comparelinux.com–Linux and open source Blog

          For years, i had thought stat counter provided the best results when it came to providing website statistics and visitors information and traffic information, probably the most important things that matter to a webmaster other than the CTR(Click through rate). Then as usual Google entered the website statistics market and thats when i knew things are about to get better; and they went from better to the best with their analytics interface and i removed stats counter from all of my websites and installed the analytics script in all of my webpages and the result was great; actually more than i expected and i was happy and contented that i shifted from statcounter to Google Analytics!

But, probably google wasnt contented and today morning i woke up from my sleep to check my mails like i always do, and i had this service email from Google Analytics stating that they have changed their interface!

I was more than interested to know about the new google analytics interface and what i saw was out of the world; google has done it again….and this time it is fantastic and if you thought that the previous analytics was good this one is the BEST. See for yourself by logging into Google Analytics.

The most noticable change is the ability for automated reports to be emailed at an email address specified by you, but thats just the beginning! The graphs that are generated this time are very sleek and the graphics for the map overlays and the graphics have been carefully worked to perfection. The navigations to various aspects that it monitors has been simplified and has been made a lot more “User Friendly” than it previously was. The new dashboard is also great and provides the best overview of the system, perfected to the understanding of the novice user and customizable upto the level of a “Geek”!

Plus, a new thing that i have noticed is a possible export to .pdf and a .xml file, of all the reports which i am not sure was possible before!

I know, i cant stop going “ga ga” over the new analytics interface, but i advice its the best for you people to login and see and if you are not an analytics user then maybe this is the best time to get a Google Analytics account and get Started!

Tags: Google, Software Reviews by admin
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PHP Frameworks:

PHP is finally getting the attention that i deserves, yes I have always believed that PHP is one of those neglected languages, neglected because they are used in abundance but there isn’t enough programs or as we call them frameworks to work on PHP. But that was until the release of PHP 5. After the release of PHP, there is a range of Frameworks available.

Today we review and understand closely the various frameworks available for PHP. Some of the most popular frameworks for PHP are:

1. The Zend Framework.
2. The Prado Framework.
3. CakePHP Framework.
4. Symphony Framework.

These frameworks are ofcourse the most popular ones and there are more than 40 frameworks for PHP and it is very difficult to know which framework suits you the best and will be the most productive for your web development and enterprise goals.
Ofcourse all these frameworks are free and provide a host of services to satisfy almost all of the web development needs of a web designer or a website owner. Some of the most common features of all these PHP Framework are as follows:

• PHP 5: Thats obvious! All the frameworks support both PHP 5 version of the PHP.Only “The Prado Framework” support the PHP 4.x version of the PHP as well as the PHP 5 version of the PHP.
• Multiple DBs: All the above mentioned frameworks support multiple databases to be used without making any setup and configuration changes.
• Validation: All the four frameworks have an inbult validation and a filtering component which can be used.
• MVC: All the four frameworks have the MVC that is the Model View Controller setup.

So, these are the few components and controllers that are common in most of the PHP based frameworks and therefore one should look out for these components when downloading or using a PHP framework.

Now let us see a brief introduction about each of these PHP based frameworks and their salient features:

• Zend Framework:Zend Framework is a component based framework with components for almost all of the programming needs of a PHP programmer or PHP developer.

Some of the components in the Zend Framework are:

1. zend_acl
2. zend_auth
3. zend_cache
4. zend_config
5. zend_consolegetop and many more.

• Prado Framework: The Prado framework provides the following benefits for web application developers.

1. reusablility
2. Ease of use
3. Robustness
4. Performance
5. Team Integration

• CakePHP:

Some of the important features of CakePHP are as follows:

1. Model, View, Controller Architecture
2. View Helpers for AJAX, Javascript, HTML Forms and more
3. Built-in Validation
4. Application Scaffolding
5. Application and CRUD code generation via Bake
6. Access Control Lists
7. Data Sanitization
8. Security, Session, and Request Handling Components
9. Flexible View Caching

Like all other frameworks cakePHP is also component based framework.

• The Symphony Framework:

Some of the features of the symphony framework are as follows:

1. simple templating and helpers
2. cache management
3. smart URLs
4. scaffolding
5. multilingualism and I18N support
6. object model and MVC separation
7. Ajax support
8. enterprise ready

Thus these are the best options available for frameworks relating to PHP and one should review all these features of all these frameworks against his needs and choose the appropriate framework to work on!

