PHP And MySQL Programming Security

PHP & MySQL development

Choosing PHP and MySQL as a programming language for a website is not enough. With open source coding being one of the inherent properties of PHP & MySQL development, securing your codes becomes essential. So when one allows the users to upload files on the website, then security is definitely at stake.

PHP Programming Protection

While it is not entirely possible to protect your site, yet there are few precautions that you can incorporate for better protection of PHP programming. Some of these are:

You should check the referrer, for being sure that the information sent is from your website and not an outside source. Since there are maximum chances of the information is fake.

Restriction of the type of extension files being uploaded on the website is yet another method of security check. Renaming files is another way in which the program can be secured. This procedure involves the checking of double-barrel extensions like yourfile.php.gif.

Changing the permission command for the upload folder so that files within it are not executable. All the alterations created by the user should be allowed only when they ‘Login’ into the database. On the other hand, the owner of the site should always keep a close watch on all files being uploaded and then make them live.

MySQL Programming Security

Another aspect in PHP and MySQL web development is the protection of the MySQL libraries. Therefore, the most important aspect involved in protecting the MySQL program is the security of the entire server host.

Securing MySQL is essential for the smooth running of the website. This is based on Access Control Lists and SSL-encrypted connections, for protecting the PHP & MySQL web development program from random users visiting the website.

Some of the vital things to be considered for online site protection are:

Accessing of the MySQL database should not be allowed for any and everyone.
Privileges to the users should always be accompanied with some restriction. If one can easily connect to the server without any ‘login’ then the security level code of the MySQL server should be rechecked.
The MySQL database should be void of plain-text passwords. Use programs like MD5 (), SHA1(), or some hashing function for complete protection.
Do not choose passwords from dictionaries, since they can be hacked easily. Use programs that break the passwords.

Therefore, the successful development of a website through PHP and MySQL web development is complete only when the site owner consults a professional programmer. They expertise in the optimization of the MySQL hosting database. This program is dynamic in nature and is an effective tool in the creation of browser-based applications.

Choosing the Perfect Agency for PHP And MySQL

PHP

PHP & MySQL development

Have you decided on a website that will cater to the interests of the targeted visitors? Well, you can use the PHP & MySQL development programming language. By using the PHP & MySQL development programs you can create dynamic database management system that uses the open source type of language. There are so many utilities of the programming language that you can rely on experts, to make the right decision.

Make the Right Choice

There are in-numerous organizations that render PHP and MySQL web development services. But the final choice has to be made by you. Don’t get perplexed by the number of companies, claiming to be the best in the business. Consult for expert assistance before making the final choice.

There are various types of organizations, from big web designing firms to small freelancing companies. Both these types of organizations have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is for you to decide, which organization shall fulfill your criteria and requirement.

Does Company Infrastructure Matter?

The big web hosting companies have the large infrastructure and huge expertise manpower. Hence these companies usually charge a heavy amount for their services rendered. The main focus of the big web hosting organizations is to highlight the process and not delivering the final product. At times you might find your project not panning out as you desired because of the communication problems.

While small companies offering freelancing services, charge a lot less for PHP & MySQL web development than the big size organizations, they lack manpower and expertise. If you want to achieve something out of the ordinary then you might get frustrated, as people involved in the project might not have the vast expertise and knowledge that experts from big organizations usually have. An important benefit of working with the small firms is that you have the scope of personal interaction with the designer.

While making a selection of the organization, you need to access the magnitude of your work and time within which you want to finish the project. The small firms have limited resources, and also they might be overloaded with work. It may also happen that you might be required to wait. That is why if you are looking for quick completion of a large sized project than you can definitely opt for large organizations.

Making the best choice for PHP & MySQL development programs will make your website popular and make your work easy too.

How did PHP become Popular?

PHP

History of PHP

PHP (it originally was an abbreviation of for Personal Home Page) was first written by Rasmus Lerdorf. These were Perl scripts to track users of his Web pages. On communication and suggestions from other people he rewrote it as a scripting language and added support for forms. As its popularity grew, a core group of developers created an API for it and turned it into PHP3. Presently we have version 5. (PHP5) and its growth is likely to continue.

Plus Points of PHP

PHP will run on all platform, including most UNIX, Windows(95/98/NT/2000) and Macs. As this uses the same code base, all scripts will run identically on all the platforms.
PHP is similar to C. So anyone who has experience with a C-style language will easily learn PHP. In C-style languages, we can also include Javascript and Java.

