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PHP v NET

Survey after survey continues to show the popularity of PHP over any other web based language for creating anything from the simplest single home page to complex ecommerce and enterprise solutions. Recent Netcraft surveys show PHP installations on more than twenty million (20,000,000) domains. This is by in front of the second place getter which is PERL.

So, what is it about PHP that makes it so popular and why is .NET (and other Microsoft languages), dragging the chain in server side languages. The .NET platform has many benefits, not the least of these is its speed, but webmasters the world over continue to push the PHP language to new hights of popularity.

PHP puts the "P" into what has now become popularly known as the LAMP Stack (Linux Apache MySQL PHP). With the Apache web server installed on more than half of the worlds web sites, there is really no rival for it. The Apache web server is freely downloadable, like all parts of the LAMP stack with PHP among them. PHP is easily compiled as an apache module and makes a sturdy compliment to it.

In comparison, Windows Vista comes with IIS installed freely for a single web site. Of course, you need to purchase a license for Vista before you can begin. A single server installation is rarely suitable for companies that have more than a single domain. At a minimum, most will favour registering several domains with different TLD's. This leads to requirement to puchase Windows Server, the price of which begins at approximagely USD$600.00.

Of course, the most common tasks asked of web languages these days involves database communications. Microsoft provide a limitted "express" version of their MS SQL Server for free, but most installation will require the full version which add further to the total cost of ownership.

Once again, open source projects bring a bevy of alternatives which are freely downloadable and not limitted. Among these the most popular is SUN Microsystems` MySQL database. MySQL has the benifit of being a truly cross platform application, with source code freely available and binary releases for Linux, OSX and Windows platforms, it is clearly a superior choice for many when selecting a platform to run their business or enterprise.

With the above information in mind, it is not too difficult to see that the choice of server side scripting is often not one of preference or suitablity, but one of finacial logistics. The total cost of ownership of running .NET on Windows, rather than PHP on the LAMP stack is considerable.

The most common problem encountered with .NET development is portability. The .NET model supports only Windows servers, thus making cross platform integration impossible. Should a better hosting opportunity arise on another platform, or you are forced to move to another, non-windows, platform, .NET will not function and the site owner is left with a choice of finding another Windows server, or re-write their site/application to support more open standards.

PHP on the other hand permits the site or application owner to move their code base between platforms with ease. The genuine cross platform compatibility of PHP allows developers the freedom to write code that can be run on any server supporting PHP, thus avoiding the technological lock-in incumbent of Windows and .NET. Using the same code base, PHP can be compiled and built on about 25 platforms, including most UNIXs, Windows(95/98/NT/2000) and Macs. PHP currently will load into Apache, IIS, AOLServer, Roxen and THTTPD and many other web servers. Alternatively, it can be run as a CGI module.

The technology lock-in that comes with .NET also brings with it increased cost of ownership, as previously outlined. This, in part, is due to the closed source nature of Windows and the .NET system, combined also with increased maintenance when compared to open source alternatives. PHP has been constantly the most the most popular apache scripting language according to SecuritySpace's Web Survey. This sort of popularity brings with it many more coders, thus reducing development costs at the outset as well as ongoing maintenance costs when additions are required.

Programming is programming, and many facets of programming transfer themselves across languages regardless of platform. System design and security issues have some universal traditions and taboos. Any sensible system design will make use of as many pre-existing components as possible, thus reducing development costs and development time. Invariably with .NET this means even more expenditure with the cost of each component being set by individual developers or by companies whose sole concern is to profit from .NET component development.

In stark contrast to this model, the PHP community and developers have vast repositories of classes and components freely available that cover many of the needs of most web applications.

From a security perspective, PHP is much more secure than the .NET platform when considering bugs versus fixes within the core code itself. This alone has seen sites such as facebook.com, yahoo.com, big-boards.com, gaiaonline.com, and digg.com, who all choose PHP as the preferred platform to base their enterprise on. Couple this with PHP's flexibility and speed-to-market and you can see why PHP is the choice of the web.

With the sort of market penetration that PHP has gained it is assured that it will be a strong contender for many years to come, whilst the Microsoft camp gets set to introduce yet another language to try to make up lost ground.

Rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using solid freeform fabrication. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications and are even used to manufacture production quality parts in relatively small numbers. Some sculptors use the technology to produce complex shapes for fine arts exhibitions.

Rapid prototyping takes virtual designs from computer aided design (CAD) or animation modeling software, transforms them into cross sections, still virtual, and then creates each cross section in physical space, one after the next until the model is finished. It is a WYSIWYG process where the virtual model and the physical model correspond almost identically.

In additive fabrication, the machine reads in data from a CAD drawing and lays down successive layers of liquid or powdered material, and in this way builds up the model from a series of cross sections. These layers, which correspond to the virtual cross section from the CAD model, are glued together or fused (often using a laser) automatically to create the final shape. The primary advantage to additive construction is its ability to create almost any geometry (excluding trapped negative volumes).

The standard interface between CAD software and rapid prototyping machines is the STL file format. The word "rapid" is relative: construction of a model with contemporary machines typically takes 3 to 72 hours, depending on machine type and model size. Used in micro technologies "rapid" is correct, the products made are ready very fast and the machines can build the parts in parallel.

Some solid freeform fabrication techniques use multiple materials in the course of constructing prototypes. In some cases, the material used for the final part has a high melting point for the finished product, while the material used for its support structure has a low melting point. After the model is completed, it is heated to the point where the support material melts away, leaving a functional plastic prototype. Although traditional injection molding is still cheaper for manufacturing plastic products, rapid prototyping may be used to produce finished goods in a single step.

There are currently several projects to improve rapid prototyping technology to the stage where a prototyping machine can manufacture a majority of its own component parts.[1][2] Of these the RepRap Project is probably the most advanced. The idea behind this is that a new machine can be almost entirely manufactured and assembled quite inexpensively from the same polymer filament feed stock that the rapid prototyping machine uses to make prototypes by the owner of an existing one. Such a 'self-replication' technique will considerably reduce the cost of prototyping machines in the future, and hence any objects they are capable of manufacturing.

Free Antivirus Detection and Removal Tools

Software To Protect You From Viruses, Trojans, Worms and Other Malware

AVG
Here, you can get your free copy of the AVG 7.0 Anti-Virus System - AVG 7.0 Free Edition and you will be able to use it without any limitations for life of the product.

Avast Home Edition
avast! 4 Home Edition is a free antivirus software for home noncommercial use. It scans for viruses, worms and Trojans on disk, CDs, in E-mail, IM and P2P . Incremental updates of virus database (twice a week) are small, fast and reliable.

AntiVir Personal Edition
The AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation.

Clam Antivirus
ClamWin is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows NT/98/Me/2000/XP/2003. It provides a graphical user interface to the Clam AntiVirus scanning engine.

ScripTrap
ScripTrap traps scripts when they attempt to run on your computer and provides the option of blocking them or letting them continue to run. You can also check the intercepted script with your anti-virus program before you decide to run it or not.

Trend Micro Online Scan
Give your PC a FREE check-up! HouseCall is a demonstration of the power of Web-based technologies that Trend Micro is developing to make deployment and management of virus protection in corporate settings fast and easy.

McAfee Stinger Virus Removal Tool
Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system.

Symantec Virus Removal Tools
Symantec Security Response has developed tools to automatically conduct what would often amount to extensive and tedious manual removal tasks. Check this link for a list of virus removal tools.

BitDefender Virus Removal Tools
SOFTWIN provides you with a powerful set of Virus Cleaning Tools, designed to detect and remove viruses that infected your system. These applications are also valuable because of their size, making them easily downloadable even with a slow Internet connection. Check this link for a list of virus removal tools.

The Basic Checklist : Choosing A Web Hosting Provider

Choosing a web-host is serious business, it is the foundation of your online presence ! There are plenty of hosting companies, how can you choose the most suitable host for your website ? This article should guide you in the right direction.

Step 1 : Know thy self ! - Understand your own needs.

Ok, so you need a web-host.. but for what ? Answer the following few questions & you should be in a better position to understand what you should look for in your hosting company :

• Why do you need a host... are you looking for a host for your online business or simply a place to put up a personal homepage ?
• Will a free service serve your purpose or do you need a dedicated server ?
• How much traffic or how many visitors do you expect ?
• How much storage space will you need for the files you will have on your website ?
• What other options will you need ?

