Fulled only by muesli and an apple and a poor nights sleep. I set out around a very chilly Tuebingen in search of the perfect job. I even parted with my beard in an attempt to appear more ‘respectable’. After a few hours it became apparent that a higher level of Germen language would be an extremely useful trait. I did try and sell my abilities as a native English speaker and various other traits, however my search so far has been unfruitful.

Having a couple of hours before my German lessons, I returned home to find an idea waiting for me. Why don’t you add a ‘Tip Jar’ to your blog? And so it was that several hours of (frustrating) work latter, I was the proud owner of yet a blog with little ‘Make a Donation’ buttons all over it.

I found this links useful in the process:

http://www.peeniewallie.com/2005/07/adding_a_paypal.html 

I’m using Wordpress blog software and was amazed at how no one actually said where to put the code snipit Paypay gives you. It would be nice to have a FAQ explaining this for noobs (new people). I’m not a graphic designer, but I have a fairly good understanding of the concepts and it still took me hours of fiddling to make annoying blips and blops vanish. I now am content with the feeling of  satisfaction that only comes from doing things the hard way.

Tracking URL’s in Paypal Tip Jar code snipit
During my many hours playing with the Paypal button code I noticed that it uses external links for two images. You would naturally expect one image, for the button, but the second is actually a 1 by 1 pixel that are commonly used for tracking hits to a page. Both images also used the secure http protocol, which as I understand it circumvents some client browser settings when set to not to load images from external sites.  This sort of information gathering tool collects mass amounts of data which, when cross analysised for trends gives Paypal a huge database of intelligence about shopper behavior online . This information we can only assume is used for … well whatever Paypal wants.

Having a streak of anti-establishment in me, I decided to remove the link to the 1 by 1 pixel image and see if the button would still work. No problems.

Then I decided to save the button image on my local server and change the button url to point to it. This means that on a normal page load no images or requests would be sent to Paypal. A request would only be sent if the button is actually clicked. This setup also has the added advantage of reducing page load time, as no external images are being fetched. Perfect.

Now, if there were just some way I could test the PayPal Tip Jar to see if it works without using my own account…

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Posted on March 20th, 2007 :: Filed under Life, Technology
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