Automate Everything w/ Bash, Linux & Command Line

Let me know what questions you have in the comments.

Anyway... Happy pinning!

I think it's important to talk about my perspective and potential bias. I'm a digital marketer. It's what I do. But, sometimes I feel like [Harvey Dent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Face). {[Image Source](http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/guyspeed.com/files/2012/04/Harvey-Dent-Two-Face.jpg)} I use cookie based tracking data every day for website optimization, ad targeting and business intelligence. There's no way to deny how powerful an understanding of the information available, even with a vanilla install of Google Analytics, can be to your business. There are often very enlightening stories about what website users want, need or don't understand that will help you improve your product. The structure, quantity, organization and analysis of this data is getting better at a fanatic pace. I feel like the big gap between how this data is used and how the general population speculates about it's use is just too wide. ## Or, Popular Are Privacy Concerns Right On Target? I continually ask myself that question. As a consumer, I quit using Facebook. It wasn't all about privacy but it had a role in my decision. But Facebook isn't the only offender. Not by a long shot. Recently there have been a few time where I've really had to stop, think and question my perspective on ethics surrounding online tracking technology. A couple of those prompted this post. ## De-Anonymizing Tracking Data What does that mean? Well, all the tracking data provided in common analytics packages like Google Analytics is anonymous until the visitor fills out a form and tells you who they are. This level of privacy is by design. There are companies springing up that seek to change that. They pool data together from sites across their network partners that track the behavior of a visitor. When that visitor identifies him/herself on site A, then all the partner sites will know who that anonymous visitor was without the visitor actually telling site B, C or D. Here's the [post I read](http://42floors.com/blog/youre-not-anonymous-i-know-your-name-email-and-company/) that explains this much more effectively than I can. It's creepy and I think it's unethical. It isn't just new emerging businesses or technologies that can be creepy/evil. In fact, the bigger data players like Google have the ability to make these connections now. But are they? ## When Ads Are Too Personal Until now, the news of my wife and I separating hasn't been public. The decision was made about 1 month ago. My communication of that with friends, family and co-workers has been limited to word of mouth, GTalk and SMS. Imagine my surprise when I saw this ad at the top of my GMail account last night... If you cannot imagine - I was creeped the fuck out. After the shock of it wore off I started to think about how it was possible for this ad to be so spot on. To be honest, I have no way of knowing. And because I don't know I'm creeped out. I don't like it. Instead of ads being relevant, useful and persuasive, this ad gave me chills (not the good kind). So, how? One can only speculate. Perhaps the add was just a coincidence. Maybe GTalk conversations are monitored for content based targeting just like GMail messages are. There could be any number of reasons. The point of this post is that it doesn't matter how tracking and targeting works online. I believe people prefer ads that are relevant to their interests, but they need to understand how and why ads can be so accurate at times. They also need to have the tools necessary to opt-in or out of this targeting. Without the transparency people will be left to speculate and become more upset about how their privacy is being abused online.

