How can I speed up Amazon Affiliate Link creation? - amazon

Everyday I need to create 10-15 Amazon Aff links (iframes for a product image+details).
To be able to do this, I need to search for the product on Amazon, then click the product, then click another button, then copy the code, then paste into Wordpress. It quickly gets tedious. Is there a faster way to do this? Any offline apps that could speed the process up?
Thanks

You could check out GeoRiot.
There's a couple of tools to create affiliated links automatically, or you can use the Javascript Snippet in the header of your page, which automatically converts Amazon and iTunes links into affiliated links for you. You'll still have to copy the links and add them to your site, but with the JS snippet, that's all you'll need to do.
Another benefit is the GeoRiot links work for the international Amazon storefronts, so if you have any international users, they'll end up in their local marketplace to purchase the items.
(Full disclosure, I work for GeoRiot so I'm definitely biased here. But I can also answer any other questions that you have about the service.)

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Document Mng on Redmine: Anyone use DMSF plugin or find an easy way to manage docs in the Files tab with a 'wiki' as a front end?

I'm looking to use Redmine for document management. I know that Redmine is not ideal for this task but there is already a lot of content on the site so I'd like to utilize it if possible.
Redmine currently does not a have great documents module. The files we've uploaded look to be amended on that specific page and it doesn't seem to be able to move to another page (unless you download and re-upload to the proper page).
Idea 1
I see there is a Files section, which could work as a central repository (and you can upload document based on release) however, is there a way to set up a nice-looking 'front-end' page that automatically updates based on new submissions to the Files tab? I envision this front end to be a simple wiki page with the document name, a short description and a links to the file posted in the Files tab.
There are so many documents uploaded to varying pages on the Redmine site. I would only do the whole download and re-upload of files if there was a way to automatically update the 'front end' wiki.
Idea 2
I see there is a DMSF plugin for Redmine. Has anyone used this before and has is solved document management issues? I'd like to hear your feedback. Even if DMSF doesn't totally solve my issue, anything is better than what I have now.
Thanks!
In my opinion DMSF module is a perfect companion for Redmine. We have adopted it in our company. You can easily deal with document versions, webdav access, custom approval workflow, document modifications notification with the extra value of being well integrated with Redmine features (roles, dynamic links in Wiki and issue text and notes).

CRM 2011 - E-mail snapshot of Dashboard to a particular user

I have a request of a customer who wants his dashboards to be send weekly/daily to him via E-mail (PDF or IMAGE). I have searched for hours to find a decent solution, but I can’t seem to find one. This should work on “CRM Online” and on “IFD”.
I have found some code that can take a snapshot of a Webpage, but there I have the “Log-In” problems. Each time you execute the page, you see a page with the “MICROSOFT PASSPORT” or “ADFS” sign in box. I tried the “wkhtmltopdf”-method and “WebBrowser”-method and 3rd party tools.
There is also no “JavaScript” or “JQuery” that is able to generate screenshots from the current page. I’ve created a Webresource in CRM 2011 with an iFrame and in that iFrame I’m able to show the “Dashboard”. If I would be able to take a snapshot of that page, I could create an attachment and put in the CRM.
I think I’m on the right way of doing this, but I can’t seem to get over the last difficulties. I hope someone here on the forum already has done something like that. I’m almost sure it must be possible, because a partner of us was able to take a screenshot of the Dashboard and put it in their application. Of course they don’t want to share that piece of code with me.
I don't believe there is a way to possibly implement the functionality requested with out some major "hacks" that would be brittle and most likely break with any type of CRM/Browser update. I would work with the customer and advise them that what they are asking really doesn't make sense from a cost / maintenance standpoint. I'd try to see if they'd be willing to live with these work arounds:
Send a weekly e-mail with a link to CRM. Downside is the user has to be able to have rights to login and see the data, but it would be super easy.
Create custom reports that recreate the dashboard data. You should be able to schedule e-mails for this through SSRS
Good luck!

Scraping a website where all the data is locked in an XML database?

