SUSE – another user-friendly desktop Linux distributions

SUSE is another user-friendly linux distributions which is also widely used in developer communities.

• SUSE Linux is an opearating system, built on top of the open source linux kernel.
• SUSE Linux is of German origin, basically an acronym of “Software und System-Entwicklung” (software and systems development)
• Started in 1994, making SUSE one of the oldest existing commercial distributions.
• It has consecutive acquiring history, Firstly bought by Novell in 2003, then in 2011, Novell and SUSE acquired by The Attachmate Group. Later, in October 2014, the entire Attachmate Group, including SUSE, was acquired by the British firm Micro Focus International.
• Current SUSE Linux Enterprise release is 12.1 and openSUSE distributions version is 42.1
• One of its useful feature is: YaST – the best tool any OS ever had.

openSUSE distribution is more popular among developers, check here : why you should use openSUSE

Use and love linux, stay safe at your work!

SEO meta techniques for a wordpress blog

single.php for single post
category.php for any type category/term
index.php for blog home/default template for other types

<?php
if(is_category()){
    $cat = get_query_var('cat');
    $cmeta_desc = '';
    $cposts = get_posts(array('numberposts' => -1, 'post_type' => 'post', 'category' => $cat));
    if($cposts){
        foreach ($cposts as $ck => $cp) {
            $cmeta_desc .= $cp->post_title.",";
        }
    }
    $cmeta_desc = rtrim($cmeta_desc, ",");
    ?>
    <meta name="description" content="<?php echo $cmeta_desc;?>">
    <meta name="keywords" content="<?php single_cat_title();?>">
<?php
} else if(is_single()) {
    $tags = '';
    $tag_list = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
    foreach ($tag_list as $tk => $tag) {
        $tags .= $tag->name.",";
    }
    $tags = rtrim($tags, ",");
?>
    <meta name="description" content="<?php echo $post->post_title;?>">
    <meta name="keywords" content="<?php echo $tags;?>">    
<?php
} else {
?>
    <meta name="description" content="PHP developer, tech savvy, tech blogger, freelancer">
    <meta name="keywords" content="php, mysql, wordpress, codeigniter, web developer, freelancer, web consultant">  
<?php
}
?>

Set favicon in cross browser and more…

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/ico"  href="images/favicon.ico">

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon" *gt;

<!--[if IE]>
<link href="images/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" rel="shortcut icon" />
<![endif]-->

WordPress custom URL rewrites and tips

            add_filter('rewrite_rules_array','wp_insertMyRewriteRules');
            add_filter('query_vars','wp_insertMyRewriteQueryVars');

            // Adding a new rule
            function wp_insertMyRewriteRules($rules)
            {
                $newrules = array();
                $newrules['news/(.*)/?'] = 'index.php?pagename=news&reporter=$matches[1]';
                return $newrules + $rules;
            }

            // Adding the 'reporter' var so that WP recognizes it
            function wp_insertMyRewriteQueryVars($vars)
            {
                array_push($vars, 'reporter');
                return $vars;
            }

1. Avoid using query vars like id - use something more unique (like 'reporter') to avoid clashes with WordPress.
2. Don't flush rules on every init! It's bad practice, and will write to .htaccess and call database updates on every page load!
3. WordPress will always flush permalinks whenever you update a post or your permalink structure (simply update your permalinks when you make changes to your code).

Running videos with Flexsilder and issues to be pointed with iframe

    $('videiID')[0].src += "&autoplay=1";

Javascript function parameter issue : Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token = in Google Chrome

In Javascript, we often use functions for common tasks. Recently I have fallen in a problem where i have written a function to get ajax call which is common for some actions. That function has a parameter to get the URL which needed for ajax call. It was ok in Firefox, but in chrome, all other JS work stopped, due to the parameter error, that is ‘parameter default value’. Solution is, you can’t assign a default value to the function parameter. More explanation here: Function default parameter.

So we need to use below way for browser compatibility:

function get_ajax_fields(parameter){
        flds_request = jQuery.ajax({
            url: baseURL+"dataimport/"+parameter,
            dataType: "json"
        });
        return flds_request;
}

We can't use like this: parameter=''

Hope the issue can save your time! Enjoy!!

Agile Methodology, an analysis to its title

Agile Methodology:

• an approach to project management
• it works at iterative, incremental way
• its also known as ‘inspect-and-adapt’ approach with ‘analysis-paralysis’ way.

Agile Software Development is a group of software development method including most used popular SCRUM with the tool ScrumWorks Pro.

The main concept behind it:

Agile methods break tasks into small increments with minimal planning and do not directly involve long-term planning. Iterations are short time frames (timeboxes) that typically last from one to four weeks. Each iteration involves a cross functional team working in all functions: planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, and acceptance testing. At the end of the iteration a working product is demonstrated to stakeholders. This minimizes overall risk and allows the project to adapt to changes quickly. An iteration might not add enough functionality to warrant a market release, but the goal is to have an available release (with minimal bugs) at the end of each iteration. Multiple iterations might be required to release a product or new features.