It's time. I'm going to part ways with my small collection of buckling spring IBM Model M keyboards (the original clicky keyboard). Why? Well, because I have too many keyboards and I have an upcoming project and want to replenish my PayPal account. I'm going to list them on eBay but I thought I'd list them here just because. So, here they are... ## IBM Model M, Part No 1391401 - Produced on April 8, 1988 [Bid on this keyboard](http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110960253978) This is considered a "white" label IBM Model M keyboard and is fully functional. It has very low yellowing and types very nicely. I've used it as my main keyboard for the past two plus years and it's been very reliable. It has the curly style removable cable and is in great condition. The feet on the back are also in great condition, which is more rare because they're known to be a weak point. I don't use them so I haven't added any wear during my time using it. They buyer of this keyboard is going to get a very well taken care of keyboard that is very likely to out last the machine he/she will use it on. Here are a couple of images: An image of the label - part number and production date. I will post back a[ link to the auction](http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110960253978) as soon as it's up. If you're interested in purchasing it outside of the auction then please comment below or reach out to me on Google+ and we'll see if we can work out a deal. ## IBM Model M, Part No 52G9685 - Produced on January 4, 1996 [Bid on this keyboard](http://www.ebay.com/itm/110960255662) This keyboard is also technically a IBM Model M, but in the later years these keyboards were produced by Lexmark for IBM, as you'll see in the images of the back label below. With that said, this keyboard works very well. There are three main differences between this keyboard and the older "white" label Model Ms: 1. The key caps are not removable. Most of the time this isn't a big deal, in fact it makes the caps much more difficult to lose. It also makes them a lot harder to clean. 2. The cable isn't detachable. This really only becomes a problem if the cable it's self breaks. 3. While the keypress is still very clicky, it's also a bit more soft. This is either appealing or not. It really just depends on your personal typing preference. While this keyboard is a bit less rare than the other two I'm selling, it is bound to have fewer keystrokes and is almost a decade newer. It's a very reliable keyboard and all the keys feel consistent type nicely. I've used this keyboard for the past year and a half at work. The one thing that's wrong with it is that one of the feet is broken. It never bothered me because as I mentioned above, I don't use the feet. Here are a couple pictures: Again, I'll post a link to it once[ it's up on eBay](http://www.ebay.com/itm/110960255662). ## IBM Model M, Part No 1391401 - Produced on June 7, 1987 [Bid on this keyboard](http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110960256985) This is the final IBM Model M I have to offer. It's the oldest one and share many of the same features of the first one posted above. It's considered a "white" label and is almost as old as I am... It has the curly detachable cable that's in great shape. It has fully removable key caps for easy cleaning. It has strong buckling spring keys that are very clicky. It's exterior is in great condition. The only blemish on this one is that the enter key on the number pad isn't balanced properly because one of the support pieces is missing. It's very likely that it can be repaired later, but even in it's current state it can be used. Other than that, this keyboard is in great shape despite it being 25 years old! I haven't used this one much at all. For the past six months or so it has just been sitting in my closet. It's time to go. This keyboard was meant to be used. Here are a couple images: Once again, I'll post the link when [it's up on eBay](http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110960256985). If you'd like to reach out and make an offer ahead of time please feel free to contact me on Google+. There's a link in the left navigation of this site. Please let me know if you have any questions about any of the keyboards listed here.

` tag on the cart view page. var emptyCart = jQuery('.cart-empty').text(); if ( (emptyCart == "") ) { jQuery.getScript('/path/to/js/jquery.cookies.2.2.0.min.js', function() { var couponCode = jQuery.cookies.get('nameOfCookie'); if ( (/../i.test(couponCode)) && (!!couponCode) ) { var postData = "remove=0&coupon_code=" + couponCode; jQuery.post("/checkout/cart/couponPost/", postData, function() { jQuery.cookies.del('nameOfCookie'); document.location = '/checkout/cart/'; }); }; }); }; If you cannot add code to this page, you can place it in a file and include it in the head of the page. If you do that though, you'll want to slightly modify it to execute after the page load is complete. You'll also want to make sure that it only executes on the `/checkout/cart/` page. It would look something like this... window.onload = function() { var emptyCart = jQuery('.cart-empty').text(); if ( (/\/checkout\/cart\//i.test(page)) && (emptyCart == "") ) { jQuery.getScript('/path/to/js/jquery.cookies.2.2.0.min.js', function() { var couponCode = jQuery.cookies.get('nameOfCookie'); if ( (/../i.test(couponCode)) && (!!couponCode) ) { var postData = "remove=0&coupon_code=" + couponCode; jQuery.post("/checkout/cart/couponPost/", postData, function() { jQuery.cookies.del('nameOfCookie'); document.location = '/checkout/cart/'; }); }; }); }; }; Here's a quick explanation of what the code does: 1. If you remember, a coupon code cannot be applied to a cart if there aren't any items in the cart. The first part of the script grabs the text from the headline with a class equal to `.cart-empty` and it's stored in the variable `emptyCart`. 2. The following `IF` statement checks to make sure the `emptyCart` variable is empty. If it isn't empty then that means the cart is empty and the rest of the code should not execute. If you used the second version, there's also a condition that makes sure that the current document is the cart view page. 3. Next, we need to make sure that the jQuery cookies plugin has been loaded. 4. After the cookie plugin has loaded, the variable of `couponCode` gets set to the value of the coupon code from the landing page. 5. Then there's another `IF` statement that checks to see if a coupon code exists. 6. If the coupon code does exist, then the next part makes a POST to `/checkout/cart/couponPost/` with a query string equal to `remove=0&coupon_code=testcouponcode` which will actually activate the discount for the customer's shopping cart. 7. If that POST is successful, the cookie gets deleted and the page refreshes. The refresh is needed to let the customer see the discount in the sub-total. It's unfortunate that the page refresh is necessary. I just haven't been able to figure out a way to get around it. If you know how, please feel free to comment. I hope this has been helpful. Now, go forth and rockout some new landing pages!

