This is a really nice generator so if your interested have a look at pForm (HTML Forms on the fly).

Anyway back on topic I thought I would share a really neat piece of code with you.  I recently had the need to validate a UK post code, using PHP, and decided it was worth looking to see what other people had developed (no point in reinventing the wheel).  I found a very useful piece of code at braemoor.co.uk that offers full UK Postcode validation  as per the official specification and from the list of BFPO codes.

The code is very thorough and works like a charm so I would definitely recommend it.  They also offer other validation methods for UK telephone numbers, National Insurance, Credit Card, Email Address etc in a multitude of languages including JavaScript, PHP, ASP and PERL so check it out.

General PHP Security Issues

For a general overview the following resources provide a good grounding as to security risks and how to prevent them from becoming a porblem.

• http://uk.php.net/manual/en/security.intro.php
• http://developer.yahoo.com/security/
• http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/PHP-Security-Mistakes/
• http://www.sitepoint.com/article/php-security-blunders

Google your Site for Security Issues

It amazed me during my research quite how easy it was to hack peoples sites by using simple Google searches to return results of potentially weak websites. The following links elaborate on this somewhat:

• http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/security/2004/10/07/ googling_for_vulnerabilities.html
• http://www.gnucitizen.org/ghdb/application.htm

Cross Site Scripting

A common method used to retrieve information or to deliberately cause harm and well worth understanding. The following link shows the different methods used with examples:

• http://www.gnucitizen.org/xssdb/application.htm
• http://www.cgisecurity.com/articles/xss-faq.shtml

SQL Injection

Again another very common method by which hackers try to breach website security. This is an essential must know before building a website otherwise there is the possibility that you will leave yourself wide open to an attack.

• http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/sql-injection.html
• http://www.acunetix.com/websitesecurity/sql-injection.htm

As always I would love to hear your comments or if you have any resources that you feel would be beneficial than post the in the comments section below as well.

Sphider

Sphider is a lightweight web spider and search engine written in PHP, using MySQL as its back end database. It is suitable for adding search functionality to small or medium sites (up to around 100,000 pages). It also works great as a tool for site analysis - finding broken links, gathering statistics about the site etc.

More about Sphider…

mnoGoSearch

mnoGoSearch is a full-featured web search engine software for intranet and internet servers.

mnoGoSearch software has a number of unique features, which makes it appropriate for a wide range of applications from search within your site to specialized search systems such as cooking recipes or newspaper searches, ftp archive search, MP3 search, news articles search or even national-wide portal search engine.

The search software consists of two parts. The first is an indexing mechanism (indexer). The purpose of the indexer is to walk through HTTP, FTP, NEWS servers or local files, recursively grabbing all the documents and storing words meta-data about those documents in a database in a smart and efficient manner.

After every document is referenced by its corresponding URL, meta-data, collected by the indexer is used later in the search process. Search is performed via Web interface using your favorite browser.

mnoGoSearch is distributed in several variations, depending on operating system and features included.

Note: This product is not free on Windows.

More about mnoGoSearch…

RiSearch

RiSearch PHP is a fully functional search script for small to medium sites and is fast enough to search 5000-10000 of pages in less then one second. RiSearch is an indexing search engine, which means that it will index your site first and then create a database with all words from your pages for faster search. Risearch provides a full-text search script and an index of all words contained within a document except small words and common words (this can be defined in the config file).

RiSearch can create an index using either binary files or MySQL which allows for a great deal of flexibility.

More about RiSearch…

Zoom

Zoom is a software package that creates a search engine for your website, intranet, CD, or DVD. It provides fast and powerful full-text searching by indexing your website in advance with an user friendly desktop application that allows you to configure and index your site, from the convenience of your Windows computer.

More about Zoom…

iSearch

The iSearch PHP search engine allows you to build a searchable database for your web site. Visitors can search for key words and a list of any pages that match is returned to them.

More about iSearch…

PhpDig

PhpDig is a web spider and search engine written in PHP, using a MySQL database and flat file support. PhpDig builds a glossary with words found in indexed pages. On a search query, it displays a result page containing the search keys, ranked by occurrence.

More about PhpDig…

Bravenet Search

A really simple hosted site search. Simply integrate the provided form code into your site and away you go.

More about Bravenet Search…

TSEP

TSEP is a simple search engine for your website and is free of charge. SEP provides an installer to make integration and smooth and painless as possible. With only two lines of code you can add TSEP to your website and into your layout, it is as easy as that.

TSEP requires a MySQL database to store all indexation data.

More about TSEP…

JRank

JRank is a pure Java search engine. We give you full control of when and how our spider visits your site and how your site is included in our index. You have a choice of using a simple HTML form in your site or customizing JRank with XML based output.

