If you’ve been hearing about Ruby on Rails, you’re probably wondering, hey, why can’t I do that with PHP?  You can.  Just use CakePHP which is based on Rails.

It’s still young, but it’s pretty neat.  I’ve been working in it for the last day or so and have to say that it’s been fun to work with.  It handles so much messiness in the background that I’m sold.

It has some imperfections (apparently a performance bottle neck or two, nothing earth shattering), but I’m guessing those will work themselves out in the next couple of releases.

There’s a new cross site chat script on the block from Geesee.com.

Pros:

• Super Easy
• Free

Cons:

• Cross site, you have no control over where people can see your chat
• They push advertising to your site

It’s probably not ready for (or designed for) business use.

SimplePHPBlog is a great name for this script because that’s exactly what it is.  At version 0.49, it’s not the most mature script out there but it shows some interesting promise.

Pluses

• easy
• doesn’t require a DB for storage
• real time article access counts
• lots of potential languages
• development appears to be active

Minuses

• young so likely to change
• some logic-display leakage
• no plugin system
• article counts don’t appear to exclude search engine hits
• doesn’t produce friendly URLs

The script allows you to have both static and dynamic entries.  A static entry would be more like a traditional page, dynamic more what you would expect from a standard blog.  It comes with a contact form by default, includes a nice little calendar widget on the sidebar and the block style menus that have been popular for so long.

Appearance wise, you get four different themes out of the box, each with a couple of color schemes.  This makes selecting one of the standard looks pretty easy.  And adding a new theme is a matter of adding it to the “themes” directory.

Installation took a bit more time than I was looking for.  I had to create three directories and set the proper access rights on them and then choose a password.  When I choose the username and password, I apparently instantly forgot it, had to delete the password file and start again.  It worked the second time.

Verdict

Overall, I’d say the script is a good start.  It’s probably more appropriate for a hobbyist user at this point than a business.

Homepage: http://SimplePHPBlog.com

Clients ask us the same question all the time: is there a way I can make simple changes myself without having to know a lot about website programming?

Yes. It’s called WordPress and you can convert your site to it pretty easily and without spending a lot of money.

I’ve written about WordPress before, and it’s popular, so the name may be familiar to you. It started life as blogging software but today goes far beyond that. WordPress is, essentially, a very flexible content management system.

What’s the difference? Simply put, a content management system allows you to do the blog thing while also including static pages. And, on these pages, you can do almost anything you can on a “normal” site. The average visitor won’t notice that you’re using a specialized tool. And, when it comes time to change a date here or some content there, you can do it yourself.

How much does it cost to convert your site to WordPress? That all depends on your site. WordPress itself is open source and can be used without licensing fees. We’ve converted small sites for $99 - our new customer special - while most standard small business sites are in the $500 range.

If you’re looking for a way take control of your site without having to learn the technology, convert it to WordPress. It’s not the right solution for every website, but it is a very good solution for many.

I’ve been working with a customer on a photo gallery script for their site.  I highly recommend the PHP script Gallery.  It’s highly configurable, well programmed and easy to use.  It’s a nice piece of work.