Edi Budimilic
my|self branding
AutoPullRepo – a Bitbucket project
Nov 18th
I’m a Bitbucket.org user and please don’t judge me for that. There are a lot of different opinions about Bitbucket vs. GitHub, but mine is the only one that matters to me since I’m extremely satisfied with the features and the use of Bitbucket. Why would I switch to any other source control service? Now that we cleared that out, let’s talk about this post’s subject. :)
The problem:
Actualy two of them. I have a hosting account in Slovenia, they block all foreign IP’s to connect to FTP, so It’s pain in the but to make some changes on the script there. My other problem (while working on WhoAPI); if you have let’s say 20 hosting accounts all over the world and you need to update the same script that’s on all of them, how would you do it? (no control of the server modules, so no automatic deployment)
The research:
I found no scripts that can solve these problems. I’m sure that they exists, but I lost two (if not more) hours trying to find a finished and a working one.
The solution:
I made a script (one file) that you upload to your server, change two lines of code, set the Bitbucket settings to ping the script as soon as you make the change to your files on your repository (30sec. job) and you’re done! What this script does is it download’s your script from the Bitbucket repository and extracts it, so you have the latest version of your script always live.
No FTP, no drag&dropping files or scp-ing to the server directly. Out of the box solution for easy automatic script deployment. And yes, It’s in PHP :/ I would like to write the same thing in Python, and Node.js version would be cool as well.
Check it out here: https://bitbucket.org/edifreak/autopullrepo
Our first iPhone app in development
Feb 13th
Yep, after long wait we’re finally doing it. Here’s the story. We loved what we saw when iPhone was first introduced and the potential after Android showed what can be done with the apps (before the iPhone introduced the AppStore). We’ve been eager to get involved in all the hype these platforms created. So after three long years we bought a Mac Mini and started developing our first app. I must not forget to mention my brother Dino Budimilic who had the time to learn how to use the Mac, Xcode and all what comes with it :) He helped us create the app.
The app we’re making is all about our existing web service on http://crodns.com. It’s a domain availability checker with whois information on demand. We’ve already created the WebApp that works on all smartphones (at least we like to think so) which you can try here: http://m.crodns.com
Here are some screenshots of the icons we made. You may notice which icon we decided to go with on the Loading screen:
In-app screenshots and videos are coming after the release. My estimate is we’ll submit the app to the AppStore before this month ends. I don’t expect any problems with Apple’s approval :)
This version is intentionally made for regional market, that means it’s localized. But we didn’t forget the Global market, no! We’re planning to release the English version right after this one, as a separate project. We haven’t yet decided which domain to use for it, but we’re sure to find out using our first app ;)
Work update
Oct 27th
It’s hard to blog about anything when you don’t have time to manage your initial work. So just to leave an update, I’m still working on a new GEM Studio website along with other customer projects. Our new website will bring lots of fresh and innovative ideas to the local corporate web. We aim to receive at least one recognition prize for design, smart use of new web tech. and innovation. I’ll put more updates with video presentations of our new website qualities once we start with finishing touches.
Let the machine write your article!
Sep 8th
It’s very interesting to see how the words are generated by a software. This whole article was fully composed using Google Scribe. It’s a word suggestion text writer. I would like to see this implemented in WordPress or just to see it as a javascript plugin. It’s not only good for writing the content faster but also for those times when you’re trying to find the right word in your head. And yes, instant spellcheck ;)
I’ve tested their engine by writing “I like it” and accepted all the suggested words after that:
“I like it and I’ma let you finish but Beyonce had one of these days I’ll bet your life..” :)
Go ahead, try it: http://scribe.googlelabs.com
A taste of the future
Sep 2nd
There are many things I look forward to see in the near future. Technology that will hopefully redefine how we interact with information and other people in a good way. I’ve found some videos, concepts of the future. Enjoy!
Future of screen technology:
Microsoft’s Vision of the Future:
The Future of Mobile:
Work on GEMStudio.hr [update]
Jul 21st
We at GEM Studio are working hard to develop the most advanced website that we’ve made so far, and this project is our own company website. So what’s so special about our new site? I’ll tell you :)
- AJAX calls everywhere, the most important part we use it – is main content. Every click to a page you want to open loads the content directly into the content part without reloading and thus saving bandwidth and loading time.
- HTML5 tags like <article><header><footer> and so on. This may be useful to future developments of search engine and other crawlers so they know exactly where’s the expected duplicate content like Menu options and content location.
- CSS3 styles all around, shadows, rounded corners (like in the pic on the right), etc. Internet Explorer gave us some headache but we’re managing it with CSS2.1 and MS Filter effects to come as close as we can to CSS3 result in other browsers.
- Goodbye Internet Explorer 6, no support for you. What this means for us is more coding freedom :) but still fighting with IE7.
