Macronimous Web Design

Last weekend, we have upgraded this Blog system to WordPress 3. It went well without any troubles, as expected. Our team shares few simple steps to do it yourself.

1. Download WordPress 3.0 from the URL wordpress.org/download. And before you install make sure you have access to the FTP client and mysql database

2. Create a subfolder in your domain root folder and upload unzipped wordpress 3.0 files to the subfolder. Create a database for new WordPress version on your web server. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php. Open wp-config.php in a text editor and fill in your database details and upload to the desired folder. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing yourdomain.com/subfolder/wp-admin/install.php.

3. Now you should have done with the installation. Next step is to copy your theme files and paste it to the wp-content folder were you could see the default theme.

4. From now on you need to be very careful, copy you DB tables scripts from your existing blog database and paste it to a notepad. Here you see the links with the original URL yourdomain.com and you need to replace with demo URL yourdomain.com/subfolder/ since you are installing a demo test version in a subfolder. Now you can copy the DB table’s script and execute in your new database that has been created for demo version.

5. Now you are 50% done with wordpress 3.0. All the remaining is plugins and you need to note that all plugins are not compactable for new wordpress 3.0 so do not place all plugin in the wp-content plugin folder if happens then there would be problem in access wp-admin. Through your FTP client you need to create a folder can be named “backup” and place all your existing plugins in the “backup” folder. Then move on your desired plugin one by one to check compatibility by logging into wp-admin. There would be less or more plugins you would have located that are not compactable.

6.  Now you are done with your wordpress 3.0 in your demo version. You should be able to access your demo blog with all the post and as well you would be able to access blog wp-admin.

7. At this instant, you can move your live blog files to a different folder or can move to your local machine just for a support. Through FTP client go to your subfolder were you have wordpress 3.0 file and upload all the files in your root folder were you had the files of your previous word press version. Now download your wp-config.php and open in a text editor and fill in your live database details.

8. Now you need to access your mysql demo database and copy the table’s scripts to a notepad and change the URL from yourdomain.com/subfolder/ to yourdomain.com/ and execute it to your live database.

That’s it, now you can enjoy using wordpress 3.0 for your live blog.

Not all the web clients are tech or web savvies. Many times you should pave them their success path online. Here are few a list of 4 important things which you should let your client know, if they trust your web development skills.

1. Flash: When they ask for a fully flashed website, let them know the adversity it might make. By doing this you are helping them to establish the right online presence. Unless your client is Coca cola or Burger King ( I mean,  :-), an establish brand), they will really want to establish better Visibility to the Search Engines.

2. SEO – If a client just wants a website, let them know what SEO is and how it is going to help them. Make the site SEO friendly within the design scope (Eg. Image tags, XHTML validations, designing without tables, etc). Most of the clients will not say NO to make their site ready for SEO.

3. CMS – Ask how frequently they want to change the content, and if they do, let them do know how to do it themselves with a CMS. You may also need to let them know the advantages of fresh content. I believe instead of providing them a static site of 20 pages, you can introduce them Joomla and how to use it, for some additional but onetime investments.

4. Advantages of Opensource - Do they need a CMS or Ecommerce, You can justify why you charge less. Let them know that you can cut cost by using WordPress or Magento and still make their site professional. By doing this you are introducing standards – if your client goes to some other developers, it would not be difficult for them to take up the work.

I recommend you to keep a short write up (with some references) or articles on the above mentioned (you may keep that under your client section of your website) and ask the client to refer them. It also helps them to understand that you know what you tell them.

Codeigniter is an open source web application framework for building dynamic websites with programming language PHP. Its main aim is to facilitate the developers to develop projects much faster than writing code from the scratch. If you are a developer who want to meet the clients’ deadline and tired of tediously large and painstakingly undocumented frameworks, Codeigniter is the way to go. When compared to other PHP frameworks, Codeigniter is often distinguished for its speed.

