How to List Related Tags on Drupal Taxonomy Pages Using Views

1 October, 2016 | Drupal Development | 26 seen

Make sure you check out my previous article How to List Drupal Child Terms on Taxonomy Pages with Views as today I will extend a little bit my previous tutorial and at the end we will add related tags on taxonomy pages using views.

Tools (modules) you will need: Views module and taxonomy module enabled.

Here is the print screen:

Listing related tags on Drupal taxonomy page

Or see live example at Drupal development (or any tag on this blog)

This will work with simple one taxonomy per content type enabled and it will work with multiple taxonomy fields enabled per content type. I'm using two level taxonomy fields - first I have a pre-defined taxonomy fields including child levels, second I have second taxonomy field with tagging enabled in free format. Which basically means following - each article is listed into pre-defined category, like this one goes into Drupal Development, and second tags are added in free format, for example Views, Drupal tutorial... 

In following example we are going to use the power of Views attachments:

Drupal view with attachment

Open your taxonomy/term/% view and add a new attachment. Give it a nice name, Related tags, for example. 

Start by adding following contextual filter:

Content: Has taxonomy term ID (with depth)

• Depth:0
• Provide default value: Taxonomy Term ID from URL
• Load default filter from term page

Relationships:

• Content: Taxonomy terms on node
• Require this relationship

Other:

• Use aggregation: Yes

Format:

• Format: Unformatted
• Show: Fields

Fields:

• Taxonomy term (name)
• Taxonomy term (tid)
• Global: Custom

Paste following in Custom field:

were tax-menu and small are a div classes you can latter use for styling your sub-menu

Sort criteria:

Make sure you remove date, cause it will break things if you have enabled aggregation

• Taxonomy Term ID, use aggregation Count

Attachment settings:

• Attach to: Page
• Attachment position: before

Save your view, and you should be done with technical stuff. Now it is time to apply some CSS. 

Hope this helps! 

Few Tips Before Launching Your First Web Push Notification Campaing

30 September, 2016 | Blogging | 3 seen

Web push notifications have been around for a while already. Chances are, if you are reading this article, you have already implemented them on your website or at least you are planing to do it soon. Continue reading and I will reveal how did it go for my first web push notifications campaign.

In fact I'm new to web push notifications. I first installed and enabled web push notifications for my blog just few days ago. See: How To Setup Web Push Notifications for Drupal or Any Site using PushEngage. In four days I gathered 300 subscribers and first campaign was sent out. 

Get a free account at PushEngage (Free for up to 2500 subscribers)

Here are few tips (observations) after my first sent campaign:

Dashboard at PushEngage​

My idea for push notifications at start was simple - set and forget - let me explain. PushEngage offers to use RSS auto push feature, which basically means - enter RSS feed once and set all to auto mode. I was looking for following behavior - RSS auto push will grab the title from article, and description. As of now - PushEngage doesn't offers options to use thumbnail from post, so I manually upload a picture of my face, the same I'm using on Facebook page.

The Result:

Default RSS push notification

My expectations were wiped - the auto RSS push sent RSS with my name in title and post title as description

My first push notifications was sent out to 300 subscribers, 12 decided to un-subscribe (block notifications), I got 190 views (that's more than 50%) and 23 clicks (7.7% CTR)

In fact  - I would say - that's pretty decent result for the very first campaign. I would love to see unsubscribe rate less - but I understand, that it's normal. 

Here are few my suggestions:

• Don't use RSS - AUTO push for your first campaign, give it a try with handcrafted notifications. 
• Reach pretty solid audience before you reach out. 300 subscribers seems fine, but I would suggest to reach at least 1,000 before sending out. That of course depends on how many subscribers you can get in a short time. Set this limit smaller if you  can't gather subscribers fast enough. P.S. I got 300 subscribers from about 8,000 unique visitors in 4 days.
• Use attractive picture for your notifications
• Try to add text like Click here or Read more at the end of your notification to increase your CTR rate.

Now it's your turn - what are your suggestions or experience for first web push notifications campaign? Leave a comment below.

How To Sync Drupal RSS Feed to Mailchimp

29 September, 2016 | Drupal Development | 22 seen

RSS is not dead, it's more than alive - nowadays it's used to sync content across services and devices.

