Response to "10 Things a Developer Should Never Ignore"

Earlier this week, I stumbled across Bill Stronge's recent 10 Things a Developer Should Never Ignore over on TechRepublic. It's recommended reading, as it's an interesting piece, filled with useful advice for developers, especially those just getting started in their programming career.

Still, a couple of the points jarred with me a little, and there were a couple which I felt could have been taken further. So here's my response to Bill's 10 Things.

Benchmarking Zend Download Server

Recently I've started looking into ways that the PHP dev team in which I work can make better use of our Zend Platform installation.

For that reason, the recent Ibuildings/Zend seminar in London on the subject of "Enterprise PHP" was well timed, as it included a pretty detailed run through of a lot of what Platform has to offer.

One feature which really struck me as having the potential to bring performance benefits to one of our systems was the Zend Download Server. Back at the office, I looked into the feature, and ran a few benchmarks. Oddly though, the results don't seem to flatter Zend Download Server.

Fighting Spam and Digitising Books with reCAPTCHA

When I added a comment form to this blog, I wondered how long it would be before I started getting comment spam. Then I wondered if I was flattering myself to think that spam bots would even be interested in my site.

So it's with mixed emotions that I have to admit that right now the number of spam comments I'm receiving is outstripping the number of genuine comments by a ratio of about 10:1.

The time has come to add a CAPTCHA to the comment form.

Mobilising a Website, Part 1: The Problem

It hasn't escaped my notice that if one happens to visit Pointbeing.net - this very site - using the browser on a mobile phone, the experience is more than a little painful. In fact, more often than not, the site is simply unusable.

The reason for this is that the site does not adapt itself in any way to the smaller screens, slower connection speeds, and idiosyncratic navigation methods found in mobile devices.

In my defence, this is not unusual right now: many, many sites are in the same position (have you ever tried to visit LinkedIn on a mobile?). However, given my faith in the future of the mobile web, and also given what I do for a living [1], this is something of an embarassment. The time has come to mobilise Pointbeing.net.

Zend_Search_Lucene Quick Start

I recently had a spontaneous urge to add a search form to my weblog - this one you're reading right now - and it seemed like a good opportunity to have a look at Zend_Search_Lucene.

I'm really impressed with the simplicity and power of the module. Sadly the documentation, whilst extensive, isn't particularly clear - so here's a quick overview of getting Zend_Search_Lucene up and running.

My php|architect Article to be Published in June

I purposefully didn't mention this here before now, as I didn't want to jinx anything.

But the time has come, and I'm pleasantly surprised to be able to report that my article - named something along the lines of "PHP Tools for Mobile Web Development" - is to be published in the June edition of php|architect magazine.

Clay Shirky on the Cognitive Surplus

I came across this via a recent post on Jeremy Zawodny's blog, and found it fascinating.

I've been meaning to post something about this for a while, ideally accompanied by insightful and witty commentary. But that didn't happen so I figured I'd let Clay's presentation, from this year's Web 2.0 Expo, speak for itself.

The End of Mowser is Not the End of the Mobile Web

In the last few days there has been a certain amount of rather sensationalistic and poorly informed commentary floating around on tech sites and blogs, predicting the immediate death of the mobile web. For example, this piece on CNET, and The Register's dramatically titled A Requiem for the Mobile Web.

And what is the basis for this doom-and-gloom mongering? Well, it turns out that a poorly-marketed twelve-month-old startup, named Mowser, which has never been able to attract VC, and seemingly staked its future entirely on its ability to attract VC, has called it a day.

That's it.

Why is mail.police.gov.bd Attempting to Hack Me?

I keep a distracted eye on failed logins to the mighty Pointbeing.net datacentre, courtesy of logwatch [1]. Here's the list of attempts from yesterday:

Authentication Failures:
root (mail.police.gov.bd): 452 Time(s)
unknown (mail.police.gov.bd): 403 Time(s)
root (58.241.84.193): 17 Time(s)
adm (mail.police.gov.bd): 6 Time(s)
lp (mail.police.gov.bd): 4 Time(s)
mysql (mail.police.gov.bd): 4 Time(s)
root (securityscan.xtraordinary.net.uk): 4 Time(s)
unknown (securityscan.xtraordinary.net.uk): 4 Time(s)
apache (mail.police.gov.bd): 3 Time(s)
ftp (mail.police.gov.bd): 3 Time(s)
bin (mail.police.gov.bd): 2 Time(s)
bin (securityscan.xtraordinary.net.uk): 2 Time(s)
daemon (mail.police.gov.bd): 2 Time(s)
games (mail.police.gov.bd): 2 Time(s)
gopher (mail.police.gov.bd): 2 Time(s)
ftpsecure (mail.police.gov.bd): 1 Time(s)

Now, securityscan.xtraordinary.net.uk is a monitoring service provided by my hosting company, Xtraordinary Hosting, who I strongly recommend. I don't know who or what 58.241.84.193 is, but a quick visit to DNSstuff suggests that it's probably a run of the mill hacking attempt orignating from China.

An Introduction to Fire Eagle

A definite highlight of Over the Air 2008 was London-based Yahoo Steve Marshall's introduction to Fire Eagle. For those not in the loop (which, to be fair, is most people: Fire Eagle is currently only open to a limited number of invited developers) Fire Eagle is Yahoo!'s brand new API for location-based services.