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OpenX Statistics as Graphs plugin updated

December 27, 2009 By
Display Statistics as Graphs using a free plugin for OpenX

Display Statistics as Graphs using a free plugin for OpenX

The team at AdserverPlugins.com have released an update of their free “Statistics as Graphs” plugin. This version 1.0.0 release is available for download right now at their website.

The new version now displays graphs for almost all statistics: advertisers, campaigns, banners, web sites, zones and global history. Graphs are now available for all user types (administrators, managers, advertisers, website owners). Every graph has buttons to navigate to the previous and next month, or to go up a level to show the current year’s statistics. Clicking a bar will drill down into the underlying statistics, down to a day graph with an hourly break down.

The graphs are now displayed using the open source product “Open Flash Chart 2“, providing more flexibility and charting options than the Google Visualisation API that was used for the first beta release.

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Filed Under: Installation, News, OpenX plugins, Statistics Tagged With:

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.3 released – Security Fix!

December 24, 2009 By

A security problem has been discovered in OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2, enabling anyone to log in as an Administrator. This is obviously an very serious problem, because it renders any OpenX Ad Server vulnerable.

An emergency fix has been developed and released as OpenX Ad Server v2.8.3. The new version is available for immediate download at the OpenX website. The OpenX Blog provides background information and tips for security precautions.

Update April 13, 2010: it appears that an exploit for the vulnerability in OpenX v2.8.2 is making the rounds on the internet, infection these old versions with a back door and breaking the display of the on-screen statistics.

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Filed Under: News, Upgrading Tagged With: ,

Fix for Campaign Under Delivery Problem

December 9, 2009 By

Software BugMany people have noticed significant under delivery of their contract campaigns in OpenX Ad Server 2.8. When OpenX version 2.8.2 was released in October 2009, it was mentioned in the release notes that this issue had been fixed, but it was quickly discovered that the problem continued to exist.

This problem was so serious for me and my clients that I was forced to take action. People had reported the issue in various places, but as far as I could tell no action had been taken at OpenX.org. I decided to hire Matteo Beccati, a former OpenX Senior Developer who is now working as an independent OpenX consultant. With his background and experience, he was able to quickly analyze the issue, and develop and test a fix for this bug.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Concerns about OpenX Hosted system performance

December 3, 2009 By

In recent months, a number of people contacted me about OpenX Hosted (which has recently been renamed to OpenX Community Hosted). They all seem to be experiencing the same problem: using the OpenX Hosted user interface, for instance to add campaigns or to view statistics, is impossible because of technical problems. The system is either extremely slow or it doesn’t work at all, displaying an error message instead. I haven’t had any direct reports from people about the actual delivery of ads. However, the absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence as absence.
[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Hosting, OpenX Community Hosted

Video of OpenX 2.8 installation procedure

November 18, 2009 By

The installation of an OpenX Ad Server is not a complicated procedure. The part that takes the most time is the planning and preparations. Once that’s done, the installation takes only a few minutes.

The video below shows in just over 4 minutes and 30 seconds how to perform a typical installation of the OpenX Ad Server version 2.8.2. This video was recorded in a single scene, it was not edited in any way.

Notes about this video:

  • Click the big Play button in the center of the video preview to start the video. I’ve noticed that it sometimes takes a few seconds for the playback to begin.
  • Once playback begins, you can switch to full screen by clicking the icon in the bottom right hand corner.
  • If the video doesn’t appear as an embedded item on this page, you can also watch it by clicking this link to open it in a separate window.
  • This is my first time using online video on the blog.  I can not guarantee that this video can be viewed on all platforms and in all browsers. Any feedback is appreciated.
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Filed Under: Installation

Kick Starting the OpenX Plugin Ecosystem

November 14, 2009 By

Ever since the release of OpenX Ad Server v2.8 in April 2009, developers have been able to make third party plugins to enhance the functionality of the software. The concept is simple, but we are not seeing a flow of plugins yet. The team at AdServerPlugins.com intend to break through that standstill by publishing free plugins that demonstrate the concept, and by developing plugins for paying customers. We also want to provide a platform for developers to promote their plugins (both free and commercial) by opening this website to them. In short, we want to kick start the OpenX plugin ecosystem.

Read my blog post about Kick Starting the OpenX Plugin Ecosystem over at AdServerPlugins.com.

The first free plugin is also available, it can be used to display OpenX statistics as a graph.

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Filed Under: Featured, News, OpenX plugins Tagged With:

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 released for download

October 19, 2009 By
OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 released

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 released

Just before the weekend, version 2.8.2 of the OpenX Ad Server was released. This new release had been announced a few days earlier.

What’s new?

The major changes in this version are in fact invisible to the naked eye. The OpenX.org team have said that they’ve fixed problems in the previous release that sometimes resulted in over or under delivery of contract campaigns. Another fix is for campaigns with companion positioning enabled, preventing the display of blank zones in some specific situations. The new type of invocation code for Facebook apps that was recently added to OpenX Hosted is unfortunately not part of this new v2.8.2. download release. Most likely this is a separate plugin that is not provided to download users.

Should you upgrade?

I just completed an upgrade procedure for my own OpenX 2.8 reference installation, and all went perfectly fine. This new release also contains upgrades to a few of the plugins that come with the standard download package. And the extra plugin that I have in my system as a test was upgraded without any problems.

If you run version 2.8.0 or 2.8.1 on your own site or server, an upgrade is a must, if only because of that security problem that was fixed. I do recommend doing a proper test upgrade on a copy. And of course: make backups!