After finishing installing push notifications for my blog I decided to re-check my e-mail marketing strategy. Wow, it's hard to compare actually - I got about 200 push notifications subscribers in less than 3 days, while my attempts of collecting e-mails turned out to be more gloomy  - about 60 subscribers in 3 months (after which I stopped to collect e-mail addresses at all). Not to speak about crafting and editing each newsletter.

I decided to make my e-mail marketing strategy more simple and more aggressive. By saying simple - I would like to be it fully automated, by saying aggressive - to send out more often . Let me explain - use to I sent a newsletter campaign once in a month and spent few hours crafting each campaign. Now, I want to send a newsletter once a week, and not spend much time crafting each campaign. I'm looking for set and forget setup.

I have changed my mindset a bit as well - if in the past I looked on e-mail marketing as on way to sell (I doubt I have sold anything yet via e-mail), then now I look on it as repeat visitors and loyal audience, which actually is much more than just selling something. I'm glad I have changed my mindset.

Sure thing, buddy, 60 subscribers won't give me much (as of now my site receives about 55,000 unique visitors a month, and 60 subscribers for such amount is ... humble, not to say more). This leads me to install back HelloBar for collecting e-mails and think of new ways to capture audience. 

Now, back to the subject - How to Sync RSS feed to Mailchimp, and no matter is it a Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla or any other Content management system - as long as you have RSS feed, you can sycn it to Mailchimp.

RSS Campaigns are built in a series of steps. If you haven’t started building your RSS Campaign yet, start at the beginning of these instructions. If you already started and saved your progress, skip to the step you want to work on.

To create a new RSS Campaign, follow these steps on Mailchim: Create an RSS Campaign

The settings are pretty straightforward and wont take you even 5 minutes to complete.

The tricky part I found was at formatting the template, by default in the e-mail subject field it was something like that: Posts from ReinisFischer.com for date 27/09/2016, which didn't seems too much lovely, right? I decided to have a Quora digest style e-mail template, and to have as a subject line the title from latest post.

RSS campaign

To have a post title in e-mail subject field, paste following into Email Subject field:

Setting up RSS campaign on Mailchimp

When editing your template on Mailchimp, make sure you put RSS block into content area of your template:

Editing template on Mailchimp

Save your changes, give it a few tests - preview live on site and of course send a test e-mail to your self, before actually launching your campaign.

Hope it helps. 

How to List Drupal Child Terms on Taxonomy Pages with Views

28 September, 2016 | Drupal Development | 70 seen

I spent a good amount of time at Monday's evening to actually figure this out. In today's Drupal Tutorial - How to List Drupal Child Terms on Taxonomy Pages with Views.

This issue has been on my table for about two years.

For the ease of this tutorial - here is basic setup. For a content type blog I have created pre-defined vocabulary - Category. Most of the category items are not related and are in linear format. But few of them are related and I have listed them as child terms.

Pre-defined category in Drupal

The tricky part is how to display child terms under parent taxonomy page - let's say a visitor is visiting parent category page - Tourism Objects and we would like to feature a little sub-menu with child terms, like airports, shopping venues e.t.c.

I tried many modules and solutions, but decided to stick with a simple views configuration using attachment feature.

Drupal taxonomy page views to list child terms

In following example I have actually extended a little bit usability by displaying count for each child term using aggregation.

Open your taxonomy/term/% view and add a new attachment.

Give it a nice name, Child terms, for example. 

Start by adding a contextual filter:

• Taxonomy Term:Parent term
• Provide default value: Taxonomy Term ID from URL
• Load default filter from term page

Relationships:

• Content: Taxonomy terms on node
• Require this relationship

Other:

• Use aggregation: Yes

Format:

• Format: Unformatted
• Show: Fields

Fields:

• Taxonomy term (name)
• Taxonomy term (tid)
• Global: Custom

Paste following in Custom field:

were tax-menu and small are a div classes you can latter use for styling your sub-menu

Sort criteria:

Make sure you remove date, cause it will break things if you have enabled aggregation

• Taxonomy Term ID, use aggregation Count

Attachment settings:

• Attach to: Page
• Attachment position: before

Save your view, and you should be done with technical stuff. Now it is time to apply some CSS. Here is what I got at the result:

Listing child terms on Drupal taxonomy page

Using similar approach (attachment) I have attached taxonomy term description and even Google Maps to my category pages.

How To Setup Web Push Notifications for Drupal or Any Site using PushEngage

27 September, 2016 | Drupal Development | 61 seen

Push Notifications seems are hot and worth to invest trend nowadays. I have seen them around for about last 6 months in blogs, portals and other websites.  