` of your Magento site. Now, let me explain what's going on step by step: 1. The first step is to make sure the script doesn't do anything until the page content has loaded. The first line in the script performs that task. Here's the snippet `jQuery(document).ready(function () { ... });`. 2. Since this script won't serve any purpose except for when the customer is logged into their account, we don't want the full script to execute on every page. There are multiple ways of doing this. One way would be to only include the script on the account pages but since I don't know anything about the Magento's core files I couldn't go that route. I decided to include a simple `if` statement that would check to make sure that it doesn't execute if not on the order details page. This is the test I used for my store `if ( jQuery('h2.table-caption a').length > 0 ) { ... };`. 3. The "Track your order" link in the customer's account has an `onclick` attribute assigned to it. When the customer clicks it, the popup window presents the carrier, shipping method and tracking number. We'll need that information so we need to record that URL into a variable. In the script, that URL gets assigned to the `URLstripped` variable. 4. Now, we need to get that tracking information by executing a AJAX request in the background and parse out the pieces we need. Lines 6-20 do the heavy lifting there. It's important to note that we ship using either USPS or UPS. Therefore this script will only work for those two shipping carriers. You should be able to add in others pretty easily. 5. The last step is to take the tracking number and rewrite the tracking link, style it and put it in a different spot on the page. That's handled by lines 21 and 22. Now, when the tracking link is clicked on the carrier's website will open in a new tab/window with the tracking information for the customer's package already displayed. Let me know if you have any questions or have ideas for accomplishing this task in a better way. Thanks for reading.

If you have a website and it runs well, your next priority should be to make sure your analytics setup is sound. This was a challenge I just had to conquer myself and sometimes it isn't as easy as it seems like it should be. Here's my tale... ## Setting up Google Analytics in Magento Enterprise Configuring Google Analytics in Magento couldn't be easier. There's a config page, you put in your profile number, activate it and then you're done. Except in my case we weren't. We have a bit of a unique setup. We have a sub-domain that we need to track as well and for us, there's no need to have the data separated into a separate profile because the sub-domain is only used for the cart. We have the main `http://www.` sub-domain as well as the `https://secure.` sub-domain. ## What is a self referral? It's pretty simple. When your visitor traffic is properly tracking source by source but you also have traffic and conversions tracking under the same domain name as what you're trying to track. Because the only different sub-domain we have is in our cart, this meant that only our conversion data was wrong. Fortunately (or so I thought), Google provides special code to use when you need to track sub-domains. ## Google's Recommended Code for Sub-Domains This is the code that Google recommends you use when tracking a site that has one or more sub-domains. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-123456-7']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'domain.com']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); This is the newest asynchronous Google Analytics tracking code. The only part that's different from the standard install is `_gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'domain.com']);`. However, in Magento, there's no way to define that variable without modifying core PHP files. But that's exactly what we had to do to get that setup properly. After this was installed and we verified that it was rendering properly on both sub-domains, we waited a day and reviewed our Google Analytics account. Still, this didn't fix our problem. We were still tracking self referrals and there was no change at all. At this point, I went back to the drawing board which pretty much means that I went back to Google searches. I found a few other forum threads talking about another snippet that could be added that will help fix these issues. That's when I decided that Google's recommendation for code was going out the window. ## The Fix This is what worked for me. If you're facing similar problems with self referrals, I hope it works for you too. However, the only real way to get things working is trial and error. Trial and error never fails forever. The code: var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-123456-7']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'domain.com']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); _gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'domain.com']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); The addition is `_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'domain.com']);`. Honestly, that's all it took. It all seems simple now but at the time it was incredibly frustrating. As soon as the code went live and I inspected the GET requests for `__utm.gif` I knew that it was working properly and the problem had been solved. ## Verifying Referral Data in Firebug/Chrome In all reality, if you know what to look for you don't have to wait a day to check Google Analytics to see if your data was tracked properly. All you really have to do is inspect the GET requests that the Google Analytics Javascript makes at page load. Here's a screenshot of what you need to watch out for (screenshot of this blog)... Click on the GET request for `__utm.gif` and then you'll get the detail for that request. Pay special attention to the section under "Query String Parameters", specifically the parameter called `utmcc`. That parameter is what recalls the tracking data stored in cookies. Here's the value from that parameter: _utma=189990958.53866207.1339112813.1345157959.1345242492.53;+__utmz=189990958.1345242492.53.25.utmcsr=assets.tumblr.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/iframe.html; Within that value, check out the parameter `utmcsr`, which is equal to the referral source. When you're evaluating this on your own domain it's important to look at this on the first page you visit when transitioning from one sub-domain to the other. That's where the cookie information will get all screwed up. If the referrer is equal to your domain, then you still have a problem. If it is equal to the original referrer like direct, organic, etc, then you've solved the problem. If I'm being honest I still do not understand why the Google Analytics code that's recommended by Google in my account wasn't enough. It's really frustrating. If anyone has additional insight I'd love to understand. I hope this has been informative. Please leave a comment if you have a question and I'll do my best to answer or provide ideas.

