asyn

Here's what it boils down to:Microsoft and Google are both getting ahead of the game of online applications.As cellphones become smart phones and we are looking to UMPCs, the market for software is not just limited to high speed desktop workhorses. Not to mention, how many devices now have internet access? Your phone, game console, laptop, PDA and computer?We live in an age booming with connectivity. Every new technological device wants to communicate with something. So what's the answer? Release 25 different versions of MS Office? Office 2006 Toaster Edition? No, just make the device with a browser and let the web sort it out.That's the mentality they are approaching with. Everything can run a browser reguardless of it's CPU, method of connectivity, or manufacturer. So what happens when you make an application like Office entirely web based? Well, now you can update those sales figures from the Staples Center while you watch a basketball game.Not only that, but how can you pirate a software that you don't have? Web based software isn't loaded on a machine, so it can't be copied. This way if you want to use Office from 10 different computers, Microsoft knows it. Right now, you can buy a copy of Office and load it on 10 machines and Microsoft won't be the wiser.This is just the beginning. You will start seeing more and more applications move to the web. Eventually you will be able to have a bare system that just fires up a browser and connects to the internet on boot. No hard drive, minimal RAM and a smaller CPU. Like the thin-clients of today, but on a much more practical and widespread level.You will then see these 'Internet PCs' spring up for next to nothing. $100 or less as the price of LCDs drop.But that's just my 2 cents on the matter. I could be completely wrong.

Building websites is my profession. People who tell you to build websites with notepad (or some other plain text editor) do not build websites 40+ hours a week. You just can't build websites fast enough if you have to type every flippin' < > tag.My weapon of choice? Dreamweaver, hands down. Front page is just horrid. Sure, in the WYSIWYG editor it looks beautiful, but as soon as you look at the code it makes you either cry or vomit... or both. Not to mention, I have yet to see a Front Page site look right in anything but IE.Adobe has GoLive, which I've played with some... it seems to be geared to the more media-rich-but-not-much-functionality crowd. Layout is a snap, it works in conjunction with Photoshop wonderfully, but for actually application sites I found it a bit weak.Dreamweaver is the shiznizzy in my book. It supports several programming platforms (ASP, ColdFusion, PHP) pretty seamlessly. Basic functions are prebuilt, like authenticating against a database or retrieving records. Just design the page, click a few buttons and boom, you have a functional interface to your database. Integration with Fireworks is good too, but I don't care for Fireworks. I'm a Photoshop kind of guy.Either way, a good site design package is going to cut your development time 60-70% easily. It's not "cheating" and doesn't show a lack of experience, it means your time is better spent doing something than trying to type <tr> and <td> over and over and over.

PHP is a great language to start learning with. Not only is it fairly easy to learn, but the information you learn about it will be useful in general understanding of how the web works. Really, the PHP homepage (http://php.net/) has most everything you need to know to start off with. Also, a Google search will come up with a bunch of great sites. It all depends on what you want to do. I've wasted about $300 on PHP books all of them mostly want to teach you how to tweak pre-made scripts that come with the book. Your best bet is to start off with the PHP documentation and build a simple form that passes data to it and displays it on the next page. From there, start messing with database commands for MySQL. Once you master basic data input and SQL input, that's 95% of the work that you do in PHP

Simply put, it never will end.It all started with Atari, Collecovision and the like. Their not around now because of Nintendo. Nintendo beat them out with the price vs. performance of the original NES.Then along came Sega. Sega and Nintendo butted heads for years, both sides claiming they had the better systems. This lasted through the late 80s and early 90s.Then Sony dropped the bomb with the PS1. Unlike the SegaCD system that was extremely pricey, the PS1 allowed the expanded world of CD based games for a lot cheaper. Plus, Sony got in good with all the top developers.Sega eventually made a last stab with the Dreamcast which flopped horribly. I bought one and thought it rocked, but apparently sales weren't that great on the unit. This loss caused Sega to withdraw from the console market and start developing only software.Towards the end of that Microsoft threw it's hat in the ring, but honestly, they've approached it all wrong in my opinion. To this day they are still working out the kinks in their business model. They may straighten out or they might belly up... either or is still possible.I don't see Nintendo going anywhere soon. They are trying to shift the gaming industry to a more interactive world. Sony has found deep roots in their line. They could have said the PS3 was going to be $1500 and people would still snap them up. Microsoft, as long as they don't piss any more customers off, might still make it. Too many recalls though in my opinion. Either way, the market will only support 2-3 main console vendors. Anything more than that and the weaker systems won't even hit the radar of most people. (Neo-Geo & TurboGraphix 16 for example) Give it another 10 years and you'll probably see another player enter the mix and try and muscle someone out. Either way, the war will never be over... not as long as people have $$$ to spend.

I'm still on the fence about Vista.After downloading Beta 2 I have to admit, 3.19GB for an OS is huge. To the point of being ridiculous. The new features don't warrant a near 400% increase in size.Visually, it's stunning. I believe it's the nicest looking OS to date. Yes, a lot of it is borrowed from other places, but it comes together nicely and has a very smooth feel to it...until you try to actually do something. On a P4 3.06ghz with 1GB of ram and a nVidia 6200 256MB PCI-E card it STILL hits the 100% CPU use mark quite frequently. This is completely unacceptable in my opinion. Yes, it's not coming out until next year, but still... XP will run on a 600Mhz with 256MB ram... Vista is a huge jump in minimum requirements.I do love how everything is organized by task. This is a major usablity upgrade. This makes it so much simpler to get around in. Organization of files and media is a lot less cumbersome for the average user.Security is a give and take with Vista. Yes, I like that it asks before it runs ANYTHING to make sure it's a wanted program, but after about the 5983902458th time you click Allow it gets a little old. Still, its a step in the right direction I believe.It did however poop on my 2 pcs I loaded it on in less than 24 hours. I know it's a beta but it's still a long way off. It will be interesting to see what the final product ends up being.

Just be careful of include()ing a parameter passed from the URL. That is an easy to exploit weakness by hackers and can cause stuff to be included that you don't want to be. For example: http://www.example.com/?page=../../../../etc/passwd Now I know with Xisto they are tight on security and that wouldn't work, but you get the point. just by substituting your URL data with their own they can expose sensitive data on your site.

From someone who has used both extensively, you are really better off trying to work your way into Photoshop. Yes, Gimp is free and has the basic features to get started, but if you REALLY want to get into graphics then there really isn't a better choice that Photoshop. Not to mention the professional benefits... often employers want people with Photoshop skills. I've yet to see one asking for Gimp skills. Photoshop can be gotten on the cheap three different ways: 1) Student/Teacher discount. Know someone in school? Order the Academic version. $289 2) Get a Wacom tablet. They offer Photoshop for $299 with the purchase of a tablet. This might be the best route if you are serious about wanting to get into graphics and graphic design. 3) Upgrade from Elements. Most any camera or scanner comes with a copy of Elements now. Even if you don't have a copy, I'm sure someone you know has the CD that came with their camera/scanner and 9 times out of 10 they aren't using it. ...but... if you are stuck with Gimp for right now, pretty much any of the sites on dmoz.org's gimp section are good, just depends on what you are trying to do. http://www.dmoz.org/search/?q=gimp+tutorials