PanNotes

Christopher’s

2008-10-06T15:53:03+00:00

Christopher’s is buzzing again, if I’m to judge by the numbers on a Friday night. A friend, Kyle Lewis, suggested it’s probably that people have begun to recover from the several Ponzi schemes that have claimed numerous victims here in recent months. Another friend, Colin Steele, believes that coming out to one of Kingston’s premier bars is probably part of the recovery.

I suspect though, that people want a sense of community to help them understand what the hell is going on in the world’s financial markets. They are fearful of the likely impact in Jamaica where remittances and visitor stopover determines what action there is in our economy.

Christopher’s is ideal for feeling the pulse of corporate Jamaica. On tab there last Friday night were credit cards from several top companies. Amid the networking and ogling, however, there were heated conversations about what the US meltdown means.

There is deep concern for Jamaica’s economy if things in the United States and elsewhere get funkier. A depression north of us will bite hard.

Many businessmen already see a tightening in this market. Receivables have begun to lag, and there is extreme caution in planning new projects.

Those of us who earn a living in marketing, advertising and web development are particularly sensitive to these signs. Our not so mission critical services are usually the first items on the expenditure chopping block.

Stamping out corruption in customs

2008-07-02T13:46:05+00:00

Danville WalkerDanville Walker knows how to make a headline. The Commissioner of Customs gave businessmen some food for thought this week when he spoke at the PSOJ’s Job Creation Awards Ceremony. He made it clear that his major mandate is to root out corruption in customs.

Forsaking all diplomatic language, he told his audience of mostly CEOs: “If you have been involved in things you shouldn’t be involved with, stop!” He promised those who don’t heed the warning: “I am going to catch you and I am going to embarrass you. We will throw the book at you.”

No one doubts his sincerity. He has already proven himself to be a tireless public servant and showed quickly in his first month on the job that customs will no longer be a centre of corruption. How he arrived at this ethical and moral juncture having started as a baker when he returned from his studies abroad may be the subject of someone’s UWI thesis.

Tender Requirements

2008-07-02T13:12:36+00:00

Writing proposals for web development is often tedious because few of the RFPs are clear and detailed. In such an imperfect market it means getting creative in our responses is the only solution.

Recently, however, it’s become more tedious than usual because more than a few of the requests for proposals might be called false alarms. These seemingly prospective clients aren’t really interested in what Panmedia has to offer. They are sending us an RFP simply to fulfill procurement requirements. These tender requirements are Jamaica’s worst blow to business productivity.

In a way, we don’t mind if someone asks us a favor in that kind of situation. Knowing the purpose of the exercise saves us time and our expectations are nil. But most of those people with such needs are usually in no mood for honesty.

To protect our valuable time and avoid rancor we now interview prospective clients with a rigor that elicits righteous indignation when their motives are not pure. When they object too strenuously to our questioning then we know to take a pass.

We are moving...

2008-05-02T14:48:38+00:00

As of today Panmedia will no longer be located at the TIC building on The UTech campus. We are relocating to 10 Argyle Road, Kingston 10.

An official post will be made on our main website once the move is completed. We don’t have a new number as yet but that information will be included in the announcement.

Wish there were some pictures to show of the demolition but our main camera is not working and no one else thought it pertinent to bring one :(.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have cables to disconnect and servers to shutdown.

Increase in attacks on financial institutions?

2007-08-31T14:56:07+00:00

According to the Gleaner the First Global website was hacked sometime yesterday. Also, according to a release by NCB (originally heard on the radio but the advisory can be found here) their customers have been receiving phishing emails that links to a replica of NCB’s website. The email asks NCB customers to enter/change their personal information.

Now, hacking and phishing are nothing new. They have been very prevalent in other countries. But I’m wondering if these two attacks are the start of a trend. Jamaican financial institutions have certainly had websites for years now. Why the increase of attacks now (if this wasn’t just a fluke)? Is it that we are more visible or just more vulnerable?

