PHP Magazine

[Enterprise PHP] WebProject 2.2 Released, Real project management for real businesses

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:13:11 +0000

web2Project is a Free Open Source business-oriented Project Management System (PMS) powered by PHP and RIA, providing an interactive and effective way of managing projects via a web browser.

Some of the key features of web2Project are:

* A secure web-based infrastructure capable of managing any number of projects, companies, departments and users;
* A one-stop shop for all project information to avoid confusion and reduce risks;
* Role-based permission system to give the Project Manager fine-grained control over sensitive data;
* Project and group-wide Gantt Charts;
* A unified calendar - with iCalendar support - showing all relevant tasks and events;
* A modular infrastructure which allows the addition or removal of modules to customize the features according to your requirements.

The 2.2 release came with a bunch of useful updates for the Project Managers, System Admins, Developers, and General Users. Released under GPL license.

[AJAX Magazine] AnyChart Stock and Financial Charts Now Available

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 08:42:15 +0200

AnyChart announces the availability of AnyStock, a new Stock and Financial Charts component. AnyStock is a cross-platform tool for implementing visually appealing, interactive stock and financial charts, in custom web and desktop applications.

"We�re proud to announce the launch of AnyStock", said Alex Batsuev, AnyChart lead developer. "Our team has created an effective, extremly flexible tool for those dealing with stock market, Forex, commodity or investment market or any other time-based data. AnyStock allows to solve sophisticated business tasks and create user-friendly reporting interfaces."

AnyStock is an XML/JSON Flash based solution that offers a comprehensive set of tools for creating rich interactive visualization of date and time-based information. The component is easy to integrate and customize. It includes a wide variety of technical indicators and financial chart types, all of them being combinable. The ability to review long term and large data sets can easily be handled with scroll, pan, and zoom controls. Adding news events - analyst opinions, insider trading, dividends, and key developments - helps to analyze information effectively.

[PHP Community Magazine] Will You Get Benefits From the Newest easy to get SQL Server Master Qualification?

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 05:08:18 +0000

This Guest post is by Michele P. Rouse of SQL Certification Blog :

In my experience the top DB platforms are Microsoft and Oracle. I have come to learn that MySQL is trusted in start-up companies and DB people who know this platform could make higher salaries, but I honestly rarely ever encountered MySQL in job searches.

One reason I like MS SQL Server is because it also includes the SSRS BI platform which is powerful and popular. DB folks who know SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) have become very sought-after candidates in many companies. In most cases, companies end up needing to buy licenses for third-party BI (Business Intelligence) applications that may cost a lot of extra money.

With SQL Server, BI and ETL (extract, transform, load) tools come with the initial license. I understand that maybe the interest in databases is mainly to understand DB construction, however you can't predict when or if you branch out and find out more.

[PHP Community Magazine] Quality Control, Track and Squash Bugs with Wordpress

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:48:20 +0000

Wordpress is more than a blogging platform, and here is one of its amazing application : Support tickets and Bug tracking. Quality Control is a Wordpress theme which allow you to turn a basic WordPress installation into a simple and straight-forward ticketing system. With Quality Control users can create tickets, assign statuses, milestones, categories, and tags. Other users can then interact with the tickets, updating their state, milestone, or any other property.

The theme require a lot of customization to make it usable for real world applications, and support the basic workflows for ticketing support systems, however I think it's a great platform that you can build on and customize easily.

Get Quality Control from wordpress themes, demo available online at http://getqualitycontrol.com/demo/.

[e-Commerce Magazine] VC�s Finally Realize Billing is the Future of e-Commerce

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:08:53 +0000

Austin TX, December 16, 2010 - Last month it was announced that Vindicia and Zuora had raised $20 million each from venture capitalists. This is on top of the combined $42 million the companies have already raised. This story may have gone unnoticed by many outside of the online billing industry, but the ramifications of these significant investments affect almost all industries.

Both of these large investments coming in within the same week are a sign that venture capitalists have figured out something that most businesses still have not. They know that more and more of the economy is moving to a �services� model and the ability to offer diversified, on-demand billing solutions is critical to the future of E-commerce.

The companies that will excel in the near future are the companies that are first to embrace the evolving demands of modern consumers. Customers are no longer content to settle for �one size fits all� products. The modern consumer wants, if not demands, to dictate their online purchases to buy only what they need and not what they don�t.

Take the rise of car share services such as Car2Go. Due to fiscal restraints and higher expectations in customized services, modern customers are choosing to pay for a car only when they need it.

[e-Commerce Magazine] Online retailers celebrate as Shopzilla awards excellence

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:34:19 +0000

Shopzilla Europe, the shopping search engine, has unveiled the European winners of its annual Circle of Excellence Awards. The awards recognise the top performing online retailers that provided outstanding online customer experiences throughout this past year, as rated by their customers.