CodeIgniter

Now is the real time to know about the power of Codeigniter. So ignite yourself and initiate reading to know why you want to choose Codeigniter. It will suit if:

• You require a framework which can be set up very quickly and efficiently.
• You need an outstanding performance.
• You are a developer who needs methodical and clear documentation.
• You need a framework that does not call for sticking on to restrictive coding rules.
• You want a framework that needs nearly zero configuration.
• You need a framework which is compatible with many environments

Some of our developers always prefer to use  CodeIgniter, write me if you want to see some samples and know why they used CodeIgniter. If you want to start using CodeIgniter start right here at: http://codeigniter.com/

3. Frameworks we like: 2. CakePHP and why?

2. PHP Frameworks we like 1. Zend and why?

1. PHP Frameworks we like

Months back, I made a post similar to this, But I believe another post emphasizing on the best practices is not considered bad.

Working with PHP is something you enjoy everyday!. You always wanted to do your best to your clients. But when the deadlines are pressing and when the clients are on your shoulders people start doing messy codings, and the standards got ignored. But you practice the best ways of programming everyday, it becomes your style and you have no alternate choice of doing quick and dirty work. Here are some simple best practices discussed by Matthew Weier of Zend technologies. Use them when you get an opportunity, and they will become your style of programming.

Netbeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is an open source integrated development for software developers. You can run the Netbeans IDE on various platforms which include Linux, Windows, Solaris and MacOs. It is aimed at providing a comfortable environment for the developer during each stage of development. This is accomplished by integrating precise features required for PHP development into the Netbeans IDE.

As most PHP projects characteristically connect to MySQL databases, Netbeans has made a concentrated effort to offer to this configuration. By means of the Netbeans IDE 6.5 Beta, web developers can now benefit from the standard features like the syntax highlighting, refactoring, code templates, pop-up documentation, easy code navigation, debugger and lots more.

I have been currently using Netbeans IDE and I have penned down few features and positives that I came across in writing PHP based web application.

• It comes free.
• Netbeans will go along with PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Java and lots more.
• Indentation format is out of the top draw in Netbeans. You select a block of code which contains css, html or php code, Netbeans will make sure it formats the code evidently and placed indentation adequately.
• Common functions of PHP are shown automatically or you can use ctrl + space.
• While writing HTML, Netbeans ensures it checks the div id properly and it indicates if there is any hitch so that you can easily fix the bug.

I can stiff my neck out and say it’s the most popular IDE and also the most popular. So I would give an overall score of 8 out of 10 for Netbeans IDE.

1. Ajax powered WordPress Themes:

Alisha provides a list of Ajax powered WordPress themes. You may want to try one or more.Some of them are good, Some are limted with one or two features like search. Some not found. But worth a look if you plan to use Ajax in your templates.

http://www.softtechreviews.com/web-design/ajax-enabled-wordpress-themes/

2. Ajaxed WordPress

This is a WordPress plugin which adds power, usability and the beauty of AJAX to WordPress based blogs and WordPress based websites. The plugin improves the user experience, the administration capabilities and the design potential or the blog/site.

http://ajaxedwp.com/#awp::

3. Ajax for WordPress plugin developers

So how about writing your own WordPress plugins with Ajax? WordPress codex helps you to begin: http://codex.wordpress.org/AJAX_in_Plugins

4. Four Ajax WordPress plugins

Finally, here are four plugins discussed. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9574 This should help you to get more ideas to start.

Index on multiple columns for SQL performance

Since clustered index reorders the table and arranges the data according to the index key, SQL Server allows only one clustered index per table. This results in amazing performance, when you only have to worry about one particular column. If you are in need to order the data by more than one column. Since we can’t use clustered index for multiple columns, unclustered index are used to gain a performance increase. We can specify a key value for every unclusterd index, plus the value obtained from cluster index; which acts as a pointer to the actual values when we need their data. If unclustered index is keyed on the values needed for a given task then query engine will never be in need of visiting the actual rows. After learning everything it needs from the index and scope then it will visit the qualifying rows.