I certainly hope that First Global wasn’t keeping users personal information on their website and that this will lead to better security considerations by our financial websites. There is not much you can do against phishing, some of the biggest on-line companies have the same problem. Paypal comes to mind. The response NCB gave was the correct one I think. Notifying their customers as soon as possible of the threat. Let’s hope no one lost their life savings because of this fraudulent behaviour :)

I would love to hear more about these two stories and I wish them the best of luck in dealing with their individual situations.

Note: I never really understood how people got caught by phishing attempts. It’s a little bit like those Nigerian emails - never understood those either.

Enjoying the storm

2007-08-22T17:03:42+00:00

Things seem to be getting back to normal even as the loud sounds of generators add to the clatter of chain saws and hammers. Power and water are still problems for many, but I’m assuming that traffic in some areas of the corporate area means people are getting back to business. JPS is busy clearing its many downed power poles and the NWC is moving quickly to restore water to everyone.

Both phone companies say they did well in the storm. The only problem still is that mobile phone owners who still don’t have electricity now have to find outlets wherever they can. Someone is sure to start a business from this need.

The two main dailies screamed at the government for imposing a state of emergency. But just as Portia’s move may have been seen by some as over the top, so too were the editorials. With a week likely added for the election, we can expect blame and shame from all quarters.

I have a different take on Dean and his sideswipe of Jamaica. We looked at the storm from the comfort of my living room because the shape of the patio allowed us protection from the wind and pelting rain. At times it seemed surreal watching trees bend to breaking as the wind howled. At other times it was just a good day to stay inside and enjoy those things we have little time for these days.

Eating dinner outside the night after Dean was perhaps the best moment of all. I looked up at one point and almost dropped my glass of wine. There in all its splendour was the wonder of the universe as it was probably intended to be viewed by human eyes. Without the glare of urban lights, the stars were glorious in their brilliance. I realized then what beauty really is.

Zend Framework 1.0 released

2007-07-03T02:39:06+00:00

Zend, the primary company behind PHP, has just released version 1.0 of the web framework they have been developing for the last 20 months.

Frameworks speed up the development process by providing programmers with a flexible, easy-to-use library of components that solve the majority of the problems that they are likely to encounter. This then frees you up to focus on issues that are unique to your project.

The last few years have seen a explosion in the web framework scene with Rails headlining the list for Ruby developers and Django gaining popularity with many Python programmers. PHP on the other hand hasn’t had any clear winners. CakePHP is definitely popular and Code Igniter has received good reviews, but many people (myslef including) have been anticipating the arrival of the Zend Framework as the PHP Framwework.

ZF sports most of the usual features of today’s frameworks:

MVC Architecture
Easy-to-use Database Wrapper/Mapper
Caching, I18N, Validation, Filtering, Feeds, Web Services
Built and tested by an active open source community

ZF also has a couple features that differentiate it:

PHP5 based
Includes a Lucene compatible search engine component
Thorough, well written documentation
Extensive test-suite, with high code coverage and rigorous testing requirements
Solid community and commercial backing (including contributions form IBM and Google)

All this makes for a very reliable, high-quality project that both individual programmers and large enterprises will feel comfortable working with.

Nevertheless there are a few missing pieces that Zend needs to address in the not so distant future. Some of these are outlined on their roadmap page:

Better Forms and AJAX support
Digital Identity Management (OpenID and CardSpace)
Developer Tools Command-line and IDE

A few things that they don’t mention on the roadmap page but have discussed extensively in the forums are:

Short, clear tutorial style examples. The documentation is thorough, but it sure ain’t fun to read. They need more examples like this to get people hooked.
Example code and best practices
Built in support for handling more advanced templating: two-step views, partitals, inheritance, etc

All in all I am happy to see that 1.0 has finally arrived. I am going to try to carve out some time to re-implement a small PHP app I did in the past using ZF. Should be fun.

