Our analysis of Javascript frameworks focused on the following major framework forms:

1)      MooTools

MooTools allows the user to write flexible and classic cross-browser codes through its well documented and comprehensive Application Programming Interface (API). This is definitely not a framework for the novice beginner; rather it is a boon for the intermediate and advance developer. By virtue of being exhaustively documented, it is very easy to browse through and use. Another added advantage is that it is available under the Open Source License, which permits access and modifier rights at every step in the development process.

2)      Dojo

Another popular and powerful framework available for experienced users is Dojo. The biggest advantage which Dojo offers to the developer is the options of surfing through various complex web application requirements like grids, charts, 3D effects etc. apart from enhancing HTML capabilities. It has found wide spread acceptance in developing web applications on all forms like mobiles and desktops.

You can view some of the demos at: http://demos.dojotoolkit.org/demos/

3)      UIZE

UIZE is another free to use developer framework which is extensively used for developing complex Javascript development frameworks. Its ease of use among several server languages and platforms makes it a hot favourite among developers. Though not unique, its ease of use in a lot of small yet basic widgets like menus, calendar, slideshows etc. has been critically acclaimed. UIZE supports many features like DOM and templates.

4)      Javascript MVC

If you are looking for a robust, no-nonsense approach for developing your framework, Javascript MVC is probably just right for you. Apart from features available in other frameworks mentioned above, it offers an insight to global best practices and conventions by showcasing successful projects. Of course, its other features like code generators, dependency management, widget repository, documentation and code cleaning are equally impressive.

Choosing one among the above frameworks is a tricky proposition. We recommend users to evaluate the above frameworks based on what they truly require as their development requirements – whether it is widget features, documentation requirements, free usage or above all, a truly top notch web application development experience.

Any off-page optimization stuff is like the car accessories but the on-page stuff is like the engine. However beautiful can be a car’s accessories but it’s the engine which makes it running and worth. So the quality of the website and the way its optimized for search engines only will make your off-page optimization activities pay. Not just the META tags, the design, usage of scripts and images and the list go on.
Winning high keyword positions in Google not just involves solid relevant link building and gem of a content, it also involves several factors to be maintained in the website and in fact the effectiveness of the off-page stuffs clearly depends on the stability of website and its optimized pages.
Normally the SEO factors in a website will be disrupted when changes in the site are done without the knowledge of the SEO professional. There are certain factors which can disrupt long term SEO efforts in a second and nowadays with search engines getting smarter and smarter, big business towers can come down to dust.

1.URL – SEO’s Holy Grail:

One of the major search engine optimization benchmark is to increase the domain popularity of the URL’s and maintaining the stability of the URL is as important as taking care of your eye. The domain age I still a very important factor in SEO success.
There are many examples for URL tampering done by programmers unintentionally. Most of the time it happens while adding CAPTCHA images to HTML sites and without consulting the SEO professional the site is changed to .PHP. And here, if the change done is catched before search engines actually caches it then no harm is done but if catched late then the whole amount of SEO done is lost in a minute.

Programmers have a unwritten rule that when they work on sites which are currently undergoing SEO and if they are ask to do changes in URL, contact the concerned SEO professional at once.

2. META tags are not just words- they are identities.

After all websites are for making money and SEO undoubtedly is one of the effective ways of marketing and making money. Next to stable URL’s, the META tags are very vital aspects for SEO success. META tags are not just words, it is a kind of label about your website to both search engines and visitors. There are many instances of programmers not considering META tags as an important factor and removing or making changes to it without consulting the SEO professional. But they do not realize however beautiful the design is, it is the META tags that bring business to the website online.

“Websites without proper META tags is like a person without name.”

3. Flash is just flashy not fleshy:

Flash may be attractive but in terms of SEO it’s just nothing. Search engines can never read flashy images and scripts. The common mistake some programmers normally do is, they will add content in the flash images, which will be totally ignored by the search engines. Another drawback with flash images is the loading time of websites. It is certainly a concrete factor for search engine rankings. Using jquery, similar kind of attractive images can be done and it will be better for the sake of search engines too.

The above are some of major the factors which programmers should be aware before doing changes in websites that are optimized for search engines.

