Snipe.Net

Web 2-Point-Owned: Apple.Com’s XSS Exploit

Earlier today, we got a glimpse of what happens when a big company forgets to cross their t's and dot their i's. And in programming, that means failing to validate user-entered data before displaying it on-screen. My friend Peter Bukowinski first brought the exploit to my attention, posting a link to ...

Big Changes Coming to the Facebook Application Platform

Last night, during a webcast, Facebook announced some upcoming significant changes to the Facebook platform. Most are good, a few may be frustrating, but here they are. These changes will start to be rolled out in November & December and will continue into the first and second quarter of 2010. If ...

Awesome Gift Guide for the Geeks in Your Life

If you’re a non-geek, trying to shop for the geeks in your life can be daunting, but we’re here to help! While there are different kinds of geeks, we assure you that buying any of this stuff as gifts for your favorite geek will definitely give you a charisma ...

Trying Out Disqus

I've decided to move the comment system on Snipe.Net over to Disqus. I like it so far, but I've run into a few glitches and challenges that I thought I'd share with you. (Also, it explains why things may look funny here for a few days while I work out ...

Twitter launches groups in BETA for some users

In what seemed out-of-left field, when I logged onto the Twitter website early this morning, I was greeted with a notification of new list functionality being introduced in beta. This is, of course, incredibly awesome, and something we've all been begging for for over a year, but I hadn't even heard ...

Extending Facebook Static FBML Tabs with Dynamic Content

This tutorial walks you through how to use DynamicFBML to do simple content replacement that will allow you to fit more content into your tabs. You can create image or video galleries, or even an entire micro-site inside your Static FBML tab without a lot of complicated scripting. If you're not ...

The Geek Pumpkin Roundup

Think you're a rock-star with mushy, vaguely head-shaped vegetables and a knife? Think again - these pumpkin carvings will blow your mind. (I was going to call this post "The Great Cutter Roundup", but I was afraid it would draw a bunch of emo gloom-cookies. Scott Cummins - PumpkinGutter.Com The gallery below ...

A Few of My Favorite Things Redux

While I find websites every day that make me laugh, there are a few that always seem to deliver. Some of the are older, some are newer, but I love and cherish every one of them and would hug each of their creators for making my world better through their ...

Funky characters in HTML mail using PHPMailer

While working on a client project, I ended up having to send HTML email notifications to users. During testing, I discovered some stray characters at the beginning of the email. If you have to send HTML email, there are certainly lots of good libraries available for download to make your life ...

Mindless Self-Indulgence

...also known as the best thing evar. I don't normally post such self-indulgent fare on this site (that's what Twitter is for!), but this was just too good, and I adore this artist enough that it gives me another excuse to pimp him out. My friend Dale Chase, sound designer and ...

PHP Regex to Make Twitter Links Clickable

This is just a quicky post, not one of my usual long, rambling diatribes. This week is madness, even by my own absurd standards, but I didn't want to miss jotting this down in case it might be helpful to others. I've had varying degrees of success trying to find a ...

Writing Your First Twitter Application with OAuth

If you're interested in writing a web-based Twitter application but aren't sure where to start, the Twitter OAuth library from Abraham Wiliams makes authenticating with OAuth and Twitter a breeze. Please note: Use of the information in this article is conditional on the fact that you swear NOT to to make ...

If Chuck Norris Had Designed Linux…

What started as an off-handed comment on Twitter quickly turned into a meme that had tons of people involved. It all started with "If Chuck Norris designed Linux...". Hours of hilarity (and a good bit of tweet stream flooding) soon ensued. This is how it all started. One single tweet: snipeyhead: I ...

Static FBML: Not Every Facebook Fan Page Needs An Application

You don't always need a custom application for your Facebook fan page to look amazing. Save yourself time and money by using the Static FBML application instead. If you've played around with Facebook pages at all, you know that layout-wise, you don't have a lot of options. It's one of the ...

Why I Won’t Follow You Back on Twitter

In a recent post, you learned a little more about what it's like to follow me on Twitter, warnings and all. In this post - one that I hope will be the last Twitter-related post for a while - I'm going to tell you why I didn't - and won't ...

