Other search operators include:

Until now, there wasn’t a WordPress plugin that let you do such a thing.

Infusionsoft allows you to create tracking links and include customer information such as their name and email address in the query string of the URL. Infusionsoft also allows your web forms to redirect to a thank you page on your site and include the web form data in the redirect link.

The challenge is that WordPress sites can SEE this data at the end of the URL , but can’t DO anything with it. So I wrote a plugin that can.

With URL Params, you can insert a urlparam shortcode to capture the query string paramaters in the URL, like FirstName. And, since sometimes there are multiple ways to share the same variable (I’m looking at you Infusionsoft and your inconsistencies!) you can even specify “backup” parameters.

For example… Let’s say you want to start a landing page by greeting the person by name. You could enter something like this:

Greetings, [ urlparam param="FirstName, Contact0FirstName, inf_field_FirstName" default="Friend" /]!

This would greet the visitor by their first name. If you’re using a NEW Infusionsoft Web Form (using the fancy drag and drop builder) the first name will be in inf_field_FirstName. If you’re using an old school Infusionsoft Web Form, it will be in Contact0FirstName. If you’re adding their info to a tracking link, the first name will be in FirstName. If none of those are specified, they’ll be greeted with a generic “Friend.”

This is super handy when you redirect someone from an opt-in form to a longer opt-in form (two step opt-in) where you, for example, ask for first name and email address on your opt-in page, and then redirect to a longer application or order form. Now you can pre-fill in the form. And… if the visitor bails and never completes the second opt-in form and you send a follow up email with a tracking link for them to finish their application, you can, again, pre-fill in the parts of the form you know.

End Result? A better, more personalized experience for your wordpress website visitor.

In my case, our blog posts were previously /blog/year/month/post_name_with_underscores.html and under WordPress were going to be simply /post-with-hyphens/

While there are many a fancy regex one can setup in their .htaccess file for 301 redirects, they often involve looping through a recursive regex to replace each individual underscore with a hypen, and then other regexes to do the rest of the work before finally redirecting.

There had to be a better way…

For starters, I downloaded and installed the Redirector WordPress plugin to handle my redirects. This allowed me to a) see what pages were missing via the 404 module and logging and b) import a redirect file to map my old site to my new site.

After moving my posts from Movable Type to WordPress (export your blog posts from MT and then import using the Movable Type and Typepad Importer plugin) I created a custom index template in MT that created the CSV import file of redirects from the old site to the new. Save, Publish, View, Save As, and Import into the redirects in WP and voila! All your old pages go to the new with a 301.

Here are the steps, one by one:

1. In MT, go to Design | Templates and create a new Index Template
2. Call it whatever you want and put the following in the actual template
   source,target,hits
<mt:Entries limit="150">
<$mt:EntryPermalink regex_replace="/^.*\.com\//","/"$>, <$mt:EntryPermalink regex_replace="/-/g","_" regex_replace="/^.*[0-9]+\/[0-9]+\/(.+)\.html$/","/$1/"$>, 0</mt:Entries><mt:Pages limit="150">
<$mt:PagePermalink regex_replace="/^.*\.com\//","/"$>, ___, 0</mt:Pages>
3. Modify the regex expressions to change to the format that matches your change in scheme. The one above strips off the date, strips off the .html and changes all of the underscores to hyphens. You’ll likely want it do so something else.
4. If you want to export all your pages, too, you can do so with the last line and a half of code that talks about pages.
5. Set the output file to oldposts.csv
6. Save and Publish the template
7. Go to http://yoursite/blogroot/oldposts.csv
8. In your browser, File | Save the CSV file to your computer
9. If you’re on a mac, you’ll need to open this file in Excel and then re-save it in the Windows CSV format. If you’re on Windows, you can skip this step.
10. Edit the CSV file in your favorite text editor or Excel and if you exported pages, too, enter in the new URL for the pages (replace the ___s).
11. Log into WordPress and install the Redirects plugin
12. Go to Tools | Redirects | Options | Import and import your CSV file

C’est fini! Your blog will now redirect requests for your old blog posts to your new format. Enjoy!

Here’s my Perl implementation.

use CGI;
use Digest::SHA1 qw(sha1_hex);
use Encode;

$q = new CGI;

sub ipnVerification() {
  my $secretkey = 'YOUR SECRET KEY';
  my $pop = "";

  foreach $field (sort($q->param))
  {
   unless ($field eq "cverify") {
      $pop .=  $q->param($field) . "|";
    }
  }
  $pop .= $secretkey;
  my $calcedVerify = sha1_hex(encode("utf8", $pop));
  $calcedVerify = uc(substr($calcedVerify,0,8));
  return ($calcedVerify eq $q->param("cverify"));
}

Enjoy!

Summit of Camelback at InfusionCon 2011

Last year at InfusionCon, Jon Goldman asked if I wanted to climb Camelback the next morning in time to catch the sun rise from the head.

