1.Surf the web. The odds are there are dozens of sites that you admire, or that do something similar to what you hope to achieve and do it well. Find them, study them, and take some notes. Write down what you like, and what you don’t like - and why. Keep a file.
2.As you surf these sites, make note of the credits at the bottom. See who designed them, and if possible check out those designer’s websites for a portfolio of their other work.
3.Cruise the premium Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla theme sites if you choose one of these platforms. Find out what theme is in use on the sites you like, and who designed the theme. It may be that you will end up buying a theme you like and reducing the role of your designer to customizing it.
4.If you have friends who have web sites you admire, question them on their choice of platform, designer, theme, etc. Ask about functionality. If there is something you’d like to have that you don’t see, ask about that as well.
5.When you have settled on what you want to do, get at least three designers to look at what you have, and what you want, and provide you quotes. In the quotes make sure they include costs for training you on use and maintenance, for updates to the site, and for emergency troubleshooting. As you communicate with them, take note of how quickly they answer, and how helpful they are. You may be working with them for a while.
6.Avoid trying to be “too cool” with your website - particularly if you aren’t independely wealthy. Flash and crazy color schemes, and animated gifs all may seem like a “way-cool” idea when you first see them. In most cases they distract people from the focus of your site.
7.Keep it as professional as you can. Weigh each feature you intend to include for its usefulness and utility. It’s okay to have a few “fun” things but don’t let them overshadow your reason for having the site.
8.Build your site around your content. Whatever it is you intend to promote, sell, share, or advertise, try to put your mind in a place where you can imagine coming to the site as a user, customer, etc. and design it the way you would want to see it if someone else built it.
9.Your front page should provide access to every important aspect of your site, and should do so without the necessity of scrolling. Don’t hide anything you really want people to see, the average surfer won’t click through to something they have to work to find.
10.Do not be intimidated by your designer. It’s easy to let them make your decsisions for you, to make you feel inadequate for your inability to do things on your own, and in general to take over your project. You are hiring them to build YOUR site…remember that, while you are collaborating, you are in charge of the project, and it is - ultimately - your design and thoughts that should be reflected in the final outcome.
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Showing posts with label open source web development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label open source web development. Show all posts
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, November 27, 2008
PHP developer myths
1# Using single quotes for your strings rather than double quotes can yield a substantial speed boost.
This is one of the most commonly repeated performance myths about PHP. Whether you use double quotes or single quotes is pretty much beside the point - yes, there is a performance boost to use single quotes, but it is much less than 0.01%, and it is generally just not worth the extra hassle. Many people use double quotes for everything, and that is fine - use whatever you feel most comfortable using, because it will not affect the speed of your script.
2# you should always take the comments and whitespace out of your scripts “for maximum performance”
Comments and whitespace have such a minute effect on the performance of your PHP scripts that it is not worth considering. Furthermore, if you use a PHP code cache system like Zend Performance Suite or PHP Accelerator, comments are stripped out for you in the cached version, meaning they have no impact at all.
3# Use GLOBAL inside function to access external values
There is a lot of fluff concerning the supposed performance hit of using GLOBAL inside functions to access external values. Some people will tell you it is faster to use GLOBAL, others that it is faster to pass a parameter in, and still others that it is faster to use a static or class variable to store the value in. I find them all to run at the same speed unless there are exceptional circumstances, and I would recommend you use the way that suits you best on the basis of ease of use as opposed to performance.
4# Use unset() on complex variables
You may find people telling you to use unset() on complex variables so that PHP can free up the resources. This is quite an unusual one to tackle, because it is the sort of thing that should be true, and it is re-enforced by the fact that using a function to free up external resources, such as mysql_close() and imagedestroy(), does actually have an effect. I have never found unset() to actually free up memory when it is called. In fact, it tends to just burn up a lot of CPU time, which might have the opposite impact to what you want. Generally I think it is best to leave PHP to do the clearing up of standard variables, even if they are very large arrays, and stick to concentrating on more important things.
5# use $var rather “$var”
Some may try to convince you that using typing print $var is better than print “$var”, and indeed it is - but not because one is faster. Instead, the first option looks a little neater, and I would recommend it for that reason only. Again, this is a style point – don’t let people tell you that either is faster than the other. This is particularly irrelevant if you use a PHP code cache, which will treat both code lines in exactly the same way.
Read More...
This is one of the most commonly repeated performance myths about PHP. Whether you use double quotes or single quotes is pretty much beside the point - yes, there is a performance boost to use single quotes, but it is much less than 0.01%, and it is generally just not worth the extra hassle. Many people use double quotes for everything, and that is fine - use whatever you feel most comfortable using, because it will not affect the speed of your script.
2# you should always take the comments and whitespace out of your scripts “for maximum performance”
Comments and whitespace have such a minute effect on the performance of your PHP scripts that it is not worth considering. Furthermore, if you use a PHP code cache system like Zend Performance Suite or PHP Accelerator, comments are stripped out for you in the cached version, meaning they have no impact at all.
3# Use GLOBAL inside function to access external values
There is a lot of fluff concerning the supposed performance hit of using GLOBAL inside functions to access external values. Some people will tell you it is faster to use GLOBAL, others that it is faster to pass a parameter in, and still others that it is faster to use a static or class variable to store the value in. I find them all to run at the same speed unless there are exceptional circumstances, and I would recommend you use the way that suits you best on the basis of ease of use as opposed to performance.
4# Use unset() on complex variables
You may find people telling you to use unset() on complex variables so that PHP can free up the resources. This is quite an unusual one to tackle, because it is the sort of thing that should be true, and it is re-enforced by the fact that using a function to free up external resources, such as mysql_close() and imagedestroy(), does actually have an effect. I have never found unset() to actually free up memory when it is called. In fact, it tends to just burn up a lot of CPU time, which might have the opposite impact to what you want. Generally I think it is best to leave PHP to do the clearing up of standard variables, even if they are very large arrays, and stick to concentrating on more important things.