There is NO SUCH THING as a Social Media Marketer

That's right. I said it. If your job title is "Social Media Marketer" for a company, your job isn't real, your life is a lie, and you'd damned well better have a backup career plan for when corporate America catches on. Here's why. I recently got into an impassioned discussion on ...

Comparison of Desktop Twitter Clients

In my never-ending quest for the perfect Twitter client, I've decided to do a side-by-side comparison of features of some of more popular clients. This list is probably not exhaustive, and the current clients continue to add new features frequently. I'll try to keep it updated as they do, though. We'll ...

New Facebook Phishing Attempts

Looks like a new round of phishing attacks are well underway, targeting Facebook users. There are a few going around, and they seem to work slightly differently (although same principle) to the previous round of virus/phishing attacks from last year, featuring the Bolivar23.exe virus and the Koobface virus. These phishing ...

This Blue Bird’s Wings Just Got Clipped

As most Twitter user's know, Twitter recently implemented a change to the way @replies are handled in the user's timeline. This change dramatically impacts the way I (and many of my followers) use Twitter, and does potentially irreperable damage to the one thing that truly set Twitter apart from other ...

Following Me on Twitter

If you're following me on Twitter, or if you're thinking about following me on Twitter, here's some stuff you should probably know. Although it may sound like I'm trying to convince you not to follow me, that's not the case at all. I'd absolutely love to have you! I just want ...

Changes to Facebook’s Newsfeed/Wall

With the most recent API changes, specifically the one that changed the way fan pages behave so that they look and behave more like Facebook user profiles, Facebook also made a significant change in how newsfeeds work in applications. Previously, you would send newsfeed items to a user's profile wall and ...

%$#^%$* Facebook Application Tabs

So this is new. And by new I mean painfully similar to the types of major functionality bugs we see every time there is a large-scale functionality change in Facebook. I don't know if this is a bug, or just undocumented, but I am unable to get the FBID of a ...

More on Haiku (or Moron Haiku?)

So I've been on a bit of a haiku-kick lately, and decided to do something about it. The recent obsession started, I think, with my commute. I commute 4.5 hours a day every day to work, round trip, and it's really quite miserable. I can handle the drive to the bus ...

And Still More Notes on Mosso

Continuing in the Moving to Mosso series, I've come across a few more issues that anyone considering moving to Mosso should consider. I've been with them for over two months now, and am very happy with them. Like the previous article, these issues are not dealbreakers - at least they are ...

Quick and Dirty PHP Caching

Caching your database-driven website pages has a plethora of benefits, not the least of which being improved speed and reduced server loads. This article will explain how to set up a simple caching system, and will also address when and where caching might not be appropriate. For me, the impetus to ...

SVN Working Copies and Repository Locations

In part one of this series, you learned what Subversion is and how it can help you, in addition to the terms you'll need to become familiar with in order to use Subversion in your development process. Part two of this series goes into more specific detail about potential development ...

Getting Started with Subversion

As a web developer, hopefully you're already using subversion, and this tutorial is utterly useless to you. If so, good job, and carry on! If you're a web developer (or web designer, or web programmer, or are in any way creating files that display or do something on the internet) ...

The… Er… Anatomy of a Twitter Meme

This is a transcript of the #giantblueglowingcock Twitter meme from March 9, 2009. This meme, started by myself and @brlittle, managed to make the front page of Twitscoop - that is, until they decided it was too naughty and they pulled it. The meme is, of course, about the movie ...

Getting to Know Belize

I was fortunate enough to spend last week in a beautiful little country in Central America called Belize. Like many people, I didn't know much about Belize before I went, and wasn't sure what to expect. After spending an amazing week there, I wanted to share my experiences with you, ...

Questions to Ask Before Starting a Project

We're all human, and we all make mistakes and overlook important details sometimes - but the thing I can't stand is making the same mistake twice. To prevent making the same mistakes twice, I have an ever-evolving list of questions that I use to create the tech brief for new ...