WYSIWYG or Not

2007-05-25T11:51:52+00:00

When delivering a CMS to a client a WYSIWYG editor can sometimes be the Achilles’ heel of the complete product. These editors were created as a means of allowing users to easily create HTML without actually knowing HTML. While the intent is great they usually produce more problems than solutions. I actually agree with most of the sentiments in Why NOT to install TinyMCE.

We do need to provide an easy way for users to update and create content on their website but the current breed of editors are not the solution. So what is? My thought on the matter has always been that users need to know at least a little bit about the system they are using. The CMS is not a word processor. It’s a different paradigm and that needs to be communicated to the users.

A partial solution may be, as suggested in the post linked above, using less buttons on the editor. Ideally these should include “bold”, “italic”, “underline”, “link” and some means of inserting an image. Image insertion comes with its own issues, which I won’t get into right now. My suggestion is the use of more lightweight markup languages such as Markdown and Textile. These use special markers that when interpreted generate correct HTML but the inputted text is still readable by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about HTML. My personal favorite is Markdown. In fact this post is written in Markdown and the comment form on this site accepts Markdown.

People still like to see buttons that remind them of their word processor, so for the time being I am watching WYMeditor. WYMEditor takes a different approach, according to the website:

WYMeditor’s main concept is to leave details of the document’s visual layout, and to concentrate on its structure and meaning, while trying to give the user as much comfort as possible (at least as WYSIWYG editors).

WYMeditor is written as a JQuery plugin. JQuery is a javascript library that is included in Drupal as of version 5 and happens to be my library of choice :)

There is seemingly another option cropping up. Control.TextArea provides a bridge between the WYSIWYG editors and the plain text options by providing buttons that generate the markup for you. It is not a WYSIWYG editor though.

The good news is; people do realize current solutions are not ideal and are working on better solutions. For the time being though we are stuck with editors such as TinyMCE and FCKEditor.

Dot Soon Com

2007-04-24T19:13:52+00:00

First World Technology in Third World Hands

As a tiny dotcom in a part of the world that sits on America’s doorsteps geographically but technologically is far removed, our experience giving clients an interface with the Internet is both rewarding and frustrating.

If nothing else, the engagement reveals that as much as they want access to this new media world, they refuse to leave behind old notions and processes, and their legacy systems. Critically, they have little desire to understand the implications for their business. The result is a strange mix of old and new thinking where ideologies clash and culture, corporate and general, is remixed.

For many, it’s their first venture into an unknown un-explicable world. They come kicking and screaming, and arrive with untold anxieties that seep into our development process, and our profit.

Bringing Corporate Jamaica into a networked universe is as much an educational challenge as it is a technological one. Sometimes we have to introduce them to email, PDF, JPEG and MPEG files. What we encounter trying to equip clients with the functionality that today’s business needs and helping them to define their online presence borders on science fiction.

Even before our discovery phase we now present a document that outlines the nature of the work and what a web site development proposal will contain so that we aren’t carried wide before someone discovers they wanted an egg fried and not an entire restaurant.

Our work begins with simple explanations of what the Internet is and how a web site works and ends with appeals for updating and keeping material current. In between, we encourage people to drop dial up, to give Internet access to their managers, and to buy decent hardware and software.

We must try to keep client sites alive with ideas and content. We even have to explain conceptually how and why information gets stale. We also have to teach them how to let their web sites become a feedback loop to help inform their new products. We always have to explain how best to build communities of common interests.

Panmedia once took to the relevant government ministry an island wide backup plan to ensure essential services could still get on the web if Jamaica’s main access point was broken, as was the case in Hurricane Ivan. We were greeted warmly, but heard not another thing about it.

The upside is that Jamaicans’ use of technology offers the world an approach that is bold and enlightening. Cell phone penetration is closer to European levels. Eighty Three percent of Jamaicans own cell phones versus 53 percent in Trinidad, a much richer country.

Curiously, the rate at which Jamaicans replace technologies is astounding.Those who utilize modern technology often possess the best even when they don’t need them or the infrastructure is not in place to make use of the features. For example, we have had web enabled cell/mobile phones since their inception but none of our telecom providers built the infrastructure to make those features available to consumers.

