Ruby on Rails differs from other technologies in the aspect that, while other enterprise technologies give more stress on configuration, RoR stresses convention, thus eliminating the need for lengthy configuration files based on XML. The base of RoR being Ruby gives it one more advantage, the advantage of working with a Very High Level Language. [...]
Ruby on Rails handles data manipulation with the Active Record, which provides an Object Relational Mapping framework. If these sound a little like foreign words to you, keep reading; you’ll find that the way RoR handles ORM is a little different, and perhaps easier, than you might see it handled with other languages. Data and [...]
Rich Internet Applications is the new buzz-phrase for Web 2.0, and a key component of the substance behind Web 2.0 is Adobe Flash. Learn how to integrate Flash movies into your application and generate Flash movies dynamically using the Ming library. Web 2.0 promises Rich Internet Applications. But what does Rich Internet Applications mean? In [...]
We programmers are a paradoxically lazy lot. By that, I mean that we will spend hours, even days, creating something that allows us to complete a task in 30 seconds instead of five minutes. So perhaps the creation of the Zend Framework isn’t much of a surprise. You mean you haven’t heard of the Zend [...]
This tutorial is a step by step introduction to creating a lightweight chat application using XML as a storage medium. As personal motivation, I develop PHP games as a hobby. In pursuit of that hobby I’ve found that offering a flat threadless forum in such games tends to result in heavy usage as players attempt [...]
This tutorial shows you how to make a ChatterBlock. ChatterBlocks are small windows where users can type in messages. They’re also called Shout Boxes or TagBoards and are kind of like miniature chat rooms. Chatter Form Let’s make the chatter form first. Open Notepad or your editor, cut and paste the following HTML code and [...]
Even with the dot com bust of the late 90s, the number of entrepreneurs who have successfully leveraged this powerful medium to sell products, services or information and become millionaires in the process is phenomenal. Setting up an Internet business is easy. Running it successfully is slightly more challenging. Which is why countless new Internet [...]
In this article I describe how to use PHP and MySQL to produce a simple counter that can be placed on a web page. PHP and MySQL work very well together, and this article shows, hopefully, how easy they are to use to produce a useful little utility. In order for the counter to work, [...]
Since its introduction in 1994 or thereabouts, the PHP language has grown to become the most popular scripting language in the world of server side scripting and now powers most of the web’s most visited sites. With this popularity came new concerns such as performance, maintainability, scalability, reliability and (most importantly) security.[Read More]
Can you convince visitors to give their undivided attention to your company logo and message for two full minutes? And then watch your commercial? And then give you their email addresses? Yes, you can! Mike shows you how to build a cool Flash Puzzle that entertains *and* communicates.[Read More]
