My wallet is crying. It is unusually empty as it always seems to be at this time of year, but this year it seems to be worse than usual. There are a lot of great games coming out in the next few months. We have already seen a couple of great releases like Halo: ODST and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Here is a list of games coming out before the end of the year that I am interested in:
Demon Souls
Modern Warfare 2
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Left 4 Dead 2
Dragon Age: Origins
Tekken 6
Borderlands
FIFA 10
Assassins Creed 2
Phew! Thats $540 and those are the games that I just thought of off the top of my head!
So you’ve got a bunch of people who you would like to provide with content on your website. You also do not want everyone that visits your site to view this information. How do you allow access to some members, but not to others? The simple solution is to create a members area in your site by creating .htaccess and .htpasswd files!
The .htaccess file is a simple text file that allows you to change some of the configuration directives of the web server. The .htaccess file is much more powerful than just that and I hope to explain more about it in this article. It is worth noting that .htaccess files are not compatible with Windows Servers.
The .htaccess file has many uses including: Blocking Users by IP Address, Preventing or Allowing Directory Listings, and Changing Error Documents. In this post I will focus on using the .htaccess file to password protect your folders. This can be useful if you wish to set up something like a “Members” area on your web page that will allow only users that have a username and password access to these areas. You can create a .htaccess and a .htpasswd file in order to set up simple user/pass protection.
Password protection relies on two files. The .htaccess file tells the webserver that viewing content in such folders requires authorization. The second is the .htpasswd file and it contains the information about the users and their passwords. The information in your .htpasswd file will be very simple and will look like this:
webuser:qkbPmuht5Gzgc
Read the rest of this entry »
If you would like to set up a simple e-mail list or sign-up form for customers visiting your website to fill out, one of the simpler programs to use is a FormMail script. FormMail allows you to embed a form composed of several fields on your website. When a user fills in the fields and submits the form, the information is emailed to an address of your choice. FormMail is not a part of the HTML, it runs as its own program. However, FormMail can be customized with things like number of recipients, syntax check, and thank you pages from within the <form> </form> line of the HTML code.
While FormMail scripts are useful, they do have some drawbacks. One major drawback is that the form and the email address associated with it are open to spammers. However, Tectite (http://www.tectite.com/formmailpage.php), a brand of free FormMail script, will run submitted information through several filters and tests which can determine whether the information qualifies as spam. Tectite’s FormMail can be customized by editing the HTML code or by purchasing Tectite’s FormMail Configuration Wizard.
In this example we will simply edit the script and the HTML code. Editing these files should be done using a simple text editor. Web-based editors may alter the code and cause it not to work. An easy way to get started is to download Tectite FormMail (http://www.tectite.com/formmail.zip). In the formmail.php file included, add in your email at line 239 or 240 (depending on which version you receive): Read the rest of this entry »
The first ski resorts in Colorado have begun opening after a couple days of fresh snowfall.
Loveland ski area was the first ski resort to open in 2009 to a line of excited skiers and snowboarders. Loveland is one of the world’s highest in elevation ski areas. Its opening on Wednesday is the earliest opening in 40 years!
Loveland’s neighbor, Arapahoe Basin is planning to open late this week or early next week. Arapahoe Basin is famous for it’s late season skiing, sometime the season extends into May and June! I personally got to ski Arapahoe Basin a few years ago and it is definitely one of the most unique skiing experiences I have ever had and will never forget.
The resorts have been primarily making snow and their efforts have been extremely successful due to consistently low temperatures. There is also plenty of natural snowfall as well. Of the major resorts, Copper Mountain is likely to be the first one to open.
Here is to a great season of snow!!
Many people do not fully understand the benefits that a social media campaign can bring to a business. I thought I would write down my top five objectives of social media
1. Awareness A primary goal of any social media campaign should be to increase the awareness in the community of your organization. Social media can give you an opportunity to reinforce your brand and mission to your audience. It should also be used to encourage collaboration with your partners, the media, experts, and bloggers.
2. Engage There are people out there who already use your product or service. What do they have to say? Social media is a great way to reach out to your current evangelists. You can help them to find their voice through social media and help them spread their ideas to others. You can provide your customers with a personal experience with the organization, directly respond to questions, facilitate discussion and build a lasting relationship.
3. Create With social media you can create a consistent message across all platforms. It is important to send a consistent message across print media, web and social media. Help ensure that every customer or partner has a positive experience that represents the entire organization, no matter what the involvement.
4. Monitor Consider different social media tools such as Google Analytics, Radian6, whostalkin.com and Social Media Metrics from PR News Wire. Search for opportunities for outreach and collaboration with bloggers by monitoring other channels.
5. Represent! You can be the representative for your organization. Engage the community to build partnerships and learn new things that may benefit your business. Attend events and build a list of contacts in the field.
Can you think of any other business uses for social media?
