If you are not new to this blog then you will probably have noticed the new design, throughout the rest of the week we will be updating the rest of the site and creating an articles section.

I hope you like the new design, any thoughts?

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When I first heard the phrase Web 2.0, a spark of excitement when off and after some mild research I started to see the possibilities. There is a fairly hefty amount of confusion around what Web 2.0 really is, some think its about Ajax, some think its about separation of presentation from content (allowing for APIs and XML-based content access), some think its about look and feel and some just think its a new phrase that doesn’t mean squat.

In the broadest of sense of the phrase, Web 2.0 is services (RSS, XML, APIs), design (A new look), community (the spawn of the ’social’ series of sites), mashups (also known as folksonomy), it is basically getting away from all the boarders and boundaries of Web 1.0.

What was Web 1.0 you ask? well to put it simply, Web 1.0 was using the web to build things that were created in an old medium and bringing them into the new. For example a Magazine became the e-zine, the radio became streaming audio, catch my drift?

Now with a new generation of the ‘Web’ comes a handful of new things, like technologies, methodologies and techniques, Web 2.0 is no different. The odd thing about Web 2.0 is that a handful of these technologies, methodologies and techniques were around before the whole Web 2.0 craze started, however I still believe them to be part of the Web 2.0 movement.

There is quite a few things you may or may not have noticed that have started happening in the background with the whole swing into the Web 2.0 generation in terms of business. What I am talking about is the ‘Web 2.0 start-up’, using things like MVC Frameworks, API’s and access to larger web site’s services a small idea can quickly grow into a profit making company. Seeing sites like digg.com which started out with a simple concept to share your findings on the Internet with others has now grown into a fully fledged company.

I will in a later post supply a list of useful Web 2.0 Websites and concepts in more detail.

Enjoy.

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Over on A List Apart writer Kevin Cornell recently wrote some good guidelines for being able to keep yourself motivated so that you can keep yourself at your best and be on the top of your game. Cornell split these up into two sections, one to follow when getting started and the second to use once your in swing.

When starting out, setting out your goals (more importantly, achievable goals), making your environment comfortable, finding your creative cycle (and manage tasks effectively using it), using the tools that you are best suited to and of course, paying attention your progress.

In the second section Cornell talks about ‘Maintenance’ in terms of staying on track and motivated using a handful of different techniques. 

There are some really good idea’s discussed in this article and I think that it can be applied to a lot of different jobs, not just design. It is well worth the read if you want to know more information then click here for the article

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Earlier today I was browsing through Adobe Lab’s website to catch up with whats been going on there, and one of the main headlines in the development side of things is the transformation of Apollo into AIR, and although it looks good, it just looks like Java because you will need a virtual enviroment to run the application but the twist is that you have the ability to leverage current skills in HTML, ActionScript, Flash and more. The other piece of interesting information is that of Flex 3 beta. Adobe is taking on some concepts of the open-source market in that they are going to release earlier beta versions to have the community help with bugs and influence the development of Flex 3.

The interesting fact about Flex is that it works with the Flash plugin as its operating base, now this may sound just like another language named after a coffee but the great thing about flash is that it is becoming more and more prevelent on the internet, with huge sites like Youtube and DailyMotion using flash based players, it requires that they have flash installed. Another interesting thing about flash was that it was design for developers, not designers. So forget everything you thought about having to be artistic to use the functionality and flexibility of flash.

There is one problem I have with flash and that is that it is not SEO friendly at all, this is acceptable if you are developing a application to be used inhouse but if you want to create an online service you would need to create a handful of seperate content pages to make sure that the search engines find whats on your site. I guess a possible fix to that could be developing your site with Flex, XML/RSS and a sitemap (possibily having multiple entrance points into an application).

I just touched on the surface of these technologies, for more information check out the links below

Flex Development Center - Flex quick start guide for PHP Developers

Flex.org - Rich Internet Applications

Adobe Labs - Flex

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Google Health, codename “Weaver” is planned as a new health information storage program provided by Google.