- WordPress Blog integrated in main design/within website, no /blog directory.
- Social integration like Facebook Like on all content, FB comments on all articles, standard share options via Twitter and other networks, our tweets always in the sidebar with important news and hosting servers notifications.
- Better integration of Live Support chat with Client control panel.
- Killer Ajaxed domain availability checking, supporting over 350 (cc)TLD’s including Croatian ccTLD (.hr and .com.hr).
And much more! We hope you like what we’re doing and expecting your feedback as soon as we publish the website.
Website Speed Influencing Google Ranking
Jun 5th
All these latest Google Search algorithm changes are making our visitor stats going wild both ways. The most important thing many webmasters forget to check after building a website is it’s loading speed. So many of them loading over 4 sec., even those with basic WordPress installation.
(try W3 Total Cache plugin).
I was dismissing Google algorithm changes at first, until I saw the stats for one of our websites; http://webimenik.biz to be exact. Website visits fell to over year and a half old averages. When I checked loading time it was obvious, WebImenik load time was over 5 sec. and first 3 was taken by CPU getting necessary data to show the front page.
So I’ve sat down and built Caching support which made our website faster by 50% and with few other tweaks like merging css files, minifying and compressing javascript it got to 60% improvement in speed. I could do it much more better but that requires too much time. Your visitors and Google will be thankful just with the basic tweaks (15min job), now get to work! ;)
Great online tool for checking website speed: http://tools.pingdom.com
How to create Ajax website that Google can crawl and index?
Jun 2nd
There are many methods to make Ajax operations crawable by Google and other search engines. Many are still saying it’s not the right time yet to use Ajax for all dynamic content. I disagree! Google already introduced their method to make this work but it’s too complicated and needs a lot of additional programming time to make it work properly.
I on the other hand have a great idea that’s stupid simple, works for Googlebot and browsers with disabled Javascript. Isn’t that great!? :)
Even dough I came up with this idea myself, someone elase in the world had the same idea before me and it’s called Hijax. So what is Hijax in definition?
Hijax is combination of words Ajax and Hijack and that’s it’s core functionality. Hijax uses both Ajax and Javascript when available (to create those magical effects that Desktop apps had for decades). Hijax is using Javascript when available to hijack HTTP request (when website visitor makes a click on a link to another page) and enables Ajax magic to happen. But, when you open the page in a browser that doesn’t have Javascript enabled, the website functions as it should (without fancy effects that Ajax can provide), it opens the page with preloaded content. Hijax method is a great time and bandwidth saviour.
And finally the interesting part.
The example, dead simple:
<a href="page-2.html" onclick="AjaxCall('page-2'); return false;">
* Use this method on all links intended to work with Ajax calls.
That’s it! So simple! We are already using this method on our new company website that’s currently in development.
Yes! Igrice.hr, I have waited long time for this!
May 1st
Yes! It’s finally here, an update to web portal dedicated to freeware, shareware, AAA titles and online game reviews. Sadly, we’ve been busting our guts working on everything but the projects we actually love doing. Time has come to change our priorities and we’ve been doing that successfully this year. We updated some of our websites with new content and better SEO, released totally new advertising system that is simple yet smart in it’s core, then mobile version of sveznar.com (a dream definitions service) and now – igrice.hr, with new design and newly published facebook features like the Like button and Comments. There’s a lot of work to be done on all our project to reach the point of success.
Aldough I write in English, I do hope you like what we do and how we do it. We have plans with new projects for the world market so please stick with us and be a part of our growth.
Now, check igrice.hr and if you’re local, leave a comment or two on our game reviews ;)
Package full of updates
Apr 25th
Yes, I’m calling this post a package full of updates. Last few weeks I’ve taken more time to work on our own (GEM Studio) projects so here are few of those updates if you’re interested ;)
Sveznar.com
(Croatian only service for dream definitions, meaning of karma, lucid dreaming, lucky numbers etc.)
- additional SEO was done
- new content on Karma
- mobile version for dream definitions (iPhone, Android and others supported), just jump to the site with your mobile phone and you’ll be redirected to http://m.sveznar.com. Shown as cool iPhone w/ Android image below the menu on desktop version of the website.
CroDNS.com
(Croatian only service for checking domain availability in a smart way)
- footer iPhone image to tell the new visitors there’s a mobile version (m.crodns.com)
- ping has been fixed
- some security improvements
SuperCentar.com
This is our new service for banner advertising on our own network of websites with over one million pageviews a month and growing. The service was just released few days ago and it’s currently operating for Croatian market only.
This is it for now but many more updates will come soon. We plan to finish all started projects dedicated to Croatian market but right after that we’re starting with realization on international projects, not only on the web but the iPhone and Android apps too. Can’t wait! :)