If you cannot answer the questions yourself, contact your friendly neighborhood spider-man [the web-designer ;-) ] Jot down your requirements and you will be prepared for your host-hunt. There are quite a few forums online, with experts offering free advice to help you evaluate your needs.


Step 2 : Take a look at what's available.

Take a look around at what is available, there are quite a few websites such as ours , which can give you a feel of what's available in the market. In terms of plans , options , features , prices etc. Browse around a comprehensive site like ours & you will have a feel of the market. An unbiased rating & evaluation of the various web-hosting companies can give you an idea of what to expect & how much to pay.

Step 3 : List them out !

Once you have completed steps 1 & 2 , you will have a better picture of what you need and what is available in the market. Now is the time to shortlist the prospective hosting companies. Consider reviews from websites such as ours , check out for referrals from any friends or colleagues to make a short list of possible Web Hosting companies.

Step 4 : Research into your list.

Visit the websites of the hosting companies that you have listed out & look around closely. what do you feel about the interface they are presenting to the world. Are you comfortable there ? It is easy to find your way around and access the information you are looking for ? Or is the interface messy and poorly designed ? . The design of the hosting company's site can be a first indicator of how good & serious the company is.

Go through the different offers and read the fine print on the site. What they have to say about the all-important issues of reliability and refunds. A good web-host should guarantee a 99% - 99.5% uptime, the actual time the host is functional.

The web host should have a refund policy - either a pro-rated refund or a discount - if the uptime falls below their stated figure. Find out what you must do to get that refund; specifically, what sort of documentation or proof must you provide, or will they freely admit to the downtimes and give you the appropriate credit ?

Find out what kind of trial periods, if any, they offer, and exactly what refunds they will give you in the event you are not satisfied. That is, do they refund all payments you have given them? Or only monthly fees, but not setup fees, etc. While all the small print might not be the most interesting thing to read, it does make you aware of the steps to take if the web-host does not deliver as promised.

Delete from your list the companies that do not make the grade & retain just the top 10 in your list.

Step 5 : Check the Specifications.

Now that you have short listed the ten possible companies, check out what packages are available and what it costs for the specs you are looking for. Look at not only what you need today, but what you will need tomorrow, as your business / website grows. How 'scalable' is the service provided by the company ? For example, you may not need e-commerce today, but you might need it tomorrow.. so what are the upgrade options ?

When it comes to dedicated servers, check out what is the connectivity bandwidth , the transfer limits and other facilities that the host provides. More on what specs to check for when looking at dedicated servers is listed further down in this article.

For normal web hosting , look at specs like How much disk space do you need ?, the number of POP3 mail accounts and aliases they offer and what kind of access they will allow you, and how. Most servers have some form of Domain or Admin Control Panel for you to use to administer your account. Check theirs out and see if you understand it and feel comfortable with it. Other more technical features you need to be aware of include FTP, CGI-BIN access, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, crontabs, and PHP.

Step 6 : What do others have to say..

Search the net using search engines like google with the name of the web-hosts from your list, you can see references to your web-hosting company on different sites. See what people are saying... are there any negative comments ? are the people singing praises ;-) Go through any discussions , comments posted on news-groups, forums etc.

While all companies will list their satisfied customers, you'll not find the unhappy customers & negative comments posted there.. it is up to you to see if all is as rosy as it looks. See what web-hosting review sites like ours have to say about the company.

Delete from your list any hosting companies with negative feedback.

Step 7 : The customer Support factor.

Once you buy into the services of a web-hosting company, there will be occasions when you will have to contact the hosting company , for general queries, specific technical support, to register a complaint etc. So how 'available' is the company ? What modes of contact do they provide ?

The three basic modes of contact would be via 'Live-Help' on their website, where you can chat in real time with a customer support rep. Or via email, or via phone [many top-class companies provide a toll-free number] . Read their customer support pages to find out what kind of turn-around-time they promise on any emails. Do they promise 24x7 support ?

Many web-hosts also have some quick trouble shooting pages & help pages on their site, check out how extensive and comprehendible it is.