The 2010 Shopzilla Circle of Excellence winners are:

UK:
ActiveBeauty.co.uk; beautyflash.co.uk; Cartridge Save; CheapSmells.com; Crucial.com; Livefoods Direct Ltd; Paws247.com; Surfdome.com; theplasmacentre.co.uk; WatchShop.com

France:
1001 Bijoux; AboutBatteries.com; AllezDiscount.com; Cloggs; CoudreetBroder.com; Crazyphonic; Digit-Photo.com; La cabane en ligne; LEPAPE; MacWay; Madeinsport.com; Maison Tasset; Maisonic
Mikalo; Ruedespiles; Session Music; Spartoo; Tinkco; UBALDI.com; Univers Broderie; zooplus

Germany:
buttinette; Session Music

These retailers can now proudly display the Shopzilla Circle of Excellence badge on their websites for the next year.

[AJAX Magazine] Magix, Enterprise Web Application Framework Open Sourced

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:23:57 +0200

Magix is a complete Enterprise Web Application Framework by Winergy Inc., built around the ideas of O2 Software Architecture, containing a complete MVC Framework, O/RM kind-of library built around Active Types, a complete extensible Ajax Framework, and a modularized loading mechanism to dynamically load content in Ajax Calls or normal postbacks.

Magix features include :

* A complete Managed Ajax Library (Magix.UX)
* A complete MVC Framework
* A complete O/RM library, built around the Active Types design pattern form the O2 Architecture
* Fostering Domain Driven Design concepts (DDD)

Below the press release :

Wine Marketing Innovators Giving Away Their "Filet Mignon" Software

Glen Ellen, CA December 17 � What are they thinking? Glen Ellen, CA based, Winergy Inc, has just freely released their complete web application software. It's the foundation of their innovative WinePad application for wine tasting rooms. Why would this start-up, just three and a half months old, give it all away? Winergy CEO, Thomas Hansen explains, "Winergy is doing this because we see a need for more collaboration between tech vendors and wineries. We've created a platform that can provide a common "language" that everyone can build upon to create more collaboration and solve integration problems."

"We have a unique business mission, we seek only synergies." explains David Ingham, Winergy's Marketing Director, "It's a belief that has proven to be amazingly fruitful for us, simply said, it's the Three Musketeers credo "All for one and one for all."

[AJAX Magazine] DHTMLX Touch (Alpha) � Web Framework for Mobile & Touch Devices

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:17:45 +0200

DHTMLX released the alpha for DHTMLX Touch, an open-source JavaScript HTML5 framework for building web applications with touch UI. It was developed specially for mobile and touch devices, such as iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, etc.

The alpha also offers a Visual Designer tool that allows developers to create mobile web applications within a simple, drag-and-drop interface. For more details and live demos, visit: http://www.dhtmlx.com/touch/

[CMS Magazine] Tiki Releases 6.1 Update

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 04:55:47 +0000

The Tiki Community is proud to announce the immediate availability of Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware 6.1. This update includes over 250 code changes by nearly 20 Tiki Community members. Although these updates are primarily fixes and improvements to existing features, there are several new items that Tiki administrators will be happy to see, including:

* Continued upgrades for WYSIWYG editing
* Default toolbars include a new button to easily select a file (after file upload, if needed), and it's name and link are added to the textarea of that wiki page, forum, blog, etc.
* A new admin panel for Clipperz online password management
* Improvements to CSS inclusion for newsletters
* Many translation updates (from Tiki's interactive translation feature)
* New and improved plugins for third-party media (such as Vimeo, Blip.tv, and YouTube) and generic buttons.
* Updated plugin interface
* New module: Tracker help
* Export or show a wiki page in text-only format (useful to be used with Pretty Trackers)
* Static text fields in Trackers can be sent with wiki-parsed text in notification emails.
* New language.js file added to language folders to assist in translation of text and UI elements used in JavaScript functions.
* and more!

[PHP5 Magazine] Ext4Yii Framework 0.7 Released

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:47:43 +0000

The Ext4Yii Framework is a professional PHP Yii extension which provides server-side ExtJS functionality. It is a template parsing system, capable of rendering embedded XML templates into ExtJS JavaScript components. Among many additions and improvements, the Ext4Yii Framework version 0.7 provides the functionality to use customized ExtJS components and the ability to assign implied JavaScript values in Ext4Yii templates.

Verison 0.7 is the second release of the framework, which has been internally re-written for better performance, error handling and template parsing. Below a short list of new features :

* Implied JavaScript Notation : which can be used to instruct the template parser to render inline JavaScript values.
* Context Menus : easily create context menus for virtually every component in the Ext4Yii Framework.
* Customized and 3rd party controls
* Other additions : several plugins for the TabPanel control, GridRowExpanderColumn model for the GridPanel, and mong many other additions...

As for this release, Ext4yii will not be available under GPL anymore, however only commercial and evaluation license are available. More information at http://www.ext4yii.com/site/index.html

[AJAX Magazine] Stimulsoft Reports 2010.3. Everything is good with your reports

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:30:24 +0200

Stimulsoft Company, a manufacturer of software for data analysis and processing, announces the release of new versions of Stimulsoft Reports product line. Part of this product line Stimulsoft Reports.Web, which is a reporting tool designed to create and render reports using Ajax in a Web browser.

