Yahoo! Announces Open Search Platform

Yahoo will soon be allowing third parties to enhance the Yahoo Search experience. The new platform, codenamed “SearchMonkey” and officially called Open Search Platform, will consist of a set of APIs that allow third parties to modify search results on Yahoo by adding images, structured data and additional deep links.

The altered results can contain far more information than the current link and a bit of text from the website. For example, Yelp (a user generated local business review site), one of the launch partners, will include a photo, review information and the address and phone number of the business.

Some modifications will be turned on for users by default; others will only appear for users who’ve chosen to add them. Amit Kumar, the product lead for the Open Search Platform, says that the desired effect is similar to Greasemonkey, a Firefox addon that allows users to see modified versions of websites (thus the codename SearchMonkey).

Third parties will have an incentive to get users to add their Yahoo search modification, which in turn can drive more traffic to their sites. One thing third parties cannot change, though, are the order of results (see Erick’s post that touches on this issue here). They can simply change the way a result linking to one of their pages appears to the searcher, and add additional rich media and links to structured data.

When this launches anyone will be able to create their own modifications and promote them - users can add as many as they like.

Below is a screenshot of a different search, for “hillary clinton.” The New York Times has altered the result to include links to other election news, debate analysis, and added data for current delegate count and total money raised:



Information provided by: techcrunch

Yahoo! Media Player (BETA) launched on 8th Jan 2008

The Yahoo! Media Player enhances your web site or blog by creating an embedded player for each audio link. All the links can be played with one click, turning the page into a playlist. This is done by adding Yahoo! JavaScript for Media Player to your page.

# Link to audio
Insert one or more anchor elements containing the URL of an audio file into your web page. For example:
<a href="audio01.mp3">audio01.mp3</a>
<a href="audio02.mp3">audio02.mp3</a>

# Embed the Player
Copy and paste this code into your page:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/js"></script>

# Use the player
The play button will appear next to each of your audio links:


Press a play button. The Yahoo! Media Player will open:

Perl - fork() example

Here is a small example which demonstrate fork() implementation in PERL.

while(1)
{
   my @children;

   defined (my $pid = fork) or die "Cannot fork: $!\n";

   if ($pid)
   {
     # Parent Process...

     push(@children, $pid);
     wait();
     my $ret = $?;

     if ($ret)
     {
      warn("Abnormal child exit: $!\n");
      $daemon = undef;
      last;
     }
   }
   else
   {
    # Child Process...
    exit(0);
   }

   while (scalar(@children))
   {
     wait();
     my $ret = $?;
     shift(@children);
   
     if ($ret)
     {
       warn("Abnormal child exit: $!\n");
       $daemon = undef;
     }
   }

}

continue
{
  last unless $daemon;
  sleep(10);    
}

Ajax cache problem in IE

By default IE will cache all Ajax requests. If you make a same Ajax request again without clearing cache, every time you will get same data, instead of fresh data.

So, what's the solution?

Solution: Use either the date and time or a random number in the query string to force IE to reload the relevant document.

Example:
var QueryString = "request_id=x";
var DatetimeQueryString = “&datetime=”+new Date().getTime();
var url = “request_url.php?”+QueryString+DatetimeQueryString;
httpRequest.open(”GET”, url, true);
httpRequest.onreadystatechange = update;
httpRequest.send(null);

Payment Gateway Integration: Part I

Are you a PHP web developer?
Lookig for "How to integrate a payment gateway with your site?" Want to know about Payment Gateway?
Check it here...

Various web definitions for "Payment Gateway"

- Company that provides the transaction-processing network that receives encrypted transactions from a merchant’s website and sends them to the card issuing bank for approval.

- It allows the secure transfer of credit card funds from users on your website to your merchant account.

- A payment gateway can be thought of as a digital equivalent to a credit card processing terminal.

- An online system for real-time charging of credit cards when a customer places an order, which normally requires a merchant account.

- A software usually provided by a third party such as (Authorize.Net, PayPal, 2CheckOut) that allows a website to be integrated to a merchant account.

How "Payment Gateway" works...

var PG = Authorize.Net or PayPal or 2CheckOut

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection is established between merchant web storefront application and $PG's transaction servers to securely exchange payment data between parties.

1. A customer visits your Web site and makes a purchase.
2. The transaction data is then passed from your storefront to the $PG's transaction server.
3. $PG's transaction server collects the transaction information from your site and then securely routes the transaction via the payment gateway through the financial network to the appropriate bank, ensuring that customers are authorised to make their purchases.
4. The funds for the transaction will be transferred to merchant’s bank account.
5. The payment gateway sends an acknowledgement to customer with Transaction Status.

Who are involved...

(1) Merchants:
Want to sell their products via internet / want payment through internet.
Normally interested in trusted Payment Gateway provider.
Have knowledge about Payment Gateway

(2) Customers (Two types of Customer)
- Normal Customers
Want to buy products via Internet / want to make payment through Internet.

- Customers with basic awareness of secure transaction.
Want to buy products via Internet / want to make payment through Internet
But always verify that: transaction is secure (SSL, https://).
may / may not have knowledge about Payment Gateway

(3) Web Developers (Me & U all)
Want to integrate the web site with Payment Gateway.
Have knowledge about Payment Gateway

Well known Payment Gateway Providers...

Paypal.com
2Checkout.com
Authorize.net
Google Checkout

If you know about osCommerce, then you might know that "it is providing readymade payment gateway integration solution for shopping sites" as one of its best feature.

osCommerce is an Open Source based online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License.

Click here to read more about osCommerce supported payment gateways

To be continued... [Integration code in PHP]