I am trying to download the full archive files of this website (http://www.afghanislamicpress.com/).
I tried using DeepVacuum (http://www.hexcat.com/deepvacuum/index.html) but the site is dynamic (I think that's the right word).
So you submit a form that gives the article archive, but it only spits out 5 at a time (i.e. per page) and then you have to click through. I want to download all the individual articles for the full data set, but don't want to manually click through.
I know there's some easy way to do this, but not entirely sure how.
Any suggestions for a novice at doing data scraping etc?
The most straightforward solution would be to contact the owner of the website and request their permission to republish their articles, and ask for a digital copy.
You can certainly automate pulling down content that is paged, but it requires some programming effort. The best tool for that imho is HTML Agility Pack.
Please be sure and comply with copyright and licensing terms of the content you are downloading.

Editing a webpage with no source

I am a new developer (as in just graduated on the 10th) and was hired by a company to do web development. I was asked to do some minor changes to a site that this company acquired. The problem is that we do not have access to the source code (apparently the people had a bad break up with their previous developers and cannot get the source, I'm not exactly sure). Is there a way I can add links to a site and have it change live? I have Visual Studios, the address, the links, and the videos they will go to, not a hard fix, but I don't know how to edit the site without the source code. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!
I advise you to talk to a senior or superior and get more information on how to proceed, because getting that code in a less than professional (or legal) way (e.g. using website rippers or something) would be a bad career move ;)
good luck.
interesting situation I should say, the company definetely didnt do its homework before the break-up
I am presuming you answer "yes" for the questions below
Is your company the legal owner of this website?
can you change the name servers or CNames etc
The current website is not Flash or silverlight
if here - you have said "yes" for all the above.
First of all navigate to every page of this website. File save as
each of this page to html(make sure you choose webpage complete -
this will save all the images as well) I realise this will be static, but there is not much you can do here
Get all resources (stylesheets, xsds (if any) , any other images)
Enrich this content based on requirements (i.e. add dynamic content, change logos etc)
Modify the cname or nameserver to point to the location(webserver)
you are in control.
Deploy your enriched and tested code
Educate your company to treat the developers well and when things go wrong, ensure transition is done well
I hope this help and good luck
Krishna

To Create an Employee directory

We are researching the various options that exist in our environment to create an Employee Directory. We have a SharePoint portal, AD and recently moved from Lotus Notes to Exchange. Our current employee search is a custom Notes DB that has since been retired.
Since moving to SharePoint an year ago, we've used a custom list using SharePoint Profiles that are updated from AD. But the simple list interface isn't very user friendly and is very slow. Sone of the requirements include type-ahead, pictures, and details of skills/certifications and other demographic information etc. We are considering building an ASP.NET or SilverLight application that can consume the information in the SharePoint list. With the introduction of Outlook and the Global Address List, we are now wondering if it might be easier to build something within Outlook.
Has anybody traveled a similar path and what would you advice us to do?
Microsoft has a huge set of offerings for Collaboration and Social Computing in Sharepoint.
See this document, pages 8 and 9 for information about features related to an employee directory, including details of skills/certifications and other demographic information.
A la carte availability of individual features (such as People Profiles and People Search) and pricing may be an issue, but you may want to look into buying something rather than building it (if you can get the pieces you want for a price you can afford).
Sharepoint can connect with Outlook to keep the lists synchronized if you want to use outlook. And there are definitely a lot of different ways to change the way the lists are presented in the Sharepoint portal to make them more user-friendly. Having those details on the portal will certainly be a boon when combined with the powerful search and indexing features in SharePoint so you can identify employees based on their profile details easily.
We use the people search for this pretty effectively. We populate data in AD, then connect profile properties to AD attributes. That's only if you have MOSS, though. If you're working with WSS, you'll have to build something more custom.
One gotcha, though, is that the People Search out of the box doesn't easily do partial searches (i.e. searching for "john" doesn't match "johnson"). That's a big downer in my mind. You can use Ramon Scott's approach of a Content Editor Webpart with a form and some Javascript to work around it, and you can also get there via the advanced search box (albeit indirectly), but it sure would be nice if it were easy to make the default search box do partial name searches.
I recently just discoverd a somewhat easy visual basic script that draws information from the active directory where you can specify which OU to draw from where it displays all user information in a simple .HTM page. it includes a search bar, recognizes patterns (address) (company telephone number) etc... If you would like i can post it for you. you only need to fill in a few sections (display name for directory, OU, OU display, and tags) and you can always change the way things look too.
This should be taken care of by using the My Site feature that's available within SharePoint. You will then be able to search SharePoint users by skills, certifications, projects, and educational qualification.
Please refer to the SharePoint Planning and Deployment material on TechNet for more info.
SH.

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