Any suggestions and comments as always are welcome.

Tags: Software Reviews, open source software, by admin
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Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is quite literally the next generation browser than has become quite popular in the recent years. Firefox is developed and promoted by Mozilla as its flagship browser for both Linux as well as windows platforms. The latest version of Firefox is Firefox 2 which claims to be faster than the pervious versions of the browser, it is definitely more secure than the internet explorer as well as more customizable as compared to Internet Explorer.

Lets see some of the features of Firefox which makes it the browser of the future and why it gives such a though competition to the market leader in the browser sector “ The Internet Explorer”

• Super Fast Page Loading: Firefox definitely loads pages much faster than the internet explorer and the most distinguished quality of this browser is that it is so transparent. Everything that it does is displayed in the status bar where as internet explorer has just the basic and very fundamental things displayed keeping the main things to itself. What this means is that with firefox you know when you are being redirected, when you are connecting to another proxy.
• Secure Web Browsing: Firefox definitely offers more security when it comes to surfing the internet because unlike internet explorer it doesn’t have BHO(Browser Helper Objects) which are often used by spywares and adwares to detect users surfing patterns and even worse to invoke RPC( Remote Procedure Calls). Firefox developers have also invested some quality programming time in checking the popup menace that is eminent on the internet. Firefox blocks out 99% of all the popups which are the reasons of viruses and irritating advertisements over the internet.
• Extremely Customizable: With firefox you can customize just about everything from addons to default search engines to themes. Firefox comes with a built in Addon and Themes Manager to manage, install, uninstall, enable and disable themes and add ons. You can choose from over 1000 add ons for firefox from their website which are made for each and every type of user, from a developer, to a webmaster to an investment banker to a CEO.

One of the distinguishing and the silent feature of the firefox is its ability to detected phising and to warn users about it which no other browser can along with an excellent automatic update routine so that the users need not worry about update at all. The best thing is of all, all these and many more features come for FREE; cause its open source.

So, if you haven’t switched on the Firefox please do so, for a better internet experience and for a safe and secure internet usage.

Tags: Software Reviews by admin
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hi,

When you type the word “Linux” in google , ubuntu.com is on the first page for this keyword and i wondered whats up with ubutu linux; so i visited their website and was very impressed by the amount of work and the kind of linux they offer. I’ll have to admit that in the world of free linux like fedora which obviously is supported by Red Hat and Opensuse which obviously is supported by Novell where does ubutu stand….but read their website and thought of downloading the desktop version to just have a look and unlike to all the fedora and opensuse this desktop version is all of 700 MB.

So, right now i have also downloaded the ubuntu desktop edition of linux and lets see how things work out and then i’ll will as always write about it!!

Comments as always are welcome!

Thanks! Cheers!

Tags: Software Reviews by admin
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hi,

The google Pack also includes a spyware doctor which i think is high on system resources and takes a considerable load of your memory especially while scanning for Spywares and Adwares!

I mean for my system, where before the scanning for spyware and Adware started the memory usage was just 25% and after i started scanning for spywares using spyware doctor the usage went on to increase upto 50%, which is a clear indication that the program takes a lot of memory usage; but i dont think you can blame the program for it because scanning isnt a simple task after all and i think we can manage with that trade off of course as long as the program removes spywares and protects us!!

Tags: Software Reviews by admin
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hi folks,

As of nows its going superb and the sidebar of the google desktop which contains loads of widgets is “awesome”. The most important thing is that they have got loads of widgets which can be very useful and the software is the desktop software in the real sense, i mean if you really want and you can use the software well you might not need to open an Internet Explorer or a Firefox again….oh ok a little exaggerated statement, but the moral of the story is that the widget sidebar is great!

The look and Feel is also nicely designed and is very appealing to the eye!!

As for the other softwares with Google Pack i am still using them and will write about them soon!!

Cheers!!

As always comments always welcome!

Tags: Software Reviews by admin
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Google Pack:

Just downloaded the google pack installer and the installer or the updater as google calls it has detected all the software supported by it and is downloading and updating them to keep my computer updated!

Thats what the software claims and it has currently installed Google Desktop and in the coming few days i will be using the software throughly and then will give a proper review on the software to all my readers!

In the meanwhile, if you want to download the software you can do it and also give a review or contribute in the process of reviewing of the software.

So, please share all your experiences with using google pack and the other software installed via google pack here and thus help others!!

Tags: Software Reviews by admin
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