systems in place, that deny access based on X number of brute force attempts.

So, I did some research and found that Rackspace uses X-CLUSTER-IP in the HTTP header to send the ip address of the visitor.

We use the excellent mod_rpaf module with our apache installs, so we just had to change the setting from

RPAFheader X-Forwarded-For

to

RPAFheader X-CLUSTER-CLIENT-IP

This allows PHP to see the right ip of the visitor for REMOTE_ADDR, so you don’t need to change your PHP code/plugins etc to work.

Security Update – WordPress 3.1.2

Posted by & filed under blog, security, wordpress, zippykid.

The WordPress foundation has released a security update for WordPress, we’ll be performing upgrades for our customers between 2AM CST and 5AM CST on April 27th 2011. We’re not expecting any downtime for any of our customers, this is just a heads up. If we forgot your site in the mass update, please e-mail help@zippykid.com and we’ll get to it immediately.

You can read more about the update here.

What I learnt at PHP Community Conference (#phpcomcon)

Posted by & filed under blog, business, personal, php, zippykid.

Last week, I attended the PHP Community Conference , it was a chance to connect, and re-connect with a lot of people I interact with on a daily basis on IRC, Twitter, and mailing lists.

The conference was organized by Lisa Denlinger, Ben Ramsey, and Nicholas Sloan, with a supporting cast that included the Cake PHP guys, Tropo, and Red Ventures.

The technical stuff I learnt, can be found on slides, and blog posts, so I’m going to focus on the non tangible things.

1. Lorna Jane is an awesome speaker, if you ever get a chance to attend her a presentation by her, do it. Not only will you learn a lot about whatever subject she’s decided to speak to you about, you’ll also learn how to speak. Her ability to break the problem down, and explain things step by step, are commendable. If you ever want to give a talk, especially to a technical audience, listen to her.

2. Any company thinking of competing with what the folks have going on at Orchestra.io , better step up. If this was a battle, raising money, and getting mentioned on Techcrunch just means you’ve bought the same equipment they’ve been using for years, now you need to learn how to use it.. you’re much further behind than you think you are. Helgi s talk on Frontend Caching was excellent, but once again, his ability to explain the reasons behind his decisions and recommendations, makes him and his team a very dangerous combination. You’re combining raw, superior technical talent, with excellent execution and business acumen.

3. I learnt how easy it is to profile your applications during Paul Reinheimmers talk, but more so, his story about WonderProxy, and his comments about wanting to make the web better, hit home the most. His passion for WonderProxy was evident, but the fact that he’s so proud of the 50 customers he’s helping, is telling. The key here, is that he’s happy to be able to provide a service that helps his niche customers, not that he’s been able to turn a profitable business. Profits come and go, the ability to positively impact the life of someone, is rare.

There were many other things I learnt about the community, the people, and also Nashville, but these were personal highlights, things that are unique to every attendee, and can’t be gleaned from watching slides on the net.

Speaking of, if you’re interested in watching the slides, you’ll find them on Join.in

Marketing your dong off.

Posted by & filed under blog, business, rants, zippykid.

Samsung today “promised” a 2Ghz dual core phone. I went on twitter and asked “Why?”. I can’t make my case in 140 characters, so let me try here.

I’m glad that Samsung will still be around in a year, I’m glad that there will be alternatives to the iOS, Windows, Android, Motorola monopoly/conspiracy. But that’s not what I’m trying to convey. I think advertising specs like “Dual Core” to the masses is just plain stupid. It’s marketing departments comparing each other tools.. when the customers only care about the ability to get the job done.

As my friend Nan said,

Samsung – I’m bigger. Apple – I’m better. It’s all sex.

Just like the business we’re in, the phone business also needs to stop making these measurements, build a phone that doesn’t lock up, doesn’t require a battery reset, and doesn’t require you to be near an electrical outlet every 8 hours. We love the functionality you’ve provided us, now let’s build on that “staying power”.

I think a lot of marketing departments are taking the “developers, developers, developers” mantra a little too literally. The more “geek” credibility they have, the better they must be right? Wrong. “But, Google focused on the tech crowd and the early adopters”.. no, they focused on solving the problem of crappy search results first.

Barebones Android and iOS are indistinguishable to the average user, the hardware is not, the experience is not. No one is buying phones based on PC specs, iOS has proven that you can do a lot with very little RAM, no one picks an iPhone or an Android device because one has a faster processor, or more RAM, it’s all about what friends recommend, and the right price. And, please don’t forget family plan lock downs, and ETFs..

I’ve never heard of a restaurant advertising new cooking ranges, or dish washers, or china, why do us in the tech community advertise such dumb specs?