In fact I have always chose to block them, when popped in my Chrome Browser, as I think they might be annoying. On the other hand as a blogger with pretty solid audience (more than 55,000 unique monthly users) I have wandered maybe it's worth to explore them more and implement on my blog?! As I see it now - web push notifications could help me to increase repeat visitors and page views, that's the reason I finally opted in and implemented web push notifications.

In todays Drupal development series - How To Setup Push Notifications for Drupal or Any Site using PushEngage.

PushEngage (Image courtesy: PushEngage.com)

Here is the fun fact - my smartphone have been broken for about 2 weeks (glass is broken), and I haven't repaired it or bought a new one - I didn't had a smartphone to perform my tests on. But I had a great partner and bug fixer in the other part of the world - my dad. I would like to express many thanks to my dad for a sleepless night, helping me out to implement and bug fix web push notifications on Android phone. Thanks dad, you are the best!

N.B. This article contains affiliate link to PushEngage.com, if you will decide to register a free account there, and latter will upgrade to paid account I might earn an affiliate income from that at no cost to you!

About Web Push Notifications

If you ask a room of developers what mobile device features are missing from the web, push notifications are always high on the list.

Push notifications allow your users to opt-in to timely updates from sites they love and allow you to effectively re-engage them with customized, engaging content. See more: Push Notifications on the Open Web

As a Drupaler I just logically went for a search for Drupal modules promising to enable push notifications for my blog, here are two I found:

• Push Notifications
• Roost Web Push

From the two above listed, first (Push Notifications) seems to offer a lot, but involves great learning curve (You won't be able to set it up and run in 5 minutes), I was not in the mood to spend countless hours on developing a totally free feature. I opted for the second (Roost Web Push).

Although Roost Web Push promises to tackle all the hard work in place of you - I encountered few issues with it, and generally was left with a feeling that GoRoost.com is somehow dead and not supported from the side of developers (as of September 2016). After all I wasn't able to setup a correct installation with GoRoost.

Update: I got a reply from GoRoost.com support after 2 days and seems issues were corrected, thus I was already using PushEngage platform.

I didn't stopped my search and found few more services helping to setup web push notifications (Not related to Drupal). Here are few: Finebird.com, PushScrew.com and finally after reading article on shoutMEloud: How To Make Your Blog Push Notification Ready In The Next 5 Minutes I decided to give a try to PushEngage.com

All of the above listed offers more or less the same functionality - in short enable a JavaScript code in your website template and start gathering data. 

Here are things I didn't find cool at Finebird - at time of writing this article it was missing Auto Push feature (I would love to sync all blog content with service).

Pushcrew on the other hand handles RSS - Auto Push feature, but I had problems to enable single-opt in notification block for my HTTPS site. I had a chance to send a request to support desk and ask them to enable it for me. I actually did send that request and after few hours got a response with instructions, but by that time I was already using PushEngage - which worked smoothly out of box. (I had few problems with it, but generally speaking - PushEngage did what it promised - Target Desktop and Mobile users on Chrome and Firefox through Push Notifications. Implement in 5 mins. Exactly 5 minute implementation was what I was looking for, and more or less I did everything running in 5 minutes.

How To Setup Web Push Notifications for Drupal or Any Site using PushEngage

Start simple - visit PushEngage a register a free account. After successful registration follow installation instructions:

1. Include The Core JS Code

Copy and paste code from box to your website template (Speaking of Drupal, paste it into .html.tpl file - I prefer to include external scripts at the bottom of html, so I copied mine at the end of html.tpl file

Make sure you change YOUR-NUMBER. 

For Drupal -  clear the cache and / or inspect the source - does new JS file is actually loading.

2. Download Package Files(Only for HTTPS Implementation)

Learn more how to enable HTTPS for your Drupal site: Linode: How To Secure Nginx with Let's Encrypt on Ubuntu 12.04

Download the Package of files which include Manifest file,Service Worker file by clicking the link on from your PushEngage account and store them in your websites root folder

3. Give it a try

If done right - everything should work out of the box now. Start collecting subscribers and prepare for the first camping.

Possible problems, issues

Just shortly I registered for a PushEngage account I got a message from developer and founder of PushEngage Ravi Trivedi, with congrats and further steps.