Step 8 : The email test !

Send an email to the support email address of all the web-hosting companies on your list. You can even send an email on a Sunday or after hours to see if they really do have 24x7 support. Request for specific technical information about their service & also some pointed questions specific to the type of service you are looking for.

Evaluate the speed of their responses, judge the quality, competence and care taken in their responses to you. Test them even further by demanding that they assign a specific contact person to administer your account, so that his person will be familiar with your site and any problems it may have. This will do wonders for the Web Hosts' accountability and sense of responsibility. Eliminate all those hosts who have not responded to your email or have responded inadequately.

Step 9 : Price-wise.

Evaluate the prices and see which host in your list offers the most for the least. The most expensive host need not be the best, neither does the cheapest host have to be the worst. Choose a host that offers you most of what you need at the most reasonable price, and with options to upgrade later for reasonable rates. If the web host has scalable packages, you can always upgrade to those other features later.

Most web hosting companies offer monthly, quarterly and yearly payment options, so be sure to ask about their minimum commitment period as well as their refund and cancellation policies. You should also receive a discount for longer time periods paid for. Exercising due diligence in these matters pays off many times over in the long run.

Now that you have all the information required.. it is decision time !

Step 10 : The final cut.

Having completed all the steps outlined above, you should be in a good position to make your decision. All the hosting companies who are remaining on your list are probably the best in the market. Choose the one which fits your requirement & your budget the best, and the deal is done !

All that is left to do then is place your order and do the needful to get your site online.

Top 10 Data Recovery Bloopers

Truth, as the saying goes, is stranger than fiction. The following horror stories are true. The identities of those involved have been omitted, because what happened to them could happen to anyone.

1) It's the Simple Things That Matter

The client, a successful business organization, purchased a "killer" UNIX network system, and put 300+ workers in place to manage it. Backups were done daily. Unfortunately, no one thought to put in place a system to restore the data to.

2) In a Crisis, People Do Silly Things

The prime server in a large urban hospital's system crashed. When minor errors started occurring, system operators, instead of gathering data about the errors, tried anything and everything, including repeatedly invoking a controller function which erased the entire RAID array data.

3) When the Crisis Deepens, People Do Sillier Things

When the office of a civil engineering firm was devastated by floods, its owners sent 17 soaked disks from three RAID arrays to a data recovery lab in plastic bags. For some reason, someone had frozen the bags before shipping them. As the disks thawed, even more damage was done.

4) Buy Cheap, Pay Dearly

The organization bought an IBM system - but not from IBM. Then the system manager decided to configure the system uniquely, rather than following set procedures. When things went wrong with the system, it was next to impossible to recreate the configuration.

5) An Almost Perfect Plan

The company purchased and configured a high-end, expensive, and full-featured library for the company's system backups. Unfortunately, the backup library was placed right beside the primary system. When the primary system got fried, so too did the backup library.

6) The Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

After a data loss crisis, the company CEO and the IT staffer met with the data recovery team. No progress was made until the CEO was persuaded to leave the room. Then the IT staffer opened up, and solutions were developed.

7) Lights Are On, But No One's Home

A regional-wide ambulance monitoring system suffered a serious disk failure, only to discover that its automated backup hadn't run for fourteen months. A tape had jammed in the drive, but no one had noticed.

8) When Worlds Collide

The company's high-level IT executives purchased a "Cadillac" system, without knowing much about it. System implementation was left to a young and inexperienced IT team. When the crisis came, neither group could talk to the other about the system.

9) Hit Restore and All Will Be Well

After September's WTC attacks, the company's IT staff went across town to their backup system. They invoked Restore, and proceed to overwrite from the destroyed main system. Of course, all previous backups were lost.

10) People Are the Problem, Not Technology

Disk drives today are typically reliable - human beings aren't. A recent study found that approximately 15 percent of all unplanned downtime occurs because of human error.

Automated IM Worm Is Inevitable

The sudden appearance of a rootkit file in a spyware-laden IM worm attack has set off new fears that malicious hackers are sophisticated enough to launch a fully automated worm attack against instant messaging networks.

