Internet

Here is a list of web application frameworks that are written in PHP.  Some of those were inspired by Ruby On Rails, or seek to imitate it. Others are frameworks with varying goals. All are PHP based.

• CakePHP has been covered before on this web site.
• And so is PHPOnTrax.

One of the known shortcomings of the popular site Slashdot.org is the frequent duplicate stories.A recent story I posted on research on how visitors judge a web site in 50 milliseconds later made it to Slashdot.What is funny, and sad, is that the story was posted on the 16th, then on the 17th, and on the 20th.

This is both good and bad news to web site developers and theme designers.Many of us have read the phrase: "First impressions are the most lasting" on fortune cookies in Chinese restaurants, or heard it elsewhere. While it seems unfair to judge a book by its cover in a second or two, research shows that humans mentally rate web site by their looks in less than half a second, and often less than that.

In an earlier article, I wrote about Search Engine Optimization, and how some people abuse it. I listed some instances of Ad Spamming by eBay there.

Here are some more interesting or surprising tidbits on Google advertising, specially on the newly introduced Gmail webclips.

Google Ads In Arabic

Google does not support Arabic as a language for Adsense. This did not stop a few adventurous souls to do their ads in Arabic regardless. The first time I saw a Google Adsense Ad with Arabic in it was a few months ago, on CreativeBits.org. It was for an internet hosting company in Bahrain. Since Ivan Raszl, Creative Bits owner, lives in Bahrain it was no wonder that this ad showed up on his site.

Here are some examples of online collaboration experiments that are interesting. Some are fun to watch, and all are interesting to study, not from a technology point of view, but rather from how few people use/abuse the privilege behind the anonymity the internet provides. First, visit the The Scratchpad, which is a Flash application. People draw on the same whiteboard simultaneously. The whiteboard clears itself every 2 minutes, and the whole thing starts over.

PHP is a free, multi platform computer programming language. It is most used to develop dynamic web sites that are more than static HTML pages. The language is very easy to learn and use, and has an extensive list of add ons that allow it to do all kinds of stuff, from storing data in databases, pulling data from other web sites, sending emails, and more.

PHP is often used with MySQL, which is a free SQL Relational database.

As I wrote in another article, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Spamming are two different things, yet technologically very close.

I had my own brush with Search Engine spammers on two different occasions.

Although Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a cottage industry with many companies claiming they can help your site acheive top rank, it still means different things for different people.

For some it means just how to make your site get better ranking in search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and others. For others, it means how to do so by shortcuts, tricks, ethically questionable methods, and other less savoury means.

Basics of Search Engine Optimization

First, we should start by seeing what Google, the current leading search engine, has to say about the topic. They clearly state what is acceptable and what is not. They also have a facts and myths page.

Google Maps is another technological innovation by Google. Sites with maps have been around for a long time, including Yahoo Maps and MapQuest, and others.

The interface to Google Maps is very clean and simple, yet very functional. You double click to center, you slide the bar to zoom in or out, and you can drag the map.

You can search on an address or a business, and get driving directions.

Recently, Google added Satellite Images to the maps as well. They also expanded to UK and British Isles.

A new approach that is gaining in popularity among web developers is using XmlHttpRequest with Javascript.

This is not a new approach since XmlHttpRequest has been around for some time. What is new is that (a) it is being widely used by Google, and (b) a new name was coined for it recently.