5# use $var rather “$var”
Some may try to convince you that using typing print $var is better than print “$var”, and indeed it is - but not because one is faster. Instead, the first option looks a little neater, and I would recommend it for that reason only. Again, this is a style point – don’t let people tell you that either is faster than the other. This is particularly irrelevant if you use a PHP code cache, which will treat both code lines in exactly the same way.
Read More...
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
15 Things Every Web Developer Should Be Thankful For
With Thanksgiving only a couple days away, it’s appropriate to look back on the things that we appreciate best about our jobs. Let’s face it: Web Developers have the best jobs around, right? We’re incredibly lucky to have the professions we do.
Here are 15 things that we all should be thankful for. These are the technologies that we couldn’t live without, or that have previously paved the way and allowed us to be web developers.
1. Mosaic
Graphic designers everywhere should reserve a day in November to give thanks to the software that’s enabled our careers. Without Mosaic’s picture support, the Internet doesn’t need good design. The 1993 launch of this web browsing software opened up a brand new world to web developers and web browsers alike.
2. Firefox
Firefox ended the long tyranny of IE oppression for experienced web users. The extension-enabled browser has forced IE to play catch up and improve their lukewarm browser, which hadn’t seen an update for 5 years.
Aside from pushing a standards-based browsing initiative, the ability to extend Firefox has made the developers life much easier. There are oodles of extensions that are nearly essential to the developer.
3. Browsershots.org
Every web developer knows the awful pain that is making designs constant across different browsers. Thanks to Browsershots, we can easily see a screenshot of any page across a multitude of different browsers, showing potential problems that might arise across different browsers, and giving new reason to invent curses for legacy IE versions.
4. Firebug
Thanks to Firefox, we now have a browser that is also an important tool for the web developer. Firebug is a must-have extension for the web developer. With this nifty little extension you can view just about any aspect of the web page, visible or behind the scenes, and modify it real-time. It’s incredibly useful for designers and programmers alike.
5. Google Code
If you’re trying to find a useful snippet of code, there’s no place better than Google Code. Not only is it a great place to search for entire libraries, you can find useful bits of code that might be hard to find otherwise. If you’re wanting to house a project, you’ll be especially thankful for G Code, as it’s a free and easy way to have a working community for a project without hosting costs.
Also, with Google Code you can use Google’s bandwidth for the javascript libraries included in your projects. Using jQuery? Just call Google’s hosted version and be on your way. No need to slow your own server down with Google’s gracious offer.
6. Frameworks
Frameworks have given developers a major reason to be thankful. Gone are the days of building websites around repetitive code. Using frameworks like Rails, Django or CakePHP on websites needing database interaction and user permissions takes a major burden off of the programmer. They can spend less time on common, tedious code and more on the interesting and unique. It’s a powerful paradigm shift in programming.
Here are some of the major frameworks used today, in no particular order.
- Ruby on Rails (Ruby)
- CakePHP (PHP)
- Django (Python)
- Zend (PHP)
- CodeIgnitor (PHP)
- Symfony (PHP)
7. Open Source projects
Mad props should be bestowed upon the Open Source Initiative and all the software it promotes. It is a fact that we wouldn’t have a) the Internet or b) much of the technology that it runs on without open source projects. Most of the biggest and best projects are open sourced software, and they all run on the basis that the people building and contributing to them are doing it for free. Granted, these folks might make a hefty profit on consulting services and other opportunities around the projects, they’re still opening up the code base for developers to modify and improve, as they see fit.
Open Source is the Internet’s best contribution yet. The free exchange of ideas encouraged by Open Source is the best thing that’s happened to the web, especially for web developers. Show of hands: Who hasn’t ever used open source software to build a site or project? I’m guessing none of us. That is plenty to be thankful for.
8. Creative Commons
On the heels of Open Source is Creative Commons licensing. You can modify, reuse and redistribute Creative Commons-licensed material, in exchange for (at the most) attribution. Ultimately, Creative Commons protects the original work, but allows people to modify and reuse at will.
Creative Commons is a very big benefit for designers and bloggers alike. The pictures seen in posts on this blog? Creative Commons licensed. There is absolutely nothing better for content producers than free media that can be reused and remixed.
9. Paypal
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Paypal and other payment gateways have made collecting payments a much friendlier task on the web. Sure, there are horror stories and bad experiences using their product, but Paypal has revolutionized the way money is exchanged on the Internet. They have an easy to use API, and if you’re wanting something even simpler, they offer a painless web interface to receive money from.
If Paypal has done you wrong in the past and you’re looking for a better alternative to send and receive money, you might check out a CNN article on five Paypal alternatives. Definitely worth the read.
10. Javascript Libraries
Javascript is always one of the most popular aspects of web development, and a big reason for that is the advent of Javascript libraries. Javascript libraries, (like frameworks), have eliminated the much of the need for custom Javascript programming. Aside from the fact that the core files in the Javascript libraries do a great many functions themselves, the ability to use custom plugins gives even more functionality to the library.
Not having to do custom Javascript programming for specific effects has given me a much greater respect for Javascript libs this holiday season. Here are some of the more popular Javascript libraries:
- jQuery
- Dojo
- Scriptaculous
- Prototype
- MooTools
- MochiKit
11. Amazon S3 and EC2
Amazon’s on demand services S3 and EC2 have developer’s lives a lot simpler. Not only do they not have to worry about traffic influxes and scaling headaches, they don’t have to spend buckets of cash on reserve servers. The pay-what-you-use business model to web hosting and file serving is a godsend for developers.
The launch of these “cloud” services has also spawn the change of many hosts to move to the pay-as-you-go model. Amazon’s innovation has helped spurn change for the betterment of web development.
12. Anti-RSI software
There is no friend like RSI-preventing software. RSI (or Repetitive Strain Injury) is typically in the form of carpal tunnel for web developers and typing zealots. Because the typical developer or designer spends at least 8 hours sitting in front of a computer screen all day, there is a likelyhood that RSI will creep into the wrists, hands, forearms, elbows, shoulders, back… and the list can go on and on.
