Allthingsdev.com » Programming

A Simple Way to Protect Your Uploads Folder

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:28:17 +0000

I found a simple way to protect folders that need to be writable. Its a simple htaccess file placed in the writable folder that disallows a script such as PHP, Pearl or the like from being executed.

Here’s the contents of the htaccess file:

AddType text/plain .pl .cgi .php .html .asp

It’s that simple. This line causes Apache to treat any files with extensions found in that list as if they were text files an thus making them not executable.

If you have custom extensions set up in your Apache configuration file, just add those extensions to the list and you should be good.

Obviously, if you have a script that is located in that folder, you would need to move it somewhere else and update it to accommodate for its new location. It is never a good idea to place your scripts inside a writable folder anyway.

Make changes to your putty configuration stick

Jeff Purcell — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:42:41 +0000

Being a LAMP developer, I spend a good portion of my day SSH’d into servers via Putty. For those unfamiliar with it, Putty is a free telnet/ssh client for Windows and Unix operating systems. The problem with Putty, or maybe me, is the text is really hard to read. By default Putty displays white text on a black background in 10pt Courier font. It is very hard on the eyes, especially when you spend any significant amount of time using it.

It had become a routine that anytime I opened Putty and connected to a server, I would set the font size to 14pt and bold but the settings never stuck. A while ago I had searched around looking for a remedy to this problem, but I always came up with nothing. Finally today I was so tired of altering that setting that I went searching for an answer and happend to stumble onto Dag’s article over at Field Commander Wieers about Improving Putty settings on Windows.

Dag explains that before you setup any sessions in Putty that you should make your changes to the default session settings first. The changes will be replicated to all other sessions you create and save you seconds, if not minutes of your life changing settings for each session.

Once you’ve made all your session changes click save and you’re off and running.

Improving Putty settings on Windows via Field Command Wieers

CakePhp is Definitely….Cake

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 04:43:49 +0000

I’ve been playing around with this PHP framework called CakePhp. CakePhp is designed for super fast php development, and I must say, fast is an undestatement.

Cake is a rapid development framework for PHP which uses commonly known design patterns like ActiveRecord, Association Data Mapping, Front Controller and MVC. Our primary goal is to provide a structured framework that enables PHP users at all levels to rapidly develop robust web applications, without any loss to flexibility.

I only recognize about 12 words in that blockquote. 5 of them have 4 letters or less. Nevertheless, I ran through a few tutorials tonight (out of boredom) and was amazed at how fast “rapid” really is. Check out the blog and the online bookmarks manager I created, both in less then 30 minutes.

I’m currently parting out ideas for my next web project and I definitely will be using CakePhp to speed up the development time.

php, development, cakephp, web development, framework,

WordPress as A CMS

Jeff Purcell — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:05:42 +0000

Yes, I know this isn’t anything new, but I’m quickly becoming a big advocate of using wordpress as a CMS for client websites. Here’s a few reason’s why I do this:

Rapid Development

Layout design time has been dramatically reduced by utilizing WordPress’s theme abilities. I now only have to create one html page which I then modularize to fit with wordpress’s theming system. This single html layout is then applied to all of the site’s pages.

Added Functionality

With WordPress’s simple yet robust administration area, I can give my clients control of certain areas of their website. They can now manage their own content and not be so dependent on me to make changes. This added functionality is a feature that is nonexistent among the other local web designers in my area.

Less Time Equals More Money

With the added functionality that wordpress’s admin area offers, I can charge more while lowering my overall time involved in the project.

Easily Add Additional Features

With the large community following that WordPress has, chances are someone has developed a plugin for that added feature or functionality that your client needs. For example, WP-ContactForm takes the headache out of programming a contact form. Once again adding that needed functionality while lowering development time.

Tags: wordpress, cms

PHP and Paypal

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:00:26 +0000

I consider myself fairly versed in the programming language PHP. I prefer it over M$ languages because its free and open source, also because the majority of shared web hosting servers available are linux based. PHP and Linux play very nice together. Although you can run PHP on Windows-based servers.

When developing a new site, if I need a php script that I don’t already have in my library, I try to find a free one online that requires minimal alteration to suit my needs. I find this cuts my development time considerably. As it stands, there is an abundance of free php scripts available for just about anything one could possibly need. Most of them are fairly easy to understand and alter to your liking. This is not the case with paypal IPN scripts.

I’ve been looking for a PHP Paypal IPN script for a very long time. There are many of them out there, but until yesterday I couldn’t find one that worked first time AND didn’t require server alteration to run. Then I found Paypal Web Services over at Sourceforge. Paypal Web Services is a collection of paypal scripts that cover all your paypal payment needs. After configuring the config.inc.php file, I was accepting Paypal payments in less than 20 minutes. This beats trying to read Paypal’s 122 page PDF explaining how Paypal payments work. Yes, I’m not linking to the PDF for spite!

Tags: php, paypal, programming, IPN, free scripts

Open Source Business Model

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 01:00:11 +0000

Lately I’ve been playing with the idea of developing some sort of open source software. As I near graduation, I’m trying to find ways to add to my awkwardly thin resumé. I feel a well planned open source project might be just the addition to my resumé that could land me a job in the already flooded php developer market.