Many here have ambitious notions of what meager resources can do online. We have been approached to build a Jamaican eBay and something close to Amazon. Some months ago, a client asked that we build him a replica of the Bloomberg site.

Looking at what happens in the developing world as people try to capitalize on new technologies even with limited knowledge of how such things work is perhaps part of our reward working in this space. But it can be terribly frustrating at times.

Zend Core 2.0 Released. Zend Accelerator silently removed.

2007-03-09T22:59:12+00:00

On Tuesday Zend released the final version of Zend Core 2.0. Zend Core is a fast and easy way to install a stable combination of PHP, MySQL and Apache on Windows, Linux or OS X. See my previous post for more details. Overall this release is good news, however there is one big change in the final package that nobody seems to be talking about.

Zend has silently removed one of the key components that it had offered in beta versions of ther product, the Zend Accelerator, an opcode cache which can boost performance by up to 300%. From the looks of it, this was a hasty, last-minute decision.

During the beta the overview page used this professionally designed diagram to illustrate then Zend Core architecture:

Original Zend Core Diagram

However now the website shows this simple diagram that looks like it was done by an intern using MS Paint. Note the absence of the Accelerator block.

New Zend Core Diagram One can only guess what kind of internal turmoil could have caused this last minute policy shift.

The skeptics amongst us might wonder if it had anything to do with the newly appointed CEO who joined the company after the beta release. There is a obvious (albeit short-sighted) concern that releasing the accelerator component would cannibalize a part of their Zend Platform market.

Others might wonder if it has anything to do with the recent barrage of fixes that went into APC the popular open source opcode cache that is slated for inclusion in PHP 6. Has Zend finally woken up and realized that they should get behind APC right away? If so, why isn’t it included along with the other certified extensions.

Time may tell what really happened; ~~for now I am going with a Zend Core + APC combo. APC’s recent inclusion in the Windows installer for PHP 5.2.1 alleviates some of my previous concerns about its stability on windows.~~

Update: It looks like the Zend Optimizer (used by Zend Core to run encrypted/obfuscated PHP files) has some inherent conflicts with APC. This makes the removal of the Zend Accelerator from Zend Core 2.0 even more unacceptable…now it seems the only options are to not use an opcode cache or buy Zend Platform…bad move Zend.

Firebug: The kind of bug you learn to love

2007-01-25T17:54:09+00:00

Firebug 1.0 was released today. Firebug takes the process of debugging HTML/CSS/Javascript to a whole new level. I could try my best to extol its virtues, but their website would still do a better job.

If you are web developer and you have never heard of Firebug, you need to stop what you are doing and get it now. Run, don’t walk.

An interesting footnote to this new announcement is that Firebug’s creator almost decided to start charging for the product in order to bring on a full time developer. In the end he decided to keep it open source and continue to fund development from donations.

I think there is a lot of room for innovation in “business models” for individually developed open source projects. For Firebug specifically I think any of the following could have been explored:

A donations drive before the 1.0 release. Preview the features, set a target amount and provide a graph to show how close the community is to achieving the goal. If you don’t hit the mark before the release date, only provide the 1.0 code to the people have donated. Once you reach the target, release it to the general public. This could be repeated for all major releases.
Corporate Sponsorship. A product like Firebug could probably garner sponsorship from the likes of Google, Yahoo!, Amazon or The Mozilla Corporation.
On-demand merchandise. With the advent of stores like Cafepress and Lulu.com it is fairly easy for anyone to sell branded t-shirts, mugs, or books (printed documentation) without any start-up costs.

It will be interesting to see how these open source “business models” mature over time. They will make it easier a talented individual developer from Jamaica to develop an interesting product, have it used by thousands of people worldwide and get paid all at the same time.

Panmedia has made a donation to support continued development. If you use and enjoy this product you should consider donating too, even if it is just $5 or $10. Firebug will probably save you more money in a single day than the dollar figure of your donation.

