A number of recent projects I’ve been involved in have stated the export of a MySQL database to a CSV file as a core requirement.

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Most Linux distributions are packaged with a cron daemon, crond. Every minute, crond will scan and look for scheduled tasks that it should be performing at that time. If any are found, it will perform them and return to sleep until the next minute.

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We have recently built a website featuring WorldPay integration.

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Databases are a vital component of modern websites. Common functionality that Internet users have come to expect, such as user login, would not be possible without the existence of a database.

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The primary reason for including a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on a website is to make the transmitting of information to and from the server as difficult as possible for other malicious people to intercept or read. The role of an SSL certificate is to indicate to the visitor’s browser that the site they have connected to is the real site, and not that of an interceptor.

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XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. As its name suggests, it is a markup language like HTML. Whereas HTML is used to control how data is displayed on screen, XML concentrates on transporting and storing the data, with a focus on what the data actually is and its format.

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If pages within your website are not set up with the correct encoding, you might find unrecognised non-alphanumeric characters appearing abnormally. Sometimes the page will try to render them but fail dramatically (I’ve experienced a Pound Sterling symbol (£) appearing as £), whereas other times the character will simply be displayed as a �. Even everyday characters such as single and double quotes have been known to be displayed as question marks, if the page’s encoding is not correct.

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What is it?
SQL injection is the illegal insertion of malicious code into text fields on forms, with the intention of manipulating or stealing data from a database. Knowing that the value will be processed as part of an SQL statement, an attacker can structure the string they enter in order to alter the end statement that is processed. Not knowing any different, the SQL server will execute the statement regardless. Let’s take a look at an example:

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Following up from an earlier blog post detailing the decline of IE6, in which I urged users to upgrade, I thought I would go into further detail about modern browsers available. Three have largely been accepted as the main for PC users: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. Most people have a preference, but how much do they know about the alternatives?

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In January 2007 it was reported that an estimated twenty million websites had been built using PHP. This is an extraordinary figure that has doubtlessly increased since. But what is it that makes PHP such a popular choice amongst developers? Why are PHP programmers so much more plentiful than those of other languages and environments such as .NET and Python?

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