I think that every developer has sat around scratching their head on this one before.  How do you recoup your hours of hard work and code crunching once your app is out of beta and ready for the world?  This article I ran across on Vitamin takes a look at this and offers up some suggestions.  Granted, it's harder these days to put a price on a piece of software when the world is used to free, free, free...  thanks Google.

Link to Vitamin Features » How to price your web application

The Eclipse Foundation has released the 1.0 of the Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT) project. Eclipse PDT is a set of tools and frameworks that enhance the productivity of developers using PHP, a popular, general-purpose dynamic language that is especially suited for development of web applications and web services. This is the first Eclipse project that targets the large PHP developer community.

Link to PDT Project

 Redirect 301 / http://www.greersferryrealestatecenter.com/

This is a cool tutorial with sample code that demonstrates how you can make search engine friendly URLs from Dynamically Generated Content. 

Link to Search engine friendly URLs with mod_rewrite

It looks like Trulia has made their powerful Real Estate Tool available as an API to the development community.  If you don't know about Trulia already and are actively involved in developing Real Estate Solutions you should probably visit their website, www.trulia.com, and research out their tool.  In my opinion this is probably one of the most thought out web 2.0 real estate tools out there, just don't really know yet how to harness it really.  I keep thinking on it and meaning to contact Rick, my main man when it comes to Real Estate Development to discuss this and keep forgetting, so hopefully blogging this out will remind me to do so. 

Link to Trulia Blog » Trulia API now open to the world!

This is a pretty good article I found on The Whir that discusses methods and ways that you can cut down on Commented Spam.  We have seen this trend growing over the past few months on everything from Photo Galleries to E-Commerce Sites and it's a nuisance that has to be addressed in my opinion.  Most of these, as the article goes on to say have to do w/ offshore drug scams for pharmaceuticals, etc.  Also, pornography links show up here quite a bit.  Alot of off the shelf scripts are enabled by default to allow for comments or product reviews, etc., and as of late I think that everyone on our team has been turning these off.  This is a good read just wanted to pass it along.

If you have a forum or blog on your Web site you may have noticed that some of the messages left in the comment area may not necessarily be relevant to the discussion and instead be promoting such Internet staples as Viagra and Prozac or nude pictures of celebrities. If you can relate, you've probably been hit with comment spam.

Source: Find Web Hosts | Stopping Comment Spam

someone forwarded me this and it's really good info, just wish i had a source to credit for it but figured it was worthy of passing along...

If you think blogs are just for teens chatting about the latest pop princess meltdown, you could be missing out on more leads and better client relationships, according to Rich Brooks of flyte new media. Here's a digest of how he identified these blogging myths:

1. My customers don't read blogs - This is heard most often by business owners who don't completely understand what a blog is. Your customers might not subscribe to any blogs, or read one daily. But since blogs often rank high on search engines, if your customers use the Internet, you can capture their attention with a blog.
2. Blogging is for teenagers - While teens certainly took to blogging quicker than businesses, these days companies of all sizes and shapes have realized the benefits of a business blog. You wouldn't dismiss the telephone as a communication device just because your teenager spends hours each night on it, would you?

3. Blogging is just a fad - Didn't some say that about the Internet back in 1997? While much of the hype about blogs is just that, blogs are a powerful, easy-to-use communication tool, and communicating with customers and prospects will never go out of style.

4. Blogging takes up too much time - As business owners we have limited time in the day to market our services; blogging provides great return on that investment. It helps establish your expertise, generates loads of search engine leads, and delivers your message through three distribution channels each time you write.

5. Blogs allow people to leave negative comments - The fact is consumers can vent their frustration most anywhere on the Web. It's better to take on those comments where you have "home court" advantage. People are looking for transparency and authenticity from companies; the way your blog addresses negative feedback can actually help you win over new converts.
Brooks adds that blogging has proven to be an effective marketing tool for a wide range of businesses. "You can start a blog on your own through a (paid hosted) service like TypePad or by installing a blogging platform ... on your own server." In fact, all eNom hosting plans include your choice of free blogging platforms like WordPress, Simple PHP Blog, b2Evolution, geeklog and others.

Not a design whiz? Brooks advises hiring a professional Web design firm to develop and promote your blog and get you up to speed quickly. You can similarly engage a freelance copywriter to speak in "your" voice if writing doesn't come easily to you.

Want to start a blog but don't know where to begin? A great read is 21 Surefire Tips For a Successful Blog Launch

These JavaScript code-generating tools make creating useful JavaScript code a snap. Ranging from the Doc's bookmarklet's tool, to rollovers, and menus (popup and hierarchical), these tools can help you enhance your site in a jiffy.

Bookmarklets Perhaps the best kept secret in JavaScript, bookmarklets are one-line scripts attached to links that are easy to create and fun to use. Create your own bookmarklets with our new interactive tool. By Tomer Shiran.

 

Browser Sniffer Try out our new browser sniffer, that reports useful info about your browser, and key object and methods supported, essential from creating cross-browser gracefully degradable scripts. Includes tutorials on working with various JavaScript objects/functions. By Andrew King.

 

Dialog Boxes This tool automatically creates the code you need to add custom cross-browser dialog boxes (alert, confirm, prompt, and our own IEBox) to your site for that polished professional look. For Windows users only. By Peter Belesis.

 

News Fader Add a customizable news fader to your site with our newest Web-based tool. Compatible with News Harvester, this cool tool lets you configure your own fader interactively, and automatially spits out the code, just cut and paste! Available for all DHTML browsers and platforms. By Peter Belesis.

 

Pop-up Menu Builder Enter your options and this tool automatically creates cross-browser live pop-up menus. By Dr. Yehuda Shiran.