P.S. For debugging in IE you should check out the IE Web Developer Toolbar it is not up to par with Firebug’s features, but it is still very useful. Hopefully Microsoft will feel inspired to make it even better by the time it reaches 1.0.

Zend Core 2.0 (The Future of PHP part II)

2007-01-19T23:05:52+00:00

On Tuesday Zend launched a beta of Zend Core 2.0, a brand new and extremely important addition to the Zend Core line up. Unlike its predecessors, Zend Core 2.0 is not designed for a specific database or hardware platform, it is a stable, certified, and (optionally) supported PHP Application Server bundle provided by Zend. It looks like they won’t be releasing a Zend Core for Windows or Zend Core for MySQL but instead will deliver a single, cross-platform product that includes the improvements from the collaboration with Microsoft. In addition to that, they are including a whole lot more…

Things you were already getting:

Certified Release (open source and proprietary components have been QA’d together).
User-friendly Installer.
GUI Console (includes interfaces for monitoring, configuring, benchmarking the server).
Bundled proprietary database drivers (IBM and Oracle).
One free web based support ticket.
The option for standard support (web based tickets, hotfixes and knowledgebase) or premium phone support.

New things:

Bundled MySQL 5.0 Server and Drivers.
It is bundled in relatively loose way; the server is automatically downloaded by the Zend installer, it then launches MySQL’s standard installer (of course this is an optional component).
Bundled Apache 2.2
It would be perfect if they offered basic support for Apache with their Zend Network package - updates, trouble shooting, simple web based config. This would greatly simplyfy the process of keeping your server secure and up to date.
Improved performance and reliability on windows. 200%-300% boost plus support for IIS and Vista.
PHPMyAdmin.
Becomes part of the Zend Admin GUI.
Zend Enabler (FastCGI).
A proprietary FastCGI module for Apache on windows. This one deserves special mention. I have spent several days trying to setup a stable, production quality PHP installation on Windows for a client and it is a very difficult task. Running PHP under a threaded web server (IIS using ISAPI or Apache2 using the PHP module) is strongly discouraged by the PHP group. FastCGI is recommended instead. mod_fcgid provides FastCGI support for Apache2 and there is even a windows binary available. However I have had questionable results using this module with PHP 5.2 (I was able to reproducibly crash the server) and the author offers no support or certification of testing. I had high hopes of Apache releasing their own FastCGI module (which would result in a greater amount of QA on windows) but that still hasn’t happened yet. Microsoft is developing their own FastCGI module for IIS in collaboration with Zend.
~~Zend Accelerator~~ Removed from final release!
A PHP bytecode caching and acceleration component (200%-300% performance boost). A opcode cache is way overdue for PHP; I was glad when I heard that APC would be included by default in PHP 6. I think that Zend should have open-sourced their cache from long ago for this very reason. They risk having their implementation sidelined by an good open source one. Well PHP6 might not be out for a while so in the meantime this is a very welcomed addition. I was also looking for an opcode cache to use with PHP on windows. There is an auto-compiled version of APC for windows available but I have seen some issues and I wasn’t able to get any response from the PECL mailing list about its production readiness .
Zend Optimizer
Wider distribution of Zend Optimizer will provide more opportunities for PHP developers to sell compiled PHP applications without source code using the licensing scheme of their choosing. It will also provide Zend the opportunity to sell more copies of Zend Guard.
Zend Debugger
This server-side debugging component will complement the new Eclipse based IDE/Debugger. It can also be used by Zend’s proprietary Studio product. I am curious how they plan to modify their studio offering over time to target it at a more enterprise-ish crowd.
Zend Framework
Widespread distribution of the Zend Framework is good news for everybody. Quality components and patterns that will influence the creation of quality code. This also makes it easier for developers to write application that depend on the framework.

