Dear readers,
when we started creating web projects around 1999/2000 there weren’t much tools to track and analyse visitors on websites like today with Google Analytics or Piwik/Matomo. One the of the most nicest and configurable we found quite early in the OpenSource tool chcounter aka expcounter.
It was coded by Christoph Bachner as chcounter, let got and developed further by Volker S. Latainski and the community as expcounter, and development finally stalled years ago, unfortunately.
The usual start dashboard looked like this:
One “killer feature”, for example, was to show a real time, fully configurable counter as seen via the “Wayback Machine” on our video game weblog project zockerseele.com.
We tried hard, over a period of several weeks, to port expcounter from PHP 5.x to PHP 7.x but failed in the end. For every bug we fixed, two to three (or more) new PHP bugs appeared.
According to several forums entries porting seems quite hard, as it requires changes on myriads of files and also several rewrites of code; which we hereby confirm.
It even is mentioned a complete rewrite of the tool which we just couldn’t do in the end and had to let go of the tool. At least, we tried.
What we would like to do with this post is thank Christoph Bachner & Bert Körn firstly for developing this tool which we in the end used for lots, lots of years on several weblogs. We would further like to thank the community of coders which helped Volker S. Latainski make expcounter to what it was: an OpenSource tool how it should be done.
We think there should be no time wasted anymore to port or rewrite this tool and we call the project dead. R.I.P. chcounter/expcounter! Thank you, little counter friend!
Thanks for reading,
the aethyx staff
Dear readers & customers,
the age of PHP 5.x is finally over, welcome PHP 7.x running many of our web projects:
Which means today, April the 12th 2019, is the very last day your projects and webspace might support PHP 5.x. Regarding EOL of PHP 5.x we’re months overdue now.
We strongly advise you to update your projects to the newest PHP version.
If you’re using AddHandler code snippets, switch to this one please: AddHandler php72-cgi .php.
If you need further help, that’s what we are here for, just drop us a line: info@aethyx.eu.
As long as you’re a client of us, AETHYX MEDIAE, we’ll switch your project/webspace for free if the switch didn’t work out of the box already.
If you need to update a plugin we would be happy to help too:
Depending on lines of code we charge 50€ (min.) to 99€ (max.) per plugin. Please contact us with the name(s) of your plugin(s) if one of those is essential for you and we’ll be happy to help: info@aethyx.eu.
As we were already posting back in October 2018, we updated some of our plugins which contained legacy code and which we edited to work with PHP 7.x ourselves.
Check out our free repository: https://gitlab.com/aethyx/opensource/tree/master/WordPress%20plugins. Feel free to download, share & contribute!
Happy updating and Happy Easter 2019,
the aethyx staff
Dear readers & customers,
bit by bit we’re starting to remove all of our advertisments from our websites.
Firstly, we never made any revenue from these. We’re serious right here.
Secondly, we never were convinced that concepts such as “Google Adsense” or “Adshot” are here to suit small indie publishers.
Thirdly, the “DSGVO” is doing its thing to make it harder for us small publishers to support big advertisement corporations as these never did comply with EU regulations and thus their code snippets are illegal, buggy & not up to date.
Fourthly, but not least: these are too old concepts and are rests of a TV and radio era. We from AETHYX MEDIAE never supported that, by the way, and thus don’t think it will be too much of a hard step for us.
As we’re living and working remotely from anywhere on this planet in the 21. century, there are more agile and end-user friendly ways of supporting websites.
Following is a list of payment options we support.
From the beginning we supported “Flattr” for example, a Swedish microdonation service which started in 2010. Through this service alone a user/reader/fan can tip our websites in an instant.
All of our websites support “Bitcoin” since 2014, a decentralised cryptocurrency from 2008/2009 which will some day (with other derivates) take over traditional, state-backed currencies. We added a button on every website we built where a user receives our donation address by a simple click of this button. Keep in mind this protocol is not officially supported by the W3C (WorldWideWebConsortium) and thus is not working in every browser or smartphone. In this case just copy our Bitcoin address please from your browser address bar and make your donation.
It’s more easier using the “Ethereum” button, if you want to spend Ether: firstly we designed and implemented this button ourselves, find the project and source code here. Secondly you will be redirected to “Etherscan.io” directly and may use an official link or a QR barcode directly to make donations.
So far these will be our current, one and only future ways of making money out of our projects.
For small indie online publishers “Google Adsense”, etc. never were an useful option. Our most popular blog project for example, gizmeo.eu, accumulates 15 readers per day at the moment and thus it never, since 2010 as this medium started, accumulated any kind of valuable revenue. So f*** that! ^^
We are heavily dependent of donations and strongly advise you to donate if you read and/or use our websites, apps & source code repositories!
Please take into consideration: as an indie publisher we never may guarantee that a medium exists for long if no one is interested in it. To this date we did so much to develop the new media ecosphere further but never got anything back to make a living. As we’re also pretty long in this game, since 1999/2000, we don’t think this will be the future we may support any longer.
GRANDS. DON’T. COME. FOR. FREE.
Keep rollin’ & take care,
the aethyx staff
Hello dear readers & customers,
today, we want to introduce to you our one and only “social media expert” Rae McCoy:
Rae is so far our only expert for anything Q&A related for our deluxe premium adult toy store, 53x.toys.
If there is anything open about our toys there, you want to get a Nornenrad tarot sent to your Email mailbox (75€), or just want to chat for a while, don’t hesitate to contact her!
She’s to this day still unmarried, doesn’t want kids, is bisexual and Scorpio too.
Have fun & respect her, please, she has a very tough job on Facebook & Twitter.
Have a nice day and happy masturbating,
the aethyx staff
the new year finally arrived and we from AETHYX MEDIAE, your most favourite independent online publishing house from beautiful Europe are glad that you made it! <3
We want to wish all of you precious months inside a completely brand new year! 🙂
BTW: don’t forget to migrate all of your PHP 5.x apps, plugins, etc. to PHP 7.x! PHP 5.x is EOL and it’s a critical security risk to use PHP 5.x stuff in 2019!
Cheers and all the best,
the aethyx staff