PHP is extendible. This allows programmers two ways of extending PHP to do some special processing, either by writing an extension module and compiling it into the executable or by creating an executable that can be loaded using PHP’s dynamic loading mechanism.

PHP currently will load into Apache, IIS, AOLServer, Roxen, and THTTPD. Alternatively, it can be run as a CGI module. Lots of database interfaces. PHP currently will work with MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, Informix, PostgreSQL and many others. These are binary level interfaces, and ODBC is also provided for those situations where the database is not supported.

If a PHP user wants to interface to the particular library, then it is easy to write an interface for it, and many have done so and contributed to the main PHP source repository. So you can find modules for graphics routines, PDF files, Flash movies, Cybercash, calendars, XML, IMAP, POP and a host of others. If the library you need is not supported, you can either write one yourself or employ your favorite programmer to do it.

The PHP Extension and Add-on Repository. Similar to the CPAN network for Perl, although still in its infancy, the idea of PEAR is to provide a set of PHP scripts that would be installed by default with the PHP installation Fast.

PHP has normally used an Apache module and this makes it very fast. It is entirely written in C and is quite small, so loads and executes quickly with small memory footprint. PHP is Open Source. Therefore programmers are not dependent on a particular manufacturer to fix things that don’t work.

What are the main disadvantages of PHP

A scripting language has advantages and disadvantages. PHP also has some disadvantages. Some are direct disadvantages and some are indirect regarding functionality. PHP’s main drawback is Error Handling. PHP has a very poor ability in this regard, but even this disadvantage can be overcome using a feasible advantage solution.

Difference between Blogger and WordPress

WordPress

Differences between Blogger and WordPress

The two main hosted blog types, are Blogger and WordPress – you’ll find that whenever a discussion about where its best to host your blog if you’re not hosting it yourself, that these two are rated the highest.

So which of the two services is better? Ultimately, both services will offer you a strong and solid base to blog from, but there are a couple of distinct differences between Blogger and WordPress.

WordPress

WordPress hosted services are not designed to be used for commercial purposes – nevertheless, most people do. You get a choice of themes (and without paying, you can’t design your own theme) and a choice of plugins. You can ‘map’ your domain to the site, for a fee, giving you the appearance of hosting it yourself.

WordPress hosted (at http://wordpress.com) is almost identical to hosting it yourself, other than the obvious ‘bonus’ of not actually needing to look after your install. But its disadvantages include being at the mercy of a third party site and needing to pay for additional ‘services’. These still cost less than buying hosting and setting the blog up yourself.

Blogger

Blogger is owned by Google and is designed around ease of use. You can ‘FTP’ your blog onto your own site or host at a domain (yourblogname.blogspot.com) of your choice. Blogger doesn’t use plugins but does let you use your own theme, within certain limits.

A huge community has been built around Blogger, but unlike WordPress.com they allow commercial based blogs as well as non-commercial, which means they are more prone to spam.

In conclusion. If you really can’t host your own blog at your own site, play with both WordPress and Blogger, because ultimately, the main difference will be between which one your more comfortable with. And that’s the one you should use.

Welcome To The World Of CSS Web Design

CSS

Improved with the help of CSS

Although CSS was first introduced in the mid-1990s, it did not become a mainstream tool for web designers and masters until more recent years. This is unfortunate because there are millions of poorly designed websites cluttering the internet that could be easily improved with the help of CSS.

So what exactly is CSS?

CSS is an acronym that stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The term Cascading Style Sheets implies two things. First off, the style sheets are cascading. This means that multiple style sheets can be used for a single web page. Additionally, the term “cascading” also refers to the way a style is determined in the event that more than one rule matches a single element. The second thing that is implied by the name Cascading Style Sheets is that the purpose of CSS is to style web pages. Whereas the purpose of HTML (or XHTML) is to define the structure of a web page, the purpose of CSS is to define the presentation.

Different browsers

The reason that so many web pages have broken layouts in different browsers is that they try to use HTML to control the structure and presentation of the page. The most common abuse of HTML is attempting to use tables as a presentation method. Although you may be able to achieve the look you want in a single browser, your web page will look broken and distorted in many other browsers. The only time that tables should be used is to hold a set of data (such as the results of a scientific experiment). If you do have a legitimate use for tables on your web page, you can even use CSS to style your table and make it more attractive.