If you have any questions or feedback please leave a comment. Otherwise, happy automation.

Happy automation!

A colleague introduced me to mechanical keyboards about three years ago. I'm certainly not a grey beard and my first computer was a laptop with Windows XP installed. Needless to say, I didn't have any experience with mechanical keywords and didn't have any "good ol days" nostalgic feelings about how keyboards used to be made with quality materials for touch typists. So, when this guy started blabbing about how awesome mechanical keyboards are, it was easy for me to tune him out. I thought I loved the feeling of typing on a low-profile laptop style keyboard until, on one day, this guy brought in his humongous Silver Label IBM Model M keyboard and let me give it a try. Again, upon first glance I turned up my nose. However, after a couple hours of use I started to understand what all the hype was about. I really enjoyed typing on that keyboard. I felt like I could type faster and I felt my pinky finger reaching for the backspace key less often. It's worth mentioning that my office mates didn't appreciate the extra noise very much (I didn't really care). After that, it was my mission to get a mechanical keyboard for myself. I quickly discovered that old Model M keyboards aren't very easy to source on-demand. Long story short, I was able to source two Model M keyboards locally and restore them to perfect working condition. I've been using one at work and one at home for the past couple years. They've treated me well and have me hooked on mechanical key switches. ## My Newest Mechanical Keyboards The only thing pushing me to shelve my IBM keyboards is the fact that PS/2 connectors aren't installed on new machines anymore. You can buy a converter to go from PS/2 to USB. I've been using one of those to connect to a laptop for the past year and a half, but sometimes it drops keystrokes which is not acceptable. For that reason, I decided to move on and purchase a couple of modern day mechanical keyboards. ### Razer Blackwidow Ultimate The first modern mechanical keyboard I purchased was the Razor Blackwidow Ultimate. I've read good things about this keyboard and was attracted to the dedicated macro keys. But, to be honest, the final motivating factor for pulling the purchasing trigger was the fact that I had a Best Buy gift card and needed to spend it. I purchased it for home use with Ubuntu Linux. Quick note: The dedicated macro keys on that keyboard aren't recognized by the kernel by default. Some guy wrote a Python script that enables them. You can get the script [here](http://finch.am/projects/blackwidow/). After you download it, run it like this (root permissions are required): sudo python blackwidow_enable.py You should now be able to program the macro keys. After overcoming that little hurdle, this keyboard has been great. It has a shorter keystroke than the old Model M but is has a very similar audible click and smooth tactile click feel. It's been great. ### Das Keyboard Professional S The second modern mechanical keyboard I purchased was the Das Keyboard. I purchased this one for use at work. This one is much less "gamer" than the Razer, but it truly delivers with performance. It doesn't have the dedicated macro keys that the Razer does but it has the Cherry MX Blue key switches and that's what really matters. The feel is amazing. And, let me say this - the Das has better feel than the Razer Blackwidow and the IBM Model M. I've also used Filco keyboards in the past (never owned one) and I would argue that the Das even types nicer than the Filcos. The difference is very subtle and therefore I cannot even describe why it is. Typing on the Das keyboard is just a unique experience that you won't understand until you do it. So, do it. Get yourself a modern mechanical keyboard today. If you type all day long you won't regret investing in the perfect keyboard.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post showing some efficient ways to verify your [server side redirects](http://automateeverything.tumblr.com/post/27940608573/verifying-301-redirects-during-site-redesign). In that post, I describe several ways to get lists of all the different canonical URLs that Google and other search engines may be aware of so that you can setup redirects ahead of the redesigned site launch. I wrote that post because I was managing two such relaunches at that time. Last week on Tuesday, those two sites went live. Since then I've been monitoring Google Position reports daily to see how my positions and pages have been changing. Since we made the decision to change several of our URLs, it's also important to make sure the changes are being understood properly. Here are some of the thing's I've been paying attention to: 1. Individual keyword position swings, like changes of 3 spots or more. 2. Have the 301 redirects from old URLs to the new URLs been understood? Meaning, when the old URL isn't positioning anymore, has the new equivalent replaced it? 3. Are category pages still positioning for my head keywords? Are product pages or content pages still positioning for the longer-tail keywords? 4. Are all the new URLs being indexed? Everything is looking great. Our positions are holding through the transition and each day I see a few more positioning URLs transition over from the old URLs to the new ones. ## Then, the Google Surprise Then I started to see something strange. I started to see URLs appear to be positioning that I've never seen before. The URL structure looked familiar enough, but the actual URL hasn't ever shown up in Google's index before (that I recorded). In each of these instances, the positioning URL was either the second URL for our domain positioning for that keyword. To recap, the URL that was positioning for the old site has now been replaced with an old canonical version that doesn't exist on the new site and never positioned when the old site was live. This is really strange behavior, but I'm not really surprised because our old site had ridiculous amounts of canonical URLs. It would be sickening for any knowledgeable SEO. I found a handful of occurrences like this that fit the same pattern. To double check that I wasn't mistaken, I double checked the server responses for those pages and found that they are indeed returning 404 (as they should). Again, this doesn't really bother me because overall SEO performance has been great and each of these instances are just secondary positions. It's just strange and I haven't ever seen it before. ## Next Steps I honestly think that things will sort themselves out within a week or two. In the meantime, I'm going to continue with my daily position reports. When I find strange situations like this where new URLs show up, I'll just create 301 redirects for them to the most relevant page on the new site. It shouldn't take too long for Google to figure it out.

