The second option you mentioned - about disposing off usernames and using email addresses as unique identifiers - is not feasible in glen's case, because he intends to use the unique identifer as a part of the url.
@glen: collect the first name and last name only if u need them. If you just want to address your users then, you can just do "Hi [username], what's up? Bla... Bla... [some-username] has sent you a message..."
If you say php sucks, then go get some sleep and think again.
Thats the easiest language any noob can start web development with. Lots of libraries and resources. Just do a search for 'web development tutorial' and you'll find that every 10th good tutorial will be about php. Python is easier than php, but every cheap host supports php.
And another fact: you can even create desktop apps with php. There a GTK extension to php. Google PHP-GTK for more.
Cool! Seems like I can teach my 2nd grade friends some 'colorful' programming.
Are others allowed to contribute to this language? I would like to do so in a few days... (well... I have my exams going on now, so in the vacation for sure)
Gojomo, is that really Joshua, the founder of Delicious and Memepool? I just guessed it when u mentioned the username in single quotes. ;) I wouldn't talk a word abt the algo then. :D
Yippee! Thats great. But how did u findout delicious's and stumbleupon's? By reverse engineering technique... like... Were these found out(or guess-worked) by constantly keeping track of the ranking of content?
Joshu, i think the del.icio.us formula is right, or they might just be using a different time constraint than 1 hour(maybe 2hrs or anything else). Because to findout what's popular they dont require any complex stuff. Simple math as specified in Danny's post is enough for their task.
Wow! A whole list of web design contests. Thats a nice site.
But I am not so good at shaping stuff. I am more comfortable with straight lines, circles and other definite shapes. So I just manage to design. I love the backend job more :)
Do you know any webpage that lists more of 'development' kind of contests?
Yeah! I am actually working on my mashup for the contest :)
Its only after that I have started searching for more contests.
For others: Daylife is conducting a very interesting contest. Its about using news data from their API to build any kind of really cool. As per their site, they expect that developers create anything 'useful' and 'creative' that uses their news data. Visit http://cookbook.daylife.com for more info. They also have listed lot of cool sample ideas to work on(if you have run out of ideas). So all you have to do is to develop any software (web app or desktop app or app for anyother platform) that uses 'News' data from the Daylife API.
Been using JaguarPC (jaguarpc.com) shared hosting account since the past 5 months. The support is good. And they have these tech support guys who could actually can understand my noob language(and showed me around the settings) when i tried to play around with my account.
One of my friends from US told me that slicehost is good and i see a lot of fan comments above.
I have also been using Google AppEngine since a week. Its blazing fast. But they currently have only free accounts and have mentioned on their blog that they will start a paid cloud hosting service soon for those who reach their free hosting limits. Yahoo! too have announced that they will soon offer cloud hosting. So if u you wait for a couple months you might get to choose between EC2 and Google and Yahoo and slicehost and others. Because if you are using php, i have a wild guess that Yahoo's hosting will be php inclined(most of their services are php-inclined). If u are comfortable with python, go for Google AppEngine.
Also a word of CAUTION: if you are going to choose shared hosting packages, then always read terms of service agreement and whatever agreements they have. I once used a one month trial coupon with Hostgator and stumbled upon their T.O.S. It was clearly mentioned that they allow only '50000 inodes' on shared hosting accounts, which in simpler words translates that you can have a max of 50000 files. So if you are going to host something like a social networking site, beware! Your users might get to the max files limit if u are going to have a feature like photo uploading.
Agree with u. As a geek, I would opt to read geeky stuff on magazines when i dont have access to internet. Here are a few things I suggest you consider.
1.) You can start with the air passengers. And the best thing to do would be to setup a small stall in the airport or very near to the gate.
2.) Sell in small number of pages. And sell different volumes per topic. Becoz a geek would like tech content and a granny would health related content(i didnt ask my granny). Like one Maybe around 15 pages per-topic per-week, since u only want to offer them content to be occupie during journey.
3.) when there's blog content about latest stuff, ur content might be old for readers at the end of the month. So publish new editions every week.
4.) if u are going to publish different a volume per topic, then the easiest way of getting content would be Technorati or any other blog aggregator.
5.) remember: start small. U can ofcourse start with around 3 topics for different age groups. Like 'gadgets' for kids, 'talk of the town' kind of content for women and biz for men.
6.) u can also just start by using a laser printer at home to print(i dont know about printing, checkout which is economical.
7.) start as a niche magazine for travellers. u can later expand by setting up stalls at more public travel stations and other places.
8.) u might get busy with aggregating content. So i suggest u hire someone to look after the stall. U can find students looking for partime jobs(getting them might be easy, who doesnt want to read magazines free?)
i hope u liked the above. And please apologize for using mobile lingo, i am on my mobile phone :)
Great Pstam! I agree with you. People actually need topic ideas to blog about(depends on what kind of topic they focus on). Consider a popular example, Arrington wouldnt find news to talk about if no one tells him about it or if he hasn't read anything. I just read the idea. I haven't seen the site yet, i'm on my mobile phone, so will take a look at it later.
I was just trying to create a jabber-compatible messenger that can run within the browser. A holiday project :)