For the last month or two, I have been doing some side work updating a Web site and adding a few new features to it. The problem is, however, that I can’t visit the site from my home computer. Somewhere along the way, my connection to the site seems to be blocked.
Our sister site, CenterNetworks, unveiled a new Web site design late last week. I must admit that, though I never really had any problems with the previous design, I think the new one is a real upgrade. The new design features cooler colors, working within the blue and green spectrum, and a slightly more intuitive layout. The ads seem a little less obtrusive and more of the items people are apt to use on a regular basis are easier to find. Let me know what you think of the new design, especially if you had experience with previous incarnations of the CN design.
What is web accessibility & why is it important?
Web accessibility is about making your website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they’re using. In addition to complying with the law, an accessible website can reap huge benefits on to your website and your business.
Please read the articles, Benefits of an accessible website - part 1 and Benefits of an accessible website - part 2 for more about the importance of web accessibility.
Your website must be able to function with all different browsing technologies
The first and perhaps the most important rule of web accessibility. Not everyone is using the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all the plug-ins and programs that you may require them to have for your website. Different browsing technologies can include:
When I first signed up for DirecTV, I did so rather begrudgingly. I hate signing long-term contracts for services, but I was truly tired of only having five networks from which to choose (we were only able to pick up NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC and three PBS channels - we didn’t even get UPN or the WB - which, in our area, consequently became MyNetwork and the CW, respectively).
However, I’ve actually become rather attached to the service over the last year or so. I like the all-digital network (which cost me more than twice what DirecTV is costing me when I had the digital cable service when I lived in a cable-ready house), with the built-in programming guide. I actually am at a loss for what to do when I turn on the television at someone else’s house, and I can’t just hit the “guide” button to see what’s on.
I came across a very amusing and disturbingly accurate post the other day on a blog I frequent. The content of the post deals with how to diplomatically deal with the barrage of requests you get for “front page exposure” at an institution of higher learning.
I’m not sure how much of this translates to the corporate world, but this is a common occurrence at many colleges and universities.
Thankfully, I don’t deal with this at my job nearly as much as Drew seems to.
Lots of programmers like PHP for its ability to code and develop web applications fast. Code-debugging is a lot easier than with PERL or C. However, there is one thing a lot of developers are puzzled about, “How to run PHP Scripts with crontab?”
Cron is normally available on all Unix and Linux distributions; if you cannot access it, contact your root or server administrator. It is a daemon which allows you to schedule a program or script for a specific time of execution. If you want to learn more about cron, click here or type “man crontab” at your command prompt.
I have found myself in the need to run PHP scripts at specific times. For example, to update the content of a website, to remove expired articles, to send out e-mails on a given date and a lot more. While some may think that this is were PHP is doomed, I will show you how it’s done.
The first solution that came to my mind was to run the script directly from my browser (e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/script.php). Since I need to run my script on a regular basis, I squashed that idea. My goodness, all the extra hassle is ridiculous.
This is a very quick tutorial to help people avoid SQL injection with their PHP scripts. It seems all too common that people are writing PHP scripts without considering the fact that someone could easily inject some malicious SQL code that could wreak havoc on an entire Web site.
To put it very simply, for those of you that don’t know what SQL injection is; it’s basically sending SQL code through a script that causes the query to execute unintended commands. Some very good examples of SQL injection can be found in the Wikipedia article.
Here are a few very quick tips to help you avoid SQL injection. Of course, nothing is foolproof, but this should take you a long way.
Okay, so if the world happened to be an ideal place; here is what I would like to see. I would like to see Microsoft strike a deal with DirecTV, that would allow Zune owners to hook their Zunes directly into their DirecTV DVRs and transfer recorded programs onto their Zune.
I realize that I’m reaching here, which is why I said that it would have to be an ideal world. It’s not that far of a stretch, though, to imagine some company trying to compete with the iPod striking a deal with Dish Network, DirecTV, Comcast or some other major player in the pay-TV world. If the companies were somehow able to work out the legal implications, imagine how great it would be to be able to hook up your digital media player and download the latest episode of Heroes or Doctor Who (or whatever your favorite TV shows are). That USB jack on the front (and, in my case, at least, on the back, too) should be made useful for something eventually.
What are your thoughts on this? Is this something you’d like to see? I know that Apple already introduced Apple TV, which seems to be a similar concept; but I can honestly imagine a company like Microsoft partnering with DirecTV or Comcast or someone, and allowing you to associate a Zune with your DVR.
I’m sure it’s just wishful thinking, but I’ll keep on wishing.
Hotlinking is when another website links directly to one or more of your images or multimedia files and includes it on their web page. Not only is this theft of your intellectual property, but further more, you are paying for the bandwidth used by that site. Which can result in a problem with your budget.
The most common way to prevent others from hotlinking your content is Apache’s mod_rewrite. While this a solution that free available to use, there are a couple drawbacks. One being, that Apache has to be configured to use mod_rewrite (–enable-rewrite). Another one being, that for a lot of people writing regular expressions is not the most easiest thing to do.
Facebook has unveiled a new look. The color scheme and basic design are still basically the same, but the layout is actually drastically different. Comparison screen shots after the break.
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