Webmasters by Design » Announcement

phpMyAdmin 3.1.0 Relesased

Scott Spear — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:37:42 +0000

For those of you that are as hooked on phpMyAdmin as I am, you will be happy to know that there is a new version available. phpMyAdmin 3.1.0 includes a number of improvements and fixes.

The list of improvements includes security updates, language updates, export fixes, and general patches. The release notes highlight a few specific improvements: "this version has a new setup mechanism and supports BLOBstreaming and the Swekey hardware authentication" (release notes).

You can view the release notes for full details concerning the new release and download the new version from sourceforge.

Watch the Adobe CS4 Launch Broadcast on AdobeTV

Scott Spear — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:42:05 +0000

As many of you know Adobe launched it's CS4 product on September 23^rd. To help with the release of the product Adobe held a CS4 launch broadcast that is available from the AdobeTV website. If you missed the broadcast, you can still check out the hour long video to get some of the information surrounding the new release.

This release includes updates to well known products like Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Acrobat, but there are also updates to some products incuded that you may not know about like Soundbooth and OnLocation. You can get CS4 in six different versions:

Design Premium - $1,799
Design Standard - $1,399
Web Premium - $1,699
Web Premium - $999
Production Premium - $1,699
Master Collection - $2,499

Each version includes different combinations of applications. If you would like more information about CS4 or the products included within each version, check out the CS4 website.

FeedBurner Access Has Been Intermittent

Scott Spear — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:38:53 +0000

FeedBurner has become very intermittent for me. I am unable to load a page and then the next refresh brings it up and then the next page I try to load fails to load. I have received multiple errors including "The connection was reset" and "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable". Here are the screenshots.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Released To Manufacturing

Scott Spear — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:52:58 +0000

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 was released to manufacturing on August 6, 2008. Microsoft released a press statement providing details about the new release. Although you can't buy your copy yet on a disk, MSDN and TechNet subscribers can downoad an evaluation copy right now from the SQL Server web site.

Prices have been published and are not being increased since the last version of SQL Server (2005). The prices are listed below with the different versions available.

I have listed the notable features below and there are quite a few. There are major improvements as well as minor fixes listed. There is a nice article about what's new in SQL Server 2008 on TechNet. The improvements and new features are within three main categories, trusted, productive, and intelligent.

Notable New Features

New Date and Time data types
- DATE
- TIME
- DATETIMEOFFSET
- DATETIME2
Grouping sets
- An extension to the GROUP BY clause that lets you specify what to compute as an aggregate.
MERGE SQL Statement
- Transaction SQL statement that can be used to synchronize two tables based on their differences.
Integrated Full Text Search
- Full Text Searches allow you to compare values in a field based on words or phrases. This is similar to the LIKE comparisons, only comparing words or phrases instead of characters.
Data Compression
- Allows for more efficient storage and less storage. It also improves performance on I/O functions, such as data warehousing.
Transparent Data Encryption
- This feature will encrypt the database files automatically allowing for better security. This reduces the risk of data being discovered, even if the database files are obtained by an unauthorized user.

Technologies

Available Editions

SQL Server 2008 Enterprise ($24,999)
SQL Server 2008 Standard ($5,999)
SQL Server 2008 Workgroup ($3,899)
SQL Server 2008 Web ($15/proc/month)
SQL Server 2008 Developer ($50)
SQL Server 2008 Express (N/A)
SQL Server Compact 3.5 (N/A)

For more detailed information, you can check out the white papers, or if you are looking to try it out, you can download an evaluation copy.

Additional Resources

WordPress.com Now Supports You 24-7

Scott Spear — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:05:53 +0000

For those of you who use WordPress as your blogging platform, you can understand the need for support forums and help documentation for troubleshooting problems that occur. Hosting your own blog requires you to take care of any issues that may arise. Even if you don't host your own blog and use WordPress.com to host it for you, there are still situations that require a certain level of support.

Starting yesterday, Aug 2, WordPress.com now offers support 24-7. Previously, support was available during the day from 9am - 4pm PDT, and then 24 hours a day 5 days a week, but that has just changed. They recognized the need for fast support at any time and have expanded to meet this need. "The time has come for help without delay. We hereby announce 24-7 support on WordPress.com" (WordPress.com Blog). They will try to get back to you within 24 hours, if not sooner, and are working hard to provide quality support in an efficient manner.

I'm pretty excited to here this news. I don't host my blog through WordPress.com, although I do use WordPress. However, I think this is a great step that they have taken to reach out and provide extra support needed by their users. Hosting your blog on WordPress.com is free, with a few upgrades available at a cost, and yet they still upped their support level to 24-7. I think that is pretty impressive and says a good deal about their business practices. Kudos to you, wordpress.com!

phpMyAdmin 2.11.8.1 Released Yesterday

Scott Spear — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:22:26 +0000

phpMyAdmin 2.11.8.1 was released yesterday. The main reason for the updated release is to patch bugs and security issues. There were some XSS problems reported by Aung Khant from the YGN Ethical Hacker Group. The two main fixes are both XSS related, one having to do with frames and the other has to do with a lack of HTML escaping. You can read more about these by visiting the site which contains the news release about these bug/security fixes from phpMyAdmin. These vulnerabilities were considered very serious and have now been patched with this new release. Be sure to upgrade your copy to 2.11.8.1. You can download the new release from SourceForge.

New Addition to the Website: Webmaster Resources Page

Scott Spear — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:49:17 +0000

I have been working on expanding my blog and am pleased to announce a new Webmaster Resources page. The new page contains a large list of webmaster resources spanning four major categories, which I hope to expand in the future. The four categories are cheat sheets (you might recognize these from an earlier post I wrote) forums, tutorials, and monetization options. There are currently over 70 different links, so be sure to check them out. I will continue to add links and categories, but I think that over 70 is a good place to start. I'm sure that you will recognize some of the links listed, but probably not all of them; I hope you find some of these resources helpful! I have included a screen shot below, but be sure to check out the page as well.

Add Our New Facebook Application

Scott Spear — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:27:28 +0000

I am pleased to announce that I have created my first Facebook application for the blog. The application will show the 5 latest posts from the blog in order to keep you up to date on the latest info. The application will add a profile box to your profile containing links to the 5 latest posts. There isn't any detail from the post in the profile box, just the title as a link.

Be sure to check it out here and add it to your profile!