"This year we end on a positive note, - said Andrew Savin, Business Manager. - Everything we planned, we implemented. In 2010 our company released a new reporting tool for Silverlight, significantly improved products for .NET, WPF, and ASP.NET. The version 2010.3 crowned the end of the next period of product development."

The product line includes report generators for .NET, Web, WPF and now for Silverlight.

[AJAX Magazine] JavaScript Framework qooxdoo 1.3 released

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:27:48 +0200

The Open Source JavaScript Framework qooxdoo just shipped two new releases 1.2.2 and 1.3. While the first one is a regular bugfix release, the latter one includes substantial improvements across almost the entire range of the framework.

Some highlights of the 1.3 release:

* New virtual List widget to visualize even huge data sets
* New widgets and UI features (Tri-state CheckBox, ProgressBar, Toolbar with overflow handling, ...)
* New experimental unit test runner with lightweight UI
* Support for touch-enabled devices
* Deep integration of automated GUI testing with Selenium
* New qx-oo package for non-browser environments like Rhino or node.js
* More than 360 bugfixes and enhancements over the previous
release

For more information including links and screenshots, please see the official announcement at http://news.qooxdoo.org/qooxdoo-1-3-and-1-2-2-released

[e-Commerce Magazine] Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0 Released

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 15:02:05 +0000

Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0 have been released with many new features and improvements. Version 2.0 got a new layout and CSS editor in this release to make quick and easy modification in any store design, but the most interesting features for store owners are the Multi-language support, gift certificates, whish list, and new payment, in addition of being officially certified by PayPal, Gate2Shop, PayPoint, CheckGateway, and Moneybookers.

Key improvements in Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0 :

Visual CSS editor: Using the visual CSS editor you will be able to easily and quickly change the store design. Choose the element you want to modify in the editor, change the style using the color palette, and apply your changes.
Visual layout editor: The layout editor allows you to move store blocks any way you like. Drag-n-drop any store element, e.g. the newsletter box, to any position on the site in several clicks.
Multi-language support: To better serve your customers, you can use several languages in your administrative storefront and interface.
Gift certificates: Your customers will be able to purchase gift certificates in your store.
Wish list: Help your customers remember the products they want to buy later using a wish list.
Access Control List (ACL): Create new types of administrative users and restrict them to specific store functions.
Certified payment methods: Avactis is officially certified by PayPal, Gate2Shop, PayPoint, CheckGateway, and Moneybookers.
New payment methods: We added Moneybookers eWallet and PayPoint payment as new payment methods in Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0.

[AJAX Magazine] jQuery wins the 2010 Open Source JavaScript Libraries Award

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:58:52 +0200

Last week Packt Publishing announced the winners of the 2010 Open Source Award, I had the chance to be one of the official Judges for the JavaScript Category, and you may pardon me for sharing this one week later as I was traveling last week. I used to be very familiar with most JS libraries available, and I was not surprised at all when the result announced was exactly as I voted. Winner this year of the 2010 Open Source Award - JavaScript Libraries - is jQuery, and the 1st runner up is shared between Raphael JS and Mootools.

jQuery benefit from the largest community compared to all other JavaScript libraries and that's their biggest advantage. The library performance, usability, and ease of use helped to make its adoption higher in many small and large projects. Few years ago, my only take on jQuery was that 3rd party development was maintained by personal developer's efforts, which make upgrade not fun at all. Today there is an answer with UI and mobile project. There is still lot of work to do, and I think they are on the right path.

RaphaelJS however have the smallest community, and it's doing amazing work as it's more specialized library compared to all others. The library need more support and adoption to complete its goals, improve performance, and come with more innovative ideas in the future related to JavaScript vector drawing for the web, and mobile !

Below the press release :

[e-Commerce Magazine] PrestaShop Wins the 2010 Open Source E-Commerce Applications Award

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:32:10 +0000

Packt Publishing have recently announced that PrestaShop has won the inaugural Open Source E-Commerce Applications Award category in the 2010 Open Source Awards. Open Source E-Commerce Applications Award is a new category introduced to the Award this year, featuring various different types of type of web applications that simplify buying and selling of products on the Internet.

"This award is a great recognition for PrestaShop's hardworking team and, of course, the contributors who help us enrich our software every day," said Bruno L�v�que, PrestaShop Co-Founder.

"We are glad to have received this award from both a panel of expert judges and our growing Community -whose members increased threefold in the past year! They have really mobilized to support our project," adds Sabrina Mar�chal, Head of Marketing & Communications for PrestaShop.

"PrestaShop have achieved a lot in a short period of time considering that it is a community driven project, with the product maturing steadily and in a way that will stand the test of time." Added Paul Anthony, bespoke e-commerce solutions developer and one of the judges for the 2010 Open Source E-Commerce Applications category. "The structure of the product has also given rise to numerous creative implementations, and the community is large enough and responsive enough to cope with these requests for improvement."