Things you have to pay for (Zend Network/Support)

Incremental hot-fix updates (you don’t have to do a complete re-install)
Web based support tickets
Access to knowledgebase and bug-tracking system

Things you will (probably) get in the future

The new Eclipse based IDE/Debugger will probably be bundled.
The enhanced MySQL driver

Baseless conjecture that probably won’t happen

It would be interesting to see Zend Core supporting multiple languages using the virtual machine approach that Microsoft’s CLR and Sun’s JVM each use (see IronPython, JRuby, Jython and Groovy). It would be really interesting if they used Parrot for the VM (of course Parrot/Perl 6 would have finally to be released for that to happen).

Big picture

With the upcoming releases of Zend Core 2.0 and Zend Platform 3.0, Zend has provided a smooth path for choosing the package that fits you best and easily transitioning between them. Functionality like the Accelerator and the FastCGI component have moved downstream into the free Zend Core offering, while Platform 3.0 has taken on more enterprise features like Active Monitoring, Java integration, High Availability, Job Queues and SNMP Traps. We now have the following options.

PHP from php.net - targeted at Unix/Linux/BSD distributions and people who like/want/need to roll-their-own (e.g. mass hosting companies).
Zend Core - targeted at developers, production windows users, and other production users who have their own servers.
Zend Core + Zend Network - targeted at small and medium sized businesses that want updates and support.
Zend Platform - targeted at enterprises and business whose web presence is mission-critical.

It will be very interesting to see how Zend promotes and fine tunes each of these products over the next few years to respond to the demand of the market. So far their basic strategy looks pretty solid to me.

Ok I’ve babbled on for long enough. I really need to learn to write shorter blog posts.

Postscript

For those who want to try it out, here are a few installation tips

The installer will download and launch the MySQL installer but it doesn’t install it anywhere special or do anything interesting, so if you already have a MySQL database running, don’t bother selecting that option.

If you choose to install the bundled Apache 2.2, it will be installed in the Zend folder and configured to run on the port of your choosing, however if you already had another apache 2 installation (albeit in a different directory) and it is installed as a service, the Zend installer (at least the beta version) uninstalls the service entry for your existing apache installation. You can remedy this by going to you original apache install location and re-installing the service with a specific name:. This has been fixed in the final version.

cd C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\bin

httpd.exe -k install -n "Apache2Original"

Apparently certain desktop firewalls and antivirus programs conflict with Apache2 on windows causing it to eat up all your CPU, continuously fill your error log with messages and just generally not work. This can be remedied by adding “Win32DisableAcceptEx” to your httpd.conf file. I had run into this problem before with my antivirus software so I knew exactly how to fix it.

The Future of PHP

2007-01-02T21:46:08+00:00

Last Friday there was a rather spirited discussion at the office between Kaiton (a Ruby aficionado and ex-Panmedia employee currently at Microsoft), Nesta (a python aficionado who is forced to use PHP) and myself, (an un-biased PHP user who is forced to defend it ;-). The topic of course was PHP, its woes, its past, its present and its future.

According to Kaiton, PHP will be marginalised in 2008 by more literate programming languages like Ruby, Python and even Erlang. His view is that as the web becomes more important to business, backend programmers will start to get involved in the front end and web programming will be dominated by more experienced programmers who care more about the language they code with. According to Nesta, Drupal is the only good thing that ever came out of PHP. I think that 2007 will be the year of PHP.

By the end of the ~~argument~~ discussion, things were kinda starting to go around in circles so I decided to try and articulate my ideas in written format so that they could be dated, critiqued and openly ridiculed, and so that a year or two from now I can come back read the crazy things I was thinking way back in 2007. It will also serve as an official record in case Kaiton wants to put his money where his mouth is ;-)

Before I present my argument, let me get a few things straight.

There are definitely some dislikeable things about PHP. The language design (or lack thereof) is far from perfect. PHP’s roots and a laissez-faire approach to adding new features early on have scarred the language with inconsistent naming conventions and function behaviour. A late start in the object oriented game meant that it took them a little while to get that feature right. Its popularity has been its Achilles heel and prevented the developers from making radical sweeping changes to normalize the language.

