Timber PHP debugging in WordPress

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Stumbled upon Blurbia and interesting WordPress development company that is doing some pretty solid work.

Timber
http://www.blurbia.com/plugins/timber/

Timber is intended primarily as a developer’s tool, to be enabled in a sandbox environment while debugging plugins or themes in-progress. However, it also has potential in a production setting, as a way to hide errors from the end-user while still logging them for administrator review. The configuration settings allow for precise control of what type of errors and what error information is logged, so it can be deployed in varying scenarios without runaway logs filling the database.

Synected
http://www.blurbia.com/plugins/synected/

Synected enables shortened URL creation on your own blog. Rather than relying on services such as tinyurl.com or bit.ly, Synected lets you easily create and use short links based off your own domain. This releases you from dependence on a third party — a server error on tinyurl no longer prevents visitors from reaching your site. In addition, it strengthens your brand, keeping your domain name in view of your audience even on Twitter and other micro-communication platforms.

These guys develop some pretty tight themes also:
http://demo.blurbia.com/melora/ Fully customizable. With sites like this, plus the other framework themes we are getting very close to not having to design themes anymore… which is great because you will be able to role out a site in a day vs weeks.

WordPress Memory Usage

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WP Engineer has great post on WordPress and memory usage. Many users load up every plugin under the sun and do not understand that all though these plugins seem to be lightweight they can easily consume all of your PHP memory if your PHP max_memory settings are too low (which they often are with webhosts).mem_usage

The two plugins mentioned in the WP-Memory-Usage by Alex Rabe and the even more detailed WP-System-Health by Heiko Rabe. Both work checking out to see if your blogs are getting close to maxing out on the php memory limits.

The Importance of Query Caching and Proper SQL syntax!

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In the past I blogged about using MySQL Qcache and how important it is, for those WPMU admins out there doubting this I HIGHLY advice you to get on this. After enabling the Debug Queries plugin I was more or less shocked at the number of queries some blogs were generating. If Qcache was not being used I am sure our processor would be working beyond overtime. I have seen total queries ranging from a low of 25 to 100+ to get this 823+ on a page, this shows how poorly some plugins and themes are written. This would crush our server if we were not using Query Caching…

For those developing plugins please keep queries consistent:

SELECT * FROM blogs WHERE blog_id = ’1′
is different from:
select * FROM blogs WHERE blog_id = ’1′

Both queries will be cached because they are different to MySQL (same goes to white space at the end of a query trim it!!!).

The Semantic Web finally going primetime.

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Looks like the Semantic Web will be going primetime very soon. Google has announced they will be rolling out their next gen search features, many will be using semantic features captured via Microformats.

During the Searchology event at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, Marrissa Mayer and her team showcased four new products that she said would give users a “different way to look at the web”.

Rich Snippets are search results that return more information in every listing.

For example, users looking for reviews of a new restaurant might get a “rich snippet” of average review scores, number of reviews and the restaurant’s price range.

“This is a step toward making the whole internet smarter,” said Google product manager Kavi Goel.

Rich snippets use the metadata from web pages, such as address information, calendar information and semantic web mark-up specifications, called Resource Description Frameworks.

The use of these so-called microformats allows the search engine to better understand the meaning of data and to employ it more intelligently.

Google can understand the relationship between different sets of data, and so can pull the correct address listing of a shop without that information having to be specifically tied together.

This is something Yahoo! has been doing for quite some time and now it looks like Google is on board. If there was ever a time to incorporate semantic data into your websites/applications now is it or else you may just be pushed down the Google result ladder.

Source: BBC

IPREDator: Being anonymous is going to be alot easier.

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Looks like the genius minds behind the Pirate Bay did what they said they were going to do IPREDator new virtual private networking service (VPN) will be launching soon. Wise downloaders could always set up this type of service in the past but this will make it even easier for the non-technical users. This is going to but a major damper in any attempts by the RIAA and MPAA to stop illegal downloading. Downside can obviously be used for criminal activity.

source: Read Write Web

*Pirate Bay boys are now going to prison they are going to need the cash from IPREDator.

YouTube Edu

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Interesting considering I just attended a group meeting on iTunes U which I think is complete garbage (but everyone has iTunes they scream) not really but everyone does have an internet browser…


YouTube Edu seems like it would be even better than iTunes U but we are bound by some sort of privacy act so cannot use… WordPress TV still looks like the best bet for self hosted video platform integrated with CWL etc.

via: RRW

Dipity Timelines

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This post was inspired by Scott Leslie’s post on Xtimeline… I forgot how cool these apps are. I personally think Dipity is the coolest of the bunch and very easy to use. I just signed up for an account on Dipity 10 minutes ago and imported some of my “lifestream” RSS feeds a viola a cool personal timeline with a slick embed feature! This could be a great tool for course instructors.

Scott M. on Dipity.

Tim Berners-Lee: “Raw Data Now”

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Great TED talk by Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web. His next project is working on the open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words.

Not only should we share our data, but we should demand that governments and businesses share the data they prepare as well, he says. Accessible raw data is his new objective for the world wide web. As he points out, “data drives a huge amount of what happens in our lives… because somebody takes the data and does something with it.” To Berners-Lee, it is essentially from this sharing of data, that advances in science will emerge.

-From Compute Magazine outlining what he describes in the video below.

Thanks Enej for the link.

French police commit to Open Source. Why can’t Education?

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So the French Police can commit to Open Source, pretty much every internet co in the top 20 can but educational institutions… no dice…

Since 2004, he says that the Gendarmerie has saved up to €50 million on licensing and maintenance costs as a result of the migration strategy.

How much would UBC save? I would really, really like to see that dollar amount, it would be significant. From web servers to Eval tools, LMS, web servers, Oracle, to desktops how much is spent. Whole governments can move to OS why can’t a University?

Imagine how many of the top internet cos would not exist if they were smothered at startup in licensing fees (imaging putting Oracle licenses on 100 DB servers….) and being “locked” in to a company. Google would literally not exist today.

Brian keep fighting the good fight.

via: Arstechnica


Update found the TCO for University of Florida for Blackboard CMS over three years estimated at 3 million (Licensing, Infrastructure and HR). That could go along way with contributions to Moodle or Sakai…