All new articles have been archived or deleted.
Introduction to JSON and PHP
Introduction to Computer Storage and Memory
Cross Browser CSS Opacity and the JavaScript Fade / Fading Effect99.6%
A+
A+
Encrypting Passwords with PHP for Storage Using the RSA PBKDF2 Standard
By Andrew Johnson (archived Oct 3, 2009)
When creating password hashes for storage, many programmers will run a password through MD5 once and call it a day, rendering those hashes very susceptible to attack if they're discovered. In this article, you'll learn how to create stronger hashes with PHP by using the RSA ...
98%
A+
A+
Generating Session IDs and Random Passwords with PHP
By Andrew Johnson (archived Jun 16, 2009)
Whether it's session ids, passwords or tokens in general, in the world of web development the ability to generate random alpha-numeric strings is a necessity. In this article I present a few simple yet effective PHP functions that can be used to generate strong alpha, numeri...
97%
A+
A+
PHP Encryption / Decryption Using the MCrypt Library (libmcrypt)
By Andrew Johnson (archived Jun 3, 2009)
The ability to encrypt and safeguard data is an essential ability that every serious web developer should have in their arsenal. In this article we'll explore encrypting data with PHP and MCrypt (libmcrypt), storing it in a database, retrieving it from a database and decrypt...
93.8%
A
A
Introduction to JSON and PHP
By Frank Lakatos (archived May 24, 2009)
So you've heard the fanfare over JSON, but still haven't had the opportunity to dive into using it. Well, as a matter of fact, you may have been using JSON all along and not known it. Compounded by the fact that since PHP 5.2 there is native support for JSON, learning how to...
100%
A+
A+
Comprehensive Guide to PHP / MySQL Tag Clouds (Includes Demo)
By Andrew Johnson (archived Mar 5, 2009)
Tags are a great way to organize user content such as photos, videos, articles and so on. This guide covers the necessary MySQL tables, SQL queries, PHP scripts, XHTML and CSS for adding tag support to your website. Apache mod_rewrite rules are also covered for search engine...
100%
A+
A+
Forcing File Downloads with PHP Regardless of File Type
By Andrew Johnson (archived Feb 26, 2009)
Web browsers use mime-types to determine how files should be handled. For example, if you open an image in your browser the image is displayed whereas a zip file will typically trigger a file download. In this article I detail why forcing file downloads can be advantageous a...
100%
A+
A+
UTF-8 Enabled: Apache, MySQL, PHP, Markup and JavaScript
By Andrew Johnson (archived Dec 30, 2008)
Does your web application only support the latin-1 (ASCII) character set? Are you having trouble switching over to UTF-8, running into garbled characters or question marks? In this article you'll learn everything you need to know about properly configuring Apache, MySQL, PHP...
100%
A+
A+
Beginners Guide to AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
By Andrew Johnson (archived Dec 29, 2008)
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML allows you to communicate with server-side scripts behind the scenes via a JavaScript XMLHttpRequest object. In this article you'll learn all about AJAX, the XMLHttpRequest class and how to start developing interactive web pages with AJAX. A b...
100%
A+
A+
Guide to Apache, MySQL and PHP on Windows XP / Vista
By Andrew Johnson (archived Dec 8, 2008)
This article aims to help newcomers to web development install and configure the Apache HTTP Server, MySQL Database and PHP Scripting Language (with various extensions) on either a Windows XP or Windows Vista operating system.