Conclusion

By taking the time to learn CSS, you will be able to create a web page that looks much more consistent across a variety of browsers.

Website Customization: What can we do?

UX Design

Professional Looking Websites

Nowadays, in this trendy world, people get very uptight when they do not look entirely presentable. This would also be the case in web designing. Every individual would definitely want their website to look custom, if not, to the best they can. Here are a few things we could look out for when wanting to create a custom looking webpage.

Color Schemes, Themes, Fonts and Pictures

When designing, always choose matching colors. An example of a matching color would be to have a dark background, with visible words and designs. With the dark theme, try not to mix too many bright colors into the design. What we should NEVER do, is to mix two very different colors, such as purple and yellow. Now, of course, it would depend on the purpose of the website, but those two colors are too striking for one who wants it to look more professional.

Themes

Themes must always suit the company or rather, the organization / etc. If the website was made to cater for a food company, it would be wise to stick to that particular category, rather than to revert to a different theme, such as machinery.

Fonts

Fonts should be used in regard to the formality of the website. A simple sans-serif font would suffice in most cases. Exceptional cases such as design and art groups might want to use fanciful designs and fonts. Of course, that’s only if you know what you’re doing.

Visitors

Finally, we must always try to think of our visitors, see the way they see. The resolutions and file sizes of the pictures must not be too large in terms of size. This is to allow maximum compatibility and cater our visitor’s needs.

So, planning is something we should always do, before attempting something.

Using Icons for a Better User Interface (UI)

UX Design

Self-explanatory icons

Today’s applications – either for the Web or standalone – are starting to focus more and more on the user interface. The time when you had to write lines and lines of commands or go through several menus to execute a certain task has passed. Developers have now implemented simple wizards, with on-screen help near each important element of the application, which will make even the most complicated task look like a walk in the park. And the easiest and most efficient way to create user-friendly interfaces is to add self-explanatory icons. These small images that take a couple dozens of pixels will most of the times have more meaning than a full paragraph of text. It’s more comfortable and efficient to insert an icon than it is to write some text explaining a certain function.

Icons are very important to the user-interface. People want to use an application’s features to the maximum and don’t like it when they can’t find how to complete a specific task. This is why developers should always create shortcuts to the main tasks that can be accomplished using their application. These shortcut items must catch the user’s attention, so adding icons will do the trick in most of the cases. The icons must be related to that certain task, so, for example, a disk icon would be a great visual enhancement for a “Save” button, as a printer icon would fit perfectly inside a “Print” button. A good set of icons in the interface will greatly improve the communication between the user and the application. Icons are colorful and, in most cases, larger than the description text of the application feature they relate to; this way, they are a lot easier to be spotted.

Applications use icons

Most of today’s applications use icons, even though pretty much all developers don’t bother to implement custom designed icons into their applications. Actually, settling with the operating system’s default stock icons is not such a bad thing as some people might think. Computer users might sometimes have some problems adapting to new applications, especially if they have different interfaces than the applications already installed on the users’ computers. What happens if you want to save and you’re looking for a disk icon, but you can’t find it because the developer decided to use a star icon? If so, there will be a poor communication between the user and the application, because the interface’s icons are different from the ones the user is used to. Application developers should not fall into this trap just because they like some other icons and they don’t want to use the same old default system icons because it would do more bad than good. The default system icons are preferred because most applications use them, so users will learn to use your application a lot faster. The functions and commands will be easier to understand because users will be able to faster identify the iconic symbols.

If a developer wants to give their application a distinct look, they should use professional, custom-made icons, specially designed for their application. Today, such services are affordable, and you will be able to tell the designer how you want the icons to look like. In most cases, you shouldn’t go with a completely different look than the system’s icons (for the reasons described above), but you should try to give them a unique, personal touch; the application will stand out from the crowd and will look a lot better than the other ones, thus attracting more users. Changing colors, for example, is the easiest way to get new, yet similar icons.

