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Sometimes you want your PHP script to grab a text file or other external resource and save it locally. Here is my simple function for doing just that. PLAIN TEXT PHP: function save_external_resource($resource, $filename){ $data = fopen($resource, 'r'); file_put_contents($filename, $data); } You can save any kind of resource from anywhere on the web that you [...]

If you have read through this blog, you will realise that I am a big fan of the cURL library for PHP. Also, when using windows to code - I like to use the XAMPP package to give me easy access to an Apache, PHP and MySQL stack. So here is my quick guide to [...]

Firefox is awesome. The thing that really makes it awesome is the fact that it is very easy to customize it to have all the functionality you could dream of. The way that firefox does this is by allowing you to install add-ons. These little additions to the program bring extra functionality to firefox. Here's [...]

My favourite platform for web development has to be Ubuntu Linux. As a desktop system to work on (rather than play) I think it is unsurpassed. However there are some times that you really need to use windows. For example my laptop seems to refuse to install Ubuntu which means that I am forced to [...]

Its easy sometimes to focus entirely on the front end features of your web site or ecommerce business. Without a doubt the front end is the most imporant part of your web site as it needs to work well to allow your visitors to find and purchase what they are looking for. However, the back [...]

osCommerce is an awesome ecommerce package. It has many critics and this is mainly due to the fact that unlike many modern open source packages it is not really ready to run "out of the box". That is a drawback, however it is not really so much of a drawback when you take into account [...]

Ubuntu Linux is undoubtedly the most successful desktop version of linux available today. It has managed to tempt across many dedicated windows users with its easy installation procedure, comprehensive bundle of applications including open office and firefox, its greater security and reduced vulnerability to internet viruses and malware. And of course the fact that it [...]

One of the most important aspects of a successful SEO campaign is the building of links from external web sites that point to your web site. However it is not as simple as that. There are good links and bad links. If it was as simple as building the most amount of links possible then [...]

Many web masters will be familiar with Photoshop by Adobe. This highly featured photo editing and graphics application is incredibly powerful, but also incredibly expensive. If you find that the main thing you do with photoshop is basic product image cropping, resizing, trimming, rotating and watermarking then there is a better way! If your server [...]

A large part of an effective SEO campaign involves researching the current top ranking sites for your chosen key words or phrases and then trying to figure out what they are doing to get there. This can be a painstaking and laborious task. However there is one great tool which is highly recommended to give [...]