Eye On Silicon

There’s nothing more frustrating than a slow PC grinding its cogs while you wait to check your bank balance before you leave for work in the morning. Clicking Internet Explorer and waiting 30 seconds for the application to load begs for justification as to why you spent $400 on that computer in the first place - wouldn’t it be quicker to just drive to the bank? It could certainly be less stressful.

There is an epidemic of slow computer syndrome, it’s caused primarily by the constant bulky packages we install as consumers. Buy a printer, install the drivers - and the boat load of sofware that comes with it. Even Windows is bloated full of useful tools that you’ll probably never use.

So I want to focus on how to speed up your machine, or rather stop it from running so slowly. We’ll be looking at how you can reduce your computer’s work load, and give your computer more resources to help it better manage the work load it has.

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For anybody coding or wanting to code in PHP, a decent editor is vital. Sticking with old-fashioned notepad just won’t cut it, what you need is the mothership of editors - and I think I’ve found it!

PHP Expert Editor is developed by Ankord Development Group, and is one of the more serious entries in this field. And at 35 EUR for a life time license, it won’t shred your wallet either. (What? You didn’t expect it to be free, did you?)

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If you haven’t already tried it, downloading and installing Google’s new Chrome browser would be a wise decision. The logo looks somewhat similar to the Pokéball from that old hit Pokémon.

Chrome marks a new era of browsing, for once we have a company thinking outside the box and actually designing a browser that meets the demands of the modern world.

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Have you heard of EEStor? They’re a pretty secretive company, but if what they claim is real - they’re going to revolutionise the modern world.

One component holding back every portable electronic device today is the battery. The chemical reaction inside a battery puts limits on how quickly it can recharge, and the capacity it can provide. If you lost your iPod charger, you’d be out of luck for a few days until you find it or buy a new one.

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There’s just something about DELL, isn’t there? Wherever you go in the world, whatever you watch on the television, DELL seems to crop up everywhere. So it should come as no surprise that the trend that is DELL is taking part in another trend of the world - energy efficiency.

Despite being powered by a power unit supplying a maximum of 65 watts of juice (less than most laptops guzzle), the DELL Studio Hybrid packs quite a punch and shouldn’t have any problems processing the day-to-day tasks of the average user.

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One of the biggest problems faced with content rich websites is how to store the data than enriches them. Therefore, I’d like to offer my solution - something I call ‘the resource system’.

Specifically, this is designed for PHP & MySQL, but in theory could be adapted to work with other platforms.

The idea is to take the large part of the data (the content) and place it into a set of tables where it can be managed by a resource system.

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In designing my content enriched website, I quickly discovered that trying to handle large quantities of data is a real bottle neck that can be a pain to overcome.

So here’s a few (unorganised) tips that I think will help:

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While browsing my site, www.bloopdiary.com, I noticed an ad that just kept re-appearing. It was for NIKE trainers, allowing you to customise your own pair with your country’s flag (at least that’s the impression I got, I’d nevert click my own ad guv’ner!) I wondered if somebody was targeting the channel given its location at the end of all diary entries - probably one of the most exposed slots with the highest chance of a click.

I considered the benefits of site targeted advertising, somebody wanting to advertise on my website is quite the ego boost! And if they’re advertising then they must be advertising with a product that is worthwhile, or so you’d think. The question I have to pose is: are these ads going to be relevant to everybody, or even anybody at all?

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Picking a host for your website is probably one of the most important things you’ll ever do. When that host goes down you’ll need all the support you can get. Actually, all you really need is somebody that is willing to investigate the issue in a timely manner, and timely is the category that LeaseWeb’s technical support does not fit in to.

Yesterday (Monday, 25th July ‘08) the server stopped responding. I paid my bill, so surely they haven’t cut it off! Panic set in, there were people trying to access the server, I have two businesses relying on that server - one for the website, okay so that isn’t too bad, and the other for email! Lucky for me it’s the end of the working day, except - oh no, LeaseWeb’s technical support is closed. They’re not in my time zone either, of course they can’t be blamed for that, it was my choice to rent a server outside of my country after all.

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The web is dominated by social networking websites, and if there’s one thing that keeps somebody coming back to your website, it just has to be the community aspect. It’s what makes a website a home and anchors oneself to the sea of domain names.

But sometimes we forget the basics. More often than not you find webmasters are busy focusing on what they think could be the next big thing instead of what their community actually needs.

On that note, one thing that has become transparent in my years of developing an online community - never expect the community to know what they need because they aren’t the ones running the community. I’m not suggesting that you ignore your users, but take what they say with a pinch of salt. Instead of reading too far into what they say, spend your time carefully working out what they need in an overall sense.

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