That's all I have for now. I'd love to see some additional uses in the comments. Happy automation!

Yup, but I'm not the first or the only one to say it. It's very likely that Facebook is participating in planned mass click fraud. This topic is only top of mind because of the post I read a few minutes ago about how [80% of clicks on Facebook ads are bots](https://www.facebook.com/limitedpressing/posts/209534972507958). Since that was a Facebook post and the author claims to be deleting the page/account soon, I decided to add the text [here](http://pastebin.com/rReHTkLr) as well for archiving purposes. This isn't something I've worried about in years primarily because I swore off Facebook ads (except in very rare cases) back when Facebook ads were still in beta. I wrote about a very similar experience I had just a few months ago with [click fraud at Shopzilla](http://automateeverything.tumblr.com/post/21335938728/a-shopping-engine-click-fraud-story). I hate click fraud. If you read my post about Shopzilla, you'll also get some of my memories about dealing with Yahoo when they used to get a ton of invalid click activity (that's the PC way of referring to click fraud) from publishers on their network. The good thing about Yahoo was that they used to give refunds if you could prove that the activity was "invalid", that is if you even payed enough attention to your analytics to notice. Yahoo wouldn't call it a refund though, that would be an admission of guilt. They'd be very clear when referring to the monies paid as a "courtesy credit" even though, I've actually gotten them to send a check as opposed to crediting back to the account balance. At least Yahoo had the courtesy to refund fraudulent click spend. Facebook & Shopzilla, well, it seems as though they're in denial mode. ## A Different Perspective... I think that most of the people who write about this in the coming days will be bashing Facebook over this. They probably deserve it. Also, I bet there are a few who will take Facebook's side and defend them. However, there's a third perspective that I'd like to share. How digital marketing agencies fit into the mix. Most large online, digital marketing agencies make their revenue based on a percent of the client's advertising spend. The more their client spends on advertising, the more the agency brings in for fees. This is logically defensible because if the agency wants to convince their client into spending more money on advertising then the agency must also have to return more sales for that client. You know, provide them a good return on investment. Here's the thing about ROI... a good return on investment is different for every business. One of the accounts I manage every day would be doing poorly if the Google Paid Search account returned less than 1000% ROI averaged over a week. However, I've managed plenty of accounts over the years where 200% ROI was a frigg'n miracle. The agency trick is convincing the client that 500% ROI is some how better long term, even if 1000% is possible now. Who would deny that a return of $5 dollars for every $1 dollar spent on advertising isn't an amazing return? If I didn't know better, I wouldn't. If you're currently working with an agency to takes their fee based on percent of ad spend, keep your ears open for terms/phrases like this: - "Cast a wide net" - "Branding" - "Long conversion cycle" - "Building awareness" - "prospecting keywords", usually referring to broad match keywords in AdWords. I'm not saying all those are bullshit, I'm just saying that you need to be able to definitively track and prove results. You owe it to yourself as the client to hold the agency to a high standard/burden of proof. If you don't care, they won't either. In my experience, more often than not, those strategies are birthed by pressure to grow client budgets. ## Agencies Care More About Their Own ROI Advertising account managers at agencies are pressured by those above them to grow budgets to increase ROI for the agency. Imaging that. Yeah, I said it. As long as the client is happy, grow spend, work hard to justify it (consulting), twist the graphs and grow those budgets. What happens if client's become unhappy, convince them they're wrong. How do I know this? I've been there. I was the guy who cared about my clients and took shit from my superiors for it. I don't believe that the agency I came from was unique. I took over many accounts from bigger, more well known agencies that were being blatantly negligent with account management. And why, because it benefits them. As a matter of fact, I was just talking with a friend who's also an ex-agency guy/girl about me writing this post and this is a quote (I cut out a couple of name...): "I wasted thousands of dollars "testing" FB ads for clients. They don't work after three months? "Keep testing and trying new ad copy." Roger that ``" "FB ads for the most part were the biggest goddamn waste of time and money ever. `` seemed to like them. I think because they burned through available budget." I left the agency world (in part) for that reason. I went to work in-house for a company who needed a full time online marketing guy. It was the best move of my life. I'm now truly incentivized to optimize advertising accounts for ROI. I'm rewarded when I kick more ass. I like that arrangement. ## Why Throw Agencies Under the Bus? I think they deserve it because they're trusted advisers and they should know better. In many cases, it's like taking candy from a baby. Agencies are the ones who know about click fraud. They're the people who're the experts. They see the large data needed to pick out the oddities in analytics that just don't seem right. Agencies should be advocates against shit bombs like Facebook, Shopzilla and Yahoo (like I was and still am). But, more often, agencies are too busy writing blog posts and whitepapers about how social media is the next big way target prospective buyers. Agencies citing one another's published "research" about how social media "advertising" will "grow your brand". These agencies have one interest in common - getting more of your ad budget. If you're a smart brand, small business or startup then you should tell agencies to [DIAF](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diaf&defid=232060). Hire a consultant who trains you or someone in your company who has a vested interest in your success. Hire someone who has real experience. Don't be pushed around by buzzwords and skewed market research. Take control of your advertising spend and make it return for you.

Let me know if you have any questions. Happy redirecting.

Anyway, I'm done ranting. Even though it probably won't change their behavior, I'll let them know that I don't think this is a good idea. That's the least I can do.

