A new open source project from FaceBook, HipHop for PHP, could bring big improvements for PHP developers.  From the description on Facebook’s Developers site HipHop for PHP will translate PHP code into C++, reducing cpu usage by as much at 50%.  And for a big site like FaceBook, written in PHP, this is a pretty significant improvement.  The ease of writing in PHP, with the performance benefits of C++ — sounds like a great combination.  There is nothing except an announcement so far, but expect more very soon.

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As much as I love Apple and freely admit they make great products, I also have concerns with Apple’s closed-system approach. While there are some valid points to Apple’s ‘let us do the driving’ philosophy, I think users are better served when technology platforms are open.  So how cool would a Google tablet be?  After all, if they want to beat Windows at its own game, what better strategy than ripping off an Apple idea?

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I have held my tongue as far as comments on Apple’s iPad — there is more than enough other chatter from other quarters.  But a recent article in the New York Times, The Media Equation – To Deliver, iPad Needs Content Providers on Board – NYTimes.com caught my eye in a comment on book publisher’s response to the platform: Read the rest of this entry »

Keep Your Graphic Designer on a Short Leash in this month’s Website Magazine suggests that elements such as wild background colors, garish text, visual embellishments (eye candy) and animation/video distract website visitors from important content.  In a case study of a redesign of the CREDO website they found an 84% improvement with a simplified design.  The case study used a new service called AttentionWizard.com which uses computer algorithms to approximate eye tracking studies of a web site.  The idea is these will reveal what point on the page the visitor’s eye should land on.  If it is what you want them to see — like a buy now button — bingo, you are doing well.  If their eyes don’t land anywhere, or on the wrong things it is time to make some adjustments.  I thought it would be fun to compare the Yale and Harvard main websites using the service.

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Yammer use took off in our workplace late last year, but since everyone has returned from the Christmas break interest seems to have dropped off somewhat.   Maybe something like TeamBox, with its richer toolset, might be more attractive.  Teambox organizes communication around projects.  Users are members of projects, and a project has communication divided into conversations, task lists, pages and files.  The concept seems to have similarities with Google Wave, but at first glance the user interface seems a lot more familiar.  And TeamBox is open source allowing installation on your own server — so you can own the data.  And can customize the app (built with Ruby on Rails).  Now I just need a project to test it with… Read the rest of this entry »

I recently read Jaron Lanier‘s new book You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto.  It was a gift, and while I hadn’t heard anything about the book, it looked promising.  Lanier is an early internet pioneer counting early work with virtual reality (and coining the term itself) among his accomplishments.  And the basic premise of the book — essentially a contrarian view of the current state of internet culture — is interesting.  A regular practice of challenging common assumptions and examining choices made along the way is healthy.  Unfortunately Mr. Lanier’s arguments are poorly supported, and often based on inconsequential or incorrect assumptions.  I’m not going to recap his whole argument here — check out the linked articles instead.  But here are a couple of points inspired by ideas exposed in the book: Read the rest of this entry »