Sid Sidberry Reads

i prefer to handle data either in arrays or classes, or better yet, arrays with classes.

That said. get an xml to array script, like this one made by : Razzaque Rupom. It’s my favorite.

http://rupom.wordpress.com/category/phpclasses/

awesomely wicked

From: http://www.learningjquery.com/2008/10/1-awesome-way-to-avoid-the-not-so-excellent-flash-of-amazing-unstyled-content

This tutorial describes a way to avoid a flash of unstyled content that sometimes occurs when applying styles with JavaScript on page load. The problem is most evident when there is some content that needs to be hidden initially and when the document is large or complex. We can see an example of the problem on this test page.

The page is a copy of a previous entry on this blog with over 140 comments

From: http://www.aegisub.net/2008/12/if-programming-languages-were-religions.html

And now, for some off-topic:

“If programming languages were religions”
(Inspired by “If programming languages were cars”)

C would be Judaism – it’s old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can’t convert into it – you’re either into it from the start, or you will think that it’s insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity – it’s theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn’t feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it’s the best language in the world, but they’re willing to burn those who disagree at the stake.

Check It Out:
Aegisub: If programming languages were religions…

For further reading: if programming languages were cars [http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/cars.html]

From: http://blog.tigerlogic.com/chunkit/the-evolution-of-search/

A look at the History, Vision, Innovators, and Future of Information Accessibility
1. Foundations

A. The Beginning – In the Pre-WWII era, information sharing was in its relative infancy compared to today. Without the help of more modern electronics, we had reached the upper limit in efficiency of how and where information was stored and shared. The organization and cataloging of information within libraries and archives had been well perfected, but the retrieval and dissemination of that information was being hindered by technology.

B. The Vision – In the burgeoning world of scientific advancement that characterized the United States during and after WWII, astute observers like Vannaver Bush began to realize the need for a better system of information sharing. In an article published in The Atlantic Monthly, Bush observed that:

Check It Out:
» The Evolution of Search ChunkIt!: TigerLogic ChunkIt!

From: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/18/godaddy-moves-to-close-shady-standard-tactics-subsidiary/

Earlier this month, we reported on The Go Daddy Group doing everything it could to keep the public from knowing about its subsidiary Standard Tactics, which it used for domain warehousing. Although the practice wasn’t necessarily against the Terms & Conditions of ICANN, they sure went through a lot of trouble to make sure Standard Tactics couldn’t easily be identified as a GoDaddy company.

Check It Out:
GoDaddy Moves To Close Shady Standard Tactics Subsidiary

Openx just keeps growing

From: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/15/openx-shows-impressive-growth-ramps-up-revenue-streams/

OpenX (which used to be called Openads), provider of an open-source ad serving solution for web publishers – we use it at TechCrunch -, is growing like weed under the leadership of former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller, who is the company’s chairman, and ex-Yahoo executive Tim Cadogan who is CEO. According to the company, they’re serving well over 300 billion ad impressions through its software as of this month, while its Hosted product line has achieved a more than 1 billion monthly ad impression run rate.

Check It Out:
OpenX Shows Impressive Growth, Ramps Up Revenue Streams

From: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/allyson-kapin/radical-tech/10-experts-predict-how-web-20-will-evolve-2009

2008 was the year that Web 2.0 became more mainstream. More ad agencies, businesses, and non-profits used Web 2.0 tools as a way to build community and relationships, cross promote products and issues, and integrate their online and offline marketing strategies. Some like Zappos were extremely successful and nailed their Web 2.0 strategy while others like the makers of Motrin were burned by mommy bloggers for not doing proper research on their target audience.

With the economy in a slump and budgets being cut in traditional print and TV advertising campaigns many will be looking to the Web 2.0 world to reach their constituents. So what should be on your Web 2.0 radar for 2009? Web 2.0 gurus give you the low down.

Check It Out:
8 Experts Predict How Web 2.0 Will Evolve In 2009 | Radical Tech | Fast Company

Came across an excerpt from:
The Innovator’s Dilemma, When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
By Clayton M. Christensen

It’s a good read detailing how new innovations disrupt tech markets and how they cause established companies to fail.

from http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/christensen.htm

How Can Great Firms Fail? Insights from the Hard Disk Drive Industry

When I began my search for an answer to the puzzle of why the best firms can fail, a friend offered some sage advice. “Those who study genetics avoid studying humans,” he noted. “Because new generations come along only every thirty years or so, it takes a long time to understand the cause and effect of any changes. Instead, they study fruit flies, because they are conceived, born, mature, and die all within a single day. If you want to understand why something happens in business, study the disk drive industry. Those companies are the closest things to fruit flies that the business world will ever see.”

Indeed, nowhere in the history of business has there been an industry like disk drives, where changes in technology, market structure, global scope, and vertical integration have been so pervasive, rapid, and unrelenting. While this pace and complexity might be a nightmare for managers, my friend was right about its being fertile ground for research. Few industries offer researchers the same opportunities for developing theories about how different types of change cause certain types of firms to succeed or fail or for testing those theories as the industry repeats its cycles of change.

The Innovator’s Dilemmafrom

So far the the to biggest hurdles in my understanding of couchdb are mapReduce and how best to use data in it. Thanks to Michael Stillwell mapReduce I finally understand mapReduce.

From: http://www.ibuildings.com/blog/archives/1291-Some-thoughts-on-CouchDB.html

A few weeks ago Jan Lehnardt of CouchDB came by to Ibuildings UK and gave a talk about the project. CouchDB is a database that’s designed to be highly scalable, in terms of, well pretty much everything really: the amount of data it can handle, and the number of CPUs the distributed server can efficiently use in parallel, the number of concurrent clients. (Note though that CouchDB sits at version 0.8.1 at the moment, and many of the scalability features either haven’t been implemented, or haven’t been tested.) What follows is a short description of how CouchDB works, including the unusual MapReduce-powered database query technique, as gleaned from the talk and a few days’ worth of playing with it.

Check It Out:
Ibuildings – Ibuildings blogs > Some thoughts on CouchDB

Ok I’m kinda confused are they trying to replace java, or activex, both…?

From: http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/12/native-client-technology-for-running.html

Modern PCs can execute billions of instructions per second, but today’s web applications can access only a small fraction of this computational power. If web developers could use all of this power, just imagine the rich, dynamic experiences they could create. At Google we’re always trying to make the web a better platform. That’s why we’re working on Native Client, a technology that aims to give web developers access to the full power of the client’s CPU while maintaining the browser neutrality, OS portability and safety that people expect from web applications. Today, we’re sharing our technology with the research and security communities in the hopes that they will help us make this technology more useful and more secure.

Check It Out:
Google Code Blog: Native Client: A Technology for Running Native Code on the Web