PHP functions to be disabled on shared hosting  Tags: webhosting, security.
There are plenty of websites giving you advice on which PHP functions to disable in a shared hosting environment. Trying like 15 blogs and websites, all of them got it wrong, including (to my surprise) the Security Stack Exchange**.

I don't know who or when, but someone once posted a list with PHP functions to be disabled and everyone copied it. There are roughly 3 variants on this, which block random functions like mysql_pconnect (but not mysql_connect or sockets themselves), FTP functions, or even string manipulation functions which are obviously totally benign.
Time to set things right.

Server uptime  Tags: my server, webhosting.
The past half year of school has mostly been about designing and implementing applications rather than actually building them. This also includes the SLA or Service Level Agreement, in which you should note what uptime a customer can expect. I saw a banner lately on a website which advertised the website's uptime. It said I could monitor my own website for free, which was of course a good marketing trick, but I could get a 12-day professional trial. And I must say, I do like it. The service is great and quite cheap too, it's just that I don't need it at all. (Actually, the name of the service is Site24x7).

But I let it monitor the uptime of my website for nearly two weeks. The final result: 99.96%. Not that bad if I do say so myself, even better than what most common webhosts offer!