Thanks goodness for RSI software that forces you to take breaks on a regular basis. Many times I’ll find myself fixated at the computer until I finish xyz, and consequently it’s over 50 minutes before I’ve gotten out of my chair away from the computer. With RSI software, you can have a reminder flash on your computer at set intervals that ensures you’re moving your limbs and warding off RSI. If you’re on a Mac, try AntiRSI, Windows and Linux users can try Workrave.
13. Advanced Text Editors
Advanced text editors have sped up the development time by adding a myriad of useful features that can benefit nearly anyone who writes in code, blogger to advanced programmer. Whether you prefer Textmate, Emacs, Vim or some other editor, text editors can save plenty of time on the development cycle.
14. CSS
CSS seems to be one of those technologies that is taken for granted. Can anyone remember what the pre-CSS days were like? It wasn’t pretty. Modifying a web layout’s design meant going through each page and changing each inline style. Ugh. Thanks to the wonderment that is CSS, we can make one change in a single file, and Poof!, it’s reflected across the entire site. Simple, clean, and much less involved.
There are times when I’m not that thankful for CSS (see: Internet Explorer), but for the most part it’s a technology that we’re much better off having.
15. Laptops
Laptops can completely change the effectiveness of a developer. Instead of being confined to the same room, chair, keyboard and monitor each day, the laptop allows for a much-needed change. While the screen real estate may not be as big as your office setup, it offers one thing the other can’t: Variety. Laptops enable you to work from anywhere.
Read More..
Here are 15 things that we all should be thankful for. These are the technologies that we couldn’t live without, or that have previously paved the way and allowed us to be web developers.
1. Mosaic
Graphic designers everywhere should reserve a day in November to give thanks to the software that’s enabled our careers. Without Mosaic’s picture support, the Internet doesn’t need good design. The 1993 launch of this web browsing software opened up a brand new world to web developers and web browsers alike.
2. Firefox
Firefox ended the long tyranny of IE oppression for experienced web users. The extension-enabled browser has forced IE to play catch up and improve their lukewarm browser, which hadn’t seen an update for 5 years.
Aside from pushing a standards-based browsing initiative, the ability to extend Firefox has made the developers life much easier. There are oodles of extensions that are nearly essential to the developer.
3. Browsershots.org
Every web developer knows the awful pain that is making designs constant across different browsers. Thanks to Browsershots, we can easily see a screenshot of any page across a multitude of different browsers, showing potential problems that might arise across different browsers, and giving new reason to invent curses for legacy IE versions.
4. Firebug
Thanks to Firefox, we now have a browser that is also an important tool for the web developer. Firebug is a must-have extension for the web developer. With this nifty little extension you can view just about any aspect of the web page, visible or behind the scenes, and modify it real-time. It’s incredibly useful for designers and programmers alike.
5. Google Code
If you’re trying to find a useful snippet of code, there’s no place better than Google Code. Not only is it a great place to search for entire libraries, you can find useful bits of code that might be hard to find otherwise. If you’re wanting to house a project, you’ll be especially thankful for G Code, as it’s a free and easy way to have a working community for a project without hosting costs.
Also, with Google Code you can use Google’s bandwidth for the javascript libraries included in your projects. Using jQuery? Just call Google’s hosted version and be on your way. No need to slow your own server down with Google’s gracious offer.
6. Frameworks
Frameworks have given developers a major reason to be thankful. Gone are the days of building websites around repetitive code. Using frameworks like Rails, Django or CakePHP on websites needing database interaction and user permissions takes a major burden off of the programmer. They can spend less time on common, tedious code and more on the interesting and unique. It’s a powerful paradigm shift in programming.
Here are some of the major frameworks used today, in no particular order.
- Ruby on Rails (Ruby)
- CakePHP (PHP)
- Django (Python)
- Zend (PHP)
- CodeIgnitor (PHP)
- Symfony (PHP)
7. Open Source projects
Mad props should be bestowed upon the Open Source Initiative and all the software it promotes. It is a fact that we wouldn’t have a) the Internet or b) much of the technology that it runs on without open source projects. Most of the biggest and best projects are open sourced software, and they all run on the basis that the people building and contributing to them are doing it for free. Granted, these folks might make a hefty profit on consulting services and other opportunities around the projects, they’re still opening up the code base for developers to modify and improve, as they see fit.
Open Source is the Internet’s best contribution yet. The free exchange of ideas encouraged by Open Source is the best thing that’s happened to the web, especially for web developers. Show of hands: Who hasn’t ever used open source software to build a site or project? I’m guessing none of us. That is plenty to be thankful for.
8. Creative Commons
On the heels of Open Source is Creative Commons licensing. You can modify, reuse and redistribute Creative Commons-licensed material, in exchange for (at the most) attribution. Ultimately, Creative Commons protects the original work, but allows people to modify and reuse at will.
Creative Commons is a very big benefit for designers and bloggers alike. The pictures seen in posts on this blog? Creative Commons licensed. There is absolutely nothing better for content producers than free media that can be reused and remixed.
9. Paypal
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Paypal and other payment gateways have made collecting payments a much friendlier task on the web. Sure, there are horror stories and bad experiences using their product, but Paypal has revolutionized the way money is exchanged on the Internet. They have an easy to use API, and if you’re wanting something even simpler, they offer a painless web interface to receive money from.
If Paypal has done you wrong in the past and you’re looking for a better alternative to send and receive money, you might check out a CNN article on five Paypal alternatives. Definitely worth the read.
10. Javascript Libraries
Javascript is always one of the most popular aspects of web development, and a big reason for that is the advent of Javascript libraries. Javascript libraries, (like frameworks), have eliminated the much of the need for custom Javascript programming. Aside from the fact that the core files in the Javascript libraries do a great many functions themselves, the ability to use custom plugins gives even more functionality to the library.