I'm a relative newb. I have been fortunate enough that when I've had to work on sites there's almost always been some sort of templating system in place. If I needed to make a site-wide code update, I could just make the change in the some templated code block and that would push the update throughout the site. It makes sense, and thank bejesus it's now the norm. What about when the whole site is static HTML files? If the site is tens of files, no problem. But what do you do when the site is several hundred? Before today, I had a few theories but had never had to test them out. Here's my story. ### Please Read, Very Important These instructions will not work in every case, they aren't designed to. This is a hack I put together that was designed to work with my very specific use case. I'm sharing it because I think you could update my code based on your needs. Please be careful and always make back ups. Enjoy! ## The Goal I was asked by a couple of friends to review their site and try to help them figure out why Google Analytics was tracking things strangely. Here were a few symptoms: 1. Event tracking was registering in the GA account even though everything looked correct in the GET request for `utm.gif`. 2. Keywords and query data wasn't coming in for any search visits. No for Paid Search and not for Organic Search. 3. No social data. I checked on a few things and saw that they had an old version of GA installed. This is the code. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-123456-12"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); I didn't really see anything wrong with it, but I decided to just try the new code on one page and see if it fixed the problem. I got the following code from their GA profile: var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-1235526-26']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'rfsystemlab.us']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); I uploaded the updated page to their server and opened it in a web browser. By looking at the source, I could tell... 1. I was getting the new page with the updated tracking code. 2. The new code was working to track pageviews because I could see the GET requests. 3. After triggering a few events, I could see that the GET requests for those were sent correctly. I waited a few minutes and checked their GA account again to see that now the Events were correctly showing up in their account! Awesome... Except not. ## The New Goal Now that I think I know how to fix their tracking problems, I also have to figure out how to... 1. Remove all the old GA tracking code. 2. Add in the new code. 3. Avoid doing it one page at a time. I could have just stopped at this point and said, "You do it", but I wouldn't do that. Besides, this is fun anyway. ### My Tools It wasn't exactly easy to do this. Through a bunch of Googling, experimentation and a bit of experience with the command line in Linux, I was able to updates several hundred pages fairly easily. I used the following standard command line Linux tools to complete this task: - sed - cut - for loops - echo That's honestly it... However, I did use many resources to help. Here's my list: 1. Stackoverflow - [Here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5508245/how-can-i-do-a-multi-line-find-replace-from-nix-command-line), [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2112469/delete-specific-line-numbers-from-a-text-file-using-sed) and [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1987926/how-do-i-grep-recursively). 2. [DBASpot.com](http://dbaspot.com/shell/270141-replace-line-x-string-y-using-sed-awk.html) 3. [LinuxQuestions.org](http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/sed-not-working-if-value-is-passed-thru-a-variable-containg-value-248678/) I found each of these by asking Google. ## Step 1 - Find all the files containing the old Google Analytics code First, before you do anything, make a backup and then a backup of that backup. Seriously. I then opened a command line and moved into the root directory for the local copy of the site on my hard drive. Then I ran the following command: grep -n -r "var gaJsHost" . This command will search recursively for the string `"var gaJsHost"` and then output the file name that was matched along with the full text from the line where the match was found. The `-n` option tells grep to also print out the line number where the match was found. And, the string we're searching for is one of the main variable names in the old GA code that we need to remove. (Don't forget that dot at the end of the command. It's very important!) From there, we have our list of files we can operate on. By putting the previous command in a Bash `for` loop, we can manipulate the results and do perform additional operations one row at a time. Here's the basic loop: for match in `grep -n -r "var gaJsHost" .