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Sausage Sizzler - Webmaster Weekly |
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| Editorial - January 30th 2002 |
G'day Sizzlers!
Great news on the progression of our transition as
owner/operators of Sausage Software. The sausage.com domain is
now back, pointing at the HotDog Web site. This was a vital step
in securing our branding and making the most of name recognition.
Our plans include making
Sausage.com a gateway for all of your
Webmaster needs.
Thanks to everyone who answered our poll question last week. The
results are in and everyone likes the new format and content in
the Sizzler! With 33% loving the new look, and 42% liking it. 5%
didn't care about the changes, but at least you cared enough to
vote!
Quite a few people want to know if we are going to be offering a
Linux version of HotDog Professional. Well it will depend on
demand and on our development environment. We are planning on
coding version 7 in such a way that it will be easily ported over
to Linux. However our main goal is to support the windows
operating system.
Why not have you say in
this weeks poll? Tell us what operating
system you want to use HotDog Professional on.
Keep on sizzling!
Nathan Allan
Sausage Sizzler Editor
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|
| Dynamic Tip - PHP Tips 2 - Resources |
This time around I want to go over some of the resources
available on the web for PHP programmers. I honestly believe this
is the most important tip I can give you. A former boss said to
me once: "You can't know everything, so you're only as good as
your resources." He didn't know much, but he was right about
that.
The community that has built up around PHP is one of its most
valuable assets, so you should learn to use it to your advantage.
Below is the list of sites I use to research any PHP problems
I've run into.
- The PHP website (http://www.php.net/). There are a few sections on this site that are very valuable.
- Documentation (http://www.php.net/docs.php) - Here you can view the PHP documentation online. The manual is in many languages and is fully searchable.
- Download Docs (http://www.php.net/download-docs.php) - Here you can download the entire PHP manual to your desktop. The "Windows HTML Help" version is especially handy if you're stuck on a Windows platform.
- The PHP site has a very helpful feature that I happen to use a lot. If you type "php.net/(a function name here)" in your browser's address bar, it will bring up the manual page for that function. For example, typing "php.net/fopen" would bring up the page "http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php"
- Support (http://www.php.net/support.php) - Lists the official PHP mailing lists and provides an interface to sign up to any or all of them. Here's a warning, the php-general list is very high volume.
- There is also an nntp interface to most of the PHP mailing lists at "news.php.net".
- The Zend website (http://www.zend.com/) - Has several resources available to help you. Again, this entire site is searchable. - Code Gallery (http://www.zend.com/codex.php) - Small bits of PHP code that you can reuse on your own site.
- Tips (http://www.zend.com/tips/tips.php) - Brief tips on very specific topics.
- Google (http://www.google.com/) - Very powerful search engine. Be sure to check both the web search and newsgroup search when you're looking for information.
Other sites worth checking out are listed below:
http://www.devshed.com/
http://www.phpdeveloper.org/
http://www.newbienetwork.net/
Next issue we'll get into some actual code, so be sure to at least look over
the PHP manual and be familiar with the syntax. If you have any questions,
comments, or just think I forgot some incredibly important website, please
email me.
Tip by Rich Cavanaugh
From - EnFlyer: The Email Marketing Experts
Last issue we looked at the basic structure of a Web page. This
issue we will look at the information that can be stored in the
HEAD tag.
As I mentioned last week the TITLE tag is what your page is
named. However by also using the META tag you can identify your
page to Spiders and Crawlers that index the Web for search
engines.
Unlike other tags META does not have a closing tag. It takes the
form of:
<META NAME="" CONTENT="">
The basic attributes for NAME are keywords or description. This
tells the Spider for this particular page what the keywords are
and description is.
For a more comprehensive guide on the META tag take a look at the
following links:
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/meta.html
http://webdeveloper.com/html/html_metatag_res.html
Tip by Nathan Allan
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| Sizzler Forum Spotlight - Which database software do you choose? |
So, you want to build a database driven Web site. Of the many
questions you’ll need answers to, one stands out the most. Which
database software do you choose?
There are different reasons for different databases. Do you want
a free, open source database? Maybe you have a budget to work
with and an interest to exercise it.
Which programming language do you know or prefer? ASP? PHP?
Perl? Java? What type of site do you plan to run? Shopping?
Content? Forums? A mix? Is there an existing platform that
you're expanding on or are you starting from scratch with a world
of choices at your feet?
If you favor Microsoft you may have reason to choose MSSQL.
MSSQL has limitations such as which operating system it'll run on
(hmm...take a guess) and of course, it’s not free. Oracle
offers near limitless capacity, and much more; but
for a hefty price, even with only the basics.
Maybe you prefer Unix, Linux or some iteration of BSD. MySQL and
PostgreSQL can be found in both free and packaged (paid for)
versions. Personal preference, need, similarities, and
advantages of one over the other may be the deciding factor for
either.