On the flip side there are a few unfair assertions that people tend to make against PHP. I often hear people say “you can’t build large apps in PHP, it just gets messy!”. While there is a lot of bad PHP code out there, that doesn’t mean you can’t write clean code. The PHP language does not enforce a lot rules to prevent you from coding sloppily; whether or not a language should police coders is a separate matter of debate. The fact remains however that PHP provides you with everything you need to code your applications according to tried and true Object Oriented Design Patterns. Whether or not you choose to do so is up to you.

Just so it is clear, I am not saying that PHP deserves to prosper, I am not saying that I personally want it to prosper, I am simply saying that it will prosper. Here is why:

PHP is popular. This has a couple ramifications.

PHP 4 is available by default in just about any web-hosting plan you come across. And PHP 5 availability is rising steadily.
It has been widely and heavily tested against a multitude of different environments and configurations (Hardware, OS, Database, 3rd party software, etc).
You are much more likely to have somebody in-house who knows at lease some PHP than any Ruby or Python, and it is also much easier to hire a PHP developer.

PHP 5 is “good enough”.

Regardless of what you want to say about PHP’s language design (or complete lack thereof) as it currently stands at version 5.2:

It has sufficient object oriented features for coding according to enterprise patterns.
It has deprecated the magic functions (register globals, magic quotes, etc) that have been the source of many security issues in the past an scheduled them for complete removal in PHP 6.
The Internet’s most trafficked site is built using PHP. They are heavily invested its success and are one of the major driving forces behind the PHP 6’s upcoming Unicode support. They have a presentation online explaining their rationale for choosing PHP.

This meets my definition of good enough. Far from perfect, not necessarily the best, but good enough for web work of all sizes.

The PHP Collaboration Project makes PHP better.

The Zend Framework leads by example to help solve the sloppy PHP coder epidemic and give developers a solid basis for rapid application development.
The Zend Developer Zone plays in important role by engaging the community and providing example code.
However, to me, the most important part of the Collaboration project is the new Eclipse based IDE/Debugger. A well designed, fully integrated free and open source graphical coding/debugging solution for PHP will a major step forward for web application development. One year from now many of use will scratch our heads in amazement at the primitive methods we used to employ for debugging complex web apps. The difference will be as huge as the jump from debugging JavaScript using alert messages to using Firebug 1.0 (more on that in a later blog post).

Zend knows how to compete

From a developer point of view the entire PHP Collaboration Project is an attempt to compete with ASP.NET. The combination of a Developer Zone, an IDE and a Framework are straight out of the Microsoft playbook. They are even working with Microsoft to compete in the arena where Microsoft typically dominates… distribution to the windows desktop. Zend Core for Windows will be a simple download and install and I wouldn’t put it past them to bundle the framework in as well.

On the Framework level the Zend Framework competes with Ruby on Rails, Django and ASP.Net. It covers all the typical bases MVC, ORM, Caching, JSON, etc.

On the language level PHP 5’s object-oriented improvements and PHP 6’s upcoming Unicode support give the language some more “enterprise” features, but I don’t think Zend is actually trying to compete with Java. Zend and Sun’s collaborated on JSR-223 (Scripting for the Java Platform) which will allow scripting languages like PHP to access Java objects in the recently released Java 6 JRE. When you combine this with the Java language support in Zend Studio 5.5 it indicates to me that Zend wants to co-exist rather than compete with Java.

Zend is making inroads into the corporate world

Separate and apart from working with IBM, Intel, EBay and Amazon on the collaboration project, Zend has established partnerships with the major proprietary Database vendors and created a special set of PHP distributions just for them called Zend Core; this now includes Zend Core for Oracle, and Zend Core for IBM . Not only do these types of partnerships make companies feel more comfortable using PHP with the proprietary databases they have built their business on but they also offer a number of other benefits:

Improved drivers. By working directly with the database vendors, Zend has already made numerous improvements to the PHP extensions for Oracle and DB2.
Simplified distribution and setup for those who need to use proprietary drivers (since they aren’t distributed with the standard php.net download).
GUI based management. Each Zend Core distribution comes with a web based interface for viewing the server status and managing the PHP configuration. Zend Core also comes with an updater that allows you to easily apply and rollback PHP updates.
Zend Core provides a nice smooth on ramp to support. You can download the basic system for free and then choose your level of support later on. Support for PHP may not seem necessary to most developers but it is nice to have the option in case the company you are working for wants it.