By this time I already figured out - Web Push notifications are not working on iOS, and I did send a reply:

Reinis here, I did setup my push notifications already and I'm planing to see it on action by using RSS feed from blog. 

Here is my site: https://www.reinisfischer.com

Is there any planned upgrade for IOS anytime soon?

Unfortunately iOS does not support Browser Push Notifications , so we cant implement Browser Push on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari on iPhones/iPads.   

In terms of Safari support for Mac computers, we will be launching that shortly.

Next I figured out that RSS-Auto Push is not actually sending out my notifications and I couldn't figure out how Geo - locations works, so another question(s)

1. If sending notifications under Advanced Options for Geo Location I don't see country, state or city, just "No Result found"  - why it is so, and could it be there are some bots enabling notifications?
2. I enabled RSS-Push notifications, but haven't seen them sending out, I added my RSS in XML format - like this 
https://www.reinisfischer.com/rss.xml
Is that a right format? Or should I use some other format for RSS?
 

And a quick reply:

1.  We use a third party vendor for identifying the geo location of a push subscriber (IP to Geo mapping), and that vendor has some outage, and hence we are seeing this issue where new subscribers are coming in without  a geo location.  We are looking at addressing this urgently, and once this is taken care your subscribers will have geo location. Apologies for the issue.

2. When did you enable RSS Auto Push?  The configuration seems fine.  The way it works is that every 30 minutes, it checks for new posts in last 30 minutes and sends them out as Push Notifications.   I noticed you have set your time zone as GMT, and the RSS feed also is in GMT. Last post was updated at 04:15 GMT, so if you set this after 5:00 AM GMT, it had no posts to send.
 

The Bottom Line

By now (September 2016) web push notifications seems still new and unusual marketing channel for web apps (blogs, portals and so on), but I believe we will heard of them more and more, and yes, most probably the CTR will decrease, but as of now - what are you waiting for? Start implementing web push notifications now.

PushEngage Dashboard

In less than 24 hours I was able to gather 74 subscribers. Amazing. I still wonder how many actually have pressed block instead of allow from notification bar?!

It seems I will be able to gather a 2500 subscribers in less than 3 months, in that way I will need to upgrade to a paid account.

About PushEngage

Implement Push Notifications in 5 Minutes

PushEngage enables Push without requiring your website to implement HTTPS. Add the javascript code to your site and go live in 5 minutes.

High Click Through Rates than Email

Because of higher views for notifications, and urgency of the message, with browser push notifications, you will notice 5 to 10x higher click rate over email.

Engage Mobile Audience without Mobile App

Mobile Browsers support push notifications, so now you can re-engage with your audience and increase your repeat visitors to the mobile website. Now you dont need an mobile app to engage users in browser.

Personalized Messaging

Target notifications based on preferences, categories, or custom segments, and get higher click rates and higher conversion.

Re-Engage With Users Anywhere

Reach your when users when they are not on your website. Increase repeat users to your site using browser push notifications. These are delivered to user real-time, in the browser.

Schedule Notifications

Reach your users when they are likely to open your message. Schedule notifications to save you time.

Learn more at PushEngage.com

'Delicious Ravioli' on Tumanyan street in Yerevan

25 September, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 21 seen

Delicious Ravioli on Tumanyan street in Yerevan, Armenia serves a traditional Georgian cuisine. Actually this is a typical khikali place and I still wonder why this place is called a Ravioli place instead of Khinkali, as in Russian language sign - this place is still called Tasty Khinkali. Strange.

Anyway, as usually when abroad I search for a Georgian cuisine. Last time I visited Georgian Tavern in Tallinn, Estonia, today was Yerevan's turn. Another evening, another Yerevan restaurant. 

We visited Delicious Ravioli just shortly we returned from Khor Virap monastery complex.

Delicious Ravioli

This restaurant is located in basement, and you must look really carefully to find it. 

Interior at Delicious Ravioli

Pretty good and stylish. Very red :)

Khinkali at Delicious Ravioli place

The Bottom Line

Food was good, really good prepared khinkali accompanied with Georgian Saperavi lemonade. Budget? Don't recall exactly but pretty affordable. Would love to return.

Khor Virap Monastery Complex in Armenia

24 September, 2016 | Churches and Monasteries | 63 seen

The Khor Virap is an Armenian monastery located in the Ararat plain in Armenia, near the closed border with Turkey, about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of Artashat, Ararat Province. The monastery was host to a theological seminary and was the residence of Armenian Catholicos.

