By now you should know how to look up a UPS rate with PHP. Now we are going to look into tracking the package using the UPS tracking XML API. This tool uses the same process as the rate selection tool so it should look familiar to you. Read more »

Ok today is going to be a quick post on how to change the Message Of The Day or MOTD. This is the message that you will see when you first log into your shell either through ssh or on the machine.

The message of the day is really just a text file. It got its name because it was easier and used less disk space to send a message to all of your users than using email. Read more »

42 of the Best Free Linux Video Software

3 Ways to Try Out Linux, For a Windows User – Although I think a live CD is easier than most of these its worth checking out if you havn’t been introduced to the world of Linux yet.

Mac vs PC vs Linux (pic) – A nice picture showing the differences between the top operating systems. Although I think they should replace the Ubuntu logo with a Gentoo logo for added comedy. Read more »

We talked about images that could be embeded into the HTML for faster load times. Today we are going to talk about how to compress those images even smaller without quality loss. Often times web developers think that Adobe Photoshop’s “Save for Web” feature does enough compression. I was also under the belief that photoshop would compress images to the max. After compressing about 100 images I found out that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Read more »

For the popular packages Ubuntu has handy little packages that will install/add extentions to PHP, but not for dbase. Dbase is old as dirt and most people don’t use it for much anymore. I was recently working on a legacy app that works with dbase files and this was the extension i needed to allow php to work with the old dbase system.

After searching online for awhile I couldn’t really find a good answer for how to add the extension without completely reinstalling PHP5 from source. Read more »

The meta description effects how search engines will show snippets of your site and effects how your visitors will determine to visit your site based on its description. It is definitely directly related to the chance your site will get clicked. Google chooses its snippets based on many different things, but we can control some of them through writing an effective meta description Read more »

30 Essential PDF Documents Every Designer Should Download – Nuff said.

Browsershots – Cross test your site against pretty much every OS/Browser combination. Read more »

I recently made a purchase through Paypal (with my trusty paypal security key) and noticed that their forms really stood out. They had an effect on their forms that would highlight the row in which you are currently typing. I thought this was a very elegant use of ajax that really added value to the form. This is why I created my own version of it. Read more »