Piwik – Open Source Web Analytics Platform

I was using Google Analytics for quite some time but was never really satisfied with the service. I’ve been stuck countless times in the menus and options and never found an easy way to get out. But, it’s not that bad after all. GA is a comprehensive service that offers everything you can think of in terms of tracking your website users behaviour, but sometimes you just want to get simple insights that are cleanly laid out and easy to understand.

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The search for a better analytics platform impressed me with the available options, but none was good or free like Google Analytics. I’ve tried every service out there, but one service kept popping up as highly recommended in every online review and that was Piwik. I have decided to try it out.

Prevent server performance issues caused by WordPress brute force attacks

25% of all CMS (content management system) based websites on the internet are running on WordPress, which in numbers translates to over 60 million websites. This makes WordPress a very sweet target for attackers and script kiddies who like to test and scan it for vulnerabilities or use various tools so they can perform brute force attacks on the dashboard login page in order to get access.

Set up a Linux VPS and install Vesta Control Panel

Managing your own virtual server can be really fun and a great learning experience! With this tutorial I will show you how to deploy and setup your own virtual server and install Vesta Control Panel to host and manage your websites in under an hour. Instead of relying on third party web hosting services and sharing the server resources with hundreds of other websites which can affect your performance, having your own VPS is the way to go!

1 day in rainy Cologne

Cologne is a really vibrant and interesting city. If you ever plan to visit, don’t miss to visit the cathedral, drink Kölsch (a type of beer), and walk on the bridge over Rhine with millions of love padlocks. Well, that’s actually what I did because the weather was rainy and windy, and I had only a few hours to look around before I went back to Blomberg, the place were I stayed. Luckily I managed to capture some memories from this historic city.

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A trip to Istanbul

Istanbul is one of those cities you have to visit once in your lifetime. It’s a megacity with a population of 12 million people, laying on two continents. I’ve never seen such a fusion of different cultures and people in one place. I can say it is the greatest city on the planet.

A lot of people travel by plane to destinations like this, but me and my girlfriend decided to go with a car. Yes I know it sounded like a bad idea to drive in the most hectic city in the world, but I wanted to give it a try, plus the joy of travelling on the road is priceless. One way to Istanbul from Skopje was about 820 km, which we managed to cover in 8 – 9 hours.

We stayed for 4 days in Caupo, a great and cheap hostel which was located in Karakoy, an area that never sleeps. We covered most of the interesting places, we tried lots of great food and I took some really great photos which I’m really happy to share.

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