One very important thing to note: Don't be turned off by the
question of support for Open Source products. Frequently the
support you find for Open Source is better than any purchased
product.
If you'd like to express your own opinions or answer my questions
and those of others, click the following link:
Check it out at the Sizzler Forums!
Review by Bram Leland Scolnick
| Gear Grinders - House Guests |
Hi Everyone and Welcome Back! This week's Gear Grinder focuses
on House Guests. Sadly, I don't mean friends and family; nor am
I talking about in-laws, though they can be bad too.
If you're a system administrator of any level, the worst kind of
guest to have is a... anybody? anybody? A Hacker!
While any hacker is annoying, a headache and an all around pain
in the butt, I have learned that there are good hackers (white
hats) and bad hackers (black hats). A good hacker is one that
tries to exploit security breaches in a server and then brings
those exploits to the attention of the server's administrator. A
bad hacker is one that searches for exploits, and then exploits
them. The exploits can be used to simply gain access to a server
so that it's resources can be utilized for personal means; or
worse, the server can be commandeered and used to launch a Denial
of Service attack. Also possible is the complete reformatting or
destruction of data.
A recent experience I had alerted me to the fact that there was a
new, although unwelcome, resident on a web server that I help to
administer. I log in regularly to verify that all is normal.
This one time I noticed a person’s name running as a top
service.. and not a person that was associated with the server.
After much investigation buy an admin far more skilled than
myself, I was informed that in fact there was a "guest in the
machine".
Without all the boring details, this person had used various
methods to search for currently known exploits in web servers,
which in this case was a wide open hole created by a conflict
between the FTP Server/Daemon and the OS (Red Hat Linux 6.2).
This hole gave the hacker full root control of the server.
Luckily, the intruder left when asked and no immediate harm has
come to the server.
What's the moral of this story? Being a good netizen is
important so closing any holes should be a top priority.
However, what happens when a variety of resources are low (cash
and personnel)? How do you prevent such openings? How do you
discover such openings? How do you fix such openings? Do you
need to notify law enforcement? What legal rights do you have in
the event of damage done to your server?
If you're business is based on or in any way utilizes your web
server, these and other questions are important to ask and
investigate. There are a variety of ways to search for exploits.
If you interested and don't know how, please feel welcome to
contact me.
Lastly, Is your server secure? Are you SURE??
Send your experiences to Bram Leland Scolnick
| SuperToolz - Research-Desk |
Use Internet Explorer all day? Use the Web for research? Tired of constantly fiddling with IE, Word, Excel & PowerPoint? Then get Research-Desk!
Research-Desk combines a research oriented Web browser and Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint into one Multi-Document Interface/tabbed application that is jam-packed with dozens of added features: create workspaces, save complete web pages, stream file downloads, zip, unzip, search across all documents, grammar and spell check your web form entries, and much more.
- View multiple web sites, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, side-by-side with the tabbed user interface
- Open, Create and Save Workspaces - collections of all open documents including. web pages, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents
- Download files - the integrated File Transfer Manager streams HTTP and FTP downloads in the background
- Save complete web pages including. images, java, html, stylesheets, links, etc (even HTTPS pages to archive online transaction receipts)
- Use the Search Workspace feature to search for text across all open documents (web sites, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc)
- Use Microsoft Word (with grammar and spell checks) inside the browser to fill web page forms
- Zip and unzip, view zip file contents grouped by folder or file type
- Use all of IE’s features: AutoComplete, AutoFill, History, Favorites, and much more!
Research-Desk uses proven Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer technology and file formats.
Click for this
screenshot showing how Research-Desk embeds Microsoft Word inside web forms to provide grammar and spell checking.
Name: Research-Desk Professional
Version: 2.2
Cost: US$49.95 - 30 day Trialware
Website: http://www.capitalintellect.net/sausage1/rdpro.htm
Download: http://www.capitalintellect.net/sausage1/Research-Desk-Setup.exe
Buy: http://www.capitalintellect.net/sausage1/buyrdpro.htm
Name: Research-Desk Web
Version: 2.2
Cost: US$29.95 - 30 day Trialware
Website: http://www.capitalintellect.net/sausage1/rdweb.htm
Download: http://www.capitalintellect.net/sausage1/Research-Desk-Web-Setup.exe
Buy: http://www.capitalintellect.net/sausage1/buyrdweb.htm
Review by Nathan Allan
To read the Sizzler Forums you do not need to be a member.
However to take full advantage of this resource it will only take
you a few seconds to sign up!
- Go to: http://www.sizzlerforums.com
- Read the information and click on the REGISTER button
- Fill out the form
- You will receive an email that you simply reply to
- Hey presto! Your a fully fledged Sizzler Forums member!
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