OpenX Ad Server version 2.8.2 can now be downloaded from the OpenX website.

Update October 20

The availability of OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 has now been announced on the OpenX weblog. The announcement also has a link to the release notes. If you want to know all the details, there is a complete overview of all 113 changes on the OpenX developer site.

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Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 announced

October 12, 2009 By
OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 announced

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.2 announced

On October 12, OpenX have announced the imminent release of version 2.8.2 of the OpenX Ad Server. It will be available for users of OpenX Hosted initially, as of Tuesday October 13. The download package will be released a few days later. The news was announced on the OpenX blog, which also contains more detailed information about the new enhancements, improvement and fixes.

This is the first major update to the OpenX Ad Server software since late May 2009, and the improvements in this release focus on improving accurate delivery of contract campaigns, avoiding serving blank zones when using companion positioning and fixing a number of security issues. [Read more...]

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Hosting OpenX Ad Server: where and how?

June 9, 2009 By
OpenX Ad Server logo

There are three options for hosting the OpenX Ad Server: hosting it yourself, opening an account at OpenX Hosted, or outsourcing the hosting to a specialized company

Once you’ve decided that you want to start using the OpenX Ad Server, the next important decision is: where and how do I host my OpenX Ad Server?

There are basically three options:

  • hosting it yourself on your own site or server
  • opening an account at OpenX Hosted
  • outsourcing the hosting to a specialist company

Below, I will discuss all three options and the pros and cons of each. As is so often the case, every situation will have it’s own characteristics, so there is no single answer to the questions of where to host OpenX. I hope that you will be able to make your own decision based on the information presented here.

Factors to keep in mind: costs, flexibility, scalability and peace of mind

When making the decision about where and how to host your OpenX system, there are a number of factors to keep in mind: costs, flexibility, scalability and peace of mind.

Nowadays, costs seem to be the only aspect that people consider. That’s understandable, because it’s very easy to quantify and compare them. It can be appealing to look for the least expensive solution in the short term, but in the long term that could result in unexpected expenses and worries.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Featured, Hosting, OpenX Community Hosted, OpenX Enterprise Hosted

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.1 released

May 30, 2009 By
OpenX Ad Server v2.8.1 released

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.1 released

Just before the weekend, version 2.8.1 of the OpenX Ad Server was released. This new release is mostly about bug fixes, a fix for a pretty serious security problem, and a few nice improvements.

Improvements

The functional changes in version 2.8.1 of OpenX Ad Server focus on the integration with OpenX Market:

  • There is a new screen in the ‘Inventory’ tab, called ‘OpenX Market Quickstart‘. It allows traffickers to set multiple campaigns to use OpenX Market in one pass, while at the same time setting a floor price for all of them or even a separate floor price for each individual campaigns. This new feature will be welcomed by users managing many campaigns, because it makes it so much easier to start using OpenX Market.
  • Also new is an ‘Ad Quality Tool‘. This screen provides an overview of ads that were served through OpenX Market onto any of the websites, even allowing the user to stop some ads from showing up again (for instance to prevent competitor ads from being displayed on a site).
  • It is now possible to link more than one OpenX Ad Server installation to OpenX Market. This is particularly useful for publishers that have more than one OpenX installation, or perhaps an OpenX Hosted account in addition to a self-hosted OpenX Ad Server.

It is no surprise that the new features and improvements all have to do with OpenX Market. That is, after all, the major force in the OpenX business model, and making it easy for publishers to start using OpenX Market or use it more often is a smart move.

Bug fixes

Version 2.8.0 was the first release of the 2.8 branch. It was bound to have some bugs in it, even after pretty long and intense beta testing. So a bug fix release was needed, and that is what version 2.8.1 is also about. The release notes have all the details. A big problem in version 2.8.0 that has now been fixed would allow any user to log in as an administrator.

Upgrading from an earlier version

The release of version 2.8.1 was my cue to try upgrading an existing v2.8.0 system to this newer version. There is a set of upgrade instructions on the OpenX website.

I was particularly interested to find out how the plugins would be upgraded, since that is something new to version 2.8 and I had no experience upgrading them. It turns out the developers have built a pretty neat trick for that. During the upgrade procedure, you get to specify the folder path of the previous installation, and the upgrade wizard will look at all the plug ins it finds there. It will then check for any upgrades available on the OpenX website and finally it initializes each plug-in in the upgraded installation. All of this is completely automated and it worked like a charm. Well done!

Should you upgrade?

I think if you run OpenX 2.8.0 on your own site or server, an upgrade is a must, if only because of that security problem that was fixed. This new version 2.8.1 was also the first that presented not a single problem when upgrading an older v2.6.5 system. I still recommend doing a proper test upgrade on a copy, but this new version 2.8.1 looks like it’s ready for the world!

I do have one bit of criticism: I’m personally not a huge fan of releasing an upgrade just before the weekend. As with any upgrade, there will always be people that run into problems upgrading, and they will have a harder time finding support during the weekend than in the middle of the week.

When OpenX Hosted was announced last year, many people feared this would result in less attention for the downloadable edition. It turns out that it is actually the other way around. OpenX Hosted is currently still running on version 2.7.30-beta. So hosting OpenX on your own server has the benefit of being able to run a newer version than using OpenX Hosted.

OpenX Ad Server version 2.8.1 can now be downloaded from the OpenX website.

I’m going to start experimenting with upgrading larger OpenX installation to this new release. If anything interesting comes up, you can be sure I will write about on this blog.

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Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,
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