`; do # do some stuff here... done In a nutshell we'll need to know the following pieces of information for each match: - file name. - row number where the match is found. - row number where the old GA code starts. - row number where the old GA code ends. With that data, we should be able to delete the matching rows as an operation in this loop, for each file. This the next set of code in this process, combining what we've done above with the loop. for match in `grep -n -r "var gaJsHost" .`; do file=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f1` line=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f2` start=$(($line-1)) end=$(($start+7)) done Each piece of information we need is stored in a separate variable. The `file` variable is cut from the original `grep` command output, which is equal to the file name where the match was found. The `line` variable was also from the `grep` command and is the line number in the `file` where the match was made. We have two remaining variables that are getting values assigned, `start` and `end`, which represent the first line in the old GA code and the last line. I know that the string `"var gaJsHost"` is found in the second line of the old GA code and that the entire code block is seven lines long. So, the variable `start` can be calculated by subtracting one from the `line` where the match was found and the `end` variable can be calculated by adding seven to `start`! Now, we just have to use this information to delete those lines. Here's the command you'd add as the next command within the loop: sed -i -e "`echo $start`,`echo $end`d" $file Then your code would look like this... for match in `grep -n -r "var gaJsHost" .`; do file=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f1` line=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f2` start=$(($line-1)) end=$(($start+7)) sed -i -e "`echo $start`,`echo $end`d" $file done After putting this into a Bash file and running it, I had successfully removed all the old Google Analytics tracking code from all the static HTML files on my local copy of my buddies' site. We aren't done. We still need to add all the new code to the pages. ## Step 2 - Adding new code to the head tag Honestly I'm a bit tired of writing the post at this point. Besides, most of the rest of what needs to happen is done by simple modification of the concepts above. So, here's the rest of my code: # set placeholder text before the tag for the code to be replaced with later. for match in `grep -n -r "" .`; do file=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f1` line=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f2` sed -i "`echo $line`s/.*/NEW_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_CODE_HERE\n<\/head>/" "$file" done # addin the new code.. $GACODE='<\!-- Start Google Analytics Installation -->var _gaq=_gaq\|\|\[\]\;_gaq.push\(\["_setAccount"\,"UA-123456-12"\]\)\;_gaq.push\(\["_setDomainName"\,"example.com"\]\)\;_gaq.push\(\["_trackPageview"\]\)\;\(function\(\)\{var a=document.createElement\("script"\)\;a.type="text\/javascript"\;a.async=true\;a.src=\("https\:"==document.location.protocol\?"https\:\/\/ssl"\:"http:\/\/www"\)\+".google-analytics.com\/ga.js"\;var b=document.getElementsByTagName\("script"\)\[0\]\;b.parentNode.insertBefore\(a\,b\)\}\)\(\)<\/script><\!-- End Google Analytics Installation --> ' for match in `grep -n -r "NEW_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_CODE_HERE" .`; do file=`echo $match | cut -d":" -f1` sed -i 's/NEW_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_CODE_HERE/'"$GACODE"'/' "$file" done I hope this is helpful and not too confusing. I would love to answer any questions you may have. Leave a comment, contact me on Google+ or Linkedin. Happy automation!