Predict all problems

To have a good communication between the user and the application, developers must predict all the possible problems that the interface could cause its users. Are the buttons too small? Are they too big? Can the toolbars be moved around the screen? How about the menus, can users add new items to them? Also, can they replace the icons and other graphics with some of their own? How about users with special needs?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of developers that disregard such problems and create rigid interfaces, which cannot be changed by the users to better suit them. A simple answer to this problem is to create multiple skins, with different colors and different icons. The application should have a “standard” skin to start with, and then a few different skins, for example, a minimalistic skin with only a few main buttons and large icons, or an “expanded” skin with many toolbars and buttons, each with their own small icon.

Also, a skin with high contrast colors and icons will be very appreciated by the users with eye problems. Apart from all these, developers should also allow users to create their own custom skin and use different icons. There are multiple benefits from using icons in an application interface. No matter whether an application uses the operating system’s default icons or has custom-made icons designed especially for it, there must be some form of graphics in it, otherwise, people might find it harder to use. This may happen because most of the today’s application use icons to ease the learning of the application. Because most applications use similar icons in certain tasks – for example, a printer icon for printing or a disk button for saving files – it’s a lot faster for users to click on those buttons, therefore they will remember it next time they use that application or any other application for that matter. Even if later on advanced users will choose to use shortcut keys on the keyboard instead of clicking with the mouse on buttons in the toolbars, it’s really important that for starters they will use the toolbar, so icons will be very important in the communication with the application.

Web Design Tips And Techniques For Site Usability

UX Design

Website design is most important

If you are a web designer or a UI designer, website design is one of the most important tasks you do. In designing a site, you need to create a design that is easy for users to use, is compatible with different systems, and is search engine friendly.

Making a site that is user-friendly:

In some ways, creating a user-friendly site is just common sense – other aspects are not so obvious, though. Obviously, you’ll want to make the text easy to read, the navigation links easy to find, etc. Here are a few other tips:

Put contact information on every page.
Make it obvious what you want the user to do after reading a page.
Make it easy for the user to reach your homepage from any other page

Making a site that is cross-platform compatible:

The main factors you need to consider in platform compatibility are the user’s browser, screen resolution, color depth, and plugins.

Browser compatibility is easy – just test your site in various browsers, and fix any incompatibilities. The same for screen resolution – just be sure that your site looks good and is easily navigated with any common screen resolution. Color depth is also relatively simple. Just restrict your design to using web safe colors.

Plug-ins can be a little more complicated. If at all possible, try to use media that is compatible with most versions of a plugin. For example, try not to use a flash movie that requires the latest version of a flash player.

Making a site that is search engine friendly:

The biggest thing you can do to make your site friendly to the search engines is to give it a good link structure. Be sure that each page on your site is linked to from at least two other pages with a plain text link. Image links are OK, but not as good as optimized text links. Javascript and flash links are very bad for search engine usability.

Web Design, Development And Testing

UX Design

Building web applications

Many organizations are interested in building web applications for their business but are unaware of the various steps that are needed to build a compelling web application. In this article, I will attempt to put together the various pieces of the puzzle. Application development involves several distinct efforts that need to come together to build a compelling end product. A compelling end product is the combination of design, development architecture, development implementation, automated regression and functional testing and performance and load testing.

Design:

People often confuse design with development. Moreover, even within the design, user interface design is often confused with graphics design. Web user interface design involves the design of the flow of the website and the layout of the specific web pages within the website. The web user interface designer concentrates on the usability of the application. The user interface designer will typically develop “wireframes” using tools like Adobe Photoshop to convey the design. These are often initially developed as prototypes and usability testing is carried with user groups out to ensure that the web application will be intuitive and easy to use. Graphics design, on the other hand, relates to the aesthetics of the page. The graphics designer is responsible for the aesthetic layout of the pages and the creation of the various graphical objects inside the pages such as images and flash objects. The graphics Designer will typically use a combination of tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Captivate to create the actual graphics objects. A designer will need to work closely with other groups to make sure the design process does not compromise the performance of the application by making sure that the graphics objects are small thus ensuring that the various web performance metrics are unaffected.

Development:

This involves converting the design into an actual application. The development typically involves an architectural phase where the underlying modules that make up the application are scoped out. If persistent data storage is needed, a database schema should be designed to accommodate the data storage needs. The choice of the operating system (e.g. Windows, or Linux ) where the web application will run, the web server (e.g. Microsoft IIS, Apache or Tomcat) which will run the web application and the back end database (e.g. Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL or MongoDB) which stores the data will need to be made. Various development frameworks are available to build web applications. The most common ones are ASP, JSP, PHP, and Perl that are open source. The choice of the application framework is typically dictated by the strengths of the members of the development team. The architectural phase is followed by the implementation phase. This is typically the longest part of the project and during this phase, the actual code is written using the design specifications and graphics objects developed by the design team. The programming will typically be done using a combination of the application frameworks mentioned earlier together with HTML, JavaScript and CSS style sheets.

