Just wanted to share some of my favourite lesser-known web sites and blogs with you. They are all web development related one way or another. Feel free to add your own suggestions to the comments.

Planet Web Security

This site takes in the feeds from various high profile web security and hacking sources and presents them to you for easy access. There are usually a stack of new posts every day, and they're nearly all extremely useful or invaluable reading one way or another. For example I've recently learnt about SQL Server Truncation Attacks (which is more serious than you'd think), Firefox httpOnly vulnerabilities, hacking with Yahoo Pipes, and a superb article on XSRF.

http://planet-websecurity.org/

A lot of the articles come from www.0x000000.com, the Hacker Webzine, which despite going for that 'jet black matrix' style design effect we fondly waved goodbye to in the 1990s, is still a goldmine of information. Don't hide behind your filterInput extension or framework of choice and feel that a number of these security concerns shouldn't worry you - the alarming rate at which they are discovered proves this isn't a safe option. Subscribing to their feed at the very least will keep you updated about what the current attacks are, even if you can't protect against them immediately.

MySQL Performance Blog

Think you know MySQL inside out? Think again. These guys REALLY know MySQL, and thankfully for us they blog about it on a regular basis. I've learnt an awful lot from their wisdom, everything from Innodb Recovery to the excellent article Large Result Sets and Summary Tables in PHP. They also run a forum, but the visitor count is pretty low which means you won't get a particularly rapid response, although it's nearly always a quality one.

http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com

ProgrammableWeb

This is a much more main-stream web site, but one well worth visiting. Think of them as an index to all of the public APIs out there. From YouTube to flickr to some you'd probably never even think of (WebPurifys Profanity filtering service API for example!). They also list and track mash-ups, API vendor news and have a decent "How To" list.

http://www.programmableweb.com

Ajaxian

If ProgrammableWeb is all things API, Ajaxian is all things ajax and javascript. Given the Web 2.0 hyperbole currently flooding the tubes the "ajax" world is a rapidly updating one, and Ajaxian offer a great means for you to tap into that pulse of change. They cover all JS frameworks (mootools, prototype, etc), all languages, have podcasts and showcases of work, and a great tag-line ("Trying to generate more hype than Rails") A superb resource, because let's face it - we can't really ignore what is going on in this neck of the woods. Unless you are (un?)lucky enough to be stuck maintaining decidedly ancient web apps for the rest of your life.

http://ajaxian.com

Deziner Folio

I may be a programmer first, but I love graphics and always have done. Deziner Folio is the home of Navdeep and Naveen, two very graphically talented brothers. Their blog often shares great Photoshop resources such as styles, PSD kits, wallpaper effects and actions. If you have an eye for the visual and like to tinker with Adobes beast then I urge you to consider adding this to your feedreader of choice. Go back through the archives for some great downloads.

http://www.dezinerfolio.com

Starting today (January 3rd) php architect are running their '7 days' promotion. For each of the following days you can buy certain products at heavily discounted rates. Today the offer is for 50% off the cost of the Zend PHP 5 Certification Guide book (both print and PDF version).

This means you can pick it up for $17 instead of $35. Of course shipping costs are added on-top of this, but they're the same as usual and it's a great way to pick up a very good book, half price. Check out the offers here: http://www.phparch.com/sevendays.

I work primarily in the games industry, and it's a fun and exciting place to be, but somewhat volatile. While flicking through one of the magazines I subscribe to I noticed an advertisement from Amazon who were looking for software engineers. It's a reflection on the state of the games industry that a company like Amazon is trying to snag skilled developers from the turbulent market, but what interested me most wasn't the fact it was Amazon, but rather they way they phrased their advertisement.

International PHP Magazine (you know php|arch readers.. the other one) received something of a face-lift today on its web site. Gone are the yellow and blue colours, and in comes a "whoa! where's my contrast switch?" fresh-green style. Better? Worse? Well it doesn't really make all that much difference, because the real content is the magazine itself, and this one happens to have one of my articles in it...

I apologise that this isn't PHP related, but it has been annoying the hell out of me for weeks now. The problem is this: Anyone can sign-up for a Google gmail account. Once activated they can enter their settings and set all of their gmail to forward to an external email address (with or without various filtering options). The problem is that no confirmation email is ever sent to that forwarding address. They just blindly assume you'd only ever want to email yourself. A situation that can be used to utterly spam the hell out of someone, and there is nothing that can be done about it, but more worryingly Google do not care.