Blog Posts about PHP/MySQL/Scripting

Many factors go into the security of a Web site, particularly an e-commerce one. While creating a secure Web application in the first place is a key component, there's an easy way to improve the security of a site over time: by maintaining secure passwords. In this post, I'll explain what this means.

A feature of many of today's Web sites is the ability for users to upload files to the server. While often necessary, this process presents a new type of risk to servers and sites, whether any user can upload a file or just an administrator can. In this post, I explain what steps you can take to limit the risks of allowing for file uploads.

The bulk of security-related advice is based upon preventing break-ins, hacks, and attacks, but responsible e-commerce developers and administrators know that it's just as important to have created an emergency plan well before trouble occurs. In this post, Larry Ullman talks about why an emergency plan is important and what, exactly, that means.

The security of an e-commerce site depends upon so many things: the hosting involved, keeping all the software updated, using secure passwords, and so forth. But when it comes to the software you write--the Web application itself--the most fundamental security concept is that incoming data is validated, validated, and validated. In this post, Larry Ullman writes about what that means, from the concept to the implementation.

Do you have a question about Web standards, CSS, JavaScript, Ajax, interaction design, user experience, or Web typography? Maybe you just want to know "How'd they do that?" Ask me questions, and each week I will select a question to answer via my Peachpit.com blog.

In a recent conversation with the authors of A Project Guide to UX Design—Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler—we chatted at some length about the various roles on a Web team, both best case and worst case. (Here’s the full interview.)

Your Website can have a perfect user interface, an exquisite, cutting-edge design, and all the whiz-bang features in the world, but if your intended audience never finds it, all your hard work is for nothing. Users don’t just find you by accident; you have to attract them. New Riders’ author Aarron Walter provides a checklist you can follow.

Why are so many designers and creatives also musicians?

I just got back from AIGA’s biannual design conference. This year it was called simply “NEXT” and was held in Denver. The change of scenery with the city’s vibrant street-life under bright mountain skies offered me a sorely needed new perspective. It put me in a frame of mind of openness to new design thinking, and the experience did not disappoint.