1) Increase SQL Server stored procedure performance with following three tips:

        Stored procedures plays a vital role in enhancing the performance of the database. The following three tips will help us to maximize database performance, when stored procedures are used.

Use NOCOUNT:
           If NOCOUNT option is turned off, on each operation: stored procedures returns information concerning the number of rows affected and it increases network overhead. By default the Option NOCOUNT will be turned off.  If we turn on NOCOUNT option, stored procedures will block row count information so that it will reduce the network overhead occupied with information communication to the user.

Use return values:
           Queries are used to validate information or to return a single value. The return value of stored procedure can be used to retrieve a single value from a query and mainly useful when inserting a new record. The information necessary for retrieval is the primary key value. Place the statement “RETURN <value>” at the end of the query to utilize the return value in stored procedure.                 
        
Optimize table access with NOLOCK:
          Transaction safety is not mandatory for most of the database access. This is apparent in MySQL database product that it does not contribute any record locking capability. Any access to a database table or a stored procedure in SQL will make tremendous performance gains when a table hint is used, which lets the SQL engine ignore and not perform locks for a given function.

Many of our customers who look for Ecommerce solutions find Opensource solutions to build it cost effectively and they like what we recommended, Cubecart!There are reasons:1. Easy to customize (skin based), and this keeps the cost low.
2. You can bring great look and feel with skins, you can make the site like complete custom design. No footsteps of Cubecart would be visible.
3. PHP programmers likes it. – Clean code structure, easy to manage. Our PHP programmers have a great feel about it.
4. Designers like it. Clean XHTML interface and CSS driven.
5. SEO guys like it. Search Engine Friendly URLs, Custom URLs, Meta Tags, Robots.txt & PHP Session Killer etc
6. Good support from Cubecart team apart from forum support (Like http://www.cubecartforums.org/)
7. Low cost, $180 only.
8. Good number of alternate payment solutions, Shipping modules (http://www.cubecart.com/modules)
9. Web2.0 interface, But I am yet to see any Mashups.We strongly recommend and teach the importance of SEO for customers who wants us to build Ecommerce sites, as any online business should consider SEO as their primary marketing channel – Not just news paper ads, for long term business through online. Cubecart is one good choice to build SEO friendly Ecommerce sites that supports online marketing.

The Problem with all the codes is that the value is not sanitized before it will be sent as a query. All we need to make sure is that we passing the secure data into database. We can send secure data and prevent the data hacking by following the four prime SQL injection methods

Function mysql_real_escape_string() :

In php, we have a function to deal with strings in MYSQL. (Modified Content)

Function:
mysql_real_escape_string()

Above function seize the string that will be used in the MYSQL query and return the same string with all SQL Injection attempts securely escaped. Above functions will assist to replace each troublesome quotes in SQL Injection query with “backslash \”

Magic Quotes:

Magic quotes will helps to escape from risky form data that is used in SQL Injection. It will automatically include “backslash \” for each special characters in SQL Injection query submitted.

Function to check whether Magic quotes are enabled on server is
“get_magic_quotes_gpc function”

Example:
After adding magic quotes
The   \  becomes  \\
The   ‘  becomes  \’
The   “  becomes  \”

HTML Entities:

HTML Entities function translates all applicable characters to HTML Entities and returns the encoded string.

Function used to translate is,

string htmlentities ( string $string [, int $quote_style=ENT_COMPAT [, string $charset [, bool $double_encode=true ]]] )

Example: 

 <?php $str = “A ‘quote’ is <b>bold</b>”;

// Outputs: A ‘quote’ is &lt;b&gt;bold&lt;/b&gt;
echo htmlentities($str);

Validation:

Length Validation: Hamper of all the input fields in the application to the absolute minimum (7 to 15 characters). This will helps to block long queries input.
Input Validation: Validate the data entered in the input field. For eg. Age field should accept only number and only 2 digits are allowed.
User Privileges:  Create “Admin user” for each database and provide “create, drop and edit ” tables privileges only to the “admin user “