AJAX Revolution (Part I)

Ajax is NOT a programming language but a technique for accessing web servers from or send data to a web server without refreshing the page, usually via javascript.  In 1999, Microsoft first explored a web-based asynchronies technique in its Internet Explorer 5 as an ActiveX object, XMLHttpRequest, adopted from an earlier implementation in Microsoft Outlook. Then,…

Cookie and Session

Cookies and Sessions are used to store information to “remember” activities engaged with the users. Cookies are only saved on the client-side machine, while sessions are stored on the server. Session A session generates a text file in a temporary directory on the server where registered session variables and their values are stored. Users have…

You Don’t Know DOCTYPE

View any webpage source, and I guarantee you that the first line undoubtedly starts with <!DOCTYPE … <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Title</title> </head> <body> content… </body> </html> But do you ever wonder what it means and why it is even needed? A web page uses markup language as the primary scripting language to render pages…

Use MySQL dump command to backup & restore any database

MySQL offers an easy way for both backup and restore either a single database or the entire databases via “mysqldump” command. Learn how to use this command is essential to clone a database from one host to another or backup your databases regularly. Where to locate “mysqldump” command To find the location of ‘mysqldump’, open…

Debugging Javascript – Go beyond console.log()

In JavaScript, the most popular (and overused) debugging method is console.log() for displaying logging information in the web browser console. For example, here’s a basic use of log() function. console.log(‘Hello!’); It works, …. but it’s also so 1990s. There are other methods provided by the web browser console that can aid you to debug better.…

Learn to Debug PHP in Visual Studio Code with XDebug

  If you are a PHP developer who used to work with Microsoft technologies in the past, you would undoubtedly miss its Visual Studio editor with full debug support: F5 to run the debugger, F6 to step next, F7 to step into, F8 to step out, etc. It works like magic. Do you miss it?…

MySQL Character Sets & Collation

In this post, we will focus on a specific type of character set and encoding, MySQL CHARSET & COLLATION.  I also recommend checking out the earlier post on character encoding for beginners. Have you ever wondered why some non-English characters with accents or Chinese characters such as “豆贝尔维 ” showing as question marks ���� on…

Character Encodings for Beginners

Character encoding governs how characters travel from databases to web browsers and back again. It has a long and winding history behind characters and their encoding. Byte & Character A byte has 8 bits that can represent 256 different values. That’s more than enough for all the English characters plus additional numerical digits, common punctuation…

Demystifying APIs

Have you ever heard the term “API” and wondered what it is? What is API? Technically, API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is a set of programming codes that facilitates data transmission between software systems.  It is not a software program, or even some type of beer but technical specifications that describe how to exchange data from…

The Single Best Web Browser Debug Trick You Should Know

In today’s modern browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge, there is a lesser-known trick that could 10 X increase your client-side debug skills for AKA javascript and CSS. In browser, to toggle Inspecting Element for a web page, here is usually how it is done: Locate page element for inspection on…