Adam Bosworth (Google’s Vice President of Engineering) lobbies for the program for quite a while now. Adam has said that the current US health care system is challenged when it comes to “supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations … [people] need the medical information that is out there and available to be organized and made accessible to all … Health information should be easier to access and organize, especially in ways that make it as simple as possible to find the information that is most relevant to a specific patient’s needs.” Bosworth also adds that making this information accessible happens to be along Google’s mission.

Click here for screenshots and more information. 

This adds to the already wide selection of services from Google including:

• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Google Adwords
• Blogger
• Google Analytics
• iGoogle - Personalised homepage
• Gmail
• Google Groups
• Picasa
• Google Notebook
• Google Trends
• Google Code
• Google APIs
• Google 3D Warehouse
• And many many more

Keep it up Google.

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Here is my list of what I consider some of the best PHP packages in the wild.

• phpBB - Forum software - www.phpbb.org
• adodb lite - Simple database abstraction layer - www.adodblite.sourceforge.net
• PHPProjekt - A really good project management system - www.phprojekt.com
• Flyspray - A great bug tracker, simple and easy to implement - www.flyspray.org
• phpBMS - A comprehensive Business Management System - www.phpbms.org
• Wordpress - A simple yet complete blog software package - www.wordpress.org
• phpDoc - A package to help with documenting your code - http://phpdoc.org/
• jsPHP - A one of the best ways implement Ajax for a PHP Developer - http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/2677.html
• CMSMadeSimple - One of the best CMSs out there - www.cmsmadesimple.org
• CakePHP - An A-Class Rapid Application Development package with a strong community - www.cakephp.org

To try out some of these packages check out http://opensourcecms.com, they have demo setups of heaps of CMSs, Forum software, E-Commerce and much more.

If you think I have left any out then feel free to let me know….

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Here is a result of some recent messing around in photoshop

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Recently I decided to tidy up my design skills and started to flick through my collection of bookmarked websites that I have come across over the years. One that really stood out was webdesignfromscratch.com, back when I added this site to my bookmarks they had some really great ideas and concepts on all things web design and when I returned over 8 months later I was really pleased with their updates.

The part that I am mainly talking about is the article on Web 2.0 Design how-to, this goes over all of the trends and and methods used to give a website that web 2.0 look. If you are serious about your web design or want to update your current site, then I would thoroughly recommend checking it out.

If you want some idea’s on what great sites look like then check out Design Meltdown.

I hundreds of links tagged with web design but those are the two that stick out the most as the best resources when you plan to start on your web designing….

Enjoy.

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I will just give you a little run down on my latest project.

Its called Webmaster Link Sales (www.webmasterlinksales.com) and is a way to provide webmasters with a way of monitizing their websites with ease and without the commission costs that the larger networks charge.

How will it work?

Well there is two main parts to it, buying and selling. Firstly buying, if you need to get some advertising or backlinks, then browsing through the listings to find what you are looking for at a good price and make contact. Once your Ad (text or image) is approved it will appear on the site instantly by using a snippet of PHP code that the seller places on their website.

Secondly selling, if you need to sell some space because you would like to make more money from your website then creating a listing for some space on your website is a great choice. You can provide either text space or image space and have it run for a time limit or for an impression limit. The beauty of this is that you can set the PHP code snippet that we provide to display your Google Adsense (or other programs) while your listing isn’t sold or when the time/impression limit runs out.

With selling there is a lot of options. You can run an auction and set the reserve to the current value of Google Adsense (or other programs) so that you only get a better offer. Your Google Adsense (or other programs) will display until your auction is won. You can also just list it for a set price for either a text or image ad.

It will streamline advertising on your website. If you auto approve the buyer’s text or image then once you setup the listing and PHP code snippet your job is done. It will automatically start displaying the buyer’s Ad for the duration of time or impressions then it will go back to either your Google Adsense (or other programs) or display a link to purchase the Ad space on Webmaster Link Sales.

Currently I have setup the base of the system and am working on getting it ready by the launch day. I will give you some more updates when I have them.

Enjoy.

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