Twitter in a Nutshell
March 20th, 2009Securing Passwords in PHP
March 17th, 2009Privacy on your website will be paramount to your success. In the world of application development, security can sometimes be overlooked (normally because accessibility is considered more important). Luckily, modern theories in coding mean we now can now be accessible and secure.
Hashing is a really simple technique to hide data using a one way encryption. It’s especially necessary when dealing with users passwords (In a recent study, 60% of respondents use a similar passwords). Here is an example of how to hash using the MD5 function:
<?php
$password = md5('password');
// $password will now return 5f4dcc3b5aa765d61d8327deb882cf99
?>
However, we can improve on this code. Many hackers now use Rainbow tables to reverse the one-way encryption (and thus find out the secret data). Luckily programmers have come up with a new technique to combat this…Adding a pinch of salt to a hash. In programming terms, a salt is essentially an extra piece of information we add to what the user input to make it unusual. Here is an example how to code this:
<?php
$salt = '%$£Salt_Here*(&^';
$password = md5('password'.$salt);
// $password will now return 5747563a265df7a3250884394c0a05e0
?>
Related Posts
PHP Security Consortium: Password Hashing
Essential PHP Security
5 easy ways to improve the usability of your website
March 13th, 2009Users are simple folk who are easily confused, as a designer or developer its core to our job to make our websites as easy to understand and use as possible. Here are 5 easy ways to improve the usability of your site.
Be Consistent
Having a similar layout across your website helps with user familiarisation, if the layout drastically changes the user will tend to assume they are on another website (users really are that silly, hence phishing scams doing so well).
An example of where most websites fail to be consistent is in add-on packages such as Blogs and Forums. In a recent survey by Full On Design a very high percentage of websites which used a readymade blog (WordPress etc) or forum (PHPBB, MyBB etc) did not have a consistent layout.
Don’t send mixed/complex messages
24/7 support which is offline, this could confuse users.
As mentioned above, users get confused easily and a confused user is an unhappy user. Putting an excessive amount of information on a single page on a poorly constructed page can make a user think “this is not worth my time” and they will leave.
To fix this, quite simple check how your website reads with a 3rd party and condense your data into as few words as possible (but don’t lose the original message). Really good examples of websites which “get to the point” quickly are Facebook and Apple. Examples of websites which epically fail to get to the point are IBM and Bebo.
Check for errors
Having a big “Error: The code is rubbish” is a big “hack me, I’m an idiot” sign essentially. Make sure your website works the way you intend to before you release the code (This includes cross browser testing). Luckily most server side code has error suppression and client side coding has lots of cheat sheets.
If you are adjusting a large website with a large amount of PHP, consider looking into PHP’s built in Error Handling.
Breadcrumbs
Home page > Section page > Subsection page
Above is an example of breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are an easy way to tell users where they are, where they came from and in some cases where they are going. If you use WordPress there is a really nice plug-in to create breadcrumbs for you.
Be Clear
eBuyer is very clear about how many steps are left when purchasing stuff.
Remove as much clutter as you can and make sure that your website is easily read. Keep in mind; on the web it’s better to have less useful information than more useless information.
Useful Links
50 Web Usability Tips that Help You Attract and Retain Visitors to Your Website
Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
9 Common Usability Mistakes In Web Design
Breadcrumbs In Web Design: Examples And Best Practices
New iPod Shuffle
March 11th, 2009
View Apple’s iPod Shuffle Website | Buy it on Amazon
I’m not sure what to make of this, either someone at Apple has gone crazy or they released it’s next wave of geniuses.
The Specifications can be found here.
Related Links
Future Stuff : 4GB iPod Shuffle in the works?
SNL Envisioned New iPod Shuffle in 2005
Apple’s redesigned iPod shuffle hits 4GB, talks to you
Internet Statistics – February 2009
March 10th, 2009Browser Statistics
IE6 is dying slowly; maybe it’s time we drop support for it.
Biggest Rise: Other (2.29%)
Biggest Fall: Safari (-2.45%) Possibly due to new version of Safari, or that a hacker said Apple Safari is ‘easy pickings’.
OS Statistics
WinXP is still a very dominant. Maybe Windows 7 will be its downfall.
Biggest Rise: Mac (0.9%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-0.51%)
Internet Penetration
Latin America/Caribbean internet penetration has grown by 4.5%
Internet Usage
Asians seem to have a high internet usage and is expect to grow even more!
Related Links
W3C Browser Information
Global Market Share Statistics
Internet Traffic Report
The ISC Domain Survey
*This data is an average from approximately 25 differently sources (Some listed above). Feel free to use the graphs and pie charts; however a link back would be appreciated.