Not having to do custom Javascript programming for specific effects has given me a much greater respect for Javascript libs this holiday season. Here are some of the more popular Javascript libraries:
- jQuery
- Dojo
- Scriptaculous
- Prototype
- MooTools
- MochiKit
11. Amazon S3 and EC2
Amazon’s on demand services S3 and EC2 have developer’s lives a lot simpler. Not only do they not have to worry about traffic influxes and scaling headaches, they don’t have to spend buckets of cash on reserve servers. The pay-what-you-use business model to web hosting and file serving is a godsend for developers.
The launch of these “cloud” services has also spawn the change of many hosts to move to the pay-as-you-go model. Amazon’s innovation has helped spurn change for the betterment of web development.
12. Anti-RSI software
There is no friend like RSI-preventing software. RSI (or Repetitive Strain Injury) is typically in the form of carpal tunnel for web developers and typing zealots. Because the typical developer or designer spends at least 8 hours sitting in front of a computer screen all day, there is a likelyhood that RSI will creep into the wrists, hands, forearms, elbows, shoulders, back… and the list can go on and on.
Thanks goodness for RSI software that forces you to take breaks on a regular basis. Many times I’ll find myself fixated at the computer until I finish xyz, and consequently it’s over 50 minutes before I’ve gotten out of my chair away from the computer. With RSI software, you can have a reminder flash on your computer at set intervals that ensures you’re moving your limbs and warding off RSI. If you’re on a Mac, try AntiRSI, Windows and Linux users can try Workrave.
13. Advanced Text Editors
Advanced text editors have sped up the development time by adding a myriad of useful features that can benefit nearly anyone who writes in code, blogger to advanced programmer. Whether you prefer Textmate, Emacs, Vim or some other editor, text editors can save plenty of time on the development cycle.
14. CSS
CSS seems to be one of those technologies that is taken for granted. Can anyone remember what the pre-CSS days were like? It wasn’t pretty. Modifying a web layout’s design meant going through each page and changing each inline style. Ugh. Thanks to the wonderment that is CSS, we can make one change in a single file, and Poof!, it’s reflected across the entire site. Simple, clean, and much less involved.
There are times when I’m not that thankful for CSS (see: Internet Explorer), but for the most part it’s a technology that we’re much better off having.
15. Laptops
Laptops can completely change the effectiveness of a developer. Instead of being confined to the same room, chair, keyboard and monitor each day, the laptop allows for a much-needed change. While the screen real estate may not be as big as your office setup, it offers one thing the other can’t: Variety. Laptops enable you to work from anywhere.
Read More..
What’s the opposite of open source hacking?
To effectively teach Open Source, it’s necessary to move each student into the role of contributor. At first blush this appears straightforward, but it ultimately proves to be an enormous challenge because Open Source is as much a social movement as a technical one and because many Open Source practices are the exact opposite of traditional development practices.
I like this paragraph, but something struck me as not quite right about it. Open Source practices don’t really feel like the opposite of traditional development practices to me. What I think they’re the opposite of, actually, is homework.
If your programming experience is limited to homework assignments, working on a real-world software project is going to be overwhelming for you, whether it’s open source or proprietary—and for the same reasons. You’re used to writing small programs, individually, completely from scratch. The software companies I’ve worked for all had teams of developers working cooperatively on a large, existing codebase, with version control, complex build systems, not enough tests, bug trackers, thousands of known bugs, good code, bad code, and way too much of the stuff for any one person to understand.
Did I mention working cooperatively? Traditional software development really is supposed to be done that way, I promise. Well, maybe it depends on where you work.
Read More...
I like this paragraph, but something struck me as not quite right about it. Open Source practices don’t really feel like the opposite of traditional development practices to me. What I think they’re the opposite of, actually, is homework.
If your programming experience is limited to homework assignments, working on a real-world software project is going to be overwhelming for you, whether it’s open source or proprietary—and for the same reasons. You’re used to writing small programs, individually, completely from scratch. The software companies I’ve worked for all had teams of developers working cooperatively on a large, existing codebase, with version control, complex build systems, not enough tests, bug trackers, thousands of known bugs, good code, bad code, and way too much of the stuff for any one person to understand.
Did I mention working cooperatively? Traditional software development really is supposed to be done that way, I promise. Well, maybe it depends on where you work.
Read More...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Singularity: Microsoft's Open Source Operating System
The Singularity project was started in 2003 as a fundamental redesign of how operating systems work. From the ground up everything is based on the concepts of isolation and verifiability.
Processes are highly isolated from one-another. Communication is done strictly via type-safe channels, shared memory of any form is not allowed. Processes are "sealed", meaning they cannot dynamically load or generate code. This has the advantage of making virus injection virtually impossible, at the cost of not being able to use dynamic link libraries or meta-programming techniques.
Other than a small part of the kernel, the bulk of Singularity is written in the type-safe language Sing#. Instead of platform specific assembly languages, Singularity uses .NET's IL as the lowest common denominator. Singularity will not even try to load unmanaged applications.
The first 2.0 release includes the full source code tree and a bootable CD image. A Virtual PC file is also available in this release.
In an unusual move by Microsoft, Singularity is soliciting patches and offering full developer rights on CodePlex.
Read More..
Processes are highly isolated from one-another. Communication is done strictly via type-safe channels, shared memory of any form is not allowed. Processes are "sealed", meaning they cannot dynamically load or generate code. This has the advantage of making virus injection virtually impossible, at the cost of not being able to use dynamic link libraries or meta-programming techniques.
Other than a small part of the kernel, the bulk of Singularity is written in the type-safe language Sing#. Instead of platform specific assembly languages, Singularity uses .NET's IL as the lowest common denominator. Singularity will not even try to load unmanaged applications.
The first 2.0 release includes the full source code tree and a bootable CD image. A Virtual PC file is also available in this release.
In an unusual move by Microsoft, Singularity is soliciting patches and offering full developer rights on CodePlex.
Read More..
15 Firefox Tricks
15 Coolest Firefox Tricks Ever
Everybody’s favorite open-source browser, Firefox, is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, the browser just gets better and better.
