Archive for July, 2006
A friend of mine sent me this link today and I thought it sounded very interesting. I was suprised to see that nobody had put this on Digg.com yet.
Basically, from what I can tell, Phalanger will allow you to use and create PHP code in Visual Studio (currently only .NET 1.1), but will then compile it into a DLL which makes execution time faster. The benchmarks on the site speak for themselves.
From the feature list:
- Extends the .NET language family with PHP version 5
- Enables creation of ASP.NET applications made of existing PHP scripts
- Compiles PHP scripts to achieve a significant speed-up of application execution
- Provides .NET application developers with all the PHP libraries
- Integrates the PHP language into Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
read more | digg story | 
July 26th, 2006
My family and I are about to go on our annual lake house vacation. Every year on my way out of town, I think, “I really need to make a good summertime/lake house mix cd”. Well, this year, I’m on the ball and my wife is assisting me with the song selection. Those that know me may be thinking this will be a rock n’ roll or alternative mix, but this is not that case. When I’m at the lake, all I want to listen to is country music. So, we are using Tadalist to brainstorm our ideas for a mix cd. Here’s our list so far:
http://podious.tadalist.com/lists/public/342713
The rule for song selection is that it has to mention or be about summer, the beach, fishing, the lake, or growing up in the country. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments!
July 6th, 2006
Just wanted to share a recent find on the Net. If you are looking for a good mix of music, or to find music similar to an artist you already like, try Pandora or Last.fm. Pandora has one of the best Flash menus/navigation that I’ve ever seen. It is simple, yet very functional so that the most novice Internet user can find it easy to use. Panodra knows what to play based on the Music Genome Project. Last.fm takes a little getting used to and isn’t nearly as usable as Pandora, but provides more features and a history of what you listen to. It also provides recommendations (like Netflix). The more you listen, the better your recommendations get. Last.fm gets their data from other users tagging each song or artist and from Audioscrobbler data. I’ve been using Last.fm more lately because I like that I can more easily manipulate what I want to listen to. The only big drawback to Last.fm is the fact that you have to download and run a separate player to hear any music. You only need a Flash-enabled browser to use Pandora.
So obviously, as the post title says, these services really help you to find new music based on the tastes that you already have. This can be good and bad, in my opinion. These services will help you find music based on what you already like. However, some of the best music I’ve found was by accident or someone else telling me to listen to it and it was COMPLETELY different than what I was used to.
July 6th, 2006