atomiku

New pages up: Atomic Inc, Bass Piratez, DJ Zappa and teroMUD. atoChat v1.0 is basically ready so a beta link will be added to the atoChat page late March, if you would like to try the beta before that time then please send me your email address through the contact form, thanks. atoChat v1.0 screenshots to follow…

Here is a screenshot of atoChat v0.5 in action:

Two possible error messages for 4020: “Information received from an Invalid IP address” and just “Invalid IP address”.

While I was configuring SagePay Direct for an osCommerce store I made, the checkout process wasn’t completing because SagePay was returning error 4020. This means that the IP address I added to the “Valid IPs” tab on the SagePay control panel isn’t matching up with the IP address the request is coming from. If you’re getting this error too then it is most likely because you’ve entered the wrong IP, or no IP at all. You can log in to SagePay live at https://live.sagepay.com/mysagepay/. If you switch SagePay to Simulator mode, the error message will also include the IP address it received the request from, so then you can go and add the correct IP address. You can sign up for a simulator account at https://support.sagepay.com/apply/RequestSimAccount.asp – If you definitely have the correct IP address added, and you are still getting the same error, then something else must be up…

Attempt #1: I figured out that perhaps SagePay had updated their API and my SagePay Direct payment module for osCommerce was out of date? The osCommerce community addons website shows that the latest version of SagePay Direct payment module is v1.1, whereas I was using v1.0. It seems that the osCommerce v2.3.1 package I downloaded shipped with SagePay Direct v1.0. After installing v1.1 I am still getting the same error. Something else must be up?

Attempt #2 (solution!): SagePay seems to be returning “Error 4020: Invalid IP Address” because the transaction wasn’t being secured with SSL. It’s actually a legal requirement in UK, due to data security standards laws, to secure all sensitive information (address, credit card numberr, etc) by having the checkout process encrypted with 128bit SSL. The error seems to have gone away.

I’m going to write a little bit about Google Analytics today, for those who don’t know anything about it. If you already use Google Analytics on your website then stop reading now, I’m only going to be going through the basics.

So, what is Google Analytics? It’s an amazing web application that allows you to see the performance and statistics of your website. Tracking how your website performs is crucial. It’s the only way to find out what works and what doesn’t. It saves down all sorts of key information such as what browsers your visitors are using, where they came from, what keywords they used to find your site on google, what screen resolution they’re using and all sorts of other interesting and important information. This can be a vital tool if you are looking to optimise your website for search engines.

I recommend Google Analytics to anyone who runs a website and is interested in what is going on with their visitors. To get Google Analytics installed and working on your website, the first step would be to go to http://www.google.com/analytics/. If you already have a google account (Which you WILL have if you use gmail) you can click “Access Analytics” and login as normal. If you don’t have a google account, click “Sign Up Now” and get yourself registered.

Once you’re logged into Google Analytics, you should be given a sign up page if you’ve never used it before. Click the sign up button and get the form filled in. Once you’re all done, you will be given a block of javascript code to put at the top of your website, in thetags. Get that put in and you’re all ready to go! You’ll have to give the analytics data some time to update, it appears to be updated daily so you may have to wait till the next day to see anything interesting.

Well, hopefully I’ve covered everything. Do leave me a comment if you found this helpful, or if you need more help. Thanks, and enjoy!

Sup. I’ve been wanting to update atomiku.com for a while now. At first I was planning to design and build a very simple “holding page” styled template that had only links to my music, projects, etc… but instead decided that if I run my site on wordpress, it would open up the option for me to write about the various things that I discover and learn, mostly about web development. I have a moderately-sized list of things I want to write about that I’ve been adding to, for the past year, for when I eventually have some time. The list contains post ideas mostly about code, such as tutorials, script-hacks, fixes, etc. When I’ve got stuff a little more organized in life I will find the time to get the posts out there, but in the meantime enjoy what I currently have uploaded here. Music, mixes and atoChat v0.5. Heh. For anyone who is wondering, atoChat v1.0 is basically done and it kicks ass, but I need to do more beta testing on it before I release it. Soon I will post some screenshots and a list of new features. If anyone is interested in beta testing, leave a comment. Peace out.

A Casual Entanglement by *ex-artris1701 on deviantART – thanks for the nice wallpaper!