But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.
1) More screen space. Make your icons small. Go to View - Toolbars - Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.
2) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box.
3) Keyboard shortcuts. This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common (and my personal favs):
* Spacebar (page down)
* Shift-Spacebar (page up)
* Ctrl+F (find)
* Alt-N (find next)
* Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
* Ctrl+T (new tab)
* Ctrl+K (go to search box)
* Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
* Ctrl+= (increase text size)
* Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-W (close tab)
* F5 (reload)
* Alt-Home (go to home page)
4) Auto-complete. This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there - like magic! For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.
5) Tab navigation. Instead of using the mouse to select different tabs that you have open, use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts:
* Ctrl+Tab (rotate forward among tabs)
* Ctrl+Shft+Tab (rotate to the previous tab)
* Ctrl+1-9 (choose a number to jump to a specific tab)
6) Mouse shortcuts. Sometimes you’re already using your mouse and it’s easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard. Master these cool ones:
* Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
* Shift-scroll down (previous page)
* Shift-scroll up (next page)
* Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
* Middle click on a tab (closes tab)
7) Delete items from address bar history. Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up (I won’t ask why). Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.
8) User chrome. If you really want to trick out your Firefox, you’ll want to create a UserChrome.css file and customize your browser. It’s a bit complicated to get into here, but check out this tutorial.
9) Create a user.js file. Another way to customize Firefox, creating a user.js file can really speed up your browsing. You’ll need to create a text file named user.js in your profile folder (see this to find out where the profile folder is) and see this example user.js file that you can modify. Created by techlifeweb.com, this example explains some of the things you can do in its comments.
10) about:config. The true power user’s tool, about.config isn’t something to mess with if you don’t know what a setting does. You can get to the main configuration screen by putting about:config in the browser’s address bar. See Mozillazine’s about:config tips and screenshots.
11) Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.
12) Speed up Firefox. If you have a broadband connection (and most of us do), you can use pipelining to speed up your page loads. This allows Firefox to load multiple things on a page at once, instead of one at a time (by default, it’s optimized for dialup connections). Here’s how:
* Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
* Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
* Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
13) Limit RAM usage. If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Again, go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.
14) Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized. This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.
15) Move or remove the close tab button. Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:
* 0: Display a close button on the active tab only
* 1:(Default) Display close buttons on all tabs
* 2:Don’t display any close buttons
* 3:Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)
Read More..
Everybody’s favorite open-source browser, Firefox, is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, the browser just gets better and better.
But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.
1) More screen space. Make your icons small. Go to View - Toolbars - Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.
2) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box.
3) Keyboard shortcuts. This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common (and my personal favs):
* Spacebar (page down)
* Shift-Spacebar (page up)
* Ctrl+F (find)
* Alt-N (find next)
* Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
* Ctrl+T (new tab)
* Ctrl+K (go to search box)
* Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
* Ctrl+= (increase text size)
* Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-W (close tab)
* F5 (reload)
* Alt-Home (go to home page)
4) Auto-complete. This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there - like magic! For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.
5) Tab navigation. Instead of using the mouse to select different tabs that you have open, use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts:
* Ctrl+Tab (rotate forward among tabs)
* Ctrl+Shft+Tab (rotate to the previous tab)
* Ctrl+1-9 (choose a number to jump to a specific tab)
6) Mouse shortcuts. Sometimes you’re already using your mouse and it’s easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard. Master these cool ones:
* Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
* Shift-scroll down (previous page)
* Shift-scroll up (next page)
* Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
* Middle click on a tab (closes tab)
7) Delete items from address bar history. Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up (I won’t ask why). Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.
8) User chrome. If you really want to trick out your Firefox, you’ll want to create a UserChrome.css file and customize your browser. It’s a bit complicated to get into here, but check out this tutorial.
9) Create a user.js file. Another way to customize Firefox, creating a user.js file can really speed up your browsing. You’ll need to create a text file named user.js in your profile folder (see this to find out where the profile folder is) and see this example user.js file that you can modify. Created by techlifeweb.com, this example explains some of the things you can do in its comments.
10) about:config. The true power user’s tool, about.config isn’t something to mess with if you don’t know what a setting does. You can get to the main configuration screen by putting about:config in the browser’s address bar. See Mozillazine’s about:config tips and screenshots.
11) Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.
12) Speed up Firefox. If you have a broadband connection (and most of us do), you can use pipelining to speed up your page loads. This allows Firefox to load multiple things on a page at once, instead of one at a time (by default, it’s optimized for dialup connections). Here’s how:
* Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
* Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
* Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
13) Limit RAM usage. If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Again, go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.
14) Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized. This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.
15) Move or remove the close tab button. Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:
* 0: Display a close button on the active tab only
* 1:(Default) Display close buttons on all tabs
* 2:Don’t display any close buttons
* 3:Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)
Read More..
Friday, November 14, 2008
Taking productivity lessons from open source
Even if your organization doesn’t produce software or work with open source development, you can still take some lessons from open source communities — in particular, how to get work done with fewer meetings and less real-time.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols covers some of the things that outsourcing companies can learn from open source, but this really applies to any organization — whether it has remote locations or not. But they’re particularly useful for organizations with a distributed workforce with non-English speakers. In particular:
* Don’t have a meeting when an email will do. Coordinating schedules is an often unnecessary headache when an email exchange would provide the same information.
* Any method with an “audit trail” is better than a phone call or face to face meeting for those who may need to catch up later. (It’s also far better for remembering who has what action items, and what has been decided.”
* As Vaughan-Nichols writes, “E-mail and Web communication make it far easier for a non-English speaker to read or translate e-mail and Web text than to understand several English speakers chatting on the phone.” (Frankly, this is also true when all of the participants are English speakers, too. Trying to understand five people on a conference call, with several huddled around a speaker-phone, is usually less than pleasant even if they are all speaking the same language…)
Read More..
