For the past couple of weeks, the availability of The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP has been listed on Amazon.com as “usually ships within 1 to 3 weeks”. Very often, particularly with a recently published book, that means demand has been higher than expected, and there’s a temporary blip in supply. However, today the availability suddenly changed to “usually ships within 3 to 6 weeks”, so I decided to get in touch with my publisher to find out what’s going on.
Apparently, demand for the book has risen in recent weeks, so that’s good news for me. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy. It has also been reprinted, and I’m told the new copies should already be in the distribution chain. Apologies if you have ordered a copy, and still haven’t got it. We’re trying to find out if we can speed up deliveries. [Update:] It looks as though things are moving. Amazon seems to have got hold of a few copies, and it’s quoting January 30 as the day when supplies should be back to normal. If you can’t wait, The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 is available for immediate download as an eBook. You can buy it through visiting the book’s page on the friends of ED website. By the way, this distribution problem does not affect Amazon in the UK, where the book is reported to be in stock.
January 22nd, 2008
One of the features I stressed in PHP Solutions was the need to write secure code. On page 378, I said it was essential to display error messages in a development environment so that you can debug your code. However, raw error messages look unprofessional in a live website. Well, guess who forgot to take his own advice? Yes, it was me—guilty as charged. Do as I say, not do as I do.
I found out as a result of a couple of messages posted under a pseudonym to my blog. Since I have been involved in an acrimonious discussion about security in the past couple of days, I suspect that someone involved in that discussion, either as a participant or an observer, wanted to embarrass me. The way in one of the messages was phrased appeared to be a direct reference to something I had written in the other discussion. Sure, I’ve ended up with (a little) egg on my face, but the error message didn’t reveal anything about the structure of the site; and I have now implemented the advice on page 378.
Am I embarrassed about the event? Yes, I suppose I am, but we all make mistakes from time to time. If I have made a mistake, I’m usually the first to admit it, particularly if the person pointing it out does so in a spirit of mutual help. I decided not to publish the messages—not to save my red face, but because the poster didn’t have the decency to use his (or her) own name, and because it was done in an offensive way. The poster accused me of wasting my time in a forum that I haven’t visited probably for about two years, although it’s a forum that provides a lot of free and usually very sound advice about website design.
Security on the web, as well as in everyday life, is important to all of us. Pointing out another person’s mistakes can be a valuable service. It’s not a question of scoring points, but of helping one another. Throughout the other discussion, I used my own name, as did most other participants. We had a genuine disagreement, but everyone was open about it. Sadly, the person who found a minor security error in one of my pages decided to be abusive and hide behind a false name. So, whoever you are, thank you for bringing it to my attention, but your actual posts have been sent to cyberoblivion.
January 22nd, 2008