For protecting my website from spam and malicious registrations/posts/etc, is it better to use something like reCAPTCHA or an anti-spam script? I was planning on implementing reCAPTCHA for user registrations on my site, using the CodeIgniter reCAPTCHA library (here). However, the CI forum on this library (here) has a lot of negative views on CAPTCHA generally that recommend alternative approaches like anti-spam scripts (e.g., sblam).
Any thoughts appreciated.
On a public forum I managed, the spam filter was pretty effective. The spam was typically of one kind (viagra, porn) and contained lots or links, which made it easy to detect.
However, this forum did not require registration to post. If your website requires registration, a captcha or activation e-mail will catch most of the spambots.
If your website is popular, you may get spam from humans. If this is the case, you still need a spamfilter besides your captcha system.
Related
I am currently running a website where I promote different coffees from pubs in my city. On my website I have links to the different coffees.
I have recently seen some of this links being shared on Facebook and other social networks.
So I was wondering if it is somehow possible to track how often one of this links are being clicked?
I have tried using redirects to my site but Facebook uses my pictures in the previews, whereas I don't want this because it is misleading.
I have seen that this works with Bitly so it must somehow be possible?
And there are of course different services providing this, but it would be nice if it would run without any foreign services.
So basically I am looking for a solution which will let me know how often a link, origination from my site was clicked in Facebook, Google+ or any other forum.
There definitely is. Try looking into Google Analytics, it will show you show much data from your personal websites and links that it can blow your mind! Here is the link
Google Analytics helps you analyze visitor traffic and paint a
complete picture of your audience and their needs. Track the routes
people take to reach you and the devices they use to get there with
reporting tools like Traffic Sources. Learn what people are looking
for and what they like with In-Page Analytics. Then tailor your
marketing and site content for maximum impact.
You can even get a free package to use!
Hope this helps!
Yes you have plenty of analytical options.
Something as straight forward as Google Analytics for example.
If you are using cpanel on your hosts server, you even have options such as AWSTATS, which will also provide information.
If all else fails you can even use post data stored in your apache / nginx logs.
Since you have amended your question you might want to check out this tool. It is not google. :)
It is called Click Meter and performs Link Tracking and provides click reports, etc
He everyone, thank you for taking you time to have a look at my question.
Im relatively new to website programming, and was wondering if there are any open source login systems which provide the user the ability that when they log on they will have their own page containing their personal details.
The same concept as for example facebook or yahoo email, when the user enters credentials they are taken to their own space, not a generic members only section of the website.
Would appreciate any comment or suggestion!
This might be a bit late but i hate unanswered questions. (Most frustrating)
I'm not much of a guru when it comes to this style of thing but there are many open source content management systems (CMS) applications out there that can handle this type of thing.
My personal preference would be Drupal, as i find it is quite intuitive, has quite a large support base and many features and plugins\modules that can handle user accounts, login redirects, shopping carts, etc.
I would also look at Wordpress and Joomla as they're also well supported open source CMS applications. All three of these CMS's have great tutorials that can be found by Googling or heading to Youtube.
Twitter offers 'web intents' that are an alternative to OAuth access to their API. Basically, this provides a less feature rich experience, but can still be quite handy. User clicks on 3rd parts websites can create popup windows that check whether the user is logged in to twitter and if they are, allows them to us some Twitter features such as tweeting, retweeting, or following users.
My question is, how could I go about implementing an API like this? Are there tutorials or libraries? I'm not sure what technologie(s) power web intents or where I should start searching.
Thanks.
You can read more about web intents at webintents.org and read the W3C's draft spec. As far as I know, web intents are still somewhat of a new beast on the web and they have not been standardized.
Still, you may want to read this blog which contains a few examples of registering web intents and check out Paul Kinlan's git repo https://github.com/PaulKinlan/WebIntents
Hope that helps you get started.
What is OpenID "Automatic Login"?
I've never heard this term in a technical sense until today. It has suddenly appeared in Facebook's marketing blog in reference to their new deal with Google.
To be clear, they assert that virtually no other OpenID providers besides Google implement OpenID "Automatic Login", thus no other OpenIDs are currently supported by Facebook.
Does this even exist?
FYI, yes this is a programming question. I would really love to see the API documentation for this feature. Please post a link to it if you are familiar with it. Thanks!!
Facebook announcement:
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/05/18/facebook-launches-openid-support-users-can-now-login-with-a-gmail-account/
I'm pretty certain that this is just an application of OpenID's "Immediate mode":
Immediate mode allows you to attempt to verify the user without them leaving your site at all. This is normally possible if, during the first time you attempt to verify a user, they choose to always allow you to verify them and offers a slightly more streamlined login experience.
The reason people are excited about this is that it is a much smoother User Interface experience than using just OpenID.
The new system was first demonstrated by Plaxo developers and now has additional information available, see http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OpenID.html
A blog post from TechCrunch: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_openid_updates_ui.php
The issue right now, afaik, is that the methodology is poorly documented, so it is mostly appearing on sites that are paying JanRain corp. for their implementation.
Alright. So I am new, I know my way around html pretty well, and have gotten by for a while now doing so. But today I am presented with a seemingly simple issue.
My client needs the ability for users to create their own LOGIN/PASSWORD, my client wants to be able to MANUALLY approve visitors. And he want to be able to track how many times they login.
The login section will just be about 4 pages of PDF file downloads.
I cant imagine this is the hardest thing in the world, I just have no clue where to even start. Perhaps there is a code already written, as things like this are done every day using forum technologies...
Please help!
It may also help to mention that I am using Dreamweaver cs4 on a MAC
I'd check out Ruby on Rails if I were you. It's pretty easy to get something quick up with it that you can have users create accounts with that send e-mails to the client with approve/reject options, and be able to track downloads and users via MySQL or other databases.
I've found Agile Development with Rails to be a great source of info on how to do stuff like this (they do an online bookstore as the book's example) and with a little modification I think it should work for what you say you want to do (and the book is pretty cheap as far as programming books go).
If you want just really basic static login features without lots of coding, you can start with Password protecting your pages with htaccess. You can password protect directories like this without any effort at all. This way, you can be sure that your login routine is secure.
Then, you can continue with advanced features like account administration and login statistics. These will require some programming skills.
Tracking count of user logins should be easy too. You can put simple PHP code to the source of protected pages that will save the info about login to the database. This will require you to study some basics of databases. You can use plaintext files which is not as clean but much easier and it will allow you to export info for your client more easily.
If you want to do it profesionally, you should invest in learning about web development or hire someone to do it for you. These tasks might not be trivial.
Have you worked with PHP, ASP.Net or some other web language yet? What you're trying to isn't too difficult in the grand scheme of things but it may be somewhat challenging if you haven't programmed before and/or haven't had any experience with web development.
(P.s. Alter your question as a response and comment on my answer when you're finished.)
As you are looking into Ruby on Rails, take a look at bort which is a RoR app skeletton with RESTful authentication included, it should help (Chris Bunch answered on the general RoR question).
There is also this bort fork. There is also Authlogic which may be easier to work with.
Have a look at the ASP.net Membership provider and also the login controls which provides the UI for the login as well as registration screens out of the box.
Here is a Multipart Series on ASP.NET's Membership, Roles, and Profile
If this is too complex than probably you can also design you application from scratch using ASP.net. If you don't know asp.net than the best place to start is www.asp.net it has several videos and tutorials which would help you get going soon.