I never even heard of a coding ‘framework’ until I found out about the multitude of lightweight and powerful frameworks for javascript such as jQuery and Prototype. So it goes without saying that when I found out there were some for PHP too my mind was sufficiently blown. After looking through a few different types I settled on trying one called Code Igniter because it looked to have the smallest footprint and was among the easiest to learn. There are several different reasons i’ve used CodeIgniter ever since I found out about it a few months ago. Following is a few examples of why this framework is priceless to me and my productivity. One is the structure it forces upon you (in a good way) namely the Model-View-Controller dev pattern. Right out of the box I found myself writing code more segmented and documented, which is excellent for those functions that are reusable in future projects like image processing and user logging. Also I love the way the URLs are designed to be search-engine and human friendly right out of the box. For example instead of a URL like artwork.php?piece=23&order=ASC it could end up more like /artwork/23/asc/. One thing I’ve noticed regarding this URL rewriting is that it makes it a little bit more challenging to integrate it into other script packages like WordPress that have their own rewriting method. Finally, there’s a ton of common functions, classes and helpers that range from form validation to email to sessions. It’s all been battle tested and works as you would expect them to every time. I apologize for how broad this is but it’s just too huge of a reason to explain in detail, if you’re interested in reading more about these there’s a detailed user manual online here and it’s all in HTML so it’s also included in the zip when you download the framework. I’ve created about 6 sites with this framework and can’t count the number of times I was able to go back to a previous site and reuse a function that not only saved me time in development but also in testing because it was all done already. All in all I think the fact that I feel I’m more productive, efficient and create all around cleaner and more documented code is the reason I love using this framework the most.

OK, so apparently i’ve been living under a rock for the past several months because this fairly large bit of news slipped past me. Google bought DoubleClick back in April for $3.1 Billion dollars, which is pretty big news but that’s not the reason for this article. You see, DoubleClick owns Performics a search engine marketing company. So Google purchased DoubleClick and Performics is a wholly owned subsidiary of DoubleClick, therefore, Google owns Performics. The largest and most popular search engine now owns a search engine marketing company whose sole purpose is to increase clients rankings in search engines. People paying Performics for this optimization is, at least by association, paying Google. I’m definitely not the first one to think this crosses some kind of line, conflict of interest at the very least. What do you think?

Site Pro just released a new design for their site - http://www.sitepronews.com/ A cool resource for web scripts - http://protolize.org/ A free audio editor, anything this cool that’s free is pretty sweet - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

A friend and I are performing an SEO experiment over at Astromusicologie 101 We’ll see how it goes…

There’s a ton of new information floating around about Google and how it can be used for more than just searching for websites (good and bad). Here’s a great article from the folks at Techweb about one such discovery.

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb Technology News Security researchers at Websense have figured out how to use Google’s search engine to sniff out thousands of malicious Web sites, including legitimate URLS hacked by intruders, and root out new forms of malware, the company said Tuesday. Google recently began indexing the executable files it finds on Web sites, said Dan Hubbard, Websense senior director of security, and his San Diego-based researchers have created a toolset that lets them automatically search for specific strings within those files, such as identifiers known to be used by popular malware packers. “Google indexes binary files, and we were able to come up with queries that look for certain strings, some of which are very specific, in Windows executables generated by packers,” explained Hubbard. By combining the Google search API with some homebrewed tools, Websense researchers automated the discovery process and uncovered more than 2,000 malicious Web sites. About 10 to 15 percent of those, said Hubbard, were legitimate sites that had been hacked and so were hosting predatory .exe files. It’s Websense’s policy, however, not to publicly disclose compromised sites. The team also uncovered evidence of here-to-fore unknown attack code. “We also found previously-undetected malcode,” Hubbard said, that included new Trojan horses, unknown variants of the Bagel and Mytob worms, and malware writing toolkits. “It’s been a lot of help.” Websense won’t publish the toolset it created to Google for malware, but Hubbard said he plans to “roll up a bunch of the tools and share them with other security researchers.” Google’s indexing of binary file contents shouldn’t be considered a large threat, it is evidence of the trend toward Web sites storing and then distributing hostile code. “Sure, there’s a downside to this,” said Hubbard. “Malware writers, if they figured out how to do this, could [search for and] download malcode from multiple sites, maybe even see what kind of strings they should put in, or not put in, their binaries.” Search engines have been harnessed by attackers before. In 2004 and 2005, for example, the creator of several MyDoom variants used Google, Yahoo, and other engines to find victims’ e-mail addresses. Two years ago, a MyDoom worm generated enough traffic in e-mail queries to slow down the search site.

I’ve been following DevShed for a while and just recently found SEOChat from the same network of sites. All their articles and content are excellent resources for beginners and masters alike. Check them out!

Yahoo! News now has a beautifully recoded website that’s surprisingly table-less! Check it out, I think it’s a step in the right direction for sure.

Any Search Engine Optimizer worth a dime should know everything in this article already but I decided to post this anyway for those of you unfamiliar with the ways of the search engine world. Very good read, sums it up pretty well… Basics Of Search Engine Optimisation

This is an experimental alpha feature that is still under development on the new MSN Search Beta. Here are some step-by-step instructions:

• run your web or news search on the MSN Search Beta
• add the text ‘&format=rss’ to the end of the url
• copy the full url into your RSS Reader.

Here is a sample web search url: http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=tsunami+relief&format=rss Here is a sample news search url: http://beta.search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=tsunami+relief&format=rss Obviously this new functionality holds some amazing potential, especially for SEO. Imagine having dynamic seaerch results on your website, the possibilities are endless! Please note, however, that this is still in it’s experimental stage so things will no doubt change. I also read that if it’s abused in any way it will be pulled so be careful what you do.

Ever wanted to test and see what your site would look like on Google before launching? Now you can, with this neat little tool, you can check to make sure your site is “search engine ready.” It will provide warnings as to what you may want to change in order for spidering to be more effective. Simply input your URL, and click on “Diagnostic View.” http://www.gritechnologies.com/tools/spider.go Note: this tool only promotes search engine optimization, it won’t guarantee good rankings if you follow its warnings.

As a PHP developer, i’ve noticed how hard it is to get my dynamic sites listed on any search engine, especially Google. I think the following article is a great reference for all you developers out there trying to get the rankings you deserve. Solutions for Dynamic Website Ranking

It’s a common problem for any developer of a database driven website: how do you achieve a good ranking in the search engines when most of their spiders can’t handle dynamic URLs? Burhan Khan discusses a number of techniques to help you show up on the spiders’ radar and “get rank” as high as any static website.