Category: Web work

These days, most of my work is very related to the online world. Building web sites, reviewing web applications, integrating with web services, coordinating people who are far away from each other, etc. Whenever I find a new tool or service or an innovative, interesting idea about working online, I share it in this category.

CakePHP 2.1.4, 2.2, and a pick into 3.0

There’s been a stream of good news from the CakePHP headquarters recently.  If you are as slow as me on catching up with these things, here is a quick summary.

  • CakePHP 2.1.4 has been release, and that’ll be the last release for the 2.1 branch.  It’s time to move on.
  • CakePHP 2.2 stable has been released, and that’s what you should be using for your projects.
  • CakePHP 3.0 has been mentioned, so if you are interested in contributing early, here is your chance.

CakePHP 3.0 will take a few month to develop.  Mainly, the work is focused around the following:

  • Drop support for PHP 5.2.
  • Add and improve support of PHP 5.4+.
  • Reorganized CakePHP classes to use namespaces to avoid collisions with other libraries and classes.
  • Improve bootstrapping for better control by developers.
  • Rewrite the model layer to support more drivers, object mapping, richer API, etc.
  • Rewrite the routing to work faster and be more flexible.

Overall, it looks like some really healthy activity in CakePHP project.

Facebook post has a shelf life of 18 hours

Once in a while people ask me why do I still have my own, personal, standalone blog instead of just posting to some social networks.  There are a few reasons to that, and one of the is the life span of the post.  Blog posts live practically forever.  I think, I’ve even mentioned before that the homepage of my blog is not even in the top 5 visited pages of the site – older posts, sometimes even from years ago – are staying at the top of the chart.  With social networks, posts disappear pretty quickly.  None of the social networks that I’m familiar with – Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and others – provide any decent way of working with archives.  They are more focused on the “now”, and I’ve known it for years.  But it’s always good to find a confirmation of your own beliefs.  Today, via this tweet, I came across this blog post that references the study that states 18 hours is a shelf life of a Facebook post.

This might come as a bit of a shock to brands who pour their heart and souls into putting together the best Facebook posts that will get people talking and sharing for days. A recent study shows that the average shelf life of a Facebook post is just 18 hours. We thought we were in a 24/7 culture when it comes to online, but even 24 hours it seems, is now a bit of a stretch.

The findings come from a study by OMD, who studied how long people continued to actively engage with a post after it was made.  Off the back of the announcement that pages will only reach about 16% of their fans through postings, this is particularly unwelcome news.

Intel.com – an example of good design

Today someone mentioned on Facebook that Intel.com website is very well organized and is quite useful.  Being a fan of useful things, I immediately went to check it out.  And I have to say that I am mighty impressed!  Not only it is very organized, providing quick access to information, but it looks really good as well.  Such a combination is rare these days, but it is particularly rare for a large corporation’s website.

Flash for Android no more, or is it?

Slashdot reports:

Adobe has finally seen the same light Steve Jobs did in 2010 and is now committed to putting mobile Flash player in the history books as soon as possible. Adobe will not develop and test Flash player for Android 4.1 and will now focus on a PC browsing and apps.

But we’ve heard quite a few announcements from Adobe and Google in regards to Flash in the last few month.  I don’t know about you, but I am practically lost in the controversy.  Between Adobe releasing the last version of Flash for Linux, Adobe releasing a sandbox version of Flash for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and Google releasing Google Chrome for Android, I have no clue anymore.

The best I can make of it is that Adobe doesn’t want to support mobile or Linux anymore.  But Google takes over with its own Flash support integrated into the Google Chrome browser, which Google supports on all desktop platforms, as well as on iOS and Android devices.  So even without the Adobe we should still be able to access Flash games, porn, and navigation menus.

What do you think?  Are we about to lose Flash, and if we are, what’s the alternative?

P.S.: As much as I love the idea of HTML5, I don’t think it’s just there yet.

Skype 4.0 for Linux – a present or not?

Slashdot points to the release of Skype 4.0 for Linux, a much delayed update:

Anyone who uses Skype on Linux will be happy to hear that a new version has been made available today, bringing with it a host of essential updates and new features. Skype 4.0, codenamed “Four Rooms for Improvement,” is long overdue, and Marco Cimmino makes a point of thanking Linux users for their patience on the Skype blog. The main improvements Skype is delivering include much improved audio call quality, better video support, and improved chat synchronization. For video specifically, Skype has spent time implementing support for a much wider range of webcams, so if your camera didn’t work before today you might be surprised to find it does in Skype 4.0. Visually, Skype has received a new Conversations View, which brings all chats into a single, unified window (you can revert to the old view if you prefer). There’s also a new Call View, presence and emoticons have been redesigned, and you can now store and view numbers within each Skype profile.

Until recently, Linux users were limited to Skype version 2, which, while worked, was way behind the Skype experience on Windows.  It’s been a really long time since the last release.  Even Skype got itself acquired by Microsoft in that time.  So, now, the question arises why the sudden interest?  Slashdot comments, as always, point to the right direction, to one of the earlier Skype related news:

Skype will be introducing a new ‘feature’ into calls for users don’t have subscriptions or credit. Giant ads. They are actually calling them ‘Conversation ads’ because they hope the ads (as large as the picture of the person to whom you are speaking) will ‘spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences.’ The ads, of course, are tailored to each individual user, though there is an opt-out for that.

All of a sudden, the news of the version 4.0 aren’t as exciting anymore.  Should I upgrade?  Or should I stick to the old version, in hopes that it won’t support the giant ads? Or should I maybe look for an alternative to Skype?