Located some 30 km from nations capital Yerevan, Khor Virap is best reached by organized tours, personal vehicle or by hiring a taxi. I have kept contacts from good old taxi driver Tom, which we met first when arranged a tour to Etchmiadzin cathedral, Tom wasn't available today but agreed to send his friend Misha. Here is a catch - the reason we decided to visit Kor Virap was to catch an awesome sunset (Golden Hour) photography. Misha picked us up at our Yerevan Park Hotel about an hour before sunset.

Khor Virap monastery and mount Ararat

There is a cemetery located just before the monastery complex. As we arrived some 30 minutes earlier, we made a stop here, and I started to install equipment. 

Khor Virap's notability as a monastery and pilgrimage site is attributed to the fact that Gregory the Illuminator was initially imprisoned here for 14 years by King Tiridates III of Armenia. Saint Gregory subsequently became the king's religious mentor, and they led the proselytizing activity in the country. In the year 301, Armenia was the first country in the world to be declared a Christian nation.

Chapel 

A chapel was initially built in 642 at the site of Khor Virap by Nerses III the Builder as a mark of veneration to Saint Gregory. Over the centuries, it was repeatedly rebuilt. In 1662, the larger chapel known as the "St. Astvatsatsin" (Holy Mother of God) was built around the ruins of the old chapel, the monastery, the refectory and the cells of the monks. Now, regular church services are held in this church. It is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Armenia.

Ararat plain

There is international boundary between Armenia and Turkey,situated somewhere in the middle.

 It is situated about 100 metres (330 ft) away from the closed Turkish-Armenian border (sealed by barbed wire fencing) and defended by Russian military establishments that guard the troubled border zone

Khor Virap and Mount Ararat

The Golden Hour photography experiments have started.

The monastery is surrounded by green pasture lands and vineyards within the Ararat plainand is in view of Mount Ararat. The Arax (or Arakas) River flows close-by and the monastery is opposite of Aralık, Turkey.

Inside chapel

The 17th century church built around the pit is a simple structure surrounding a large courtyard which looks like a fort complex.

Archaeological sites were excavated starting in 1970 in the thirteen hills (maximum height 70 metres (230 ft)) around Khor Virap and up to the valley of the river. Excavations in the hills 1 and 4, and sections of hills 5, 7 and 8 and of the neck of the land between Hills 1 and 2 are in progress. Some archaeological excavations have also been carried out outside the walls of the church at the site of Artashat, the capital of the Tiridat dynasty.[20] In addition to ancient coins and potsherds, excavations have unearthed well preserved mud-brick fortifications on the north slope of the third hill from the northeast.

Monk with long mustache

I met both a priest and this monk, we had a nice chat about both monastery complex and politics. The monk in above picture have been growing his mustache for more than 20 years. Unfortunately I forgot the name of monk (I will definitely search for him next time and correct my fault - or you can correct me right now, post in comments)

Another chapel

God, I just love church photography.

Khor Virap and Mount Ararat in Sunset

King Artashes I, founder of the Artashesid dynasty, established his Armenian capital at Artashat (also known as Artaxtisata) around 180 BC. It is believed that Hannibal, the Carthaginian General who was persecuted by Rome, was also instrumental in establishing Artashat.Artashat remained the capital of the dynasty till the reign of King Khosrov III (330–339) when it was moved to Dvin. Subsequently, Artashat was destroyed by the Persian King Shapur II.Artashat is close to the hillock of Khor Virap. Until its chapel was built, Khor Virap was used as royal prison.

Tashir Pizza (On Mashtots Avenue, Yerevan)

23 September, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 20 seen

I first heard about Tashir Pizza back in Tbilisi (Georgia), the girls from local community informed that there is a famous Armenian pizza coming to the town - I had no clue what does famous Armenian Pizza stands for, so I visited my first Tashir pizzeria at Tbilisi East Point mall - read my review here: Tashir Pizza at EastPoint Mall (Tbilisi)

Now, couple of months latter we were on a short few day trip to Armenia, and Tashir name popped up again, we were sitting at our cozy Park hotel room and decided to go for a walk and look for the brand. We hadn't to walk too long as first popped soon we left our hotel and headed to Mashtots Avenue. 

