pfSense: Configuring NAT and Firewall Rules
by
Matt Williamson | July 2011 | Cookbooks Open Source
pfSense is an open source distribution of FreeBSD-based firewall which provides a platform for flexible and powerful routing and firewalling. The versatility of pfSense presents us with a wide array of configuration options.
In this article by Matt Williamson, author of pfSense 2 Cookbook, we will cover:
- Creating an alias
- Creating a NAT port forward rule
- Creating a firewall rule
- Creating a schedule
- Remote desktop access, a complete example
Photo Compositing with The GIMP: Part 1
by Reynante Martinez |
November 2009 | Open Source Web Development
In this article by Reynante Martinez, we will learn about photo compositing with The GIMP.
Read Photo Compositing with The GIMP: Part 1 in fullPhoto Compositing with The GIMP: Part 2
by Reynante Martinez |
November 2009 | Open Source Web Graphics & Video
This is the second part of the article series on Photo Compositing with The GIMP by Reynante Martinez. Read Photo Compositing with The GIMP: Part 1 here.
Read Photo Compositing with The GIMP: Part 2 in fullPhoto Manipulation with GIMP 2.6
by
Juan Manuel Ferreyra | March 2011 | Cookbooks Open Source Web Graphics & Video
This article starts with an explanation of the basic image editing tools. After that, there are a few advanced techniques to create high-quality effects with any kind of photo.
In this article by Juan Manuel Ferreyra, author of GIMP 2.6 Cookbook, we will cover:
- Scaling and Cropping an image
- Flipping or rotating an image
- Improve low-light photos
- Scaling an image without deformation (Liquid Rescaling)
- Creating a diorama effect (simulating depth of field)
- Creating HDR photos
- Creating a black and white postcard with a color touch
Photoshop Foundation - The Difference between Vector and Bitmap Graphics
by Jonny Allbut |
December 2007 | MySQL Open Source PHP Web Graphics & Video
The aim of this Photoshop Foundation series is to give both beginners, and more experienced users, all the information they need to use Photoshop as efficiently as possible. This series aims to both, guide you through the more confusing aspects of Photoshop, and show you the very best ways to use this application.
In this first article, we are going to look at the difference between vector and bitmap graphics, which is one of the most important principles to understand when working with graphics on a computer, inside or outside of Photoshop.
Read Photoshop Foundation - The Difference between Vector and Bitmap Graphics in fullPHP 5 Social Networking: Implementing Public Messages
by
Michael Peacock | October 2010 | Open Source
Most social networking sites support two types of messages: public and private messages. Private messages are generally sent in a similar fashion to e-mails, and public messages being posted on user's profiles for other users to see.
In this article by Michael Peacock, author of the book PHP 5 Social Networking, you will learn how to allow users to post messages on each other's profiles.
Read PHP 5 Social Networking: Implementing Public Messages in fullPHP 5 Social Networking: Integrating Media in Profile Posts
by
Michael Peacock | October 2010 | Open Source
Welcome to PHP social networking! This article by Michael Peacock, author of the book PHP 5 Social Networking, allows users to share media such as images and videos with other users in their network as status updates and profile posts.
During the course of this article you will learn how to integrate different types of media in profile posts, including:
- Images
- Videos
- Links
PHP 5 Social Networking: Private Messages
by
Michael Peacock | October 2010 | Open Source
Most social networking sites support two types of messages: public and private messages. Private messages are generally sent in a similar fashion to e-mails, and public messages being posted on user's profiles for other users to see.
In the previous article by Michael Peacock, author of the book PHP 5 Social Networking, we learnt how to allow users to post messages on each other's profiles.
In this article we will learn how to allow users to post private messages to each other.
Read PHP 5 Social Networking: Private Messages in fullPHP Data Objects: Error Handling
by
Dennis Popel | July 2008 | MySQL Open Source PHP
Most web applications have rather simple error handling strategy. When an error occurs, the script terminates and an error page is presented. The error should be logged in the error log, and the developers or maintainers should check the logs periodically. In this article by Dennis Popel, we will look through the most common sources of errors in database-driven web applications.
- Server software failure or overload such as the famous "too many connections" error
- Inappropriate configuration of the application, which may happen when we use an incorrect connection string, a rather common mistake when an application is moved from one host to another.
PHP Magic Features
by Jani Hartikainen |
April 2009 | PHP
In this article by Jani Hartikainen, we'll look at PHP's "magic" features:
Magic methods, which are class methods with specific names, are used to perform various specialized tasks. They are grouped into two: overloading methods and non-overloading methods. Overloading magic methods are used when your code attempts to access a method or a property which does not exist. Non-overloading methods perform other tasks.
Magic functions, which are similar to magic methods, but are just plain functions outside any class. Currently there is only one magic function in PHP.
Magic constants, which are similar to constants in notation, but act more like "dynamic" constants - their value depends on where you use them.
We'll also look at some practical examples of using some of these, and lastly we'll check out what new features PHP 5.3 is going to add.
Read PHP Magic Features in fullPHP Web 2.0 Mashup Projects: Your Own Video Jukebox: Part 1
by
Shu-Wai Chow | February 2010 | AJAX MySQL Open Source PHP Web Development
In this article by Shu-Wai Chow, we will begin with a project to create our own personalized video jukebox. This mashup will pull music lists feeds from the social music site, Last.fm. We will parse out artist names and song titles from these feeds and use that information to search videos on YouTube, a user-contributed video site, using the YouTube web service. We will also take a look at the three different XML-based file formats from those two sites: XSPF for song playlists, RSS for publishing frequently updated information, and YouTube's custom XML format. Rather than creating our own XML-based parsers to parse the three formats, we will use parsers from PEAR, one for each of the three formats. Using these PEAR packages, we will create an object-oriented abstraction of these formats, which can be consumed by our mashup application.