First off, I know I haven’t updated my LinkedIn profile in a while, but I found this to be useful and has convinced me to do so…
In doing the research for this post, I heard from many LinkedIn users and business owners.
One of the things I have found fascinating about LinkedIn (which was corroborated by the conversations I had and emails I received), is that the individual tools on LinkedIn seem to form their own intense user groups. One person may focus their whole strategy on maximizing LinkedIn Q&A, another might focus on LinkedIn Events, while a third builds an entire strategy around participating in LinkedIn Groups discussions.
Once you have completed your profile an individual tool on LinkedIn can be a cornerstone of your business’ marketing.
Next Monday I will publish the much anticipated and well contributed article on LinkedIn strategies. I have received many submissions by small business owners and look forward to sharing them with you!
This week – a primer on LinkedIn Tools and when we discuss strategies we’ll all be on the same page about how the underlying tools used in the strategies work.
Note this is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all the tools on LinkedIn, just of the ones I think are most useful for small business owners. Next week we’ll put these into some perspective by exposing how small businesses are successfully using these tools.
All About LinkedIn Applications
In the bottom of the left column on your LinkedIn profile is a section called “Applications”. You might notice that in comparison to Facebook, there are relatively few applications available on LinkedIn. But the dearth of applications is more of a strength for LinkedIn – there’s far less clutter and the apps are focused on a single purpose – helping you present your professional wares. Many of the tools listed below are actually LinkedIn “Apps” that were developed by 3rd parties (i.e. not LinkedIn). There are only 4 third party apps that I’ve included in this list (and they only represent 2 “Tools”). The rest of my recommendations are tools that are core to your LinkedIn profile.
So here’s my Top 11 list… Read the rest of this entry »
The pistol is back!…well kinda. For those of you who are fans of the Halo franchise you will understand what this means. The pistol in the first Halo game was above and beyond the best and most powerful weapon in the game if utilized properly. Unfortunately, because of this its power was drastically reduced in Halo 2 and Halo 3. In the latest installment of the Halo franchise the pistol has a bit of a return to glory, though it is still not as powerful as it used to be.
In this iteration of the Halo franchise the developers have taken you out of the boots of the “walking tank” Master Chief and into those of an ODST helljumper. The master chief got progressively stronger as the Halo series evolved, but in this game you play as a much more human character. You gain damage from falling great heights, can not jump as high and can no longer sustain damage as well as you could as the Master Chief. This is a welcome change to the formula as the nearly unstoppable Master Chief gameplay was becoming a bit worn out.
I have to say that the opening sequence of this game is by far, one of the best moments in any Halo title. As you drop in to the city from outer space and witness all the surrounding chaos it is difficult to not get excited about what is to come. This story takes place in the time between the second halo and the third. It places you in the helmet of an ODST soldier and inside the Covenant occupied city of New Mombassa on Earth. You are alone, behind enemy lines and trying to meet up with your teammates. Through your solo journeys you will discover items that will initiate a flashback sequence that will detail what became of your teammates. These sequences are generally, the high action points of the game and the ones involving all the fun vehicles of the Halo sandbox. This means you get to blow stuff up! Read the rest of this entry »
What is PHP?
First off, I suppose we should start with a (very) brief introduction about what PHP is. PHP which stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either) is a formatting language used to make dynamic web sites. As it turns out, PHP originally stood for personal home page, but has evolved quite a bit since its inception in 1994. PHP is now a widely used scripting language used on millions of web pages and web servers.
What is a php.ini file?
One of the most powerful tools available for a PHP user is the php.ini file. Unfortunately, the power and utility of this file often goes overlooked. The php.ini file can be used to drastically alter the way that PHP behaves. Since it would be a real pain to have to adjust PHP every time you needed to make a change, the developers implemented the php.ini file. PHP searches for this file every time that it fires up and then reads the file and follows the directives defined within. This file can be used to alter the functionality of PHP and add increased levels of security for your web applications. Lets take a look at some common uses:
Disabling Functionality
There are some features of PHP that you will probably never want to use. It may be a good idea to completely disable them from the start in order to prevent possible malicious attacks. In the event that an attacker was able to upload a script to your site, this is an excellent way to disable that script from the start. Some top functions to diable are php_uname, getmyuid, getmypid etc.
Restrict File Uploads
Here you can turn off or limit the file upload functionality of your PHP scripts. If you are not using the file upload functionality in any of your scripts then it is probably a good idea to turn it off completely. This makes it more difficult for attackers to upload files to your web server. To disable file uploads you need to change the file_uploads directive to “Off”
Securing Error Messages
Error messages are some of the most common paths to information disclosure. They often contain information such as installation path, database info, and scripting variables. This information might be extremely useful to you as it can help you figure out what the problem with your site is, however it is worthless to users and can be used to gain access by an attacker. You can use php.ini to hide errors when PHP encounters a problem.
Feel free to submit any uses for the php.ini file in the comments section. I’d love to facilitate a discussion!