So, once again, why are you telling me you have a 2Ghz Dual core processor? I don’t give a crap. I’m a heterosexual male, I don’t care about the size of your processor.

Stop building mousetraps. A plea to my fellow creators.

Posted by & filed under #leanstartup, blog, business, personal, rants, zippykid.

Emerson is often misquoted with the saying “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”. He never said something that dumb.

What he said was:

“If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”

Why one wouldn’t just invent a way to rid the world of mice is beyond me.

As David Cancel of Performable said at the Lean Startup event during SXSW, “the real competition is indifference, not other startups”.

Instead of arguing over HTML 5, Flash, Web Apps, Native Apps, let’s focus on creating better experiences for our customers and users. Build something you would use daily, optimize for value to the user, not your bottom line.

The more time you spend arguing about the benefits of one versus the other, the more time you spend being a politician. Just because you’re doing it on a forum, doesn’t mean you’re not.

A good chair is easy to define, it’s one that doesn’t look uncomfortable, and then when you sit on it for a few hours, you don’t feel like you were in a real life episode of Oz.

Give a hungry man a Kobe steak or a steak, he’s not going to care. Same for our users, solve their problem, and they’ll remember you as the best steak they ever had.

Stop building better mousetraps, start identifying the mice, and get rid of them.

Helping people get shit done is the new killer app. HTML 5, Flash, h.264, g.hn, iOS, Android, WP 7 are not.

Your users don’t care about your personal preference or dislike for X, they want to perform a task, and be on their way.

It won’t be easy, but you owe it to yourself to try.

PS: Did you know that the most effective mouse trap to date, is still the one invented in 1899? There have been 4,400 patents on mouse traps, only 20 have made money.

Ideas of March

Posted by & filed under blog, personal, php, wordpress, zippykid.

The PHP community blogosphere is coming alive again, thanks to a post by Chris. I thought I’d put in my two cents as well.

Why I Like Blogs

  • I can read them at my slow pace.
  • They usually contain more information about a topic I’m interested in.
  • Blogs create credibility, they show up in google search results based on the number of people linking back, which usually is a decent indicator of how many people found the “solution” useful.
  • Sometimes, you need more than 140 characters, to make your point. Blogs like DaringFireball, Counternotions, Asymco, Knowing and Doing, and Methodologist usually have thoughtful essays, rather than news, or how-tos.. there is no other substitute for sharing them.

The last item is also a reason against blogs sometimes. I’ve run into blog posts from a few years ago that were talking about a specific version of software, and the solution is no longer right.. so when you’re reading a blog post, check the date. If it’s more than 6 months old, you may need to find a newer post.

By the end of this week, ZippyKid will be out of bootstrap mode, and a properly funded company, I’m going to grow the company, and in the process grow myself, expect a lot more blog posts from me for the rest of the year. They won’t all be on WordPress, expect my normal rants, my thoughts on Apple, the new stuff I’m learning about business, strategy, and execution.

Like Chris, I also have a curated list of people I like to read, I’ll be getting this list ready and in shareable form soon. In the mean time, I highly suggest you read Romy Misra’s blog. I’m honored to call her a friend and a colleague, her ability to understand the human condition is only visible through her blog posts, or long conversations with her, since none of you are as lucky as I am, just read her blog. She posts every day, and hits a home run every day.

Long term goals of ZippyKid

Posted by & filed under #leanstartup, blog, business, hosting, php, web, wordpress, zippykid.

I’ve been fairly busy and quiet for the past few months, I wanted to stop that trend and give people some background on what’s going on. I’m having the time of my life, as some of you know, I’ve been closing down my consulting business, and ramping up ZippyKid. Lately, I’ve been approached by some people with money, who want to give me some money.. let’s call them Angels, or VCs, or for the sake of keeping thing simple.. investors.

The one question I get from all of them is where I see the company in five years, what my plans are with ZippyKid, why should they invest in me or this crazy idea of a WordPress Hosting company, and what about other established players in the field. I’ll try to answer all of these questions here, keep things open for discussion, and hopefully not sound like an idiot to everybody

Focus on your content, not your content management system

ZippyKid is a Managed WordPress Hosting company. The idea of it is not new, or novel, anyone who’s ever worked with WordPress for more than one client, has thought of it. Sure, you can get one click installs and updates from many companies. GoDaddy, MediaTemple, Dreamhost, 1and1.. you can install it yourself if you don’t like those one click installers. If you’re happy with those options, I’m not building a service for you.

If you need a website, and you don’t care what version of WordPress it is, and what you need to do to keep it secure, stable, and fast. You just want your customers to be able to access your website quickly, you want potential customers to find your site easily, and you want to be able to update your content when you want to. Then, we should talk.

What will my $XX investment go towards?

