One of the many site applications we offer is phpBB3, which claims to be “the most widely used open-source bulletin board system in the world.” Using phpBB3 you can create everything from large discussion forums to small game clan meeting rooms. It offers the tools necessary for moderation teams to maintain control of your site. A detailed permissions system also allows access to specific features as you see fit.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of phpBB3 is the ability to customize it by installing any of a number of available modifications. You’ll see a list of modifications later in the post, but first things first: Installation.

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Even to most Internet professionals, the Apache web server software can be as perplexing as it is ubiquitous. Although not as comprehensive as the official 685-page documentation, this post outlines two useful features you can enable in the httpd.conf file to improve the performance of your web server: persistent connections and gzip compression.

Important note: An error in your Apache configuration can take all of your web sites offline. Please make a backup copy of the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file before you begin making modifications. Also remember that it is necessary to restart your account to apply either of the changes described below.

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In part one of customizing Zen Cart (found here) we covered changing the color scheme of your store to better fit your needs. In part two we will be discussing changing some of the main images that Zen Cart uses in the design.
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One of our more recent Site Application additions has been Zen Cart. This e-commerce solution has many robust features and this article will give some detailed information, giving you the ability to modify the cart with your own look and feel.
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To all Tomcat users out there, I’m sure many of you have had questions on how to get things up and running; questions like ‘Is Apache Tomcat the same thing as Tomcat?’, and ‘How do I get the :8080 to go away?’

What is Apache Tomcat?

Apache Tomcat and Tomcat are the same thing. Apache, in this case, is simply the parent project and does not refer to the Apache web server. Apache Tomcat acts as a servlet container that processes Java servlets/JSP pages. There are some specifications that can be made within the Apache web server to let Apache know whether or not to handle the request or pass it on to Tomcat for processing. These specifications are located in the mod_jk.conf (sometimes just jk.conf) file in the /etc/httpd/conf.d directory.

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Creating a nice-looking menu can be a challenge. You want something that’s clean, that looks good, and that fits into your site. These aren’t such demanding things to ask for in a menu, but if you search the Internet for “html menu”, you get all sorts of strange selections, varying in degrees of complexity, and usually designed for a specific site layout or color scheme.

What if you could have a very recognizable menu system – like the one that Windows Explorer™ uses, shown here?

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“The page at www.yoursite.com says…”

Does that look familiar? If you use alert() or confirm() from JavaScript in your web page, some browsers display a standard, boring window with that title, and your message in it.

A few weeks ago, I introduced jQuery, a powerful tool for writing dynamic and engaging websites quickly. Today I’d like to take a brief moment of your time to introduce BlockUI, a plug-in for jQuery. Beyond the power of jQuery itself, you can accomplish much using jQuery plug-ins. Many common tasks are taken care of and abstracted into easy to use, feature-rich plug-ins – a full list can be found at http://plugins.jquery.com/.
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So you are thinking of setting up an e-commerce store

There are many things to take into account when setting up an online store front. Below is a list of some of the major items. You will want to thoughtfully consider and research each of these options before beginning the actual work of getting your site built and running.
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Many of us use MySQL to power our websites. Using a database is necessary for many common applications like Wordpress, Joomla, and phpBB due to the amount of information which they serve. A database backend is a natural choice for a website which becomes more complex as it allows for a more efficient storage and organization of data as well as an easy way to retrieve and serve content.

Information inside a typical MySQL database is stored in tables. Information is retrieved by querying these tables, usually with some criteria so that we receive only the information which we want. In order to fulfill a query and return the right information, MySQL must examine all rows in the tables and see which one’s match our criteria. This can be a resource intensive process which can slow down a website’s performance depending on the amount of data which must be examined.

MySQL has a great feature which can help speed up queries. Enter table indexes.
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Is your site too plain? Do you want to add a bit of spark or flair to the visual appearance of your site? Maybe you’re looking for some creative ways to work with menus or display contextual information. Perhaps pop-up blockers have made you rethink how to design your site, but you dislike constant page reloads as visitors navigate your site, and you’re looking for a solution.

All of these concerns can be addressed by using JavaScript to make your site more dynamic, inviting, and engaging.

In this article, I’ll introduce you to two tools that can help you transform a plain site into a modern, good-looking and engaging site. The disadvantage, which I’ll tell you up front, is that your visitor must have a JavaScript-capable browser. This does rule out some older mobile browsers, but even mobile devices are becoming more widely JavaScript capable (e.g., Opera Mini).
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