Using Google Analytics to Track PDF Views

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 February 2013 01:37 Written by David Bauernschmidt Wednesday, 27 February 2013 12:00

I currently build and manage a pro-bono site for Greenwood Christian Academy where they have a lot of PDF documents.  The users click on documents for enrollment, calendars, educational forms, health documents, etc.  Just recently they also announced an event that offers sponsorships.  The question that has come up lately is how to use Google Analytics to track how many people view the pdf documents and how many people click on the sponsor links.  This may sound simple but then I realized that Google does not track counts for links that go away from the site or to pdf views.  Not accepting this as failure, I started looking around and came across a “cool” feature that Google offers called ‘_trackEvent’.  You can use this for a multitude of things but I believe this is what I need.  The key is to realize that you need to attach something to the <a href> before the actual redirect.  Since I always use the pdf and external links with a target=’_blank’ I decided to attach an event handler to the <a href>.  The problem is this could take a while, especially if you have a lot of links and pdf.  Thank goodness for jquery.  I attached the code below as close to the end of the page as possible (preferably right before the </body>).  This script attaches a click event to every <a href> if there is a target=’_blank’.  I then determine if it is a pdf or just a “plain” link.

How to Backup a Database with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Last Updated on Monday, 4 February 2013 03:11 Written by Rodolfo Hernandez Tuesday, 5 February 2013 12:00

In this new video, brought to you by Arvixe, I will show you how to backup your MSSQL or MySQL database with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

How to Determine If a User is Accessing a Web Site Through a Mobile Device

Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 January 2013 12:51 Written by David Bauernschmidt Wednesday, 23 January 2013 12:00

With the explosion of smartphones, tablets and other handheld devices it is becoming more important than ever to determine what type of devices are being used to get to your data.  Furthermore; hiring a development team to build the same application for Apple, Android, and Microsoft is almost only dedicated to companies that are very large or those companies that are willing to lose money until they hit it big.  For the vast majority a solution is to develop a web application that fairly browser independent.  This article is not designed to show you how to build a mobile application (this might come in a later blog) but rather provide you with the first step in this journey.  This sample is to help in identifying whether a user is on your site by a mobile device or through a normal browser.  I have pulled together different parts of the web to provide step by step instructions to do the following:

How to Allow Access to Anonymous Users in Your ASP Application

Last Updated on Sunday, 11 November 2012 04:25 Written by Rodolfo Hernandez Wednesday, 14 November 2012 12:00

ASP application that requires authentication prevents anonymous or non authenticated users from accessing any page without proper authentication. This is a great feature, however if you have a page or pages within your asp application that you want to display to non authenticated users you won’t be able because of ASP Authentication restrictions. In this article I will give you a step by step guide on How to Allow/Deny access to Anonymous users in your ASP Application

Note: For the purposes of this guide, I will grant access to non authenticated to the ‘credits’ page of my ASP application.

1. Open the web.config file of your ASP application.

How to Publish Your ASP Application Using FTP Method in Visual Studio

Last Updated on Saturday, 29 September 2012 01:50 Written by Rodolfo Hernandez Sunday, 30 September 2012 12:00

On a previous post, we showed you how to publish your application with Web Deploy. However some of our users were experiencing issues with Web Deploy and were looking for an alternative way to publish their applications. In this article, I will give you a step by step guide on how to publish your ASP Application using FTP Method in Visual Studio

1. First, create a virtual directory. This is where your application will be installed. If you don’t know how to create one, please read this article