Quality Assurance and Testing:

A surprising number of people are of the view that quality assurance and testing is desirable but is not actually needed. Unfortunately, this view has its roots in total ignorance of the process that is needed to build a good end product. Regardless of how pretty or slick we make the application, if it does not work as expected, users will reject it. Quality assurance and testing involve two different kinds of tasks. Functional and regression testing is used to verify that the developed application is doing what it is supposed to do. This is achieved by test automation using a functional testing tool. Load and Performance testing is used to ensure that the application performs as intended when it is subjected to the typical load of a production environment. Load testing is practically speaking impossible to perform without using an automated load testing tool since it involves the simulation of a large number of concurrent virtual users. This effect cannot really be achieved manually and needs the assistance of an application that is designed to subject the application to a specified load and then measure its performance when it is subjected to that load. Quality Assurance teams will need to track the bugs or defects in the application using bug tracking tools. Such tools will allow defects to be tracked by all members of the team.

The three groups mentioned above tend to be specialized for their skill set. As an example, people often make the mistake of using developers as quality assurance testers. This is not a wise strategy because most developers who are good at writing software are quite poor at finding bugs or defects in their own software.

Writing good and compelling web applications requires an understanding of all phases of the process, design, development and quality assurance. Skipping phases or taking shortcuts will result in low-quality software that will generally cost more in the long run.

Top 3 Most Used Tools in Photoshop

UX Design

Most used tools in Photoshop

In this article, I will show how to use the Top 3 most used tools in Photoshop (Magic Wand Tool, Move Tool, and the Crop Tool) and once mastered you’ll never be without them.

1. Magic Wand:

The Magic Wand Tool (W) selects areas of similar color You can change the tolerance (how close the color values should be to the sampled color in order to be selected) of a Magic Wand selection, and choose whether you want the selection to be contiguous (pixels that are touching) or not (in which case, matching colors across the entire document will be selected)

Tips and Shortcuts for the Magic Wand:

Hold the Shift key to add another selection to the first.
Hold the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) to subtract your new selection from the first.
Hold Shift-Alt (Shift-Option) to select the intersection of your first and second selections.
Use the arrow keys to move the selection pixel by pixel If you feel that this doesn’t move your selection quickly enough, hold down Shift and use the arrow keys to move the selection ten pixels at a time.
Press Ctrl-J (Command-J on a Mac) to copy the selection into its own layer.
To cut the selection into its own layer, press Shift-Ctrl-J (Shift-Command-J)
If this seems familiar to you, it’s because I mentioned earlier how to copy a layer using the same keyboard shortcut Now that you know that not selecting anything sometimes means that everything is selected, it makes sense that simply by selecting a layer in the Layers palette, you can copy the entire layer by pressing Ctrl-J (Command-J)
To deselect a selected area, click outside of it with one of the Marquee tools, or press Ctrl-D (Command-D on a Mac)
To reactivate your last selection, press Shift-Ctrl-D (Shift-Command-D)

2. The Move Tool:

The Move Tool (V) moves a selected area or an entire layer. You can invoke the Move Tool temporarily when using most other tools by holding down the Ctrl key (Command key on a Mac)

Tips and Shortcuts for the Move Tool:

For most tools, holding Ctrl-Alt (Command-Option on a Mac) and dragging a selected area will temporarily invoke the Move Tool, allowing you to move and duplicate the selected layer quickly
You can also duplicate a layer by holding down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) while using the Move Tool.

3. The Crop Tool:

The Crop Tool (C) is used to trim images Create a selection using the Crop Tool, then double-click the center of the selection or press Enter, to crop the image to the size of the selection To cancel without cropping, select another tool or press the Esc key

Tips and Shortcuts for the Crop Tool:

You can use the Crop Tool to resize your canvas Expand your document window so that it’s larger than the image area, and create a crop selection that includes the image and extends onto the gray areas “outside” the image Applying this crop will resize your canvas to include those extended boundaries, making your canvas larger.