Not, learning the ins and outs of hosting WordPress websites. I’m keenly aware of the “competition” I have in terms of awareness, and I can see them making mistakes that a seasoned sys admin of a hosting company would not. I was hired by a hosting company in 2002, they were signing up 20 people a day, and losing 14. By the time I was done with them they were only losing 2-3 a day, and signing up 35.

If I accept any outside investment, it’s going to be used for awareness, sponsoring, and training. Basically, growing, and attracting more customers. I’m currently averaging 4 new customers/week. This is with little to no marketing, it’s all word of mouth. Imagine what we could do with someone who knows how to market.

Oh, and I’m already profitable…

Aren’t there other companies doing what you’re doing?

That’s always the question an unsavvy investor asks, “aren’t they more established and bigger than you?”.
Yes, they are, or they seem to be. WPEngine and Pagely are the companies most people think will eat my lunch, or are eating my lunch. I don’t think so, I bet they don’t think so either, and frankly, I don’t plan on eating their lunch anytime soon either. I will gladly recommend them to you if you, I have many times on the WordPress mailing lists, and the forums. I don’t see us competing with each other, but rather with GoDaddy, MT, and other “shared hosting” providers, that provide hosting for anything under the sun.

Think of it like the automobile industry, there are Ferraris, and there are Hondas, Ferrari is not competing for the business of someone who’s looking to buy a Honda. The market will decide which one ZippyKid is, though I know in my mind what ZippyKid is in this analogy.

Having competition is not a good reason not to compete .

The market for WordPress websites is finite, the market for Websites is not.

Thanks for the inspiration @gapingvoid

I position the company as a WordPress hosting company, but frankly, that’s because of the tool we’re using to build your website. We’re a website hosting company first, that just happen to do it using WordPress.

The Paradigms in the hosting industry are old fashioned.

In 2011, a hosting plan that limits the amount of disk space, data transfer, or emails you have is ridiculous. The idea
of those limits came about when hard drives and bandwidth were expensive and thus scarce. In 2011, that’s not necessary, you can have a 100GB website on our cheapest plan, I don’t care.

Someone once told me that phone companies aren’t really good at connecting phone calls, but they’re really good at billing you. Ask any AT&T customer, no one will ever tell you that they got their bill late, or that somehow AT&T dropped their bill midway through a billing cycle.. you may not be able to make a phone call, but you sure will get bill for trying. I’m not building another phone company, we’re not in the business of nickel and diming you on overages, I frankly don’t have the stomach or math skills to write programs that calculate overages.

For the companies that shut down your website when you reach the “bandwidth limits” of your plan, I say go to hell.

If you’re my customer, you’re my boss, and my friend, not my enemy, your success is not detrimental to my operations. I want you to grow, I want your traffic to grow.

White Fluffy Bunnies

Lastly, I want to give back to the community, so 10% of all profits will go towards local animal shelters. For the time being it’ll be the local animal shelter to me, but I’m working on a plan that will let customers nominate an animal shelter local to them. Checks will be made on behalf of Customers of ZippyKid.

If you think I’m crazy, delusional, or just plain stupid, let me know, if you want to help me smoke more of whatever I’m on, let me know as well. I’d love to hear from you.

MySQL 5.5 GA launchd issues with Snow Leopard

Posted by & filed under blog, mysql, php, web, wordpress, zippykid.

I did a clean install on my Macbook Pro this morning, part of the clean install means, re-downloading things like MySQL.

When I installed it, I noticed that the pref-pane wouldn’t start MySQL. Even when it asked for my admin password. I thought maybe it was a boot up issue, so I rebooted, and got an error telling me that the permissions for the start up item were in secure.

Here’s what I did to debug/fix the problem.

  • Change permission of /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM
  • edit /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server and edited line 46 and 47 to say

[clear]
[info]
chown -R root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
[/info]

[divider]

[content_box style="yellow-box" title="Edit mysql.server file"]
basedir=/usr/local/mysql
datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data
[/content_box]

[break]
There is already a bug filed for this..

How to test your WordPress Cache

Posted by & filed under hosting, php, speed, tips-and-tricks, web, wordpress, zippykid.

The images above show you how to analyze the effectiveness of your cache. Our previous post on How to make WordPress Fastertalked about caching static content, using Mod Pagespeed, and Nginx. The question becomes, how do you measure the effectiveness of your cache?

Turns out it’s fairly easy with Safari. If you look at the two images above, it’s fairly self explanatory.

You can access the Activity menu, by clicking on Window in the OS X Menubar, and then choosing Activity.

Remember, minification, compression, cdns are all great, not having to use any of them on subsequent pageloads is even greater. The less work your visitors internet connection has to do, the faster your site will look.

PS: This technique can be used to measure any site, not just WordPress.