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols covers some of the things that outsourcing companies can learn from open source, but this really applies to any organization — whether it has remote locations or not. But they’re particularly useful for organizations with a distributed workforce with non-English speakers. In particular:
* Don’t have a meeting when an email will do. Coordinating schedules is an often unnecessary headache when an email exchange would provide the same information.
* Any method with an “audit trail” is better than a phone call or face to face meeting for those who may need to catch up later. (It’s also far better for remembering who has what action items, and what has been decided.”
* As Vaughan-Nichols writes, “E-mail and Web communication make it far easier for a non-English speaker to read or translate e-mail and Web text than to understand several English speakers chatting on the phone.” (Frankly, this is also true when all of the participants are English speakers, too. Trying to understand five people on a conference call, with several huddled around a speaker-phone, is usually less than pleasant even if they are all speaking the same language…)
Read More..
Drupal CMS Customization and Development
Drupal is a free and open source modular framework and content management system (CMS) written in PHP. Drupal, like many modern CMSs, allows the system administrator to create and organize content, customize the presentation, automate administrative tasks, and manage site visitors and contributors.
If you want a blog, if you are looking for a professional website for your company then drupal is a good option for you.
Why Choose Perception System?
We have skilled and professional developers/programmers for drupal development work having more than 3 years of experience in PHP. Our developers have customized and integrated drupal on many corporate websites and due to its prominence most of the clients prefer drupal (CMS). We have a team of drupal designers to design drupal themes and free templates.
Read More..
If you want a blog, if you are looking for a professional website for your company then drupal is a good option for you.
Why Choose Perception System?
We have skilled and professional developers/programmers for drupal development work having more than 3 years of experience in PHP. Our developers have customized and integrated drupal on many corporate websites and due to its prominence most of the clients prefer drupal (CMS). We have a team of drupal designers to design drupal themes and free templates.
Read More..
Thursday, November 13, 2008
13 useful graphing solutions for web developers
Many a web application can be enhanced with a decent graph to show data. Unfortunately out of the programming languages / frameworks that we have available to us, none seem to be very forthcoming with decent graph components, and it is left up to third party solutions to provide the necessary. From my hunts around the web the following showcases some of the better options. I’ve tried to keep these limited to the open source / free options.
LibChart
Libchart is a simple PHP charting component, and it is totally free free free! The project is an ongoing one - with the last release in April 2008. If you are a PHP coder, you’ll love its simplicity.
Currently supports:
* Bar charts (horizontal or vertical).
* Line charts.
* Pie charts.
* Single or multiple data sets.
* Compatibility with PHP 5.
PlotKit
Primarily for Barcharts and Piecharts, plotkit uses some fancy Javascript, SVG and Canvas to do some wonderous things. Both these formats are gaining traction in the javascript community, and with implementations in major browser engines, we are deffo going to see more useful javascript drawing libraries cropping up over time.
FusionCharts Free
Fusioncharts offer some of the best animated flash charting components on the web, and luckily for us they also offer free components. Not only are they used commercial with clients such as Oracle, Microsoft and Dell amongst others, so you’d be in good company. FusionCharts Free can be distributed for free with your free or commercial softwares, irrespective of whether they’re open source or closed source. Hurray!
Read More..
LibChart
Libchart is a simple PHP charting component, and it is totally free free free! The project is an ongoing one - with the last release in April 2008. If you are a PHP coder, you’ll love its simplicity.
Currently supports:
* Bar charts (horizontal or vertical).
* Line charts.
* Pie charts.
* Single or multiple data sets.
* Compatibility with PHP 5.
PlotKit
Primarily for Barcharts and Piecharts, plotkit uses some fancy Javascript, SVG and Canvas to do some wonderous things. Both these formats are gaining traction in the javascript community, and with implementations in major browser engines, we are deffo going to see more useful javascript drawing libraries cropping up over time.
FusionCharts Free
Fusioncharts offer some of the best animated flash charting components on the web, and luckily for us they also offer free components. Not only are they used commercial with clients such as Oracle, Microsoft and Dell amongst others, so you’d be in good company. FusionCharts Free can be distributed for free with your free or commercial softwares, irrespective of whether they’re open source or closed source. Hurray!
Read More..
Monday, November 10, 2008
3 Great Apps to Help You Get Your Open Source Groove On
If the state of the economy has got you down and you're ready to stop throwing money at commercial software vendors, you might be overwhelmed at the amount of open source options that exist. Buck up, IT soldier, here are three applications that let you dip your toes in the pool without jumping in all the way.
Mindtouch - I've written before about this dead-simple way to implement a collaborative environment in the workplace. Sure, you can always fall back on sharing files via Google Docs or keep employes connected through an in-house blog, but I don't recommend putting together a piecemeal system and hoping everything works well together.
Mindtouch is the Swiss Army Knife of collaboration platforms: it neatly blends your email system, customer account databases, and other enterprise apps with Web services like search and social networking -- and it's all open source, which means it can be customized to your companies unique needs. If Mindtouch works for big businesses like e-commerce company Bill Me Later and Baxter Healthcare, it's worth finding out what it can do for you.
SugarCRM - There's no shortage of customer relationship management (CRM) software, but even the most robust proprietary vendor offering will have a hard time measuring up to the open source alternative from SugarCRM. It's amazingly customizable, and scales well for both small and large businesses. As DaniWeb's Edward Correia points out, there's even a plugin available to integrate SugarCRM with a Gmail account.
The Oregon Department of Human Services used to manage its community outreach and education communication with sticky notes. CIO Bill Crowell says once the decision was made to try SugarCRM, his tech team had it downloaded and deployed within 24 hours.
Read More..
Mindtouch - I've written before about this dead-simple way to implement a collaborative environment in the workplace. Sure, you can always fall back on sharing files via Google Docs or keep employes connected through an in-house blog, but I don't recommend putting together a piecemeal system and hoping everything works well together.
