Poor software choices can be very costly for companies who get taken down the wrong path. It's worth asking the tough questions early on.

Internet Explorer 6 has a large enough user base that websites should still generally be implemented with it in mind.The average e-commerce site, for example, probably can't afford to lose the 10-15% of users that might be on IE6. Here are some tips to make development time on IE6 as efficient as possible.

Using base classes in CodeIgniter can be very beneficial to a developer but the framework doesn't have very good support for using base classes on the fly. Using a simple hook, autoload support can be added to work consistently and not get lost in the clutter of config files.

CodeIgniter is a great framework for building web applications but it takes a little work to get it running out of the box. Editing config files and database settings is standard for any framework, and CodeIgniter is no different, but with a few extensions of the core libraries you can quickly and easily build much more powerful tools.

Cloud Computing has been the subject of a lot of buzz lately. But in the face of all the advertising and promotions lauding its technology, the actual meaning of Cloud Computing sure is... cloudy. What can it really do for a business's online presence?

In the early days of web development, most web sites where made up of complete HTML pages that had to be loaded and reloaded every time a request was made. This system is not very efficient as all data must be resent every time a small change is made which, in turn, affects the user experience and can increase bandwidth use and server load.

I am not a fan buzzwords, particularly those corporate buzzwords which weasle their way into the business culture to become the jargon-mantras of mediocrity. So I've looked with a dubious eye at the hype surrounding Cloud Computing. But now that I have had a chance to spend some time with it in developing a cloud web app on Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute, I must confess that this stuff is really exciting.

MySQL has long been the most popular open-source database solution for web designers. It is free, fast, stable, and widely supported. Until version 5.1 was released, MySQL's feature set was quite limited compared to the "big dogs" in the database industry, including Oracle, DB2, and MS SQL Server. Many of the new version 5+ features enable MySQL databases to operate more independently than before, because the database itself can process and validate data, rather than relying on outside software.

Obtaining PCI certification for your website or network can be a lengthy and aggravating process, or, it can be quite straight-forward. Depending on the route you take, the vender you choose , and of course, the complexity of your system, there is great range in the number of teeth you need to pull to become PCI compliant.