Arun Raj

URL Redirects using Cloudflare

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was moving my website from one domain to another and I realized that I needed to setup URL redirects so that my google indexed pages and page ranks are not affected. I was searching for different ways and finally concluded that using Cloudflare with its page rule was the easiest. Initially I was doing using a free hosting service and had setup the redirects using the .htaccess file. Later I noticed that it was not efficient as the free webhosting did not offer SSL.

Then I found cloudflare and started using it. URL redirects can be easily setup with Cloudflare free account where they offer setting upto 3 page rules - follow the setps here

The above pages rules helped me redirect my main domain, subdomain and all the webpages in them to be redirected from my old domain arunraj.eu to new domain arunraj.me

Automatically create a blog post from Telegram Channel post

Sat, 24 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

IFTTT was the first online Automation platform I used and was fancied by it’s services. IFTTT, after their free services became limited, I was looking for a new automation service which can help me automate creation of blog posts on Tumblr and Wordpress. Then, I came across Integromat( now called Make.com ) and it seems to have something which IFTTT doesn’t have. Here I am sharing a use case of creating a blog post on Wordpress easily using Telegram.

Prerequisites - 1) A telegram channel 2) A bot id created and added as administrator of the telegram channel 3) A self hosted wordpress blog with integromat connector plugin installed

Create a bot in Telegram And add it a ss administrator to the Telegram channel

Go to make.com and create the below scenario

Create a post from Telegram and check it

Enabling free HTTPS/SSL for a self-hosted wordpress website

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I bought a cheap website hosting from Atspace, however I found that they are not giving SSL for free. It was required to either buy SSL certificate for the domain from them or buy the certificate from a provide outside and upload it. It’s easy to get a free SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt. If you are using wordpress,Really Simple SSL wordpress plugin, provides easy way to get a SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt.

Install the Really Simple SSL plugin and proceed with the steps in the plugin.

Create TXT record in the domains DNS management settings to verify the domain

Copy Certificate, Private Key, Certificate Authority Bundle which is generated from LetsEncrypt and paste it in the SSL section of the domains control panel

Once the certificates are uploaded, the SSL becomes active

Creating a blog with Netlify, Ghost, DigitalPress

Sat, 05 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Headless CMS is getting famous nowadays and being the fact that it’s easy to setup and free. Here I am going to show how to setup a blog with Netlify + Github + Ghost. Netlify provides the CI/CD, content will be hosted on Github and Ghost will be used to create the blog content.

STEP 1:

Use the jamify starter template from the Netlify Template site https://templates.netlify.com https://templates.netlify.com/template/jamify-starter-ghost Click Deploy to Netlify Connect to Github and enter the repo name that needs to be created The site is deployed and will be available with a generated sub-domain on netlify Change site name to your own url

STEP 2:

The blog content from the deployed template comes from the Ghost demo website, so we have to replace with our own content. Blogging on Ghost’s own blogging platform https://ghost.org is not free, however there are providers like Digital Press where you can create a free ghost blog with limited features. I have created a blog in DigitalPress and going to use if for creating posts. I have created a sample post in DigitalPress blog.

STEP 3:

Now we can link the blog contents from the Ghost blog to Netlify site. First Change the site URL in the site config file. Get the API key for content from Digital Press Create a .ghost.json file in the repository and add the apikey to apiurl As soon as the changes to the files in the repo are done Netlify autotriggers a deploy, however you can still trigger a deploy again After deploy you can view your blog content from DigitalPress linked to the Netlify Site

Go ahead and create blog content on the DigitalPress Ghost blog and after creating each blog post Trigger deploy to view the new posts

Creating dynamic link URL shortener with custom domain using Google Firebase

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I was checking for some PHP scripts which I could use as a URL shortener with my own short and easily remembered domain. Lately I discovered that google was providing this awesome service for free.

Google replaced its URL shortener service goo.gl with Dynamic Links firebase.google.com/products/dynamic-links providing more features and flexibility.

Pros :

Can be configured with your own custom-domain - I was able to register a TLD which is not that costly and use it as a URL shortener (arun.fyi).
Can be configured as a dynamic link, if you own android and iphone apps, you can redirect the link behaviour to open in the respective apps.
Analytics is provided for the dynamic links created.
You can define your own dynamic link and change the deep links behind. For example : I created the link arun.fyi/mp3 to redirect to some page in a6unraj.com domain 6 months ago and now I no longer want to use that domain, so I changed the deep link behind and now it redirects a page in different domain( arunraj.eu ).

