benwu

It's terrible to save data of such into a text file because you have to write more script to fetch and search records. It's so much easier to save records into MySQL. Saving data into text file is not much easier than writing a record to MySQL anyway

You can study the codes of http://phpmotion.com/ it got a nice video upload and conversion script. ffmpeg is great but I find mencoder supports much more codecs. If your server is running Centos, you can install more codes very easily yum install mplayer-codecs-extra

I think system like that would be much easier to implement using bespoke php script. There are many limitations of CMS like WP/Joomla. I find it much less work to just write the php than having to bend the CMS.

Here is a simple guide to build a CMS from scratch http://css-tricks.com/php-for-beginners-building-your-first-simple-cms/ It you don't want to write codes, you can just install Wordpress. There are tons of Plugin/extension for Wordpress from photo gallery to e-commerce shopping basket. regards,

Magento is a great system as well. But the learning cure is deep (at least for me :-( http://www.magentocommerce.com/ By saying that, you can search a template that you like and don't have to do any programming

I only use framework for large projects. For small website it is much easily to just use Pear libraries. For large ones, I use codeigniter. The framework requires everyone in the time follow the same coding styles and it will be easier to manage/maintain in the future.

GD does not deal with PNG/GIF images with transparent background very well by default, at least it is not as easy to use as Imagmagick. and yes GD will fill the background with black. I used the script from http://mediumexposure.com/smart-image-resizing-while-preserving-transparency-php-and-gd-library/ to resize images using GD as not all hosting servers got imagmagick That script can deal with transparent background properly

It's very easy to use pear's package Here is an example http://www.html-form-guide.com/email-form/php-email-form-attachment.html personally I have used it many times and really like Pear

For small websites, I just use vim For large websites, a software with project management will be nice. I heard that ZEND Studio is good for php but I haven't tried it before.

I think .htaccess is the most secure though. My account is hosted on a cpanel server with active firewall installed. If people tried to use dictionary attacks on the admin, the firewall can detect that and lock the IP. Can your php script do that?

Yes 2 buttons. The 'under 18 button' redirects people to Disney's website

I used session to store the option and then send it to shop owner. $_SESSION['how_do_you_hear'] = $_POST['how_duh'] No database is required.

very complex site. just wonder how they produce the preview card image with the customized text. The spell checker works well ..

It's not allowed to display anything before the header command. therefore you need to remove echo($fname);

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