Tashir pizza on lively Mashtots avenue in Yerevan

​

Popular place

Literally everyone loves Tashir Pizza in Armenia, from young to old, from seniors to businessman. And Tashir Pizza has an offer for everyone - it definitely is not an expensive place. This place is a budget on steroids type of place (really rare you can see such venues - it is either cheap and bad, or bad and cheap) Tashir Pizza is cheap and good!

Tashir Pizza

Pizza being prepared

Now, what re you waiting for - Tashir Pizza is an excellent choice and it's real budget saver, or learn more how to prepare traditional Italian pizza at home.

About Tashir Pizza

The first pizzeria ''Tashir Pizza'' was opened on March 22, 1999 in RF, in  Kaluga city. Since 1999 there are more than 270 pizzerias as in Russia as in CIS countries. Nowadays you can find “ ''Tashir Pizza'' in Moscow, Balashikha, Kaluga, Obninsk, Tula, Kursk, Belgorod, Serpukhov, Voronezh, Korolyov, Ryazan, Lipetsk, Saratov, Engels, Rostov-in-Done, Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Pyatigorsk, Stavropol, Nevinnomissk, Yerevan,Vanadzor, Gyumri and so on. 

Visit tashirpizza.am to learn more or see other great Yerevan restaurant reviews.

Armenian Wedding

22 September, 2016 | | 9 seen

In today's Piece of Life photo series - Armenian Wedding, no not mine big fat Armenian Weddings, but a candid street photography from Yerevan.

It all probably started at Yerevan's Brandy Factory, after visiting which we returned back to the old town by foot and noticed a crowd gathering near church. Yup, they were waiting for the bride and groom. 

So did we.. I quickly changed glass to telephoto and decided to experiment - yes your are right with the candid street photography. Wide apertures and amazing models. 

Wedding limousine 

Taxi driver without enthusiasm 

Wedding guests

...and police

I captured both the bride and groom, but decided to keep their privacy and not to publish their images (well, I was just a passer by with a telephoto lens, and not an invited guests)

Yerevan Brandy Factory Ararat

21 September, 2016 | Tourism objects | 113 seen

This post is about Yerevan Brandy Company producing famous Ararat brandy.

During my latest trip to Yerevan (Armenia) I had a free time and I decided to to visit Yerevan Brandy Factory. So, we just walked there by foot, and huge was our surprise when the girl at reception informed that tours can be arranged only by calling before - that's lame. But OK, if you are planing to make an indie trip to Yerevan Brandy Factory - make sure you contact them prior or you will be left with the same we got - wandering around at a small brandy kiosk at entrance, instead of taking a tour inside factory, observing all those oak barrels or even tasting brandy. 

Ararat - Yerevan brandy company

Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC)  is the leading enterprise of Armenia for the production of alcoholic beverages. Its main brand name is Ararat. Currently the company boasts a large following, particularly in Russia, as well as in Ukraine and Belarus. The Russian market accounts for about 85% of exports.YBC is owned and operated by the French giant Pernod Ricard.

Lada Niva with Ararat logo

Yerevan Brandy Company was founded in 1887 by a wealthy 1st guild merchant Nerses Tairyants with the help of his cousin Vasily Tayrov. Tairyants began distilling brandy at the winery he had founded ten years earlier inside the former fortress of Yerevan. The enterprise reached its hey-day in 1898, when it was acquired by Nikolay Shustov, a well-known Russian vodka and liqueur producer. Shustov's company, Shustov and Sons were appointed as the supplier of His Imperial Majesty’s court. During the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900, the brandy received the Grand-Prix and the legal right to be called ‘cognac’, not ‘brandy’, following a blind degustation.

 In 1948, in connection with the reorganization of the Yerevan Wine & Brandy Factory (known until 1940 as the Shustov Factory), the factory building was separated into the Yerevan Wine Factory and the Yerevan Brandy Factory. The independent history of the plant began in 1953 when a new building was constructed specifically for the production of brandy. The new building stands on a high plateau at the other end of the Victory Bridge in Yerevan, opposite to the Yerevan Wine Factory. With its nine austere arches, and long flight of steps leading to it, the building is hailed as one of the best architectural examples of the Soviet period in Yerevan.

In June 1998, the YBC was sold by the Government of Armenia to French distiller Pernod Ricard for $30 million, after competitive bidding organized by Admiralty Investment Group of New Zealand and Merrill

Lynch International of London. Among the famous admirers of Armenian brandy were Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie and Frank Sinatra.