This has nothing to do with search engine marketing, but everything to do with automation. If you've ever wanted to host a server at a location that doesn't have a static IP address then you know just how much of a pain it can be. Hopefully by the time you read this you're familiar with what [DNS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System) is and what [dynamic DNS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_DNS) is. If not, those links should catch you up to speed quick enough. I've tried a few different dynamic DNS providers but for the past few years I've been using freedns.afraid.org. I don't host this site (of course), but I do host FTP and a few other services that allow me to get to my machines at home where ever I am. I'm writing this post today because I just happened to have to update my scripts that keep my DNS up to date when my IP changes today. ## The Dynamic DNS Bash Script This is the basic script I use to keep DNS updated for my domain. #!/bin/bash # paste in the info url from your account get_info_url='http://freedns.afraid.org/api/?action=getdyndns&sha=' # get the current ip... # method 1 - they aren't providing it for scripts anymore... #ip=`curl -s http://whatismyip.org` # method 2 - google provides this as an error message for bots...I'll take it. ip=$(curl -s "https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+my+ip+address" | grep "Client IP address:" | sed 's/.*Client IP address: //g;s/).*//g') # get the current dns settings... for each in `curl -s "$get_info_url"` do domain=`echo "$each" | cut -d"|" -f1` dns_ip=`echo "$each" | cut -d"|" -f2` update_url=`echo "$each" | cut -d"|" -f3` if [ "$ip" != "$dns_ip" ] then echo -e "$domain - "\\c >> log curl "$update_url" >> log fi done ## Script Explanation Really the script is simple but the first thing you have to do is sign up for an account at [freedns.afraid.org](http://freedns.afraid.org/) and choose your domain name. Once you've done that, you're ready to get yourself setup with this script. 1. Save the script above as `dns.sh`. 2. Make sure that the script is set as executable. You can run `sudo chmod +x dns.sh` to make sure it is. 3. You now need to get your API key. To do that, go to http://freedns.afraid.org/api/ and it will explain what you need to do. Basically, you need to hash your username and password, but you can find it on that page if you don't want to hash it yourself. 4. In the script, replace the string `` with the actual hash (don't forget to save...). 5. Now you can run the script when ever your IP address updates. Alternatively (my way), you can setup the script as a cron job and have the script check at regular intervals to make sure everything is up to date. ## Setting up the Script as a Cron Job Open a terminal and run `crontab -e`. If you've never done this before, it will probably prompt you to choose an editor. If you don't know how to use any of the command line editors then you'll need to do some additional Googleing, I'm not going to explain it. Although, I prefer `nano` because I don't understand `vi` or `vim`. Once you have your crontab open, paste the following line somewhere to run the script every 5 minutes. */5 * * * * /path/to/script/dns.sh From now on your DNS information should be up to date. You may have noticed that I'm scraping Google to get your actual current IP address. That was the change I made to the script today. I used to use another site (commented out) but apparently the focus of the site has changed and they don't really like scripts using it to get the current IP address. What a shame. Anyway, I hope people find this handy. Happy automation!