Download/learn Facebook SDK: https://developers.facebook.com/
PHP SDK: https://github.com/facebook/php-sdk
Facebook and Flash: http://code.google.com/p/facebook-actionscript-api/ ; http://www.adobe.com/devnet/facebook.html
Our Facebook Business page and development Service: http://www.macronimous.com/services/facebook_page_application_development.asp

1. Attention to details
The mark of a great programmer is in the details. Keep the details under control throughout the programming process by maintaining a daily activity log.
2. Precise, quality, clean and effective code
Keep your code lean and clean. Plan the logic and core code before starting. Become a master of unit testing. Anticipate the worst and build in try-catch and intelligible error messages from the start. In fact, the first function a great programmer puts into a new project is a simple error catching routine.
3. Documentation
High quality code always includes adequate commenting. Anyone should be able to look at your code years from now and understand the functionality and purpose from the comments. Don’t leave a future programmer guessing at your intentions; make them clear. A simple rule is to “expect to forget” – you are documenting for your future self as well as others.
4. Quick absorption of techniques and technologies, and learning from mistakes
Remain open to new techniques, languages and technologies, and welcome every opportunity to educate yourself on the next big thing. Learning new approaches keeps the brain agile. A good use of a daily log is to note your missteps and mistakes as well as seemingly unsolvable conundrums. Analyzing failures is an exercise in humility that will help you avoid making the same mistake in the future. Having a list of tough problems and revisiting it occasionally to keep them fresh adds incentive for paying attention to every new idea as a possible solution.
5. Contributing – supporting and teaching peers.
A good programmer produces good code, but a great programmer helps others learn how to produce great code. Explaining your code or a process concisely to peers will help you to meticulously think through the details. Treating the questions of junior members of your team with respect and providing thoughtful answers and examples are traits that separate good from great programmers. Bear in mind the most junior team member might have something to teach you, and listen to others for their insights.
6. Communication
Participate fully in scrums and team meetings. If there is an impediment to your work flow, be precise in describing it. If you’re stymied, ask for and pay close attention to suggestions from your team. Even if they can’t offer the exact answer, something said may provide the clue you need to make headway.
7. Knowledge of business and social impacts
It is important to grasp the larger purpose of what you are working on. Too often it’s easier to keep your head down and your mind immersed in the small picture. Take the time to step back and gain perspective on where your work fits into the whole.

1. Social Marketing: Facebook and twitter will rule next year (or next few years too). Every SEO company which helps their client to succeed online, should help them by letting them to consider these technology giants, which might take them to next level. Social media optimization will not replace Search Engine Optimization, but social media optimization should go in parallel with SEO.

2. Cloud applications and hosting: We started using invoice applications first (Freshbooks) and it ended up with cloud hosting. We moved our sites to cloud. Also helped clients to taste the flour of clouds. Web hosting with Amazon web services was a very different service we offered to our clients. Setting up their sites and web applications with EC2 were initially needed some learning with Amazon, but it became an expert service at the year end. In 2011 we will be providing setting up applications in cloud as a key service.

3. Social Media integration: We learnt FBML, Facebook SDK with PHP and started offering business pages and applications with Facebook , which will continue next year. Marketing those pages is another fruit to reap. Similarly Facebook Like button integration and Twitter API integrations are two important promotional services clients will require in 2011.

4. Blogging: Is blogging dead? No, it has come out in different format. Twits and Facebook status updates are micro blogging and People who do not want to write much, or those who like to share instantly use them. But, still business blogging isn’t dead. Macronimous helped serveral clients to start blogging. WordPress helped us much. We provide SEO friendly WordPress blogs by adding SEO plugins and basic SEO readiness setup as a mandatory feature along with every blogs.

5. Search Engine friendly coding: SEO readiness is no more a value addition. Every site we develop should be ready to for Search Engines. It begins with light weight coding and ends with Keyword setup. Making dynamic sites such as CMS driven content, ECommerce sites and Flash sites with PHP and .NET are offered by us as an expert SEO service.

6. HTML5 for Flash: We started offering HTML5 based presentations and sites. Flash was replaced by jQuery for many clients and they were happy too. By 2011, HTML 5 should be the standard, and Flash will move for interactive applications. The test results made at RWW in March 2010 was an eye opener. With full fledged CSS3 and HTML5, easy to create interactive web applications without Flash should be feasible.

7. Rich Internet Application – Flex was used much in few projects this year. We look forward to work on RIA based frameworks, such as Sencha.

8. PHP Frameworks: We used Codeigniter very much. But MVC is still not very popular, and framework based applications are relatively lower then non MVC based solutions like WordPress etc.

9. Smartphone and Tablet applications: We did much with iPhones this year (including 2011 World Cup Cricket app), moving to iPads. Android development for Smartphones and tablets will be our important strategy for 2011. By the end of this year, we see more Tablets, and thanks to iPad, which regenerated the new platform of business. Building portable applications for the mobile and tablet browsers is another channel. By providing mobile friendly websites we help clients become accessible everywhere. Sencha Touch nd dhtmlx’s JavaScript mobile UI APIs will be a part of the development in 2011.

10. Security for Opensource applications: Many of us believe that Opensource application based development cost is almost nil. This is a lie. The initial cost of a WordPress or Joomla based application/site development might be relatively lower than a closed, custom application development. But the real cost of ownership is affected by the security issues that comes with the Open standards, mainly when they are affected by Security attacks. We will work hardly on providing secure web applications when we develop them with open source in 2011. Even at this year end we have an important announcement with a  major security fix from WordPress.

11. Remote project management: Managing projects across the globe was a real challenge a decade ago. Using standards and web based project management tools we provide hassle free project management. Tools like Basecamp, dotproject and Eventum helped us much, and we are working with few cloud based PM and collaboration tools, github etc. Apart from this our agile based PM methods have had some customization. Part of that is a project closure questionnaire.

Overall, many easy and hard ways of learning helped our team to build the next year strategy very much. Leave your comments if you had such learnings to share with others. Looking forward to another technologically challenging year which helps us to help our clients.

Dilbert stripe: © Dilbert.com

1. Download WordPress 3.0 from the URL wordpress.org/download. And before you install make sure you have access to the FTP client and mysql database

2. Create a subfolder in your domain root folder and upload unzipped wordpress 3.0 files to the subfolder. Create a database for new WordPress version on your web server. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php. Open wp-config.php in a text editor and fill in your database details and upload to the desired folder. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing yourdomain.com/subfolder/wp-admin/install.php.

3. Now you should have done with the installation. Next step is to copy your theme files and paste it to the wp-content folder were you could see the default theme.

4. From now on you need to be very careful, copy you DB tables scripts from your existing blog database and paste it to a notepad. Here you see the links with the original URL yourdomain.com and you need to replace with demo URL yourdomain.com/subfolder/ since you are installing a demo test version in a subfolder. Now you can copy the DB table’s script and execute in your new database that has been created for demo version.

5. Now you are 50% done with wordpress 3.0. All the remaining is plugins and you need to note that all plugins are not compactable for new wordpress 3.0 so do not place all plugin in the wp-content plugin folder if happens then there would be problem in access wp-admin. Through your FTP client you need to create a folder can be named “backup” and place all your existing plugins in the “backup” folder. Then move on your desired plugin one by one to check compatibility by logging into wp-admin. There would be less or more plugins you would have located that are not compactable.

6.  Now you are done with your wordpress 3.0 in your demo version. You should be able to access your demo blog with all the post and as well you would be able to access blog wp-admin.

7. At this instant, you can move your live blog files to a different folder or can move to your local machine just for a support. Through FTP client go to your subfolder were you have wordpress 3.0 file and upload all the files in your root folder were you had the files of your previous word press version. Now download your wp-config.php and open in a text editor and fill in your live database details.

8. Now you need to access your mysql demo database and copy the table’s scripts to a notepad and change the URL from yourdomain.com/subfolder/ to yourdomain.com/ and execute it to your live database.

That’s it, now you can enjoy using wordpress 3.0 for your live blog.

1. Flash: When they ask for a fully flashed website, let them know the adversity it might make. By doing this you are helping them to establish the right online presence. Unless your client is Coca cola or Burger King ( I mean,  :-), an establish brand), they will really want to establish better Visibility to the Search Engines.

2. SEO – If a client just wants a website, let them know what SEO is and how it is going to help them. Make the site SEO friendly within the design scope (Eg. Image tags, XHTML validations, designing without tables, etc). Most of the clients will not say NO to make their site ready for SEO.

3. CMS – Ask how frequently they want to change the content, and if they do, let them do know how to do it themselves with a CMS. You may also need to let them know the advantages of fresh content. I believe instead of providing them a static site of 20 pages, you can introduce them Joomla and how to use it, for some additional but onetime investments.

4. Advantages of Opensource - Do they need a CMS or Ecommerce, You can justify why you charge less. Let them know that you can cut cost by using WordPress or Magento and still make their site professional. By doing this you are introducing standards – if your client goes to some other developers, it would not be difficult for them to take up the work.

I recommend you to keep a short write up (with some references) or articles on the above mentioned (you may keep that under your client section of your website) and ask the client to refer them. It also helps them to understand that you know what you tell them.

CodeIgniter

Now is the real time to know about the power of Codeigniter. So ignite yourself and initiate reading to know why you want to choose Codeigniter. It will suit if:

• You require a framework which can be set up very quickly and efficiently.
• You need an outstanding performance.
• You are a developer who needs methodical and clear documentation.
• You need a framework that does not call for sticking on to restrictive coding rules.
• You want a framework that needs nearly zero configuration.
• You need a framework which is compatible with many environments

Some of our developers always prefer to use  CodeIgniter, write me if you want to see some samples and know why they used CodeIgniter. If you want to start using CodeIgniter start right here at: http://codeigniter.com/

3. Frameworks we like: 2. CakePHP and why?

2. PHP Frameworks we like 1. Zend and why?

1. PHP Frameworks we like

Working with PHP is something you enjoy everyday!. You always wanted to do your best to your clients. But when the deadlines are pressing and when the clients are on your shoulders people start doing messy codings, and the standards got ignored. But you practice the best ways of programming everyday, it becomes your style and you have no alternate choice of doing quick and dirty work. Here are some simple best practices discussed by Matthew Weier of Zend technologies. Use them when you get an opportunity, and they will become your style of programming.