Web Techniques

PHP(PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) :

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

There are three main areas where PHP scripts are used.

• Server-side scripting. This is the most traditional and main target field for PHP. You need three things to make this work. The PHP parser (CGI or server module), a web server and a web browser. You need to run the web server, with a connected PHP installation. You can access the PHP program output with a web browser, viewing the PHP page through the server. All these can run on your home machine if you are just experimenting with PHP programming. 

 

• Command line scripting. You can make a PHP script to run it without any server or browser. You only need the PHP parser to use it this way. This type of usage is ideal for scripts regularly executed using cron (on *nix or Linux) or Task Scheduler (on Windows). These scripts can also be used for simple text processing tasks. 

 

• Writing desktop applications. PHP is probably not the very best language to create a desktop application with a graphical user interface, but if you know PHP very well, and would like to use some advanced PHP features in your client-side applications you can also use PHP-GTK to write such programs. You also have the ability to write cross-platform applications this way. PHP-GTK is an extension to PHP, not available in the main distribution.  

Cookies

A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, is usually a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser while a user is browsing a website. When the user goes on the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user's previous activity. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember the state of the website or activity the user had taken in the past. This can include clicking particular buttons, logging in, or a record of the pages that were visited by the user even months or years ago.
Although cookies cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on the host computer tracking cookies and especially third-party tracking cookies are commonly used as ways to compile long-term records of individuals' browsing histories a major privacy concern that has prompted European and US law makers to take action.


ASP(active server pages)

Active Server Pages (ASP), also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically generated web pages. Initially released as an add-on to Internet Information Services via the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack , it was subsequently included as a free component of Windows Server (since the initial release of Windows 2000 Server). ASP.NET has superseded ASP.


File Sharing

File sharing is the public or private sharing of computer data with various levels of access. While files can easily be shared outside a network (for example, by handing or mailing someone your file on a diskette), the term file sharing almost always means sharing files in a network, even if in a small local area network. File sharing allows a number of people to use the same file by some combination of being able to read or view it, write to or modify it, copy it, or print it. Typically, a file sharing system has one or more administrators. Users may all have the same or may have different levels of access privilege. File sharing can also mean having an allocated amount of personal file storage in a common file system.


Server Side Scripting

Server Side Scripting is basically a programming language which makes your web pages more interactive. The main Server Side languages are Active Server Pages (ASP), PHP HyperText Preprocessor (PHP), Java Server Pages (JSP) and Coldfusion (CFM). Each of these languages has pros and cons, what they all do is allow a web page to interact by connecting to databases and files, processing and validating forms and serving page data dynamically.

Server-side scripting is described as “web server technology in which the user’s request is fulfilled by running a script directly on a web server to generate dynamic web pages.” In simpler terms, a server-side script runs on the server rather than your computer. When you visit a website, the script will create the web page dynamically.
Dynamic websites have become very popular because they are so much easier to maintain. Rather than having to edit HTML pages on a local computer and then upload them back to the server via FTP, websites with server-side scripts can usually be updated right on the server. The files themselves do not change, as they only contain the scripts. Instead, the information is stored in an SQL or flat file database.