Team size is typically small (5-9 people) to simplify team communication and team collaboration.No matter what development disciplines are required, each agile team will contain a customer representative. This person is appointed by stakeholders to act on their behalf

And the meeting for these teams, sometimes referred as daily stand-ups or daily scrum meetings, are held in at the same place and same time every day and should last no more than 15 minutes. Standing up usually enforces that rule.”

There is a common debate between old Waterfall and Agile method. Now the question is why agile and why not waterfall?

Waterfall method tell us for a sequential workflow. like making requirements, design, coding, testing and so on, that is one by one.
But the problem here is : at the end of a project, a team might have built the software it was asked to build, but, in the time it took to create, business realities have changed so dramatically that the product is irrelevant. In that scenario, a company has spent time and money to create software that no one wants. Couldn’t it have been possible to ensure the end product would still be relevant before it was actually finished?

Yes, it can be done by agile way, an iterative, incremental system where a group of teams finish their assigned work by their team meeting, collaborating with client within a short time frame and finally done with a successful software which make sense.

Well-known agile software development methods include:

• Agile Modeling
• Agile Unified Process (AUP)
• Crystal Clear
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Kanban (development)
• Scrum

Today, up to this, happy agiling, be right back with SCRUM soon

Usefull function for custom post type in wordpress and more

I’m gonna share someuseful function here which is really handy for custom post type. Some guys really don’t know about those functions, as i got those useful after digging some solutions for real life problem.

1. is_post_type_archive(‘POST-TYPE-NAME’), this is needed when you are checking something for post type archive/listing page like in common header/footer. we frequently use for add some js/css or some class in common places.

2. get_query_var(‘var_name’), we frequently use this to get category name, its retrieve corresponding value of given variable name. I have got this most useful when i need the slug/post_name of a post of any post type. For the last couple of month, i used below code to get last/second segment of URL of a post :

$subpath = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$tokens = explode('/', $subpath);
$scn_seg = $tokens[sizeof($tokens)-3];

But that was the extra effort to get URL segment for a post, we can do it by get_query_var(), we need to pass post type name as a parameter to this function like for ‘news’ post type we will use get_query_var(‘news’).

$news_post_slug = get_query_var('news');

So for the URL : http://example.com/news/lorem-ipsum-dolor/, we can get the post slug(post_name used in DB) by get_query_var(‘news’).

3. wp_deregister_script() sometimes we use plugins for some extra facilities like custom post type/twitter feed, plugins use wp_head() to inject its necessary js/css or others function to hook, same as for wp_footer(). wp_deregister_script() is needed when we use our own js like jquery library. So there will be 2 jquery file when using own with wp’s native 1. and sometimes for new bee, its hard to find out why js error occurred and js functions are not working …. wp_head() renders some others links also. to avoid this type of situation, we need to remove that, we can use just wp_deregister_script('jquery'); in theme’s functions.php file.

This is useful to give a condition for admin section like below, otherwise admin panel’s may create problem:

if( !is_admin()){
   wp_deregister_script('jquery');
}

Its also better to add your own library just after de-register wp’s native jquery like below :

if( !is_admin()){
	wp_deregister_script('jquery');
	wp_register_script('jquery', ("http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"), false, '1.3.2');
	wp_enqueue_script('jquery');
}

Finally its handy to remove the jQuery from your wordPress font-end/theme files, add wp_deregister_script(‘jquery’) just before wp_head() on your theme’s header.php file like below.

wp_deregister_script('jquery');
wp_head();

Will add some other WP function soon which we need frequently in development.

On page SEO tips – must follow list!

You own a online shop or have a business, you want more customer, more interaction, so SEO takes part here to be more reachable you to your audience. Now a days, without SEO, we can’t think a website. I have listed here some vital points about SEO, which you can digg more and try to apply.

Here goes the basic tips of SEO:

• king content, be sure to have unique, well written, useful content with the relevant keywords
• build quality back-links with your keywords/phrases
• need fresh, new, updated content always
• be sure to link texts with the relavant name like ‘html tags’ with the text ‘html tags’, not just ‘click here’
• keyword/text with location name like our main branch can be ‘our main branch in Dhaka’
• Always use appropriate keyword/phrase in text/links/image ‘alt’ tag
• ‘Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images’, so whenever you design website think about SEO issues also.
• Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors
• Use RSS feed with proper title and description.
• Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
• Check server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.

More list is coming soon………

Show user login form in sidebar/template in wordpress

Recently, i was looking for a solution to show a simple user login form in site sidebar, googled but it referred for using plugin like sidebar-login. Suddenly i got wordpress have already its native function to use for login form.

wp_login_form() allows to add the form in any place you wish. some parameters exist there to control the form attributes. i can just put your attention to the following :

• ‘redirect‘ — where to redirect after login
• ‘remember‘ — whether to remember the values.

Let us see an example:

if (is_user_logged_in()) {
   echo 'Hello, ', $user_login, '. <a href="', wp_logout_url(), '" title="Logout">Logout</a>';
} else {
   wp_login_form();
}

here, we just checked for logged in user to show different message.
If you want you can customize the look of the form by defining extra css putting it within a div as following screen.

So instead of using a plugin with extra feature,using native function is as easy as better!