16 Oct 2009

PHP Password Salt and Pepper using sha1 MD5 Hash

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battery salt and pepper shakers

Adding salt to passwords has become a very popular topic. In this tutorial we will look at adding more then just a little salt in hope to make the passwords stored in the database a lot more complicated to break.

What we aim to do is change “HelloKitty” into “bd6656780b4fcad95b4326dd6ee46cbcdb4d8a”.
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04 Oct 2009

My Top 10 WordPress Plug-ins

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WordPress is a popular blog engine which is becoming more and more a CMS. What makes WordPress a lot more popular than the rivals is the plug-ins created by the community that extends base WordPress to unlimited capabilities. Starting a site with WordPress allows designers and developers skip a lot of the non-core development process and focus on the core functionality of the site. Below is a list of my top 10 plug-in.
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27 Sep 2009

OpenX Ad Server Blank Page During Upgrade

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OpenX WebsiteYou do not need to edit the PHP.ini file and restart the Apache service to avoid the blank screen in an OpenX upgrade.

OpenX’s is opensource free ad server which gives you to the power to manage your online advertisements.

A lot of users/admins face a problem when upgrading their server especially if they do not own or run the host.
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25 Sep 2009

How to Create a CSS Table

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Complex CSS TableSometimes you will want to present non tabular information in a table format because you like the look of uniformity. The way to do this is to use divs in almost the same way you would do so for a table. The great thing about using a DIV/CSS table over a regular table is you have much more flexibility in manipulating the layout. For instance you might want every second row to have 3 columns of equal width compared to every other which 4 columns of equal width.

The code in this post will let you build the table pictured below. Taking this the next level will allow you to create the complex CSS tables used in loan results of the MortgageCorp Mortgage Calculator pictured left. I would recommend the CSS table over a regular table unless tabular data is being presented.
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19 Sep 2009

SEO – 5 Ways to Improve Your Google Ranking

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Getting to the top of Goggle is an important part of having a website, the development and design of a website will heavily influence your Google placement. Careful planing, well executed design and development will help get you 90% of the way.

Google is by far the king of search engines, the market share is over 70%, Bing has managed to indent this a little. A lot of people use search engines instead of typing in the address directly.
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14 Sep 2009

The Longest Poem in the World by Twitter

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Tweet.The Longest Poem in the World is a cool use of Twitter. Tweets that rhyme are matched to make quite a funny poem.

10 Sep 2009

Challenges to create an ecommerce solution

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A new doll in my collection

When designing an ecommerce solution there is many challenges which the developer needs to take into consideration to save time and frustration for both them and the client. Good planning and asking the right questions up-front will help in over coming the challenges. Below is a list of some of the challenges faced in creating an ecommerce solution and some basic questions that should be asked to minimise the challenges.

Ecommerce is focused on workflow compared to website design which is focused on content and layout. When designing an ecommerce solution the most important part is to understand the workflow. This involves working through each of the stages of the process the solution is meant to solve. While there may be existing processes, the online tool should be about refining those processes instead of just creating an online version of the offline solution. The first questions that should be asked are:
Photo by Joel Mark Witt
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10 Sep 2009

Twilight Edge Software – DAA Converter for Mac OS X

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It is no secret that I am a Mac Fan, and a limitation with Macs is the fact that some software and file formats are only for Windows. DAA is no exception. So when I was sent a video file in DAA format I was a little upset till I found a DAA Converter for Mac OS X.

DAA Converter is a free utility for converting DAA-format disk images to ISO format so they can be accessed on your Mac.

It runs on Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or later (I tested it on Snow Leopard).

DAA Converter is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Download DAA Converter

09 Sep 2009

Center a website using CSS

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Women working at the Portland Woolen Mills

You built a great website layout which is 960px wide, and you want to centre (center for EN-US) the website using CSS instead of the dreaded <center> tag. CSS makes this really simple.
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09 Sep 2009

Website Business Case

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Having a website enables you to reach an ever expanding local, national and potential global audience. More and more people are turning to the Web to find out information, to help inform decisions and to buy products and services.

Websites can act as your ‘virtual shop window’ to this ever growing audience. It is an easy and convenient way for web users to find out information about what you do before they get in contact.

Effective websites lead to increased sales, enhanced communications, and opportunities for new business relations.
Top 10 reasons to have a website
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