hypeway

Aside from being a robust open source server-side scripting language, PHP is easy to learn and master even for someone like myself without a CS degree or background. The combination of PHP, MySQL, and Apache has become a welcome solution to many Web applications deployed by numerous entrepreneurial businesses, non-profit organizations, company intranets, and online e-commerce stores. It’s been more than 6 years since I started using PHP in Web design projects. And during these years, PHP has gone through lots of improvements and its latest stable version (5.2) packs numerous changes and new features making this scripting language even more robust. So I’ve decided to update my knowledge in PHP, and while I am at it, I will obtain a PHP 5 Certification offered by Zend so my PHP skills can be officially recognized. In the process of studying for the exam, I’ve learned many new features in PHP 5 as well as other PHP knowledge that I wasn’t aware of previously. I am happy that the preparation process has been progressing nicely, and I am expecting to complete the study and pass the exam by the end of the month. Wish me luck!

Last night I attended the Cocoaheads WWDC 2009 meeting for the first time at the Apple Store in San Francisco downtown. I had the pleasure to meet some awesome Mac and iPhone developers, and listen to their fantastic presentations on how to become successful Mac and iPhone developers. The ideas and experience the guest speakers shared with the audience were just incredibly insightful and useful. This is by far the best users group meeting I’ve ever attended.

One of my favorite developers on the guest speaker list is Sofa, who developed Versions (which just won the Apple Design Awards) and Checkout. The Amsterdam design firm also created gorgeous icons for companies such as Mozilla, TomTom, and Nike. Another one of my favorite developers is 280 North, who developed 280 Sildes, a sexy Web-based presentation application equivalent to Keynote on the Mac. The development team of 280 North also created an open source framework, named Cappuccino, which aims to make it easy to build desktop-like applications for Web browsers. The framework, written in Objective-J (also developed by 280 North), is largely based upon Apple’s Objective-C and Cocoa frameworks. Even Cappuccino’s IDE, named Atlas, feels and operates like Apple’s Xcode.

Almost.at, a real-time event feeds application built using Cappuccino, is another impressive product demonstrating how developers can harness the power of Objective-J to build desktop-caliber applications that run in Web browsers.

Stanford University is offering a 10-week course on developing iPhone applications. Not only that the videos of the classes are posted at Stanford on iTunes U, the course materials, including lecture notes and assignments, are all made available online to the general public for free. Thanks to Stanford’s generosity and interest in the iPhone application development, I’ve downloaded all the class materials and I am ready to create my own iPhone app.