The setup is quite easy

Buy the domain
Create a project in Firebase console https://console.firebase.google.com/project/
Setup URL Prefix
Setup A records in the DNS settings where the domain was registered I have setup URL prefix for arun.fyi
Start using the service once the URL prefix setup is completed.
Click on New Dynamic Link and you can define your own link Setup behaviour for android and iphone apps Setup meta tags for social media platforms

The dynamic link is all setup and you can try it https://arun.fyi/clock

Pointing a blog to a subdirectory in primary domain

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The blog is first to be setup at the sub-domain. For ex :In the DNS management of my domain, I used CNAME records to point my sub domain to blogger.

Then I have added a sub directory in my hosting space using c-panel and added 2 files to the folder ( .htaccess and proxy.php)

The htaccess file with below code

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /memories
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ proxy.php?url=http://memories.arunraj.eu/$1

The proxy.php file with below code

<?php
$from = "memories.arunraj.eu";
$unto = "arunraj.eu/memories";
function fetch($url) {
$curl = curl_init();
$timeout = 5; // set to zero for no timeout
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
$html = curl_exec($curl);
$content_type = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE);
curl_close($curl);
return array($html, $content_type);
}
list($html, $content_type) = fetch($_GET['url']);
// Fix root-relative links etc.
$html = preg_replace('/\b(href|src|rel)="\//', '$1="http://'.$unto.'/', $html);
// Replace the old URL with the new
$html = str_replace($from, $unto, $html);
header("Content-type: $content_type");
echo $html;
?>

Edited the blogger theme in HTML and added the below script under header tags

<script>
if (location.host == memories.arunraj.eu)
{
location.replace(location.href.replace(memories.arunraj.eu, arunraj.eu/memories));
}
</script>

Remember to add the below code in the header if the stylesheet is blocked with error Mixed Content: The page at ‘https://arunraj.eu/memories/’ was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure stylesheet ‘http://arunraj.eu/memories/assets/css/main.css’. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="upgrade-insecure-requests">

Now accessing the blogger url http://a6unraj.blogspot.com redirects and loads the blog posts in the subdirectory of my domain.

Transfer files between Android Mobile and PC wirelessly

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

1) For transferring from PC to mobile the app Portal can be used.

Install the app and connect the PC and mobile to the same Wi-Fi hotspot

Then goto the url http://portal.pushbullet.com and scan the QR code from the mobile app

Drag and drop files to the browser and the files are transferred to mobile

2) For transferring from mobile to PC the app ES file explorer can be used.

Install the app and after connecting the mobile and PC to the same wifi hotspot open the app

Goto the url shown in the app

The folders of the root directory are listed and files can be downloaded. To swap between internal and external storage change the root directory in settings

Hosting a simple website on google cloud

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Google cloud provides the easiest way to host a static website (set of html pages without a DB). The first year service comes with free of cost considering that your website doesn’t hit much traffic and doesn’t involve much storage. The setup is quite easy

Signup for the trial account here which has a trial period of 1 year and credited with 300$ credits to use other Google Apps
Enable billing and add a credit card to your account to verify that you are a human, currently debit card is not supported but still you can add a debit card(need to be changed after trial period) and you will be charged 1$(50 INR) later will be credited once the biller is verified.
Add CNAME record to your DNS settings of your domain provider to verify the domain.
Create a bucket with the name of the domain/subdomain where you want the site to be available ( for example mp3.a6unraj.com)
Once you have completed building an offline copy of your static site you can go into the bucket and upload files into the bucket(css, js, html retaining the folder structure)

Remember to make the index.html and 404.html file as public as above and set them to load in the configuration

Now the site is ready for display.

Free webhosting services for static website.

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Today I was in search of free webhosting service providers

Since 000Webhost no longer support ad-free hosting(adds a ad banner at the bottom right corner of the web pages). Then I came accross AWS(Amazon Web Services) and Google Cloud Platform.

Initially I tried to host it using AWS Amplify, AWS is free if your site qualifies the FreeTier. But after all setup I needed a credit card to verify my identity, so the service setup was not successful since I do not have a credit card.

Alternatively I started checking Google Cloud, where after the signup you will be given 300$ credits to use if for an year after verifying your billing method(credit card/debit card). If the credits are used withing the trial period or if the trial period(12 months) expires you need to opt for an upgrade to keep the service running.

I just tried a sample setup and the site setup was successful :)