Open Source Web

Whenever I make a new website now I always think about what the urls will need to be like. Most off the shelf CMS platforms will have a plug in or option to enables similar functionality.  But if your writing the site yourself you will want to be able to convert URL from post Id’s to post names to Urls and back again.

I have used many methods to do this in the past but recently I found two really useful built in PHP functions. urlencode() and urldecode().

Alternatives to using urlencode() would be writing your own function to convert all the url unfriendly symbols, slashes, spaces etc. into HTML entities or just replacing them with hyphens.

Again PHP has an built in function for everyhting.

Learning new programming languages is fun but it can be difficult choosing which references and books to use. Most good text book will cost a small fortune and go out of date within a few months and probably wont cover everything you need.

For me the best resource comes straight from the source, for most languages you will be able to find a FREE and complete reference to develop with.

PHP Documentation – Download the complete reference in most spoken languages.

MSDN Javascript – Microsoft have a vast documentation library available on-line.

Mozilla Javascript Resource – Not great but it goes into a lot of detail, maybe too much.

Core Javascript 1.5 from Mozilla – Learn by example, much better than the previous Mozilla link

w3 CSS v1 – Full guide to CSS v1 from 1996 – 2009 in PDF format.

w3 guide to css 2.1 – Full on-line reference to css v2.1

w3 HTML 3 guide -  An awesome guide to HTML, very handy for SEO Tricks,

Action Script 3 – Official full guide to Action script 3 programming.

CS3 – The full CS3 shabang from Adobe, I haven’t found a decent Flash book yet so this is awesome.

Mysql - One of the less helpful guides but it is fairly complete.

Wordpress Functions - The official function list, awesome for any wordpress project

Finding a good SEO company can be pretty difficult, most will call you and make promises they can’t keep like they will get you on the front page of Google in a week for a term nobody will search for. There are a lot of cowboys just like any industry.

That’s why it’s good to do some research in your online marketing company.

1. Ask to see success stories of recent clients.
2. Take a look at the work they do, make sure you can see what you are actually paying for.
3. Don’t sign up for a long term contract unless they can perform in the short term.
4. Ask what they can do that other companies can’t
5. Ask for face to face meetings and regular updates on targets

Lastly make sure they have good impartial reviews. Recently topseos.com did a comprehensive list of the top SEO companies in the UK. theEword was ranked 9th in the top SEO companies list which is great as it proves all the hard work is paying off.