Webmaster

PHP 4 to PHP 5 Transition

Transitioning your PHP 4 application to PHP 5 has many benefits. Specifically, PHP 5 offers a wealth of new features that will extend your application's capability, streamline your development, improve your user experience, and save you money. Since the PHP community announced it will only support PHP 4 until August, 2008 it is important to create your transition plan now, on your own terms.

Do you want to extend the capability of your PHP 4-based application?
Do you want to improve your application's performance?
Is simplifying application maintenance important to you?
Will you eventually transition your PHP 4 application to PHP 5?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should get started on a PHP 4 to PHP 5 transition plan right away.

Zend Migration Services can help you get started on a transition whether you need PHP experts to analyze your application for incompatibilities with PHP5, or migrate your application all together. Leveraging Zend expertise can help you make a smooth transition to PHP 5.

Jelsoft's vBulletin bought by Internet Brands

Jelsoft announces the sale of their flagship product vBulletin, the  popular community messageboard software vBulletin.  vBulletin has been sold to the US company Internet Brands.

vBulletin has recently added the Project Tools (a Project Management tool integrated into vbulletin) functionality, as well as Blogs capabilities.

A press release by James Limm, Managing Director of Jelsoft Enterprises Limited, reads:

We are pleased to announce that Jelsoft Enterprises Limited has been acquired by Internet Brands, Inc., a leading provider of automotive, travel and home-related sites and communities.

As part of a larger organisation, with more than 500 employees, Jelsoft has access to additional resources, support and business expertise which will ensure that we can continue to grow and flourish. Products will continue to be actively developed and fully supported, and as time goes on you will begin to see noticeable changes and improvements that are made possible by being part of a larger organisation.

Internet Brands' intention is to focus on improving what we are doing at the moment, and that means significant investment in our software development, customer service and sales and marketing processes. Internet Brands is willing, able and ready to invest heavily in Jelsoft, not only to continue to offer the same great products to our existing market, but also to empower us to enter new markets and find new audiences for our products and services.

The day-to-day management of Jelsoft will continue largely unchanged. I will continue as Managing Director and CEO of Jelsoft, working alongside the executive team at Internet Brands. John Percival, co-founder of vBulletin, will be taking this opportunity to pursue other interests, and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him well and every success in the future.

I'm really excited about this news, and feel strongly that it was a great decision for the company and our customers. Jelsoft has achieved significant success over the last few years, and before we officially move into this new era, I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to all customers who have supported Jelsoft and vBulletin - It is your continuous support and loyalty that has enabled vBulletin to become a market leader in community solutions. Rest assured that, with the help and resources of Internet Brands, we will continue to work hard to produce products that are innovative, feature-rich and forward-looking.
                                                                                                                 ~ James Limm

Personally, I'm less excited about the changes. I applied to their affiliate program and was just denied after days of waiting to hear back. What the F? Shut ... UP! Are you serious?!

At the present, things aren't looking too impressive at Jelsoft. Let's keep an eye on our favorite forum software and see if does get better or if it too is headed for a swirlie ride to it used to be good hell.

And anyone from Jelsoft who reads this blog ... wanna make it up to me, just contact me.

ZEND PHP CONFERENCE & EXPO

October 8-11, Burlingame, CA

This year’s Zend/PHP Conference and Expo will be held October 8-11 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport - Burlingame, California. The Hyatt is minutes away from the San Francisco International Airport and a short BART ride away from San Francisco.

Check out the Call for Papers information above and submit your best today.

For more information go to: Zend Conference 2007 Home Page.

Google Update Analytics

Here's an email I received from Google announcing the new upgrades to the popular Analytics software. If you're not using Analytics, you should be ... check it out.

We are happy to announce the release of a new version of the Google Analytics reporting interface. Since you are an existing user, you will automatically be upgraded - there is no action required on your part. To access this new version click the "View Reports" link next to any profile in your account by logging in at http://www.google.com/analytics.

For a smooth transition, we've listed some helpful resources and notes below.  Also, you will still be able to access your old reporting interface for at least a month by clicking "Previous Interface" below the "View Reports" link for any profile in your account. Other than a few improvements detailed in the version notes below, your data and configuration settings remain unaffected by your choice of interface and your data continues to be tracked in the same way as it was prior to this redesign.

*What is new?* In the new version, your reports have been redesigned for clarity, greater visibility of important metrics, and ease of use.  Here are just a few of the features you'll notice:

- Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.      

- Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.      

- Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.      

- Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.The new interface has everything the previous interface had and more. In addition, links within reports make it easier to navigate related information and explore your data.

The following resources are available to help you get the most from the new Google Analytics interface:

- Report Finder Tool: will help you see where data from the previous interface is located within the new version (it is also linked to from within your reports on the left nav menu.      

- Product tour:        http://services.google.com/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html      

- FAQs for more details about the new version:
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/static.pypage=FAQ.cs

- Help Center: includes articles related to the new version:         http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/      

- Support: if you encounter any issues with the new version that you can't resolve with the help center, you can contact our support team through the Contact Us link at the bottom of the help center web page, or receive higher-touch support through a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. Find one here:        http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html      

- Analytics Help Forum: If you would like to discuss the new version or get tips from experienced users, please visit the Analytics Help Forum in English within Google Groups at:        http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help

Ella Belts One Out For WordPress

Her name is Ella, and today she's all the buzz amoungst the blogging community.  WordPress announced the immediate availability of WordPress 2.1 “Ella”, named for jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald.

New features for Ella include:

Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.

Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.

The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.

Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.

New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.

You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.

Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.

Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.

Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.

More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. My favorite is the comments page, which new lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.

Pages can now be drafts, or private.

Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.

The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.

Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.

Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.

The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.

A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

Most of you Webmaster types will be most interested in what Ella offers her development community. Let's get those plugins update!

Developer Features

Developers will especially love this release, as it has much cleaner code than 2.0 and includes hundreds of enhancements that will enable a new generation of richer plugins. Here’s a taste of some of the things included:

• Psuedo-cron functionality let’s you schedule events much like cron.
• Users admin can now comfortably handle hundreds of thousands of users.
• The new WP_Error class cleans up how we do error reporting and handling.
• The javascript loader makes it easier for plugins to include rich functionality.
• Tons of new hooks and APIs.
• We’ve started to fill out our code inline documentation.
• Image and thumbnail API allows for richer media plugins.
• Custom header, color picker, and image cropping framework.

Simple Web Syndication with RSS 2.0

I thought I'd do a few  postings on RSS 2.0 because RSS has become the current /ideal way to get your message out, even replacing some email solutions for list owners. It's also the subject of a great deal of focus by the Google corporation, in their efforts to seperate the original content from what they call supplimental content.

I think any look at RSS 2.0 should start with an overview understanding of what it is, and rather than rewrite what someone else has written so well ... I give you Web Syndication with RSS 2.0.

And after you're done with that, I've taken SEO Writing to a new level that might interest you if you're in the market for an SEO Writer.

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RSS was originally created in 1999 by Netscape as a channel description framework for their My Netscape Network. MNN was a portal system that allowed end users to selectively view new content from their choice of content providers. RSS was created as a means of gathering that content. Since its creation, RSS has been updated and expanded to handle a much wider range of content with a far broader range of uses.

Simply put RSS is an XML application for simple web feed syndication and content subscriptions.  Okay, maybe that’s not so simple.  Let’s say you have content on your site that you want to feed, or make available for other sites.  This is known as web syndication.  Most commonly this takes the form of sharing news headlines, product releases, or some similar timely content.  RSS provides a standardized method for web sites to use when creating these feeds.

Based on XML, RSS 2.0 allows you to take bits of content or information and place them into a simple text file.  Other web sites or reader programs, also known as news aggregators or news readers, read this text file at a specified interval.  If new content is found, the listing is updated and the new content is shown to the end user.  Through the use of third party programs, browser plug-ins, or web applications users can effectively subscribe to your content; thus coining the term content subscription.

RSS is a very effective and popular way to broadcast your content.  Many newer technologies have emerged based on the idea of RSS; not the least of which is Podcasting, a method of broadcasting media content from your website to mobile users for viewing with iPods or similar handheld devices.

The current version RSS 2.0 was created to improve upon version 0.93 which was RDF based.  This version has high modularity and is designed to be much more simple to implement.  RSS 2.0 is highly supported by every popular browser and news aggregators.  Support for XML based RSS has even been built into many common web languages such as ASP, JSP, and PHP.

Read the rest of the article....

Google Changes AdSense?

What's this you say? Google has made changes to AdSense?!

Affiliate Blogger posted right behind Jennifer Slegg, who had announced to the world that Google was making a significant policy change in their AdSense program.

If you're at all interested in Google's AdSense program then these are must read blogs.

Psychic Reading

I built a new Psychic Readings blog for a friend of mine who happens to be a world famous psychic. Her name is Jane Doherty. You can read about Jane on the blog.

I got to thinking that with the New Year coming up, some folks might like to have a peek into their psychic future, etc.

So, I thought I'd post ... if anyone's intersted in getting a pyschic reading from Jane Doherty, just leave a comment on the blog and I'll get you a special pricing with her.

Going Full Montey

As some of you know the FTC has made moves to force disclosure of word-of-mouth advertisements. This namely affects bloggers, newletters, ezines and discussion groups ... places online where there is a mix of word-of-mouth communication and advertisiments.

I've been blogging a little about it myself, and getting paid to do it too I will gladly say.

Here are the links to my posts on this topic: A Few Posts Here and There and
Full Disclosure - Full Montey.

Not every post I make on this particular blog is a paid post, only a few are. But, I think it's fair and ethical to develop a page dedicated to a Disclosure Policy.

On Monday, there's going to be a lot of announcements about Disclosure Policies and so, I thought I'd help out the Affiliate Guild and Webmaster Blog folks who might be affected by the FTC's changes.

A new website has been created to help you develop your own Disclosure Policy and I highly recommend you go there and get your Disclosure Policy done and posted as soon as possible. The advertisers will be requiring it becuase the FTC will require them to only do business will those who disclosed the they are being paid.

Some of you might know who Paul Harvey is. He's an longtime radio personality. If you've ever listened to his show, it's really hard to tell where his news starts and where his ads take over. He presents ads in the same tone and along side the news. It's very confusing to people listening to his show.

Bloggers and others, who are paid for their word-of-mouth ads are confusing to their readers ... when is it a post that's paid and when is it not.

We don't want to be the Paul Harvey's of the Internet.

There's nothing wrong with paid ads, and there's nothing wrong with disclosing that they are paid ads or that your site is running paid ads. 

Affiliate Guild and Viral Sales Generator

Affiliate Guild and Viral Sales Generator:

First of all, I wanted to urge you to registered for
membership at the Affiliate Guild. This means you
can take advantage of the FREE classes being offered
at the Affiliate Guild.

Also, as a member of the Affiliate Guild, when we
get valuable opportunities for our members, we will
pass that information on to you.

The fist opportunity that we are delighted to let
you know about is a brand new tracking software that
will help you convert everything better. More members,
more affiliates, more sales, a membership CMS area ...
you get the idea!

The software is called Viral Sales Generator and
we've been helping to beta test it. We actually
purchased a copy ourselves, that's how much we
like it!

The first 50 purchases are going to get a killer
deal on the cost of the software.

We got it and we want you to get it too!
www.viralsalesgenerator.com/software

I will also warn you, after you first enter the
Viral Sales Generator site, they're going to make
you a one time only offer. It is in fact, a one
time only offer!

That's the best price you're going to get and it's
the only opportunity you'll get. So, don't click
through it! There's not a second chance!

It's actually one of the cool features of this
software ... you can offer your members one time
only specials. It's a unique feature other tracking
software does not have.

Once inside the Viral Sales Generator site, you
will also get the following:

* A report on 5 Barriers to Viral Marketing...
and how to Eliminate them

* A look at the member panel of Viral Sales
Generator to see it in use

* Access to Viral Sales Generator documentation

* Instant affiliate membership, so you can also
earn money promoting Viral Sales Generator.

Members that you refer now will be sponsored
by you FOR LIFE.

No cookies - we track sales by members.

If this one killer feature alone appeals to you,
then take advantage of the one time offer!

* A powerful 30 page PDF covering 9 Internet
Marketing Secrets and how you can profit
from them

Oh, and the 30 page PDF is also brandable, so
you can drop in your referral link and give it
away to drive more traffic to yourself.

Read the "Earn Money" page for more ideas...
but you need to register first.

Turn Your Visitors Into a Sales Force!
www.viralsalesgenerator.com/software

We know some of you are not tech savvy, so if you
have a cPanel interface to your server/host, we
are willing to install the software for you for
only $50 bucks!

But, if you're among those first 50 people to
buy the software, in addition to getting the
software at about one-third the price ... you will
also get FREE installation.

Can't beat that deal and that's why Affiliate Guild
is 100% behind this new software. It rocks!

So, join the Affiliate Guild! Enjoy the FREE
classes and please let others know about them!
And learn more about Viral Sales Generator.

Best wishes,
Bobbie Grennier, Affiliate Blogger
Affiliate Marketer Management
Free Affiliate Classes
Turn Your Visitors Into a Sales Force!
SEO Writer