Month: September 2005

Secure Files in WordPress

September 26, 2005 /

WP plugin: Secure Files Allows you to safely upload and download documents stored outside of your web document root for security purposes.

This is great for people using plugins like Registered Only that secure your WordPress blog (Posts, Pages, etc). The problem with these plugins is that your loose files aren’t protected - only the contents of your WordPress database. So, any images or other documents you’ve uploaded are easily accessible to those who aren’t authenticated via a plugin like Registered Only. This plugin aims to solve this problem.

Read full article: Secure Files at almost effortless

Growth of Web Content Management Tools

September 22, 2005 /

Web Content Management (WCM) is growing by leaps and bounds: 

It's that promise that's driving growing interest in WCM. Gartner Latest News about Gartner estimates the market for the software will move past $2.5 billion by next year. Other analysts say linking other enterprise content management (ECM) with Web-facing solutions is the key to unlocking more investment in WCM, with Forrester predicting that overall ECM demand will far outstrip overall growth in the software market, growing 19 percent per year to reach $4 billion by 2008.

Read full article: Web Content Management Tools Help Close the Deal

Web Design Cheat Sheets

September 21, 2005 /

It can be helpful to have a suite of 'cheat sheets' on hand if you do web design or programming. Some cheat sheets available on the web include:

If you can't find what you are looking for here, then check out these other pages full of cheat sheets:

Power Searches in Google

September 20, 2005 /

A very nice article on using Google to the Max: 

Whenever you search for more than one keyword at a time, a search engine has a default method of how to handle that keyword. Will the engine search for both keywords or for either keyword? The answer is called a Boolean default; search engines can default to Boolean AND (it'll search for both keywords) or Boolean OR (it'll search for either keyword). Of course, even if a search engine defaults to searching for both keywords (AND) you can usually give it a special command to instruct it to search for either keyword (OR). Google's Boolean default is AND; that means if you enter query words without modifiers, Google will search for all of them. If you search for:

XML Java "web Services"

Google will search for all the words. If you want to specify that either word is acceptable, you put an OR between each item:

XML OR Java OR "Web Services"

If you want to have definitely one term and one of two or more other terms, you group them with parentheses, like this:

XML (Java OR "Web Services")

This query searches for the word "Java" or phrase "Web Services" along with the word "XML." A stand-in for OR borrowed from the computer programming realm is the | (pipe) character, as in:

XML (Java | "Web Services")

If you want to specify that a query item must not appear in your results, use a -.(minus sign or dash).

XML Java -"Web Services"

Read full article: Google MyWay - How to search Google efficiently

Alternative CMS’s

September 16, 2005 /

For robust content management, my favorite product is Expressions Engine (for complex web sites such as news sites) and WordPress (yeah, it's a blog, but it's easy and does all the content management most simple sites need). Both are PHP/MySQL based, and easily extensible by plugins, custom code, API tags, or simply hacking the PHP source code. Drupal is also a contender that sits somewhere between Expressions Engine and WordPress in functionality.

Willing to go beyond PHP? Here are three alternative open-source CMS's worth taking for a spin:

  • Bricolage -- Perl based (read review)
  • Plone -- Python based, using Zope's transactional object database
  • Magnolia -- Built on the Java Content Repository Standard (JSR-170).

Willing to spend some money? Check out these commercial tools:

Automated Email Follow-up

September 15, 2005 /

Here, Michael Hyatt posts a helpful hint to make sure the tasks you’ve delegated via email don't fall through the cracks. In a nutshell, you BCC these items to yourself and run a mail rule to shunt your reminder into the correct folder.

Now, whenever you want to track an assignment that you are delegating via e-mail, just enter your “waitingfor” e-mail address in the BCC field. (Since most e-mail software packages sport an auto-fill feature, you can generally do this with a few keystrokes.) Now, send your e-mail. If everything is set up correctly, your e-mail will go out from your main account and you will receive back an e-mail from your new “waitingfor” account. Your email rule will automatically file it in your “Waiting For” folder.

Read full article: Working Smart: Automated Email Follow-up

Life Without Microsoft?

September 12, 2005 /

This bold move by Massachusetts bears watching:

The state of Massachusetts has laid out a plan to switch all its workers away from Microsoft's Word, Excel and other desktop software applications, delivering what would be one of the most significant setbacks to the software company's battle against open source software in its home market.

Two years from now it will be interesting to see if they regret this decision, or feel vindicated. 

Read full article: Massachusetts set to switch off Microsoft