In 1994, an incredibly forward-thinking man named Rasmus Lerdorf developed a set of tools that used a parsing engine to interpret a few macros here and there. They were not extravagant: a guest book, a counter, and some other "home page" elements that were cool when the Web was in its infancy. He eventually combined these tools with a form interpretation (FI) package he had written, added some database support, and released what was known as PHP/FI.Then, in the spiri....

I believe that organization starts in UNIX. If your system is not well organized or you have not followed a consistent method, you may want to consider why this is a good idea. Many new administrators take simple organizational methodologies, such as the location of added software, for granted. A few months later the result is that changes, such as upgrades, require additional time to install and troubleshoot. In the end, you may save a considerable amount of time by doing thr....

Search engines can help you find specific information on the Internet, but they also flood you with large amounts of irrelevant information. With a little bit of extra effort on your part, though, you can make sure that a search engine finds exactly what you want, as quickly as possible. The next time you use a search engine, try some of the following tips.

Search within categories....

One of the most widely used network topologies (and the one most often used in medium to large Local Area Networks) is the bus network. A bus network uses a cable to which are attached all the network devices, either directly or through a junction box of some sort. Each device uses a transceiver to connect to the backbone. The manner of attachment depends on the type of bus network, the protocol in use, and the speed of the network. The main cable that is used to connect all t....

In recent years, Microsoft has taken a pummeling in the Web server business. At one time, IIS and Windows NT Server 4.0 was the most popular commercial Web server platform; today, Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 are fighting against a wave of free and inexpensive versions of the Linux operating system and Apache Web server software. Microsoft argues that such servers don’t come with the support that a multi-billion dollar company like Microsoft can provide; f....