Small kiosk with Ararat brandy inside 

Learn more (and arnage your tour) at: http://araratbrandy.com/

Yerevan Opera Theatre

20 September, 2016 | Tourism objects | 42 seen

It took me about 4 or 5 times to visit Yerevan, before I actually visited Yerevan Opera theater. OK, in fact I didn't even visited it, just passed by, but the Opera House is a popular landmark when wandering around Yerevan. 

Here is the fun fact - The ground-breaking of the Opera-Theatre took place on 28 November 1930 during the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of Soviet Armenia.

Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet named after Alexander Spendiaryan in Yerevan was officially opened on 20 January 1933, with Alexander Spendiaryan's Almast opera performance. 

Yerevan Opera Theater

The last time we visited Yereavan, and had a chance to see Yerevan's Opera house was back in the March (2016) - warm clothes and still grey tree's. But this day some manifest was held in fron of the Opera house - at least there were a lot of Armenian flags.

The opera building was designed by the Armenian architect Alexander Tamanian. It consists of two concert halls: the Aram Khatchaturian concert hall with 1,400 seats and the Alexander Spendiaryan Opera and Ballet National Theatre with 1,200 seats.

Monument

The ground-breaking of the Opera-Theatre took place on 28 November 1930 during the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of Soviet Armenia. On January 20, 1933, the building was officially opened. Soon after the theatre foundation, a ballet troupe was established. Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was the first ballet performance in 1935.

Based on Tamanian's design and under the supervision of his son the theatre hall was completed in 1939, and the opera building was renamed after Alexander Spendiaryan. Large-scale construction works did not finish until 1953, when the entire building was finally completed with its current shape.

The opening of the theatre promoted the creation of new national operas and ballets. The first Armenian ballet was Happinessby Aram Khachaturian. On the basis of this ballet the composer soon created Gayane which has been performed all over the world. Many other Armenian composers have written operas and ballets. Over the years, these artists have worked at the theatre: singers Gohar Gasparyan, Tatevik Sazandaryan, Mihran Yerkat, Pavel Lisitsian, Haykanush Danielyan, Nar Hovhannisyan, Gegham Grigoryan, Anahit Mekhitarian; conductors Konstantin Sarajev, Michael Tavrizyan, Aram Katanyan, Yuri Davtyan; ballet masters A. Petrosyan, M. Chmshkyan, Vanush Khanamiryan, Vilen Galstyan; painters Martiros Saryan, Minas Avetisyan.

Since 1935 a unique Armenian opera, Anoush by Armen Tigranian, has been performed in Yerevan opera theatre. It was a great step in Armenian opera history. Anoush is in the repertoire of the theatre until now.

Since it was opened, the Armenian National Opera & Ballet Theatre has performed more than 200 different operas and ballets by Armenian, Russian and Western European composers. The theatre company has performed in more than 20 countries, e.g. in Russia, Spain, Lebanon, United States, Greece, Germany. In 1956, the theatre received the status of National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

The theatre has also hosted concerts performed by Charles Aznavour, Ian Anderson, John McLaughlin, Akvarium and many others.

How to Upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04 LTS

18 September, 2016 | Servers | 36 seen

In this article I will provide simple instructions on how to upgrade Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04. 

In fact I didn't wanted to push for a server upgrade for a while, but decided to do it now, and not to wait when things will break completely. In fact I was working on a Drupal 8 site development and wanted to have it on more recent version of server, and so I opted to upgrade whole server. Following tutorial is inspired from How to Upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Backups

I highly suggest you to take a snapshot of your current server, before pushing for your upgrade. I have Linode backups enabled and before proceeding further I took a snapshot. It was pretty fast less than 5 minutes to generate a backup for all of mine server.

Stopping services

It's recommended that you stop as many services as possible before upgrading to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. This includes web server daemons (Apache and nginx), database servers (PostgreSQL and MySQL), and any other non-critical services. 

I opted to stop nginx

Upgrade your Linode to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS by entering the following command:

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.

Because Linode offers internal package mirrors for Ubuntu, you may see this message:

Type y and return to continue.

​You should see output that resembles the following:

Your Linode is now running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

How To Enable PHP Curl Ngnix (Good for Social share counters)

17 September, 2016 | Servers | 284 seen

Today I was eager to install and enable really cool Drupal module for my blog - Social Share Counter, this module looked simple - all I had to do, just download, enable and a little bit tweak around.