Not to be left behind, rumour has it that early this year we will see a Zend Core for MySQL as well as a brand new MySQL driver developed specifically for PHP that provides added performance and reliability. When you consider this along with MySQL’s upcoming Falcon storage engine and their extremely useful GUI tools, 2007 may be the year of MySQL as well.

The train has left the station

I have a python book here on my desk that is number 2 or 3 in my reading queue right now, I would really like to learn Ruby (but don’t see it happening anytime soon). I have no doubt that I will find both these languages more pleasant to code with than PHP, but my personal tastes have little to do with what I think will happen in 2007/2008. The PHP train is a rollin’ and my learning or loving another language ain’t gonna stop it.

What do you think? Will 2007/2008 see PHP rise or fall?

NFL Times Ja

2006-11-24T22:17:43+00:00

Following the launch of our blog just over a week ago we launched NFL Times Ja. this week. The blog was requested by Panmedia’s own Peter Lindo who is an avid fan of the game.

Their about page states:

NFL Times Ja. is the communication space used by a group of football fanatics resident in Jamaica…

Not being an American football fan myself I probable won’t be participating much but you can pay them a visit and get in on the madness. Maybe they will even let you in on their weekly wagers :).

Cheers!

The Electronic Transaction Act and e-commerce in Jamaica

2006-11-23T22:19:11+00:00

The long overdue electronic transactions bill that passed last week has sparked new interest in the online opportunities available to local businesses. Though short on solutions for the real problems hindering e-commerce in Jamaica, the bill at least gives legal recognition to electronic commerce here and raises awareness with the general public.

This legislation has been “coming soon” since as far back as 2001. According to this overview, the majority of the act deals with providing legal recognition for the electronic equivalents of many of the paper based processes that we deal with today (e.g. ). It goes into great detail about personal electronic signatures and transmitting documents electronically.

While those issues are certainly relevant to the ministry’s vision of e-government, they have little impact on what most people think of when they think about internet transactions: buying things online. You have to skip all the way down to clause 26 of 39 before you find anything related to e-commerce.

The passing of the bill is definitely a step in the right direction, and while most Jamaicans may not understand the actual implications of the entire act I am sure that many people who hear the news reports will feel a little more comfortable with the idea of conducting business online. When this is combined with the revolutions happening in the wireless and broadband internet markets, it seems like a pretty good indicator that we making progress towards becoming networked society, however there are still a few hurdles that need to be overcome before we can get there.

For one, more people need computers. I thought Cable and Wireless was on to something when the launched Max but that doesn’t seem to have taken off. If I had to make a guess I would blame this failure on the improper marketing/distribution of the product and C&W’s over-inflated broadband prices. Maybe Flow can do better, they certainly have done better in terms of speeds and pricing. The fact that they also provide cable service could lead the way to having a computer in every home that has a cable box. If the government’s new e-learning project decides to equip children with $100 laptops from the One Laptop Per Child project that would also significantly boost the number of households with internet access. It seems like the IADB formalized and agreement with the OLPC project recently, so who knows.

The second thing that needs to be addressed is the credit card issue, or better yet, the lack thereof. The vast majority of Jamaicans simply do not have credit cards. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating a system where people spend beyond their means and become laden with debt, especially with the interest rates on credit cards in Ja. However the fact of the matter is that in today’s world, the credit card is easiest way to purchase goods online. There are a number of other virtual payment systems out there like PayPal, but even those tend to be backed by credit cards and bank accounts. Until a solution is found for the virtual payment problem in the Jamaican context, e-commerce levels will remain low.