Mindtouch is the Swiss Army Knife of collaboration platforms: it neatly blends your email system, customer account databases, and other enterprise apps with Web services like search and social networking -- and it's all open source, which means it can be customized to your companies unique needs. If Mindtouch works for big businesses like e-commerce company Bill Me Later and Baxter Healthcare, it's worth finding out what it can do for you.
SugarCRM - There's no shortage of customer relationship management (CRM) software, but even the most robust proprietary vendor offering will have a hard time measuring up to the open source alternative from SugarCRM. It's amazingly customizable, and scales well for both small and large businesses. As DaniWeb's Edward Correia points out, there's even a plugin available to integrate SugarCRM with a Gmail account.
The Oregon Department of Human Services used to manage its community outreach and education communication with sticky notes. CIO Bill Crowell says once the decision was made to try SugarCRM, his tech team had it downloaded and deployed within 24 hours.
Read More..
Monday, November 3, 2008
Facts About Php Programming Language
PHP which is officially known as ‘Hypertext Preprocessor’ was released in the year 1995. Initially written as a set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) in ‘C’, PHP was originally designed to replace a set of Perl scripts to maintain his Personal Home Pages (also known as PHP). PHP was originally designed to create dynamic and more interactive web pages. It is the most widely-used, open-source and general-purpose scripting language. It is a server-side scripting language often written in a HTML context. PHP code in a script can query databases, create images, read and write files and talk to remote servers. The output from PHP code is combined with HTML in script and the result is sent to the user.
It is possible to use PHP in almost every operating system. PHP can be used in all major operating systems including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and RISC OS. PHP uses procedural programming or object oriented programming and also a mixture of them. PHP is used mainly in server-side scripting, command line interface and writing desktop applications. PHP also supports ODBC, the Open Database Connection standard which allows you to connect to other databases supporting this world standard. Server-side scripting is the most traditional one for PHP development. In order to use PHP for server-side scripting you need a PHP parser, a web server and a web browser. The PHP codes entered with the parser on a web server will be translated into a PHP page that can be viewed on your web browser.
PHP is a popular language because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding. It has more benefits such as the following - it can be used on all major operating systems and can be supported by most of the web servers. The latest version of PHP development is a very stable and grown-up language used for web programming like Java and Microsoft C#. Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on any platform, which makes PHP extremely flexible.
PHP has many features designed specifically for use in websites. PHP can be used to make your website secure by implementing mandatory sign in feature – asking the user or the administrator to enter a valid username and password. Adding such a feature is easy as PHP can display a HTML form and process the information that the user types in. This ‘sign in’ feature can be an excellent way of getting to know about your customer’s profile.
Read More..
It is possible to use PHP in almost every operating system. PHP can be used in all major operating systems including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and RISC OS. PHP uses procedural programming or object oriented programming and also a mixture of them. PHP is used mainly in server-side scripting, command line interface and writing desktop applications. PHP also supports ODBC, the Open Database Connection standard which allows you to connect to other databases supporting this world standard. Server-side scripting is the most traditional one for PHP development. In order to use PHP for server-side scripting you need a PHP parser, a web server and a web browser. The PHP codes entered with the parser on a web server will be translated into a PHP page that can be viewed on your web browser.
PHP is a popular language because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding. It has more benefits such as the following - it can be used on all major operating systems and can be supported by most of the web servers. The latest version of PHP development is a very stable and grown-up language used for web programming like Java and Microsoft C#. Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on any platform, which makes PHP extremely flexible.
PHP has many features designed specifically for use in websites. PHP can be used to make your website secure by implementing mandatory sign in feature – asking the user or the administrator to enter a valid username and password. Adding such a feature is easy as PHP can display a HTML form and process the information that the user types in. This ‘sign in’ feature can be an excellent way of getting to know about your customer’s profile.
Read More..
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Open source begins to beat brand in business
OPEN source software, which holds a central place with computer programming enthusiasts who oppose proprietary control over software code, has quietly been winning recognition in Australia's enterprise sector.
Surveys of Australian open source development companies indicate that the software, which is developed co-operatively under non-proprietary licensing schemes, supports an industry worth $500 million and is becoming better understood.
Marc Englaro, general manager of open source software company Fonality, said companies had developed a good grasp of the open source model.
Read More..
Surveys of Australian open source development companies indicate that the software, which is developed co-operatively under non-proprietary licensing schemes, supports an industry worth $500 million and is becoming better understood.
Marc Englaro, general manager of open source software company Fonality, said companies had developed a good grasp of the open source model.
Read More..
Friday, October 31, 2008
Open source begins to beat brand in business
OPEN source software, which holds a central place with computer programming enthusiasts who oppose proprietary control over software code, has quietly been winning recognition in Australia's enterprise sector.
Surveys of Australian open source development companies indicate that the software, which is developed co-operatively under non-proprietary licensing schemes, supports an industry worth $500 million and is becoming better understood.
Marc Englaro, general manager of open source software company Fonality, said companies had developed a good grasp of the open source model.
"Three years ago there would have been expectations that open source meant free, whereas now open source means more cost-effective but not necessarily free," he said.
Technology managers no longer were so anxious about using open source software in preference to proprietary systems, he said.
"The fundamentals of whether you're an established organisation with a track record apply whether you're open-source or not, but the fact that you use open source doesn't on its own carry a negative connotation," Mr Englaro said.
Earlier this year, open-source software consultancy Waugh Partners surveyed 129 companies ranging from multinationals to small enterprises and found that the group generated about $500 million from open source activity.
More than half that revenue was directly generated from working with open source software, Waugh Partners found.
It also found that open source software developers were likely to be more highly paid than their colleagues working with proprietary software.
Waugh Partners director Jeff Waugh said open source software was most strongly represented in financial institutions and government organisations, and companies that were naturally positioned close to advanced technology, including internet service providers.
"Finance companies have always been on the leading edge of technology.
Read More...
Surveys of Australian open source development companies indicate that the software, which is developed co-operatively under non-proprietary licensing schemes, supports an industry worth $500 million and is becoming better understood.
Marc Englaro, general manager of open source software company Fonality, said companies had developed a good grasp of the open source model.
