Webdigi
webdigi.co.uk · Company blog · on HN since 2009
Webdigi, a UK web development firm, writes practical how-tos on PHP, AWS, HTML5 games, email checking, and side projects.
What HN saysHN links it for guides on checking whether an email exists, setting up an AWS VPN, and launching a side project; one commenter found the email method shallow.
32HN people shared it
26linked it in comments
18stories submitted
349story points
6 years agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How to check if an email address exists without sending an email?8 people · 7 points · first shared 2009 · 6 comments on HN
- 2How to set up your own free VPN server on AWS7 people · 85 points · first shared 2015 · 32 comments on HN
- 3Run PHP on the Google App Engine6 people · 19 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 4Use your iPhone/iPad as a controller for an HTML5 browser game.4 people · 68 points · first shared 2012 · 33 comments on HN
- 5What is new in PHP 5.3 for PHP amateurs?3 people · 28 points · first shared 2009 · 23 comments on HN
- 6Stupidity versus Malice The often neglected stupidity problem.2 people · 12 points · first shared 2009 · 2 comments on HN
- 7How to detect if your visitors use Facebook, Google, Amazon and most websites2 people · 7 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
- 8Planning on starting a side project? Read this before you2 people · 4 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 9How to detect if your webserver is hacked and get alerted2 people · first shared 2009
- 10Google Analytics for Facebook Pages1 people · 46 points · first shared 2010 · 10 comments on HN
- 11Facebook fan page with contact form, dialogs, navigation & AJAX with static FBML1 people · 17 points · first shared 2010 · 6 comments on HN
- 12How to use the new iframe tabs to build better Facebook pages1 people · 14 points · first shared 2011 · 4 comments on HN
- 13Tracking user engagement on Facebook fan pages with Google Analytics1 people · 10 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 14Get your own cloud server instance running in 15 minutes1 people · 8 points · first shared 2009 · 1 comments on HN
- 15Try Demo: Play space invaders on computer browser & control with an iphone/ipad1 people · 7 points · first shared 2012 · 3 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
neya · 2017-11-30
Thank you. As for the VPN setup, I was planning to do something like this: https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2015/how-to-setup-your-own-private-secu…
Worth a shot? OR should I just shut up and go with Express VPN?
> 4) I would go to Shenzhen
Wow, thank you so much! That's something I definitely don't want to miss!
> I might be in Shenzhen soon for some business in fact.
Sure, I'd love to meet you too! Keep me posted (my email is in my profile) :)
webdigi · 2013-12-16
Love Space Invaders, here is an HTML5 implementation that you can control with your phone http://www.webdigi.co.uk/fun/space/
webstartupper · 2012-12-16
For anyone else who is having the same issue, I found a brilliant article on verifying email addresses without sending an email.
http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-ex…
fsckin · 2012-05-13
I was hoping that this did something a bit more worthy of Hacker News, like checking if the A Record exists. Or perhaps speaking SMTP to the domain in question to query if the user actually exists (works on some domains) using web sockets.
http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-ex…
Maybe I'll build it for fun.
poundy · 2010-07-29
Don't forget to tell your loved ones, your friends, family, etc that you are working on the launch in 30 days. This way they know that you are not to be bothered, etc. I picked this up from this link here http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-get-your-side-project-launch…
convery · 2020-10-11
I guess, but that disadvantage seems massively outweigh by the benefits. Can always use something like [1] to check if a client is active on interesting sites.
[1] - https://www.webdigi.co.uk/demos/how-to-detect-visitors-logged-in-to-we…
wenc · 2017-10-30
I typically don't trust VPN providers, so I set up my own on AWS with this CloudFormation script. [0] It is almost effortless, takes 10 minutes and I can spin it up or spin it down without paying for a subscription, only AWS metered costs.
EDIT: another poster mentioned Algo [1]. This method requires a high degree of savvy and entails a higher level of difficulty, but looks much more configurable.
[0] https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2015/how-to-setup-your-own-private-secu…
[1] https://github.com/trailofbits/algo
themanual · 2017-07-12
You can setup your own on AWS in 10 minutes for free 1st year. https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2015/how-to-setup-your-own-private-secu…
webdigi3 · 2017-03-27
Here is a link to setup VPN Server on AWS.
https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2015/how-to-setup-your-own-private-secu…
goalo · 2015-03-19
Why give your access key to your server to a third party. See how to setup VPN server in 10 minutes on AWS server https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2015/how-to-setup-your-own-private-secu…
zaroth · 2015-01-18
The worst is when you store it as a string, having learned from others' mistakes, but then upon exporting to CSV... Excel kindly strips the leading 0 and you get a bug report that your software is screwing up the ZIP codes!
Took a bit of searching before finding this: https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2010/handling-leading-zero-in-csv/
Continuous · 2013-10-15
To add to the conversation. There is a way to check if a mailbox exists using SMTP. It works on Gmail and several other servers.
Python/PHP Code and explanation is here http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-ex…
It was eye opening to understand the underlying SMTP protocol. There are some pitfalls too as mentioned in the article.
wowfat · 2013-08-17
Looks like DNS issue. Intersting read http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2013/a-single-kill-switch-for-90-of-the-…
webstuff · 2013-06-07
Here is another HTML5 space invaders game
http://www.webdigi.co.uk/fun/space/
You can also control this with your iPhone! (Socket.io/nodejs)
yReply · 2012-11-23
Here is space invaders on the desktop controlled by your smartphone from the browser http://www.webdigi.co.uk/fun/space/
Flenser · 2012-09-07
You can even validate that it's a valid mailbox:
http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-ex…
Or use a service that will do it for you:
http://www.freshaddress.com/demo/
jon2512chua · 2012-01-13
It's because most registration form not only checks that the email address you entered is valid but also whether it exists. This is done by using nslookup to query for a domain's MX record and then checking the specific address.
Here's a post I found detailing how to use it: http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-ex…
spicyj · 2010-05-28
You must be thinking of something like this: http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-ex…
Merely looking up MX records is something you do for a _domain_ and it's no different than the DNS requests your computer makes when you go to a website.
PanMan · 2009-12-09
One of the most interesting applications of running PHP on Java is that it enables you to run PHP on Google's Appengine (yeah, I know, if all you have is a hamer...)
See http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/run-php-on-the-google-app-engine/
Someone runs wordpress on Appengine via Java: http://blog.caucho.com/?p=196
wowfactor · 2009-11-02
I use the Website Hack detector http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-detect-if-your-webserver-is-… with another program called site up. It is easy & quick to setup.
samueldrop · 2009-09-22
We use GAE and also for projects that need PHP. Also see how to run PHP on your app engine http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/run-php-on-the-google-app-engine/
smileplease · 2009-05-04
See also how to run PHP on GAE: http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/run-php-on-the-google-app-engine/
jusob · 2009-04-14
gord · 2009-03-28
Link to a link - http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/what-is-new-in-php-53-for-php-amate…
Now php 5.3 has lambdas, 'pharchives' :] and namespaces plus other goodness...
I wonder why they used a slash as the namespace scope clarifier - why not '::' or just '.' ?
I'm not dissing PHP, Ive used it, its handy, fast sturdy, ubiquitous.. but you feel the syntax works against you.
barredo · 2009-03-28
The real link is this: http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/what-is-new-in-php-53-for-php-amate…