More about JRank…

Google AJAX Search API

The AJAX Search API is the easiest way to incorporate a Google search box on your site. You can incorporate results from Web Search, News Search, and Blog Search into your blog or web site with just a few lines of JavaScript.

More about Googe AJAX Search API…

WebSideStory Search

With WebSideStory Search you have the ability to help visitors find the information, products or services they seek while also meeting your business objectives. With this on-demand site search solution, you are able to control how search results are presented, influence search results rankings based on your key business criteria, and integrate relevant promotions and offers directly into your search results pages.
· Targeting & Relevancy Controls
· Drive Results Based on Visitor Behavior
· Gain Greater Merchandising Flexibility
· Minimize Clicks, Maximize Sales & Conversions
· Actionable Reporting and Analytics
· Plug & Play With Your Existing Web Site
· Advanced Linguistic Support
· Scalable, Robust, Secure

More about WebSideStory Search…

Yahoo Search Web Services

Yahoo! Search Web Services allow you to access Yahoo content and services in your favorite programming languages. This means you can now build Yahoo directly into your own applications. Get more ideas for what you can build by playing with the applications and mashups featured in our Search Application Gallery.

More about Yahoo Search Web Services…

Let me know if you have found anything better out there.

1. DBDesigner 4

DBDesigner 4 is a visual database design system that integrates database design, modeling, creation and maintenance into a single, seamless environment.

It combines professional features and a clear and simple user interface to offer the most efficient way to handle your databases.

More about DBDesigner 4…

2. PHPeclipse

PHPeclipse is a full featured PHP IDE with features like internal PHP parser, debugger, code formatter, outline view, templates and much more.

More about PHPeclipse…

3. Subversion

The goal of the Subversion project is to build a version control system that is a compelling replacement for CVS in the open source community. The software is released under an Apache/BSD-style open source license.

More about Subversion…

4. Dia

Dia is inspired by the commercial Windows program ‘Visio’, though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

More about DIA…

5. MySQL GUI Tools Bundle for 5.0

MySQL GUI Tools Bundle for 5.0 is available under the MySQL AB "dual licensing" model. Under this model, users may choose to use MySQL products under the free software/opensource GNU General Public License (commonly known as the "GPL") or under a commercial license.

This is the MySQL GUI Tools Bundle for 5.0. It includes the following products.

· MySQL Administrator 1.2 Generally Available (GA)
· MySQL Query Browser 1.2 Generally Available (GA)
· MySQL Migration Toolkit 1.1 Generally Available (GA)

More about MySQL GUI Tools Bundle for 5.0…

6. curl-loader

A powerful C-written HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS load generator, performance and stress testing tool. It uses real HTTP and TLS/SSL stacks, generating thousands of users each with own IP-address. Emphases is given to user authentication, login and statistics.

More about curl-loader…

7. DBMonster

DBMonster is a tool which generates random test data and puts it into SQL database. It helps to test how an application can deal with large database.

More about DBMonster…

8. phpDocumentor

phpDocumentor, sometimes referred to as phpdoc or phpdocu, is the current standard auto-documentation tool for the php language. Similar to Javadoc, and written in php, phpDocumentor can be used from the command line or a web interface to create professional documentation from php source code. phpDocumentor has support for linking between documentation, incorporating user level documents like tutorials and creation of highlighted source code with cross referencing to php general documentation. A complete list of features is available.

More about phpDocumentor…

9. PHPUnit

I understand this is a framework, however, I think it’s a good tool to use in PHP development.

To make code testing viable, good tool support is needed. This is where PHPUnit comes into play. It is a member of the xUnit family of testing frameworks and provides both a framework that makes the writing of tests easy as well as the functionality to easily run the tests and analyse their results.

More about PHPUnit…

10. PHP Accelerator

The ionCube PHP Accelerator is an easily installed PHP Zend engine extension that provides a PHP cache, and is capable of delivering a substantial acceleration of PHP scripts without requiring any script changes, loss of dynamic content, or other application compromises.

More about PHP Accelerator…

11. DBG

DBG is a full-featured php debugger. It works on a production and/or development WEB server and allows you debug your scripts locally or remotely, from an IDE or console.

More about DBG…

12. WinMerge

WinMerge is an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determing what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.

More about WinMerge…

13. LiveHTTPHeaders

LiveHTTPHeaders displays http headers in real time (while pages are being downloaded from the Internet) letting you edit request headers and replay a URL.

More about LiveHTTPHeaders…

14. PuTTY

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.

More about PuTTY…

15. Beautify PHP

This program tries to reformat and beautify PHP source code files automatically. It is a pretty printer for your php source code. The program is Open Source and distributed under the terms of GNU GPL. It is written in PHP and has a web frontend.

More about Beautify PHP…