Sitek Blog

10 signs to identify crap PHP project

James Moey — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:36:30 +0000

Useful article on 10 useful signs to identify crappy PHP project. A summary list,

The software tries to reinvent the object model, or “fix” language features.
The code includes user defined global variables
Scattered HTML and SQL
Classes do too much
Lots of properties are public or lots of properties are static
Multiple levels of inheritance
The authors try to use Design Patterns
The software messes with the error level
In the code base, there is a directory called “core”
The software uses it’s own template language.

oscommerce nightmare

James Moey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:25:04 +0000

An article criticizing oscommerce is a nightmare. I could not agree more. I have give up on it long long time ago. The overall structure is a mess. But if you go to freelance site like scriptlance, getafreelancer. You will notice there are still project that requesting oscommerce application. I think prime reason that there are still demand for oscommerce is because customization is cheap. Lot of the customization on osCommerce is done in hack, direct changes to the core source code. It is a nightmare to maintain, not to mention leaving the site owner without a option to upgrade in the future. Leave security holes wide open because patching a customized copy of oscommerce is very time consuming. So a warning to site owner, you might save some money now but in the long run, you will be paying more.

For a better option, you should look at http://www.magentocommerce.com. One of the better structure shopping cart, based on industry standard framework, Zen Framework. Developer complaint about its complexity, but it is a extensible product. Development might be a bit more expensive, but worth it in the long term. The other option that you might consider is http://www.zen-cart.com as mention in the article.

What are you experience in shopping cart software?

Firefox 3.5 Release

James Moey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:08:21 +0000

For those who have been hiding under a stone. Firefox 3.5 was release this week. I was happy there was already upgrade for Firebug, Web Developer plugin. I remember the last upgrade 2.x to 3. The plugins were lagging behind the browser release.

So far, Firefox is running very well. on my machine. On average, I have 20 tabs open at one time. The only complain I have is sometime the browser freeze for 10-15 seconds or so. Not sure if it is the Windows 7 problem or the browser itself.

What are your experience with Firefox 3.5?

OS war Start Again

James Moey — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:07:22 +0000

An interesting article in OS preferences and arguments, from ComputerWorld.

Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5

James Moey — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:13:47 +0000

There are ton of good review on the Internet regarding to Firefox 3 performance and stability. Version 2 was a bit disappointing, specially when it is use on Laptop where RAM is always a precious resource. I have try Beta 3 and 4 before, but there is always the issue of lacking plugin compatibility, making me putting it off from upgrading from version 2. I do a lot of web development, therefore Firebug and Web Developer plugin is a must. Public release is not due until June, 2008, 2 months away. I have been waiting since December last year. A long long wait.

Today, I try my luck again. After download and install Firefox 3, I try to find Firebug plugin. The Firebug on the Mozilla Plugin Site is not compatible with Firefox 3, but there is a link to the plugin homepage. I follow the link and landed on here. To my surprise, there is a working version of the plugin that is compatible with Firefox 3. Even though it is a beta version, I straight away download and install it. I am very happy and excited that it work. Now I can move to Firefox 3. I also find Web Developer plugin and it is compatible with version 3. Double strike today, not too bad for a day. Other plugin like adblock and del.icio.us bookmark does not work, those are not as essential for me. I can wait on those plugin. I found an excellent plugin, ScribeFire. It is a plugin that allow you write your blog and publish it to your blog. All blogger should try the plugin, I believe you will enjoy it too.

So far, I have let Firefox 3 run for 4 hours plus. The first thing I notice, memory use by Firefox actually goes up and down. Not just up and up like in Firefox 2. Currently, it is using 76MB. If I was running Firefox 2, the memory usage after 4 hours will be 100++MB. The performance of the browser is fast. Changing between tab is very responsive and swift. The only downside that I experience, is when I click on a link sometime the Firefox freeze and not responsive. That could be my machine acting up, I will need to monitor that. Other than that, I recommend Firefox 3 to anyone who use a browser. For less IT illiterate, maybe wait till Public Release, if you are IT know-how, I recommend that you give it a try.

Hacking Competition.

James Moey — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:26:19 +0000

Very interesting competition. More information at Here. Win Cash and prize while you hack away. It is a good way for hacker to show off their talent.

Lost your Windows XP password?

James Moey — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:09:25 +0000

Today, I just discover that I forgot the Administrator password on one of my Windows XP machine. After searching for solution on Google, I found one of the best and free method to reset password on Windows XP machine. It is actually a security hole that Microsoft fail to patch. It work on my SP2 machine as well. So if you ever lost or forgot your password, try to reset it this way first before going out to purchase expensive program to reset or retrieve the password for you. Get the article from Here.

Dirtiest jobs in IT industry

James Moey — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:16:39 +0000

Easy and good reading, back to work after an easy weekend. 7 dirtiest jobs in the IT from ComputerWorld.

Protect your email address from Spammer and Forgery

James Moey — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:05:39 +0000

Domain Name is one of the most precious asset in online business. We should spent some time and effort in protecting it from being misused and get blacklisted. Today I am going introduce is SPF stand for Sender Policy Framework. It is an effective method to protect your domain from being used by spammer to send out spam email with your domain name. The framework is a technical method in preventing sender email address forgery.

How does SPF work?

SPF is a framework that need to be implement by both side of the email system, the sender and the receiver.

The sender need add a TXT entry in their DNS entry. This entry allow the sender to specify what host is authorized to send email using it’s domain name. For example,
```
sitek.com.au.     TXT     "v=spf1 mx -all"
```
This entry in the sitek DNS entry would mean that all sitek.com.au MX host are authorized host to use sitek.com.au domain name to send out email. They are allow to send out sitek.com.au email address’s email. More information on syntax can be found in www.openspf.org.
When receiver end, receive an email, it will need to check the sender email address DNS entry. If DNS contain SPF entry, check are perform to make sure that the sending host is one of the machine listed in the SPF entry. This prevent spammer from using your domain name to spam email.

We should encourage ourselves and other to implement SPF framework on their domain and mail server to help fight against SPAM. List of SPF implementation on the receiver end from here.

Hang rpm command?

James Moey — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:57:18 +0000

Just encounter that today. Trying to install a rpm package. rpm –install xxx.rpm just hang there. After some search on google, found the solution to my problem.

The problem was RPM database was corrupted.

The solution is to remove the corrupt database, located at /var/lib/rpm/__db.*