From module creator (s)

This module gives the share counts for only Facebook,Twitter and more which has some excellent features in more elegant manner. If you have a website, then you definitely need this module.

Unfortunately, after I successfully installed and enabled this module I noticed that share count is not increasing for my articles (I had one article - with more than 5,000 shares and likes today, it felt lame seeing fat zero, while my default Facebook plugin showed it correctly)

I noticed from recent log messages following notice:

Notice: Use of undefined constant CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER - assumed 'CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER' in _social_share_counter_parse() (line 254 of /srv/www/reinisfischer.com/public_html/sites/all/modules/social_share_counter/social_share_counter.module).

And I got it - most probably I didn't install php5-curl when did setup last time this server, see complete guide on how to setup LEMP Server Ubuntu 12.04 for serving Drupal on Nginx

Now, the fix is really easy - open your SSH terminal (putty, for example), login and:

if you are on Apache use following command to restart Apache2

Nginx users will need to perform one more line of code, restart PHP-FPM

That's it! Few simple lines of code and php curl is enabled. 

Speaking about me and those social counters, ahh... thus I was able to enable them and got some counters actually working after enabled php-curl, they never showed anything close to real count. I'm not sure foremost, but I guess service providers like Facebook and Twitter are shutting down (depreciated) their API's and ... I will stick with the default Facebook like and share button for now. See: Facebook share button for Drupal views

Used resources:

• TwitterOAuth complains undefined constants
• PHP :Why PHP-Curl is not working with nginx

How to Upgrade PHP 5.3 to 5.5.9 on Ubuntu 12.04 to Support Drupal 8

16 September, 2016 | Servers | 12 seen

That day finally have come and I've officially started a new project on my first Drupal 8 website. While my first attempts were about two years ago, but due to the lack of time and will to explore new things and configure new servers I proceeded just tonight (after a conversation with a long time customer we agreed to make a re-branded website and I was allowed to "experiment" with a Drupal 8 site)

I took me some time to get it running as I wasn't prepared for the Drupal 8 requirements, and one of them, is to run on at least PHP 5.5.

I have two linodes configured - one for this blog only and second for all the other websites. Both boxes are configured on Ubuntu 12.04, which is shipped with the php 5.3 version, and of course Nginx. They run smooth for Drupal 7, but speaking for Drupal 8 it took me about an hour to get things right. I got too many 502 bad gateway and 500 internal errors, while I found this great article: Upgrading PHP to 5.4 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to support Drupal 8.

The idea is to keep Ubuntu 12.04 (for a while), but upgrade php version only

Optional: The add-apt-repository command is not necessarily installed in 12.04, in which case you get "add-apt-repository: command not found". to fix this:

for PHP 5.5.x run:

​And then update your packages:

Update the packages, but not update the Ubuntu release

​Again, 502 bad gateway problems

After this upgrade I got all my other Drupal 7 sites 502 bad gateway notice, to fix this I had to edit /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf and change /var/run/php5-fpm.sock back to 127.0.0.1:9000 (see my default Drupal + Nginx server block config. I had to follow another great tutorial on how to Fix “502 Bad Gateway” error on NGINX server after upgrading PHP

Of course you may never forget to restart the NGINX and PHP5-FPM services! You would be surprised how many people forget this step. It is necessary to do this so that the updated configuration files are loaded.

sudo service php5-fpm restart

sudo service nginx restart

Hopefully this article/draft helped you solve issue similar I got tonight. Check out other server config tutorials or see some cool tips on Drupal development.

The Swan Lake park in Yerevan

15 September, 2016 | Tourism objects | 32 seen

The Swan lake park in Yerevan is a popular recreation area in the heart of Yerevan, located next to the Opera house in a 5 minute walking distance from main Republic Square.

The Swan Lake park usually hosts various open air art exhibitions. - Ice-skate with many locals at the Swan Lake (next to the Opera House) during winter months.

The huge guitar and piano at the entrance of the Swan park

I visited Swan park in the middle of March, it was still grey all around, but the green decors made it much better.

Sculpture

Sorry - can't tell more about it - probably very famous Armenian composer? Leave a comment if you have more information.

Swan Lake park

No water yet. I presume that during Summer months, this place just rocks. Of course I believe there are water during season. 

Advertisement and benches