I blurted out YES before he could finish giving me the details and the next morning we found ourselves heading out of the resort around 5am.

This year at InfusionCon, a group of us planned a Sunset climb up to the hump of the camel and got together quite a group for what proved to be a challenging, fun and gorgeous ascent.

Check out this video from the summit:

Fellow InfusionCon hikers included:

• Chris Wise with Credit Line Millionaire
• Jesse, a local friend of Chris
• Elizabeth Hannan, a brand building pro
• Kim DeYoung the “Get it Done” Girl with Get It Done University
• Colin Daymude InfusionSoft, the host of InfusionCon
• Travis Smith with LiftDivision delivering quality search traffic
• Mike Weiss with PraxisNow, Brain Technology to Lift your Potential
• Jeremy Shapiro with Government Deal Funding helping investors get funded

What better way to mix business and fun then to go hiking with some of the sharpest folks in the biz!

Jeremy Shapiro Enjoying Vegan Popcorn in Disney World's Magic Kingdom!

Disneyland and Disney World have tons of food to keep the whole family happy, but I recently discovered they also have food to keep us vegan folk fat, happy, fed and loving Disney.

What follows are far from healthy options, but they are vegan options. On second thought, Disney doesn’t have much for healthy food, no matter what you eat.

Any place that serves food also has a small binder with all ingredients, allergen warnings and more. Even the popcorn cart has a binder and YES the popcorn IS vegan! (win!)

For their sit-down venues that take reservations, you can call ahead and Disney Guest Services will be accommodate you.

For main meals, most of their places that server burgers (like Tomorrowland) have veggie burgers which are totally vegan and tasty fresh fries. They even have gluten-free buns if you need those. Make sure you ask for a vegan bun, as their standard buns now have milk in them. You can also find vegan flat breads (Frontierland) and vegan chili (Liberty Square).

For snacks, the main street old fashioned ice cream parlor has both soy based ice cream and rice based. Don’t hate ‘em until you try ‘em. The chocolate soy ice cream was outstanding and nothing beats watching the parade while eating a tall ice cream cone.

Additionally, the aforementioned popcorn is vegan.

If you’re hitting up Epcot, some of your best options are in Morocco where their falafel, hummus, etc… are filling, delicious and vegan. Some of their sides have dairy or egg, though, so make sure to ask. Again, most all the staff are really knowledgeable, allergen friendly, and if all else fails, they have their book of ingredients so you’ll know for sure.

After writing this post from my first hand experience, further research online linked me to some other more comprehensive reviews that I didn’t know about before going to Disneyland and Disney World as a vegan, such as following a Buddhist vegan through 9 Days of Vegan Eating in Disney, a complete park by park listing of vegan friendly eats, an entire book on eating vegetarian in Disney and even a photo journal of vegan dishes from all over Disney.

I never knew how myself, but on a recent snowshoeing and backpacking trip, George showed my how and the solution rocks!

First, drop the ice axe down through the loop, so the head is above the loop and the shaft is through and below the loop with the pick side facing the middle of the pack.

Now fold it up and secure it to your pack using whatever the manufacturer put in line with the folded up shaft.

In fact, on Trails.com, they even have photos showing how to attach an axe to my exact pack!

Thanks, George, for showing me how, and for then posting the question up on BackClip.

After running s3cmd --configure to configure it and then running a test successfully, I tried to upload a file using  s3cmd put filename s3://bucket/filename and got an error, specifically [Errno 32] Broken pipe.

The program would continually throttle the upload speed and retry until it couldn’t get the file up at any speed, no matter how slow.

Much looking around on the ‘net didn’t turn up a helpful answer, but I did manage to figure out what was causing the problem.

If the bucket you’re uploading to doesn’t exist (or you miss typed it ) it’ll fail with that error. Thank you generic error message.

To fix this, check your bucket name and retry with it spelled correctly.

Pyramids are a great way to increase your max rep in a given set, for example in pushups, pullups, and situps. For example, with a maximum number of reps at 5, you can knock out a total count of 25.

Now, for the fun math.

To find out how many total you’re doing (Let’s call this variable c), simply square your max rep count (let’s call this n). For example, if you’re doing a pyramid from 1 through 8, your total would be 8 x 8 or 64.

Why? There’s a great way to visualize why this works. If you line up the rep count for the entire set, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you can link groups of numbers. Sum the first 1 and the second 7 (8), then the first 2 and the second 6 (8) and so on (7 times) until you end up at the top by itself (8). Notice how they’re all the same sum? (1+7) + (2+6) + (3+5) + (4+4) + (5+3) + (6+2) + (7+1) + 8 = 64. This works out to (n)(n-1) + n or more simplified…

c = n²

Now, what if you want to hit the higher numbers faster and not get bored to tears with endless sets?

Try going in twos or threes, for example 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 or 3, 6, 9, 12, 9, 6, 3.