"Three years ago there would have been expectations that open source meant free, whereas now open source means more cost-effective but not necessarily free," he said.
Technology managers no longer were so anxious about using open source software in preference to proprietary systems, he said.
"The fundamentals of whether you're an established organisation with a track record apply whether you're open-source or not, but the fact that you use open source doesn't on its own carry a negative connotation," Mr Englaro said.
Earlier this year, open-source software consultancy Waugh Partners surveyed 129 companies ranging from multinationals to small enterprises and found that the group generated about $500 million from open source activity.
More than half that revenue was directly generated from working with open source software, Waugh Partners found.
It also found that open source software developers were likely to be more highly paid than their colleagues working with proprietary software.
Waugh Partners director Jeff Waugh said open source software was most strongly represented in financial institutions and government organisations, and companies that were naturally positioned close to advanced technology, including internet service providers.
"Finance companies have always been on the leading edge of technology.
Read More...
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Sphinx: Open Source SQL Full Text Search Engine
Sphinx is a full-text search engine. It is a standalone search engine, meant to provide fast, size-efficient and relevant full-text search functions to other applications. Sphinx was specially designed to integrate well with SQL databases and scripting languages.
Currently built-in data source drivers support fetching data either via direct connection to MySQL, or PostgreSQL, or from a pipe in a custom XML format. Adding new drivers (eg. to natively support some other DBMSes) is designed to be as easy as possible. Read more...
Currently built-in data source drivers support fetching data either via direct connection to MySQL, or PostgreSQL, or from a pipe in a custom XML format. Adding new drivers (eg. to natively support some other DBMSes) is designed to be as easy as possible. Read more...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Setting up PHP in Windows using Abyss server
Reason behind installing another server to your system
Whichever platform you have been working with must using a server. For .NET developers, IIS eases all the pain. So, what is now if you must install PHP in your system side by side .NET. I suggest you not to install PHP in the same server the .NET is working in. So, install another server which will work with all burdens of PHP stuffs.
Why Abyss?
The reasons behind choosing this server is Abyss is free, easy to configure, very lightweight, and small to download at only 344KB. It also has a preconfigured PHP version for them with all official extensions. Reading Continue..
Whichever platform you have been working with must using a server. For .NET developers, IIS eases all the pain. So, what is now if you must install PHP in your system side by side .NET. I suggest you not to install PHP in the same server the .NET is working in. So, install another server which will work with all burdens of PHP stuffs.
Why Abyss?
The reasons behind choosing this server is Abyss is free, easy to configure, very lightweight, and small to download at only 344KB. It also has a preconfigured PHP version for them with all official extensions. Reading Continue..
Monday, October 13, 2008
Open Source: distro betas, new Mono and Python
Release season is in full swing in the desktop Linux ecosystem. The next major versions of Ubuntu and Fedora will be landing soon, but we got a head start this week by testing the latest betas. They both include version 2.6.27 of the Linux kernel, which ware leased this week, and GNOME 2.24, which was released last month.
Controversy erupted in the standards community this week when key members of Norway’s national standards body resigned in protest over procedural irregularities in the ISO approval process for Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) format. Read more...
Controversy erupted in the standards community this week when key members of Norway’s national standards body resigned in protest over procedural irregularities in the ISO approval process for Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) format. Read more...
PHP AJAX Framework & Libraries
To deliver powerful web application using PHP AJAX development framework for developing new generation Web 2.0 applications you can use PHP Frameworks. There are various PHP AJAX Frameworks available for use, few are FREE and some are with commercial license. You can choose any of them based on your requirements.
Read more in details..
Read more in details..
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Why Open Source is good for Academic Institutions?
Open Source with its promise of distributing source code and allowing anyone to modify it or derive other software from it, makes it an excellent choice for learning computer science, technology and engineering of software.
Academic institutions are given the responsibility of building strong expertise in all aspects of software engineering, be it operating systems, device drivers, database systems, application architecting and engineering, front end graphical user interface (GUI), complex algorithms, working internals of business applications or tools. Learning proprietary tools or technologies that doesn’t provide the software code and the freedom to modify or derive other software from it, limits the learning potential of academicians and students to fully understand the software, thereby seriously curtailing the creativity of the great minds and the learning process.
Read more..
Academic institutions are given the responsibility of building strong expertise in all aspects of software engineering, be it operating systems, device drivers, database systems, application architecting and engineering, front end graphical user interface (GUI), complex algorithms, working internals of business applications or tools. Learning proprietary tools or technologies that doesn’t provide the software code and the freedom to modify or derive other software from it, limits the learning potential of academicians and students to fully understand the software, thereby seriously curtailing the creativity of the great minds and the learning process.
Read more..
Open Source Web Development Companies
Web development is fast pace, growing industry and has picked up at very fast speed with time. Development of these web development industries, companies, firms is streamlined with growth and advancement in technology, there is simultaneous growth of the web development companies. Whether you are looking for a simple static, HTML based website or flash-driven website with sophisticated design these companies have all to offers you. Designers, programmers and other IT professionals are very well equipped with latest tools and technologies. Open source has provided a hassle free programming and debugging as a result detecting bugs and fixing them in real time is not a problem these days.
Reading continue..
Reading continue..
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Drupal: Open Source Content Management System
Drupal is a free/open source modular framework and content management system (CMS). It is written using PHP and uses MySQL. Like many modern CMSs, Drupal allows the system administrator to create and organize content, customize the presentation, automate administrative tasks, and manage site visitors and contributors.
Drupal is sometimes described as a “Content Management Framework” as its capabilities extend from content management to enabling a wide range of services and transactions. Although Drupal does offer a sophisticated programming interface, basic web site installation and administration can be accomplished with no programming.
Reading continue..
Drupal is sometimes described as a “Content Management Framework” as its capabilities extend from content management to enabling a wide range of services and transactions. Although Drupal does offer a sophisticated programming interface, basic web site installation and administration can be accomplished with no programming.
Reading continue..
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