 

Remotes Automatically generate the code you need to launch a popup window or remote using JavaScript. This in-page tool lets you tweak the various window variables to your heart's delight to get it just right and can load any URL into the remote. By Tomer Shiran.

 

Rollover Builder Instant JavaScript Rollovers - just add water! The Doc's new cool tool lets you build custom link rollovers the easy way for Netscape 6.X and IE 4.X+. Pick your parameters, and the tool creates the code. Cut, paste and roll away! By Tomer and Yehuda Shiran.

 

Search Remotes Put an end to old fashion Web searching with the Doc's new search remote builder. Wherever you're surfing just select some text, click a button, and presto you're searching the Web with your favorite search engines. By Dr. Yehuda Shiran.

 

Universal Related Popup Menus Upgrade today to the latest version of our related popup menus: change one "parent" menu and all submenus are redefined. A complete rewrite, version 2 features unlimited submenus and multiple menus per page. And of course, it's open source, so keep those ideas coming. By Andy King.

 

Window Builder Tool Is he a doctor or a mechanic? Sometimes it's hard to tell - when he's not dishing up scripting prescriptions, he's building new tools. Spawn new browser windows the JavaScript way, with the Doc's new WindowBuilder tool. By Dr. Yehuda Shiran.

Pleth recently added ColdFusion 8 as a managed hosting option for our clients.  Since this is a new technology for us we have brought in a veteran ColdFusion developer to assist with application development.  I have personally been playing around with it on my test box and have to say it's really pretty cool as far as a development tool.  So far I have only worked with it in CodeCharge to develop a forum and make some minor mods here and there but my next project will be on a smaller scale in Eclipse so that I can take some time to learn the language a little bit better.

Link to Web Hosting Articles - ColdFusion 8 Beta Launches with Free Hosting Accounts

I really enjoy these web reference articles on different things, I have picked up a lot of good php info for developing apps from them in the past and it seems like they are putting out some good ajax oriented stuff as well.  I strongly recommend this website to anyone in the development community...

Link to Anatomy of an Ajax Application - webreference.com

Our ColdFusion Guru Scott Pinkston shared this XML Feed Player w/ me the other day.  We are planning on integrating it into a client project we are working on but to test it out I figured I would add it to The Church Alive's website and use it to play our Itunes XML Feed.  It's a pretty slick little piece of code that you can generate online at: http://www.bigcontact.com/feedplayer.php.  They have two options for players, a slim player and the standard player.  I think that I also saw where you can build your own custom player also if you want.  Pretty slick stuff...

Link to The Church Alive :: Conway, Arkansas

This is something I have attempted to do w/ PHP a few times and just couldn't ever get it to work the way I wanted it to, or sometimes even at all.  In this forum post, Alexey sheds some light as to how this can be accomplished using PHPRunner IDE. 

Link to Viewing table without logging in - Forums

This CSS Reference Library is by far one of my favorites out there, it has links to just about anything you could imagine wanting to do w/ CSS. 

Link to Web Design References: Cascading Style Sheets

I ran across this the other day and thought it was worthy of mentioning here.  I have been writing some apps in php that have client side login screens that more or less could be hacked through brute force attempts just like any other web login form out there (including your online banking account...).  This google password strength api is probably one of the better ones I have ever seen, I can remember thinking this also a while back when i signed up for some of my other google services.  This article has links to download tar'd and gzip'd versions of the api source code as well as some demo helps which is always pretty cool to have... 

Link to Google Password Strength API - The Code Project - AJAX / Atlas

This is a pretty cool app for monitoring log files.  I am kind of surprised that someone hasn't thought of this sooner, and maybe they have but this one looks pretty cool. 

Link to Log Monitor - The Code Project - Files and Folders

Another story where Microsoft is embracing Commercial Open Source software.  This is related to XANDROS an open sourced desktop OS that is becoming more and more popular, my business partner is currently running it and has had nothing but good things to say about it so far.  I have researched it as an option for my development testing machine and it is a viable option, it even has emulators that allow it to run Microsoft applications. 

Link to Linux News: Business: Microsoft Cuts Another Open Source Deal

I have been working with Scott Barr, our Microsoft Partner Rep to get our company enrolled in this program for Independent Software Vendors that is being offered by Microsoft.  Not only do they supply developers with a wealth of free software for testing and development but you also get access to a lot of Microsoft Resources like MSDN and also full copies of their Development Tools, etc.  It's a pretty good deal, and something thta i noticed in talking w/ Scott and just being upfront with him about our operation, they didn't frown upon the idea that we were also involved in developing applications for our clients that are built on other platforms like PHP / MySQL, ColdFusion, etc.  I have been reading a lot lately about how Microsoft is taking big steps toward embracing the Open Source community.

Link to Big ideas deserve big rewards.

In case you haven't noticed, Google has updated their analytical application and in my opinion is a whole lot more intuitive for site owners now to track their websites progress and traffic, it even has support for any campaigns that you might be running, which is pretty cool if you are into that sort of thing.  If you are one of our clients and are interested in setting this up on your website let us know, the overall time to add this feature in is minimal in terms of costs, etc, but it will give you a good idea as to where your traffic is from both geographically and virtually. 

Link to Google Analytics

Got an email this morning where Interspire had updated their ActiveKB software. Unlike their Webedit CMS solution, this solution is a reliable script that we have running in a few instances for our clients.  I noticed that they have updated their WYSIWYG Editor in this release, hopefully that's a sign that they are making some progress in fixing their WYSIWYG CMS Solutions, we would certainly appreciate any progress they could make in that direction.  I would be interested to know if any other developers out there have had as much trouble as we have had with this solution.  We have started using Includes instead of DWT pages and found that that helps keep the script from eroding away editable regions but not completely fixes the problem.  We had the WYSIWYG eat away header includes on a site the other day.

Link to ActiveKB NX 2.5.3 released