Southern writes:  

PHP is a scripting language designed to fill the gap between SSI (Server Side Includes) and Perl, intended largely for the web environment. PHP has gained quite a following in recent times, and it is one of the forerunners in the Open Source software movement. Its popularity derives from its C-like syntax, and its simplicity. PHP is currently divided into two major versions: PHP 4 and PHP 5, although PHP 4 is deprecated and is no longer developed or supplied with critical bug fixes. PHP 6 is currently under development.

If you've ever been to a website that needs you to login, you've probably encountered a server-side scripting language. Due to its market saturation, this means you've probably come across PHP. PHP was designed by Rasmus Lerdorf to display his resume online and to collect data from his visitors.

Basically, PHP allows a static webpage to become dynamic. "PHP" is an acronym that stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". The word "Preprocessor" means that PHP makes changes before the HTML page is created. This enables developers to create powerful applications which can publish a blog, remotely control hardware, or run a powerful website such as Wikipedia or Wikibooks. Of course, to accomplish something such as this, you need a database application such as MySQL.

more: Wikimedia

Southern writes:  

You may have installed countless add-on in Firefox to enhance your using experience, but if you want to get the most out of Firefox, you really have to hack your way into the about:config.

The about:config page contains most (if not, all) of Firefox configuration options. It is so far the most effective, and the most powerful way to tweak and enhance your Firefox performance. Here are 28 of the popular tweaks.

more: MakeTechEasier

Southern writes:  

Security and privacy are some of the major concerns these days while choosing a web browser to use. So much so that all the major players in the “browser wars” are providing or developing a private browsing mode.

Firefox with the myraid of add-ons that it has to offer is never far from action. Here are some of the top Firefox security and privacy addons that you should install for safer browsing.

more: makeusof

Southern writes:  

Does your Firefox take too much time to load? By loading we mean that it takes a lot of time to open when you click the Firefox button. Now the question arises; how to launch Firefox instantly?

Bradblogging.com has shared a very useful tip that enables you to launch Firefox completely with in 3-5 seconds, instead of 15-20 seconds in our case.

Simple hover to this page, where you will find a .exe file.

Download that file.
Install it on your computer.
Enjoy!

Basically, it is a Firefox Preloader that is designed to load parts of Mozilla Firefox into memory before it is used to improve the its start up time.

Note: Do note that it will work more efficiently on systems with a bigger RAM.

skidzopedia

papamike writes:  

I ran across this valuable website today. They let you download lots of cheat sheets.

Point your browser here.

Southern writes:  

A team of Stanford University researchers has bad news to report about Captchas, those often unreadable, always annoying distorted letters that you're required to type in at many a Web site to prove that you're really a human.

Many Captchas don't work well at all. More precisely, the researchers invented a standard way to decode those irksome letters and numbers found in Captchas on many major Web sites, including Visa's Authorize.net, Blizzard, eBay, and Wikipedia. This chart shows how successful Decaptcha was in decoding each Web site's anti-bot mechanism. The column marked "precision" shows the success rate.

This chart shows how successful Decaptcha was in decoding each Web site's anti-bot mechanism. The column labeled "precision" shows the success rate.

Their decoding technique borrows concepts from the field of machine vision, which has developed techniques to control robots by removing noise from images and detecting shapes. The Stanford tool, called Decaptcha, uses these algorithms to clean up the image so it can be split into more readily recognized letters and numbers.

"Most Captchas are designed without proper testing and no usability testing," Elie Bursztein, 31, a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford Security Laboratory, told CNET yesterday. "We hope our work will push people to be more rigorous in their approach in Captcha design." Captcha stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

more: CNET