Mental notes to myself

There is an article on PHP on CIO, bashing it a bit.

PHP may be the most popular Web scripting language in the world. But despite a large collection of nails, not every tool is a hammer. So when should it be used, and when would another dynamic programming language be a better choice? We identify its strengths and weaknesses.

For the ones, who doesn’t know about CIO, their target audience is managerial. not developers.
So potentially reader will be your manager and they’ll get this info as a reference.
I’m copy/pasting some parts of it for your convenience. Let’s assume your manager does not know about PHP (I hope not) and you’re about to convince him/her to use PHP on a project. What whould he/she think after reading this?

When should you use PHP?

• Creating an intranet site.
• Prototyping an application that will be converted to Java or some other language.
• Creating a Web database application.
• Deploying an inexpensive or quick solution.
• Using ready-made apps from Sourceforge.net or other sites.

In general you should not use PHP:

• Where data security is of high importance.
• In Shell or automated scripted applications.
• In enterprise applications where scalability takes higher precedence than economy.

What a short sight!?!? Kenneth Hess the author of the article, is also the new “On The Desktop” columnist for Linux Magazine. Honestly, I would not really expect these claims from Ken Hess.

Please share your comment.

Link: You Used PHP to Write WHAT?!

I was reviewing the formula 4C + V + P = Web 3.0

This is what I think:
Read more…

Interesting article on googles non-search products and how they’re expanding their business.

Some of Google’s non-search projects are really extensions of its search monetization, and are likely to succeed. But others projects mean entering areas where Google doesn’t have much experience, and is taking a risk. With regard to those riskier areas, the key question for Google’s future is whether it can realize that losing is really one of the best assets the company has.

Read more on:
mediapost

Silently Bell Sympatico updated their terms and service affective by the May 15,2006 but all the news papers and Slashdot figured it out now a days.
Paragraph 17 of the terms and conditions of Bell Sympatico Service, it says:

User Information; Other Information. Your messages may be the subject of unauthorized third party interception and review. An individual with Internet access can cause, among other things, damage, incur expenses and enter into contractual obligations while on the Internet. All such matters are your sole responsibility. Your Service Provider has no obligation to monitor the Service, any content or your use of Your Service Provider’s networks. However, you agree that Your Service Provider reserves the right from time to time to monitor the Service electronically, monitor or investigate content or your use of Your Service Provider’s networks, including without limitation bandwidth consumption, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations or other governmental request from any applicable jurisdiction, or as necessary to operate the Service or to protect itself or others.

That means they’ll tell you to the big brother if you download mp3s from your favorite bittorrent site.
Also by talking to friends I learned that all the ISPs in Canada doing the same thing already but Bell is the first ISP to announce it on their ToS.

I’ve found this interesting article on why the web2.0 applications fail (or will fail)

1. Focus on social instead of personal.
2. They solve too many problems, or try to.
3. They’re about making someone other than the user happy.
4. They sell it the wrong way.
5. Not in it for the long haul.
6. They show too much of what’s going on, and get gamed.
7. They don’t have an underlying business strategy of improving people’s lives.

nicely pointed out by Joshua Porter
Read more…

A Texas jury has awarded $133 million in damages to David Colvin, after finding Microsoft and Autodesk guilty of infringing upon Colvin’s two software patents for software antipiracy protection. Colvin’s company, z4 Technologies Inc., filed patents for ‘passwords and codes assigned to individual software copies to prevent unauthorized copies.’ Microsoft was ordered to pay $115 million, and Autodesk $18 million for infringement of the product-activation schemes. A spokesman from Microsoft contends that ‘Microsoft developed its own product-activation technologies well before z4 Technologies filed for its patent.’ Appeals are expected.

No comments

From slashdot:

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has once again scrapped the plan for a new internet “domain” .xxx for pornography. Supporters of the .xxx address suffix argued that it would have helped to protect children and others from accidental exposure to internet pornography, particularly if stronger filters were used to screen out explicit material from other internet domains. Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new “.xxx” domain for pornography on the internet. That drew international complaints that the US exercised too much power over the internet and added to a European-backed movement to shift control of the online medium to an international group

Well, I agree.

I wasn’t sure how Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) would help you career.
But think of this if you’re working at a Hich Tech job the list below is you advantage:

The Ability to Hyperfocus
Rapid Fire Mind
Multitasking at Will
High Energy Level
Highly Creative
Quick Learner
Stimulus Seeking Brain
Constantly Scanning your Environment
Great in a Crisis
Risk Taker

Here is the full article.
also 151 positive characteristics of people with Attention Deficit Disorder

Joshua Schachter from del.icio.us has really nice notes for the ones that are looking for it.

These are the things to look out for when building a large application on web. Most of them I agree, some of them I don’t. This list also should keep in mind that, real world problems are not that perfect. I marked the ones that I strongly agree with an asterix (*).
I also filtered out the things are specific to del.icio.us from the original text.

Read more…

It’s a really nice innovative idea from Siemens to launch the new game augmented reality (AR) football game on the mobile phone for the coming world cup. At last another use of cell phone cameras other than taking up skirt pictures.

Here is a nice screen cap of the game: