A few years ago a friend told me about Netbeans, the freebie Java-based code editor that is designed to work with Java, PHP and a range of other languages. At that point it was time to retire Homesite, my favorite editor for over 10 years that was no longer sold or supported, and was showing signs of incompatibility issues with Windows updates. I have since found Netbeans … [Read more...]
Converting HTML Pages to Run PHP
This issue frequently arises when site owners want to convert legacy .htm or .html pages to run PHP, but they do not want to change the file name extensions due to the potential loss of rank positions when the URLs are changed. It is easy to convert HTML pages to run PHP if you know how and you can change those static pages to run dynamic PHP code. First, the site needs to … [Read more...]
Lots of Deprecated Features in PHP 5.3 Will Break Web Sites
Many older sites written in PHP as well as many newer sites that evolved from older legacy code will find their sites broken when their servers are upgraded to PHP 5.3. That's because many older PHP functions and INI directives are now formally deprecated (made obsolete) in version 5.3. This will not just affect ancient web sites written with very old versions of PHP. Many … [Read more...]
Using IP Addresses to Verify the Location of a Buyer
Internet fraud is out of control. Fraudulent orders commonly originate in countries where the credit card fraud rate is unacceptably high or where you do not do business. Here is how to use IP addresses to check the geographic location of the person who placed the order. A check of the IP address of every user who places an order should be a requirement before any order is … [Read more...]
3D Movie Technology for DVD and Blu-Ray
3D movies have recently seen a resurgence in the movie theater. Due to new 3D theater technologies, several 3D version of movies have hit the theaters and a few of those have made it to home theater formats in both standard DVD and Blu-ray. 3D movies have been around in theaters since the early 1950s when they were very popular. Many of these movies used a stereoscopic … [Read more...]
Creating a States Table in MySQL
It is common to add a drop-down select box that is populated with USA states or Canadian provinces to PHP applications. There are basically three ways to do this. You can hard-code all of the Select box selections into your application, you can add the states to a MySQL database manually, or you can use the handy code on this page to create a States table in MySQL in just a few … [Read more...]
PHP Shopping Carts Worth Looking At
A shopping cart is an essential component of every e-commerce site. Although there are literally hundreds of shopping carts to choose from, only a few stand out. PHP is the preferred shopping cart language because it is the most popular web development language on the Internet. When combined with the MySQL database, PHP is unbeatable for cost effectiveness. The selection of … [Read more...]