How does the math work for these? Simple. Divide the square of the max count by two, divide the cube of the max by three, etc… If the total count is defined as c, the step is defined as s and the max is defined as n, then to find your total, use:

c = n²/s

To get your pyramid top (n) from the max count (c) for a given step (s), simply reverse it with:

n = (c × s)^1/2

Lastly, if you want to know how many sets (t) you’re doing, use this:

t = 2(n/s) – 1

May these fun formulas run through your head as they do mine while doing reps!

The view from inside our snow cave

So you wanna build a Snow Cave? Thankfully it’s a lot easier than I thought – easy as in not complicated, that is. Building a snow cave takes a lot of hard physical labor, but is well worth it in the end as you have a comfy, flat, dry, above freezing home for the night.

This weekend, George, Greg and I ventured off to into the great outdoors for two days of snowshoeing and winter backpacking with some big ideas of how we could spend the night.

On Friday afternoon, I had read about the IceBox which unfortunately is only available online from REI and occasionally at their flagship store in Seattle. The IceBox is a brilliant invention which allows for the creation of perfect igloos, even with less than ideal snow. As I would not be able to acquire this in time for our trip, we had to make do with building a snow cave, and hauling in a 3 person tent and tarps in case that didn’t work out.

So where do you learn how to build a snow cave?

Freedom of the Hills

From a great book. If you don’t already own a copy of Freedom of the Hills, and ever plan to venture out into the mountains, drop what you’re doing and pickup a copy right now. It is the bible of mountaineering and is now on it’s 7th edition. Inside, it goes into everything you need on the subject from digging snow trenches, to building igloos, making snow caves and more.

A successful snow cave comes down to a few basic concepts which we stuck to and got great results. Here are my rough mental notes on “best practices”:

1. Don’t try and pile up snow. The snow will “set” and be impossible to work with. Instead, look for an existing pile on the leeward (opposite of windward) side of a hill. The wind will blow snow over the edge and it will pile up big and high.
2. Test the snow before you dig. Use an avalanche probe, ski pole, or in our case, the shaft of an ice axe, to gauge the depth of the snow, both down and into the hillside. We did this from time to time to and were shocked we never hit dirt!
3. Dig down and into the hillside. As you excavate, pile the snow on both sides of your stairway. This builds up walls which protect from the wind.
4. Dig a “T” shape INTO the hill, as if you had a hot iron with the letter T on it and pressed it in. This allows you to shovel snow out the sides from the inside of the cave, instead of underneath you which would be inefficient.
5. As soon as you get to where you want to expand inside, start digging up, with the angle of the hill, to create your vaulted ceiling. You’ll want a dome shaped ceiling (more on that later), and it’s also easier to dig.
6. Keep your sleeping platform higher up than the lowest step. That means you dig down to then build up. This creates a “cold trap” which will trap the colder air below you and keep you warmer.
7. Make your entire cave a SMOOTH dome. After you finish with your rough shape, start smoothing the ceiling and all walls. Any part that isn’t smooth will drip on you and that would be miserable. If near perfectly smooth, water will roll down the sides and on the edge of the floor.
8. Create a trench around the perimeter of the cave so any water that drips down will land, pool, run off and freeze there, instead of underneath you.
9. In the stairway leading into your cave, create a small dugout for your kitchen. You need just enough space for your stove to be protected on three sides from the wind. You obviously do not want to cook in your cave.
10. Create a few angled ventilation holes in the ceiling through to the surface for your exhaled air to escape. This way you don’t die in your sleep. The shafts should be about the width of the ski basket on your pole. We used the shaft of my ice axe, and the ceiling was thick enough that it barely got through to the surface. Rotating it around a bit widens the hole.
11. Don’t close your cave entrance off. Your stairwell is your source of fresh air. Even lying down, still in my sleeping bag with a tarp covering most (but not all) of the doorway, I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Pulling it to the side to let more air in felt great. Don’t worry, there’s no wind inside. It’s quiet, calm and warm(er).
12. Mark your snow cave with wands (or poles in our case) so anyone else coming down the mountain or along where you’re staying doesn’t fall in, hurt you, or hurt themselves.
13. Keep your snow tools INSIDE in case you need to get OUT. We got ~20 inches of snow overnight, and with the shovel inside, we were easily able to shovel our way out and up the stairs.

The result of all this was we had a spacious, dry and comfy cave for three with enough space to store gear inside. If you want to get fancy, (next time!) dig small alcoves in the wall to put your boots in upside down to dry out and store anything else you like.

Around sunset, it was already 18°F out and the wind was starting to pick up. We never got another read outside during the night, but inside, it stayed a comfy (and dry) 35°F all night long.

For some great photos with captions and all, check out my Snow Cave facebook album.

Here’s a video tour of the cave construction in progress:

Got any other great tips? Would love to hear them!