Recently in Web Development Category

We often keep hearing about some PHP integration at some level or the other in all the major open source IDEs. But frankly, none of them seemed much useful to me. I somehow never liked PDT from Eclipse (and for some reason I don't like Eclipse at all :S). Now the latest milestone release of Netbeans has a cool addition: PHP Integration that really kicks! Just to mention a few highlights: great intellisense for both the builtin library functions as well as our own, full support for class browsing and intellisense for object oriented PHP as well, integrated debugger, live error checking and much much more. Do check out if you are a PHP developer! You might no longer need the expensive Zend studio to have a smooooth PHP development experience.

Below is a screen shot with some of the candies demonstrated, click to enlarge:

netbeans_php.jpg

I was traveling through the web and found this. It is a really good collection of free (GPL'ed) icons. I think you must have a look if you are a serious or a hobbyist designer.
Whenever I read Rasmus Lerdorf, I feel amazingly blessed for that particular time of the day. This man is a true gentleman. I would assume you'd be pretty amazed when I call a geek a gentleman but he truly is. Lerdorf's writings are so very different and better from all the other "php experts" in terms of pleasure that one avails when reading.

I, for one, had lately become a language purist complaining why PHP doesn't have a much more organized structure for some of the things. And in this article, Rusmus seems to have read my mind. He answers those questions beautifully and emphasizes that PHP was never meant to be the Goddes of beautiful code structure, it was just a mistress that solved the Web problem.

Here is an extract from article that would make the point clear:
"What it all boils down to is that PHP was never meant to win any beauty contests. It wasn't designed to introduce any new revolutionary programming paradigms. It was designed to solve a single problem: the Web problem. That problem can get quite ugly, and sometimes you need an ugly tool to solve your ugly problem. Although a pretty tool may, in fact, be able to solve the problem as well, chances are that an ugly PHP solution can be implemented much quicker and with many fewer resources. That generally sums up PHP's stubborn function-over-form approach throughout the years."
Here is the link to the article:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/php_experts/rasmus_php.html

The interesting thing to note is that he answered this very question of mine about the lack of formalized structure to some of the things in PHP quite a while ago (somewhere in 2004 to be precise). A genius isn't a genius for no reason and mashaAllah Rasmus is definitely one of them. Looking at the amount of stuff he has written, it seems to me that he is not much of a talker, which reminds me of the line I once read in the beautiful PHP Manual: Those who talk don't know and those who know don't talk!

Oh. I know, the world is short of good people, but please, I'm not one of those who lose hope easily. So if you are one of those who happen to:

- be smart enough

- know how to code

- have an eye for design and have basic 2d image manipulation skills (knowledge of vector stuff is a big +)

- pretty relaxed with html

- somewhat relaxed with css and javascript

- preferebly relaxed with any server technology such as php or asp.net


In a nutshell, relaxed enough to do real world web work.

Find yourself in? cool! read on:

What you get? a nice friend (me), freedom to ignore the previous point, exciting cool projects (web 2.0 mostly and then some boring ones), handsome amount of money if that matters and yeah, many opportunities to relax (read learn) with time.

So, send me your stuff, your work, or.. URLs.. or anything that shows you're good at my email address (found in the 'About Me' page).

The better you are, the better the chances to get the coolest projects with great bounties.

My brother Tariq (whose beginning to become a serious web design guru) has made his own site. Wish you all the best bro! I like.. no.. i LOVE the introduction at your site! And he had a play list on his site where I saw this James Blunt song titled 'Tears and Rain'. I kinda liked it a lot!

How I wish I could surrender my soul;
Shed the clothes that become my skin;
See the liar that burns within my needing.
How I wish I'd chosen darkness from cold.
How I wish I had screamed out loud,
Instead I've found no meaning.

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain,
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray.
I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble.
It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

How I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind;
Hold memory close at hand,
Help me understand the years.
How I wish I could choose between Heaven and Hell.
How I wish I would save my soul.
I'm so cold from fear.

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain,
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray.
I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble.
Far, far away; find comfort in pain.
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

DigitalEyez Experience

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Old memories brought back when I visited FAST NU Karachi Campus today. The memories were incidently of FAST NU's Lahore Campus, which is built (almost) exactly like the one in Karachi. It was DigitalEyez - the event people of creative flare were looking forward to. I went in quite late, and I saw a welcoming group of people over there. I was with my friend Sarfaraz and we were treated like special guests which was surprising. BTW this 'special' is not the one you may end up thinking about. Faisal Abidi, who was the participant and guest relations executive showed us around. I'm almsot certain he took us as if we are from press or CIA, or he was damn too generous in helping us have a nice experience. Anyways, the good thing was, we were happy! We settled into the auditorium for the short movies, and some of them were really well made, and different. I liked how the audience enjoyed.

Since we were late, we only discovered the web design competition lab with judges trying to figure out what design to choose as the winner.

Afterwards Sarfoo had to have his camera looked after by the Sony service centre people, so we left just before the prize distribution ceremony over there.

I feel bad that I was not able to participate in the web design competition, but anyways, it must be better, that is why God disabled me from taking part in the competition.

I noticed that Procom is coming, so I'll have to try and find time to sharpen my algorithm skills, just in case I decide to dive into Procom. Strangely enough, this time its Procom.net instead of Procom, and that .net is for what? I don't know. That's not a domain name or anything, its just a name. I know Microsoft has .net but looking at what Procom offers, I am still confused what that additional ".net" is doing in there now.

Anyways, cheerz!

Happy Times :)

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Except for one thing: Youtube is not opening up :( and I am tired of watching all those previously downloaded videos. I'm not sure what's happening.

Other than that, I am having so much fun these days! We had an ammmazing story back in the old pavillion! Awrite, I'm into code words here so I better shut up :)

Its so much like as if the whole world is going through a while loop and I am an argument to some interesting function being called in that loop!

Internet TV is a cool thing. I am almost sure about the fact that one day, the TV sets at our homes will be useless as on demand iTV (yepp) will overtake the usual format for the current style the TV works. The computers will become much more convenient that housewives will begin to watch their favorite soaps on demand and that means no late chaye and dinner for ghar walas! :) Or daddy will be ready all the time to take the kids to the park as his favorite sports show can always be played back again later! If you're confused about what the heck I'm talking about, don't be, these ideas are based on something I am in touch with these days :P

Anyways, please please pray for my YouTube to be back soon!

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