February 16, 2010 in Learn
Sitemaps – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Sitemaps are like Marmite (Ed: yeast extract spread that divides opinion, very popular in the UK). You either love them or hate them. OK maybe you don’t ‘love’ them but they do seem to create an obvious divide between those…
December 2, 2009 in Learn
10 Things to Consider when Writing for the Web
Writing for the web is a challenge. There are usually word length restrictions, the fact that users scan rather than read every word, and sometimes style guides to adhere to. There are enough writing tips online to keep you reading…
September 15, 2009 in Learn
How to Debug in PHP
Nobody enjoys the process of debugging their code. If you want to build killer web apps though, it’s vital that you understand the process thoroughly. This article breaks down the fundamentals of debugging in PHP, helps you understand PHP’s error…
September 14, 2009 in Learn
Why You Should Switch from Subversion to Git
You may have heard some hubbub over distributed version control systems recently. You may dismiss it as the next hot thing, the newest flavor of kool-aid currently quenching the collective thirst of the bandwagon jumpers. You, however, have been using…
September 4, 2009 in Learn
How to Create a Valid Non-Javascript Lightbox
I recently came across a solution on CSSPlay for a JavaScript free lightbox that uses invalid markup. So, being a sucker for a challenge, I set myself the task of creating one with valid markup and I eventually succeeded. Here’s…
September 1, 2009 in Learn
How to Create Bulletproof Sessions
In the first part of this series we went over how a cookie works and what can be done to secure them. In this section we’re going to go over ways to add additional security to the session beyond the…
August 26, 2009 in Learn
Top 10 UX Myths
Al Gore invented the Internet. Drinking alcohol keeps your body warm. You won’t get pregnant if you stand on your head after … well, you get the idea. Myths are those hard-and-fast rules that often start as a plausible idea…
August 14, 2009 in Learn
The Definitive Guide to GET vs POST
Unfortunately there is a lot misuse of GET over POST and vice versa. Both HTTP methods can achieve the same goals, but an incorrect choice between them can lead to unexpected and potentially harmful outcomes. So, to make sure we…
April 10, 2009 in Learn
How to build mobile widgets
If you’re a web developer or designer, there’s a really exciting development happening right now called ‘mobile widgets’. Carsonified is working with Betavine to spread the word about mobile widgets, so we recently spent four days building one in order…
March 2, 2009 in Learn
40 Web Developers to Follow on Twitter
Update: You can now follow this list with just one click. Head over to the @carsonified/top-web-devs list. I’ve been on Twitter since 2006 (@ryancarson) and it’s where I get all my news these days. It’s important to know who to…
January 20, 2009 in Learn
How to Create an RSS-Enabled, Micro-Blog with Twitter
Have you ever wanted to create a simple multi-person blog, but didn’t want to bother setting up an entire WordPress installation? If so then we’ve got just the answer. By combining Twitter Search, Atom feeds, hash-tags and PHP, you can…
December 17, 2008 in Learn
When you fail, it's time to try again
No one is successful 100% of the time. Just look at entreprenuers like Richard Branson (founder of Virgin) and Milton Hershey (founder of Hershey’s Chocolate). They are (were) both extremely succesful and yet they’ve also had some spectacular failures (remember…