50+ PHP optimisation tips revisited

After reading an article some time ago entitled “40 Tips for optimizing your php Code” (and some others that are suspiciously similar), I decided to redo it, but properly this time with more accurate tips, providing references and citations for each and every one. The result is this list of over 50 PHP optimisation tips… Update: The list is more like 50+ PHP tips and tricks these days. Enjoy!

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Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Mistakes

If you work on software in any capacity, at least skim this list. I encourage you to click through for greater detail on anything you're not familiar with, or that piques your interest.

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Bing Wants To Sleep With The Enemy: Promotes Firefox With Bing


Microsoft indeed learns that if they want Bing to succeed it will need to sleep with the enemy, at least through promoting Internet Explorer rival Firefox. The proof: Bing is now offering “Firefox With Bing.”

Bing, through a blog post invites people to download a special version of Firefox where Bing is used as the default search engine. It is packed with a search bar that well, searches on Bing through “AwesomeBar” address window.
You can download Firefox with Bing here: www.firefoxwithbing.com/

Recommending a rival product is a first for Bing. Experts agree that it’s a much needed move should Microsoft want to go grow further. Pushing in their very Internet Explorer is a religion that has met countless controversies over the past few years. Internet Explorer is bundled in Windows Operating Systems and other Microsoft products.

This notes Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com is a big move since Firefox 4 added Bing as option in serving search results October last year. But users can of course see this as more than reciprocating Firefox’s

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Brightcove’s New Player Seeks To Improve HTML5 Video Compatibility



HTML5 may still be in the future but some groups are already readying their systems for it. Think of content, websites and even videos – all gearing towards the latest standard in Internet data serving. And while today’s problems simply involve inconsistency of these contents with different devices, simple solutions such as Brightcove’s smart player are now available.

Director of Product Management at Brightcove Ashraf Alkarmi explained that their Video Cloud Smart Player aims to solve the problems brought upon by different browsers and operating systems used in the world. The application hopes to ease at this fragmentation bought upon by increasing number of products and devices from different creators and manufacturers. This after is all is among the problems that HTML5 hopes to solve.

If you’re a frequent streamer of online videos you will know that different devices would usually render a single video differently. Thanks to different encodings, video caching and what not, there’s no way to guarantee that a single video will appear exactly the same

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Twitter Wants To Invade China


Twitter wants to do more than make their presence felt in China, they want to compete with Weibo.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter said that they would love to have their presence felt in China. China is currently the world’s largest Internet market with more than 500 million users but many western mainstream websites including Google and Facebook are finding it hard to capture a market share since time immemorial.

China blocks overseas social networking properties like Facebook and Twitter, Google on the other hand is left to dust by Baidu, a Chinese search engine. Weibo is a micro-blogging platform similar to Twitter.

Dorsey stressed that for starters they must be allowed to compete with Weibo. That translates to unblocking Twitter on China. Dorsey made this statement during the All Things Digital AsiaD technology conference in Hong Kong.

Twitter and other websites like Google and Facebook are still accessible to China – through a proxy that is. China’s decision to block these non-local web properties is political in nature. Censorship in China is a serious

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Google Analytics Adds Visual and Real-time Data Tracking



Google Analytics is improving how you can learn more about your website’s traffic, visually and in realtime.

Senior Vice President of advertising at Google Susan Wojcicki said that the move seeks to answer website owners’ desire to learn how users actually move around the website and if they’re converting. The new feature announced at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco aims to answer that.
   
Google used the historic Napoleon's 1812 campaign into Russia for its visual representation. Yes, they did deep down into history and borrowed Charles Minard's popular visualization of the event. The representation showed geography, time, and troop strength of Napoleon’s army. Google used it as an inspiration probably because «probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn.»
 
The new Google Analytics can show you how many visitors are online, ergo real time. Administrators with Analytics account can also see real-time reports. Through this, your website’s performance is immediately reflected on your analytics. This metric may brought upon a new

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Steve Jobs Inspires a WordPress Theme



The demise of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs brought a lot of tears from his admirers. It also renewed a fresh sense of inspiration from different people around the globe. 

Apple stores were adorned with flowers and thank you notes from Apple consumers. His name and death along with hashtags trended on Twitter for days. His words of wisdom are being passed from web page to web page and from SMS to SMS as if they were Holy Scriptures. There are the different causes and communities with tens to hundreds of Facebook pages that sprung overnight, theirs is picture badges that people put up on their social networking pictures, there’s a website and a number of blog posts that reminisce the greatness of Jobs – and there’s the new WordPress theme that virtually takes users back in time.

The WordPress theme called Retro MacOS is needless to say inspired by Steve Jobs. It features the very old yet original Mac feel with Mac OS icons serving as blog icons. 

The theme is already a featured theme on WordPress.com.  Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress even

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iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Break Records



iPhone 4S mania is just starting, and going crazy and lucky about it at the same time are one million people who pre-ordered iPhone 4S, only 24 hours after it was first put on sale. Apple boasted that the record as its biggest achievement to date.

Now for people who love numbers, that one million pre-order leaves all Apple records to dust. The iPhone 4, the best selling phone for Apple just raked in 600,000 pre-orders on its first 24 hours, that’s 400,000 pre-orders short of 4S’s record, and what’s even more surprising is that 600k pre-orders come from three iPhone generations combined.

Apple’s press release said that they are blown away with the incredible response to iPhone 4S. That’s coming from the wide disappointment that followed after fanatics learned that they won’t be getting the iPhone 5.

The new iPhone 4S is powered with A5 dual-core chip which is currently the fastest iPhone smartphone processor to date. It also carries an 8 megapixel camera with advanced features including a superior optics and lens and full 1080p resolution for HD

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iPhone 4S Launch Day Preorders Sold Out



One lesson that iPhone fanatics learned through the years is that if there will be a new version coming out, secure your preorder ASAP. And sadly enough, those who ordered their iPhone 4S won’t be getting any unit on the launch date.

Apple originally set the delivery of iPhone 4S on October 14 which marks as the first day the users will be able to hold the new iPhone. But after a while, Apple updated their website saying that those who preordered the new phone can expect to get them in one to two weeks time.

We don’t know yet if this change in schedule has anything to do with Steve Jobs demise, regardless iPhone fanatics are still eager on getting the new iPhone, as long as it’s not the iPhone 5 being sold in China.

This is bad news to other iPhone 4S owner wannabes however; as this news suggests that iPhone 4S on the launched date at least thru the Apple store are already sold out. But if you think that we won’t be seeing epic long lines that we’ve seen in past iPhone launches then you’re wrong. Those who want to grab iPhone 4S earlier than most of

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Public Warned Of Steve Jobs Death and Funeral Scams

Steve Jobs passed away, and while many parts of the world are mourning the tech industry’s lost, there are a few who would want to take advantage of this event by scamming unwary Internet users.

Such is the case when Michael Jackson, Osama bin Laden and Amy Winehouse died. Hours after the reported death of these people, links offering the video, picture or so-called proofs of their cadaver sprung social media websites including Facebook and Twitter.

True enough, just couple of hours after the death of Steve Jobs is announced, scammers were already able to set up a campaign tricking people into clicking malicious links. Sophos Naked Security Blog noted that a link circulating on Facebook claimed that Apple is giving away 50 iPads in memory of its former CEO Steve Jobs. The link then will take you to a website where you will have to answer a survey so you will be able to join the event, of course this is a scam and no contest or giveaway promo exists.


The same stunt was scene just recently, after Amy Winehouse a Facebook post about a website claiming to have a video of her death

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