Building Dashboards With PHP and Flex

Let's face it: Interactive graphs and dashboards have never been easy to put together on the web. Sure, there are graphing libraries out there for PHP, but to get something that looks really good and that a user can play with has been tough. Or at least, it was yesterday. Today, I show how to use a combination of PHP for the back end and Adobe Flex for the front end that will put interactive 3D within your grasp. Right now. Today. Let's dig in. To start, I needed some data. So, I put together a simple database called traffic that has one table called traffic that lists the number of page views and such for each day.

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Beginner jQuery Tutorials

The tutorials below are a great ways to start learning jQuery.

Mac OS X Security Configuration Guides

The guides are designed to give instructions and recommendations for securing Mac OS X and for maintaining a secure computer.

[HEADSUP] Linux 2.6 emulation enabled on default

"
hi,

today I commited a patch that enabled Linux 2.6 emulation on default in contrast to 2.4 as it was until now.

If you see any problems please contact emulation@ mailing list, I hope by enabling this on default we can put some more testing on the Linuxulator so we can ship 8.0R with 2.6 on default. This enables us to use newer linux_base than Fedora Core 4."

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FreeBSD supported branches update

The branches supported by the FreeBSD Security Officer have been updated to reflect recent EoL (end-of-life) events. The new list is below and at . FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.1, and FreeBSD 6.2 have `expired' and are no longer supported effective June 1, 2008. Users of these releases are advised to upgrade promptly to FreeBSD 6.3 or FreeBSD 7.0, either by downloading an updated source tree and building updates manually, or (for i386 and amd64 systems) using the FreeBSD Update utility as described in the FreeBSD 6.3 and FreeBSD 7.0
release announcements.

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25 Excellent Ajax Techniques and Examples

Ajax allows for rich-internet applications that mimic the responsiveness and complex user interfaces typically associated with desktop applications. Moving applications to the web browser opens many possibilities, including the ability to save user data, connecting with other users for collaboration and sharing, and making deployment and using the application easier since web browsers are standard-issue with most computers regardless of operating system.

If you’re interested in expanding your understanding of Ajax techniques and practices, check out these 25 hand-picked Ajax articles and tutorials that outline various methods and concepts involved in the development of Ajax-based applications.

How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

Testing PHP/MySQL Applications with PHPUnit/DbUnit

In the last decade, PHP has developed from a niche language for adding dynamic functionality to small websites to a powerful tool making strong inroads into large-scale Web systems. Critical business logic like this needs to work correctly. But how do you ensure that it does? You test it, of course.

A safe internet system

I realise that the average person has no hope of protecting their computer from the huge numbers of attacks aimed at them. You can read my opinion on this here, Technofile blog: Computer security is a major issue

I realise the situation is ridiculous, when I have to recommend people use two anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-rootkit checkers, to try and find all the malicious content that may be on their computer.

Most people don't have the technical skill to even use all these security tools properly, let alone have the time involved in trying to keep all these tools up to date.

People need to run them at least weekly, through their computers, and this can take a whole day!

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Goosh, a Google Command Line

Goosh.org hosts an unofficial Google interface which "behaves similar to a unix-shell," as the author Stefan Grothkopp explains.

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Don't buy any download accelerator

PLENTY OF users moving from Windows to Linux ask about ways to run their familiar "download accelerator" for Windows on Linux. The good news is that there is a hidden gem for Linux that does the job, is open, and of course, free of cost.

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Remote Backups for Linux and BSD

Backups are an important element of system maintenance on any system, and should be, at least in my opinion, mandatory for all users to perform regularly. Without doing backups, you could find yourself in a world of hurt.should something bad happen. But there are some things that even the best backup system in the world can't protect you against. One of those is nature. Given that this year has seen major earthquakes, a record tornado season, a planned record hurricane season, and other natural disasters of types we can't even begin to imagine, keeping copies of your backups in a remote location, or away from your home or business (aka offsite backups) is an idea that will save you should the worst ever happen. So let's look at a few possibilities that will provide you with simple piece of mind and security for your data.

Database Normalization and Table structures

Normalisation is the term used to describe how you break a file down into tables to create a database. There are 3 or 4 major steps involved known as 1NF (First Normal Form), 2NF (Second Normal Form), 3NF (Third Normal Form) and BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form). There are others but they are rarely if ever used. A database is said to be Normalised if it is in 3NF (or ideally in BCNF). These steps are descibed as follows.

FreeBSD review and howtos from a Linux user

I recently decided to give the new 7.0 release of FreeBSD a go and was fairly impressed. I did use BSD along time ago on a home server for a few months but pretty much forgot everything about it from back then.

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Connect to a WPA-PSK wireless network on Slax

Here is a short tutorial in how to connect it to my WPA-PSK protected wireless network.

FreeBSD: Ports support for 5.X is no more

As of June 1, 2008 00:00:00 UTC, FreeBSD 5.X support in the ports tree is End Of Life. This means that a ports tree checked out after this date is not guaranteed to produce usable packages on 5.X. Additionally, 5.X package builds on the cluster will cease. Users are encouraged to upgrade to 6.3 or 7.0 if they wish to continue to track the latest ports tree.

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