Computer Repair Experts in Phoenix, Arizona. my PC Techs Presents:

I’m going to run down a list of things that you should never do and things that you should definitely do when writing code for a website application. These are based on real-life examples… Needless to say. Never DO is often the result of other peoples code that I’ve had to clean up while Aways DO is just common sense!

Never DO:
Never create a form and leave fields open for users to type anything they want into them. Chances are very good that they will! Ever tried to clean up 200,000 bad database records?

Never create a web page that bulk emails 2000 people as soon as you load the page into a browser, with no warning or confirmation message and a cryptic result message such as “Done” when it runs, so that people who accidentally stumble upon your page have no clue that they’ve just spammed 2000 people! – That is, until AFTER the angry responses come in!

Always DO:
Always use a loop for everything you can to save time.

Always build an administrative page for every database/application to simplify management and editing of submitted data.

More to follow…

According to This article every person loses 2.5 days a year due to slow websites. I believe it! It seems like half of the sites I visit take 5 or more seconds to load a single page, completely unacceptable. Here are some ways to make sure that your website isn’t running slowly:

• Make sure that all of your website graphics are optimized
• Clean up any programming code, remove unnecessary loops and functions
• Frequently check your web server stats for CPU time, memory load and response times
• Never use animation or transitions that make a visitor wait for them to complete before moving on to the content
• Get a better website host. I personally recommend Bluehost

Of course, there’s more you can do to optimize a website for your visitors but those are the basics if you want to do it yourself. The alternative is to hire a professional to do it for you.

Today marks one more time of a thousand where I’ve had to fix a computer having major problems with Norton Antivirus. What’s wrong with the people over at Symantec? They make a fortune from poor computer users under threat of virus, spyware, worms and other nasties, certainly enough money to hire competent programmers. So why is it that every release of their client virus software for the past 10 years has been bloated and mal-functional? I am starting to wonder who’s worse here, the virus writers or the people who write and sell bloatware that crashes your computer and forces you to pay them more money to make it right (see below).

Just today I talked to this poor guy who couldn’t even access the internet because his norton antivirus/internet security suite would hang on boot. He couldn’t even remove Norton in Safe Mode (they don’t allow uninstall in safe mode). After spending a few hours on the phone with low-level Symantec technical support, he spent 4 more hours waiting for various tech support ‘fixes and ideas’ from an individual who’s actual name was kilambackenran (his nickname was also kilambackenran). Not only had their software ruined his computer, they then made sure that his day was wasted on the phone, outsourced to cheap foreign labor. The fantastic advice at the end of the day that was dished out from India to this guy to fix his anti-virus? Uninstall his current version, then pay to upgrade to the latest version! That’s right, his computer would not work properly again unless he paid them more money for a product that was already paid up for another year.

Here’s a story that is all too common with Symantec. Every time something goes wrong with their software (which is all the time) they tell you to upgrade and give them more money in the process. It’s an interesting business model. Generate a steady stream of money flowing into the company by releasing a product that fails so badly you MUST pay for the upgrade. Why do people continue to put up with this shoddy workmanship? Imagine buying a high quality wood table from me for your home, only to take it home and the legs all fall off the day later. What would you think if I then charged you to put the legs back on?

To make a long story short, I told this guy the same as I will tell anyone. Dump Norton. Uninstall it. If you are having trouble uninstalling it, visit their website and use the norton software removal tool. Then stop paying people to write buggy code! There are very good, stable and just as effective tools out there that will get the job done for free. Such as AVG Free Antivirus. Download it here and be forever free from Symantec.

Now you can! Google has just unveiled a new service, “Hot Trends”, located here.

Unlike previous top 10 or top 100 google search rankings, which are usually just for an entire year, this list is updated every day allowing you to see (in real time) what search terms are currently the most popular. This has got to be the most useful tool ever made available to help find out what’s hot at any given moment. It also gives a peek into what the majority of people are thinking about.. Right now as of writing this blog it seems that a majority of items in the top 100 have to do with some kind of television program whether it’s American Idol, dancing with the stars, or the bachelor!

But there’s hope for the smart masses! Other searches include Oregonlive, I lean like a chola and Lybrel. OK, so maybe not… 🙂

According to this article, more than 90% of computer users have some form of spyware installed on their computer. Guess what, that number is very likely true! Many of the computers that I’ve come in contact had some form of spyware or another and in every case the user had no idea that it was there. Spyware can infect your PC and you may never even know it, simply by browsing to an infected web page on the internet or installing a program that doesn’t warn you of the hidden code that comes with it. And usually each piece of spyware installed to your machine will cause your computer to perform poorly, the more you have installed the slower it will run. Spyware can cripple your computer in a number of ways from making it boot slower, making applications no longer function as expected and making every-day tasks take longer to execute. And that’s all in addition to the theft of your privacy, which was already bad enough.

If you don’t already have a spyware scanning tool I highly recommend you download one today or consult a professional to help you keep your computer system secure.