Read PHP Web 2.0 Mashup Projects: Your Own Video Jukebox: Part 1 in fullPHP Web 2.0 Mashup Projects: Your Own Video Jukebox: Part 2
by
Shu-Wai Chow | February 2010 | AJAX MySQL Open Source PHP Web Development
Read PHP Web 2.0 Mashup Projects: Your Own Video Jukebox: Part 1 here.
Read PHP Web 2.0 Mashup Projects: Your Own Video Jukebox: Part 2 in fullphpList 2 E-mail Campaign Manager: Personalizing E-mail Body
by
David Young | July 2011 | Open Source
In this article by David Young, author of phpList 2 E-mail Campaign Manager, we will see how to use lists and attributes to personalize the e-mail we send to our subscribers. Personalizing e-mail messages makes them more engaging to readers and increases the effectiveness of your newsletters.
In this article, you'll learn to:
- Enhance messages with built-in placeholders
- Personalize messages using member attributes
- Send messages to subsets of lists based on attributes
- Use message templates for consistent layout and styling
PHx (Place Holders extended) in MODx
by
Antano Solar John | March 2009 | Content Management Open Source
In some cases, it may be necessary to perform simple conditional checks in the documents, or templates themselves. PHx—Place Holders extended—is a set of notations that makes this possible by adding a logic layer directly to the placeholder. PHx also makes it possible to format the output, for example converting the string to uppercase, and so on. In this article by Antano Solar John, we will learn to use this notation.
Read PHx (Place Holders extended) in MODx in fullUnpublished
Pick the Packt Cover: Microsoft Silverlight 5 Data and Services Cookbook
by
| July 2011 | Enterprise Articles Microsoft
Choose the Cover for Packt's first Silverlight 5 Book
Microsoft Silverlight 5 Data and Services Cookbook
--- INSERT BOOK'S TAGLINE ---
Take the part of Packt Publisher and choose the image you'd like to be on the book's cover
click the images below to preview the covers
Pinpointing Bottlenecks for Better Database Access in ASP.Net
by
Matt Perdeck | October 2010 | .NET Web Development
In many websites, database access is the most expensive part of producing a web page. This article by Matt Perdeck, author of ASP.NET Site Performance Secret, shows how to identify the most common sources of delays and how to resolve them.
This article shows how to pinpoint and prioritize a number of common bottlenecks, so that you can spend your time where it counts the most. These bottlenecks include:
- Missing indexes
- Expensive queries
- Locking
- Execution plan reuse
- Fragmentation
- Memory
- Disk
- CPU
Read Pinpointing Bottlenecks for Better Database Access in ASP.Net in full
Piwik: Tracking User Interactions
by
Stephan A. Miller | October 2012 | e-Commerce Open Source
Despite the advanced tracking features of Piwik, there are still some actions on a website that may require you to do some manual work in order to track. Events in JavaScript and Flash don't cause a page load and because of that, the standard Piwik tracking code won't register any details other than a visit. In order to record user interactions with website elements such as Flash, Ajax, JavaScript, and third-party widgets, you need to use different tactics.
In this article by Stephan A. Miller, author of Piwik Web Analytics Essentials, we will learn:
- What event tacking is used for
- How to set up event tracking in Piwik using custom variables
- How to track social media events on your website
- How to track blog commenting events
- How to track e-commerce events
- How to track Flash events in either ActionScript 2 or ActionScript 3
PL/SQL: Using Collections
by
Saurabh K. Gupta | May 2012 | Enterprise Articles Oracle
The Oracle Advanced PL/SQL Developer Professional Guide helps you master advanced PL/SQL concepts. Besides the clear and precise explanation on advanced topics, it also contains example code and demonstrations, which gives a sense of application and usage to readers
In this article by Saurabh Gupta, author of Oracle Advanced PL/SQL Developer Professional Guide, we'll cover the following topics:
- Collections—an overview
- Associative arrays
- Nested tables
- Varray
- PL/SQL collection methods
Planning and Preparing the Oracle Siebel CRM Installation
by
Alexander Hansal | August 2010 | Enterprise Articles Oracle
When tackling the complex task of installing and configuring Oracle's Siebel CRM, we should keep in mind that a well-considered approach and proper documentation are key factors for a successful completion.
In this article by Alexander Hansal, author of Oracle Siebel CRM 8 Installation and Management, we will discuss the following steps of the Siebel installation process:
- Planning the Siebel CRM Installation
- Understanding hardware and software prerequisites
- Hardware sizing
- Preparing the Siebel database
- Preparing the Siebel file system
- Creating service owner accounts
- Downloading the Siebel installation archives
- Running the Siebel Image Creator
- Obtaining the license key
Planning Extensions in TYPO3
by
Dmitry Dulepov | November 2008 | MySQL Content Management Open Source PHP
In this article by Dmitry Dulepov, we will discuss why planning an extension is important and how to plan an extension. Planning issues related to web development are covered in depth in many specialized books. Here, we will cover planning only with regard to TYPO3 extensions.
Read Planning Extensions in TYPO3 in full