In the most recent attack aimed at users of America Online Inc.'s AIM network, the "lockx.exe" rootkit file was bundled with a new variant of the W32/Sdbot Trojan to create a nasty mix of hidden malware.

This is the first detection of SDBot squirming through IM chat windows, and the addition of a rootkit program is causing raised eyebrows among security researchers and worm watchers.
"The situation is ripe for a fully automated worm to cause some serious damage," said Jose Nazario, senior software engineer at Arbor Networks Inc., a network security firm based in Lexington, Mass.

Nazario, a worm researcher and author who tracks malicious activity on the Worm Blog, said the appearance of SDBot in an IM attack highlights a rapidly emerging trend for malware: Bootstrap onto the system, download a number of tools including a rootkit and spyware, use an IRC network to control the botnet, and continue propagating. "I'm really surprised we haven't seen the fully automated worm on these IM networks. To me, it's begging to happen," Nazario said in an interview with Ziff Davis Internet News. "Pretty soon, someone will find a way to package one of these attacks with an unpatched vulnerability to cause some real problems."

Nazario said the IM worm writers have mastered the art of commandeering a user's buddy list to spread the malware bundles via URLs that must be clicked.

"Once we start seeing AIM or MSN Messenger exploits packaged into these, we'll see a fully automated IM worm. But, so far that hasn't yet happened on a large scale, and I don't know why. I think it's only a matter of time before some enterprising malware author decides to break down that barrier," Nazario added.

Chris Boyd, who broke the SDBot code and discovered the hidden rootkit for FaceTime Communications Inc., echoed Nazario's fears.

"Before long, someone will come up with something capable of doing massive damage. There are some pretty horrific rootkits out there at the moment that are completely undetectable. We're now seeing them all coming together and it's not looking good," said Boyd, a well-known security researcher who uses the "paperghost" moniker.

"I've noticed over the past six months or so, the malware writers are moving away from the standard Web page drive-bys and finding new avenues to deliver the nasties. We've seen it with BitTorrent and we're seeing it more and more with IM," Boyd added. Boyd said he believes the inclusion of a rootkit file in the spyware bundle was a deliberate "sleight-of-hand tactic" to drop the backdoor Trojan on compromised machines. "It's a very slick move. While we're all complaining about the pop-ups and spyware, no one notices the nasty rootkit that puts your entire computer in the hands of someone on IRC," he added.

Boyd said the "lockx.exe" rootkit has been programmed to connect to an IRC [Inter Relay Chat] server to listen for commands from a remote attacker.

The Windows kernel rootkit can also be used to hide logins, processes, files, and logs. It may include software to intercept data from terminals, network connections, and the keyboard. Earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. became so worried that its MSN Messenger network could be used in an automated worm attack, it pushed out patched versions of the software as a mandatory update.

At the time, exploit code that could be used in widespread attack was circulating on underground Web sites just 24 hours after Microsoft released the software patch. Tyler Wells, senior director of engineering for FaceTime Communications Inc., said buffer overflows in IM applications are a recipe for disaster. "We've already seen documentation for some serious code-execution vulnerabilities in IM applications. If you put it all together, you'll see we're not that far away from an automated IM attack where infections don't require the user to click on anything," Wells said.

"The attackers will start looking for exploits within the IM itself. Now we're seeing the IM clients become more than just a text chat tool. AIM now has the ability to load an image on top of the buddy list and play music without a click. All the messaging clients today are bundling a lot of different applications like VOIP, file transfer, image sharing, Internet radio. Those add-ins all have their own security concerns," Wells said in an interview.

"When you bundle third-party functionality into the program, you expand the client footprint, but you're also in inheriting all the security problems," he added.

Arbor Networks' Nazario said there has been detailed research work done to show that an automated IM worm could spread over IM rapidly. "In the worst case scenario, research has shown that all vulnerable clients online at a time could get infected in a matter of seconds."
"Whether we see that in practice is debate. But the results of simulations and analysis were striking. If someone is able to operationalize a worm that propagates without user intervention, we would be in for a very massive attack," Nazario said.

"A fully automated, rampant IM worm can happen at any time. I'm actually very surprised it's not out there yet. It's a very attractive way to drop malware behind an enterprise security system quickly and efficiently," he added.