After turning the open source idea over in my head for a few days, I began to wonder if done properly, could said project turn into something mildly lucrative? Obviously whole companies base their entire business model around the development of open source and free software. But how do these companies stay in the black? Surely they don’t base their business models around their Paypal donate buttons, do they? What are some other ways that open source developers and entrepeneurs can monetize an already free product?

Just for sh*ts and giggles, let’s say I’ve created a “canned” shopping cart website much like osCommerce. I’ve compiled a list of ways that such a product could actually turn a profit.

Hosting Services
Hosting services plus installation of your product would be an excellent means for income. Especially for those less than web-savvy.
Offering a Pro Version
Offering more advanced features for a nominal fee seems to be a growing trend among smaller open source projects lately.
Paid Layout Customization
By providing custom color schemes or custom layouts for individual customers willing to pay, you can turn a profit from just altering a stylesheet.
Prepackaged Themes
Prepacked themes can be a great addon for your open source software and allows for easier customization for your customers.
Paypal Donations
You’d be surprised what people will give if they enjoy your software!

I believe these are all very realistic options for monetizing your open source software while still providing your main software for free.

Some related articles I came across during my research:
WordPress.com business model
An open source business model
Examining some pseudo-economic arguments about Open Source

Tags: Open Source, shopping cart, entrepeneur, money

Internet Explorer and Forms

Jeff Purcell — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 05:28:48 +0000

I ran across this little quirk with Internet Explorer the other day. It appears that when a form is submitted by actually clicking the submit button, an element in the PHP array $_POST is created for the button. Simple enough, right? Well I noticed that when the form was submitted by pressing the Enter key instead of clicking the submit button, an element in the $_POST array was not created for the button. It’s not an exceptionally large quirk, but definitely caused me to rethink my form submission checking. Firefox and Safari created the array element for the button regardless of how the form was submitted.. This occured with Internet Explorer 6.0 and PHP version 5.0.3

Tags: Internet Explorer, PHP, forms

How to Oust Unwanted Spiders

Jeff Purcell — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 03:36:01 +0000

As a whole, web spiders and robots are a good thing. They are an automated means for search engines to index new content on your site. However, there are some cases in which spyders and robots can be a bad thing. For instance, improper spydering techniques can cause the indexing of individual pages multiple times or repeat visits by the same bot daily. This all adds up to wasted bandwidth and skewed traffic statistics.

I recently had a run in with a very unwanted spider who was indexing my entire site multiple times a day. The spider also ignored my robots.txt file which denied its user agent access to my site. Remembering I had once read a tutorial on mod_rewrite, I decided to write a quick little script to disallow access to said spider.

If you have never heard the terms mod_rewrite or .htaccess, now might be a good time to do some research. First things first, we need to create a file named ‘.htaccess’ (without the quotes). Next inside that file we need add the following code which I will explain later:
[code]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "name of user agent to block"
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://google.com/ [R]

[/code]

You will need to replace “name of user agent to block” with the actual name of the user agent you wish to block. Make sure to keep the quotes intact.

The above code examines each user agent that tries to access your site and redirects them to Google. To redirect multiple user agents you can do:
[code]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "name of user agent to block"
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "and another...."
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "...and another"
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://google.com/ [R]

[/code]

Save the .htaccess file and upload it to the base directory of your website and relax knowing your bandwidth usage is safe from spam spiders. You can have alot of fun with this. Try changing the redirect from google to localhost!

Tags: mod_rewrite, .htaccess, spam, bot, spider

preg_replace gotchas

Jeff Purcell — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 01:43:03 +0000

I’ve been reading Professional PHP for a few weeks now and I’m really enjoying it. It is one of the few blogs out there that actually writes about code and coding in general. For example, their latest post gives a quick overview of some gotchas with the php function preg_replace. Professional PHP gives some good pointers about how to remove those unwanted extra slashes and things of that nature.

Check out Professional PHP here.

Tags: php, code, coding, programming

Visual Studio Express Free for One Year

Jeff Purcell — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 02:01:03 +0000

Yesterday (Nov. 7, 2005) Microsoft released “Express” Editions of Visual Studio and SQL Server. These new editions to the Visual Studio lineup come with a free 1 year license.

What is an Express Edition? From the mouth of the beast itself:

The Express Editions are an expansion of the Visual Studio and SQL Server product line to include lightweight, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn tools for hobbyists, students, and novice developers who want to build dynamic Windows applications, Web sites, and Web services.

Express Editions are available for: VB.NET, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual J# and an edition built especially for dynamic web development creatively titled Web Developer. Also available for download is SQL Server Express Edition. SQL Server Express Edition is a replacement for the SQL Desktop Engine that came bundled with past editions Visual Studio. It is designed mainly for building and testing data-driven applications.

Average download size is between 35-70Mb per Express Edition. I know you may be wondering about licensing restrictions, but rest assured, commercial use is allowed (straight from their FAQ sheet “there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using the Express Editions”).

Optional components are also available such as the MSDN Express Library.

Tags: Microsoft, Visual Studio, .NET, Developer, VS.NET, VB.NET, C#, C++, J#, SQL, SQL Server, MSDN