Posted by Fred Wu
Yii is an excellent PHP framework, but it lacks some helpers for performing common tasks.
Since I am so used to using Kohana helpers, hey, why don’t we bring these helpers into Yii? :)
Posted by Fred Wu
I have just updated SyntaxHighlighter Plus to v1.0b2. Please see the project page.
If you have been using v1.0b2 already, please re-download the package and overwrite the existing one, as Wordpress had mistakenly put the SVN version tag for v1.0b2.
Change log:
I will contribute to the Alex’s SyntaxHighlighter project for problems and bugs people have reported. Contributed code will then be merged back to SyntaxHighlighter Plus.
Posted by Fred Wu
It was over a year ago that I wrote the article that compares CodeIgniter and Kohana. Since then both CodeIgniter and Kohana have seen major progress with the release of CodeIgniter 1.7.0 and Kohana 2.3.
In December 2008, a new PHP framework called Yii has been released to the public with a stable 1.0. There were a lot of new PHP framework released in 2008, but Yii was one of the more recognised ones because:
Before I start this round of comparison, let me briefly list my experience with these frameworks, so you may interpret this article with your own judgement.
CodeIgniter: I started using CodeIgniter since its version 1.2.x from a few years ago. During the past few years I have worked on projects mainly using version 1.5.x and 1.6.x. I have now stopped using CodeIgniter in favour of using other PHP 5 only frameworks.
Kohana: I first started using Kohana when it was called BlueFlame back when it was first forked out of CodeIgniter. Since then I have lurked and participated in the Kohana community. All of my recent projects are done in Kohana.
Yii: The 1.0 release of Yii had my attention, but I didn’t really dive into it until about now. However, most of my impressions on Yii are based on its documentation and this article by Daniel.
Let’s see how they compare with each other.
Same notes as before: Grading scale: Limited < Fair < Good < Excellent. If a feature is not available in the distributed package, but is available via 3rd party libraries, I will state that in the comparison. If a feature is available both in the distributed package and via 3rd party libraries, only the official one will get assessed.
Posted by Fred Wu
A simple Google search suggests that people are having problems with jQuery.slideDown() on Internet Explorer.
I’ve come across two issues on Internet Explorer 7 while developing a website containing some slideDown() effects, and found some quick fixes for them. :)
Posted by scotti3g
In her article Why You Can’t Make Money Blogging, Sonia Simone argues that you can in fact make money from blogging. The article is a response to a recent New York Times article about Fake Steve Jobs and how he hasn’t made any decent money from his blog.
According to Sonia, the main reason he isn’t making any money despite huge traffic is because his blog solves no real problems (other than to waste time – ie. entertainment). I have to agree with her that entertainment sites, in general, don’t make as much money as more technical, problem-solving sites per visitor.
In the case of Fake Steve Jobs, it’s not just a case of the blog not solving a problem. I think it’s more a case of the ads being served don’t match what the audience wants.
If you land on a site like that, what relevance are the ads going to have? If you’re running Adsense, it might show an ad for some Apple products as soon as it sees the keywords “Steve Jobs” or an ad for Verizon on the “iPhone” keyword, but is a visitor at the site ready to purchase a new Macbook or are they just there to have a laugh?
Perhaps if the ads were related to comedy, or video or even at a stretch, other Apple news sites, they might do better? But the problem then is that the value of each click plummets because the advertiser doesn’t directly sell products/services.
On the flip-side, if you had a site that tells you how to upgrade your Macbook hard drive to a 500GB monster, with step-by-step instructions and video and then have an affiliate link or ad pointing to some great deals on hard drives, you could be pretty sure your audience is interested in what’s being advertised.
Posted by scotti3g
This Cell Phone Family Reunion is a good watch – mainly for the very very last scene – “that’s not what iPhone is made for” – hilarious! :)