Best of Kavoir

It’s been 5 years since the launch of this humble blog. I’ve had great pleasure to produce 500 posts that inspired 2,000 comments. Arranged here are some of the best posts I wrote at Kavoir.com, ordered by creation date. Some used to be great but as time passes, they are gradually outdated because new technologies kept coming along.

Stupid Thoughts

1. Exponential growth, part 2
2. Why simplicity rocks and why it’s a bless
3. What’s Kaizen?
4. Believed or judged?
5. blah blah and more blah blah
6. Differences between the web designs of Microsoft, Yahoo and Google
7. It’s not your business, it’s who you are

Internet Marketing, SEO

1. Some random SEO tips
2. How to do keyword research?
3. On-page SEO checklist, semantic HTML table checklist
4. Why web hosting / your IP address matters in SEO
5. Why you should host static assets such as images, css, javascript files on another host
6. Some Amazon affiliate program tips
7. Free mailing list software / autoresponder

HTML, CSS

1. HTTP or HTTPS bullet-proof URL format
2. CSS opacity / transparency
3. 3 column, left and right fixed width, center fluid
4. CSS z-index doesn’t work?
5. 8 golden rules of composing CSS
6. 2 tips for table layouts
7. Text over image
8. Difference between opacity:0, visibility:hidden and display:none
9. How to style upload control
10. Why having multiple CSS files is a bad idea
11. Rotate text / image by a certain angle
12. Detect Chrome, Safari or Opera browser

JavaScript

1. Turn off JavaScript error warnings
2. Differences between function.apply() and function.call()
3. Differences between event bubbling and event capturing
4. Time ticker for a designated time zone rather than browser time zone
5. Multi-dimensional arrays

PHP

1. PHP Security checklist
2. Why just hashing isn’t enough
3. PHP crontab class to create, edit and remove cron jobs
4. File upload class
5. Image resizing class
6. Form checkbox array
7. Where is php.ini?
8. Hide real URL path to download file
9. Some random tips
10. Email attachment class
11. Simple PHP contact form script
12. Get real client IP address
13. Validate against email and URLs
14. PHP SEO-friendly URLs
15. Simple PHP hit counter script
16. PHP class to convert words plural to singular or vice versa

MySQL

1. Backup and recover MySQL databases on command line
2. InnoDB vs. MyISAM
3. Some MySQL security tips
4. How to optimize your MySQL database

Best Books

1. Best CSS books
2. Best HTML books and Best HTML5 books
3. Best JavaScript books
4. Best MySQL books
5. Best PHP books
6. Best Web application security books

Apache

1. Some .htaccess tips and examples
2. .htaccess deny from all
3. Why you should not use <IfModule> in .htaccess

Linux

1. Search only text files with ‘find’ command
2. Most useful SSH commands in Linux
3. Count number of files under directory
4. Differences between atime, ctime and mtime
5. Synchronize or transfer files between servers

Web Design

1. Web safe fonts for Mandarin Chinese
2. Tips for amateur web designers

Useful Tools

1. Online tools to check broken links

Knowledge

1. What is copyright fair use?
2. What does HTTP stand for?
3. Largest bankruptcies in US since 1980
4. www.facebook.com

Google Tips

1. Google search tips
2. Google as a calculator
3. Gmail tips
4. Let Google fill in forgotten parts of a sentence
5. Google search for similar terms or phrases
6. Ask Google for physical constants and astronomical data

Reviews

1. Dreamhost review
2. Linode review
3. WiredTree review and another one
4. Amazon associate program review
5. Shopify review
6. Avalanche review

Others

1. Some awesome quotes for software engineering / development