Category: Software

Zend Studio, Zend Development Environment Personal Review

Zend, a great force in the world of PHP development has what I think is the only IDE for PHP related development. All in all I think this is great and I am glad that this company offers such a product. It certainly helps the PHP cause and probably drives adoption in the corporate world. It also has features that I am sure can’t be found elsewhere in the PHP development world such as debugging with variable watching and break points and so on.

Unfortunately, (speaking as a MacOS X user) this software has not lived up to my expectations. It is just a bit too rough around the edges for me to get to the point where I am willing to try the more advanced features.

Here is a list of what is wrong which I will update as find problems:

  • The pop-up menus that are shown when launching the program (Auto-Update and Tip of the Day) have checkboxes which seem to allow you to choose whether or not you would like the program continue showing them, or not. Unfortunately, no matter what I do, they always show.
  • I am unable to create a new file by choosing the File::New File command. The only way I am able to create a new file is by pressing the new file icon at the top of the IDE.
  • I am unable to save a project file of any sort. This causes me to have to reload each and every file in a project each and every time I start the program to work on that project.
  • The application does not maintain it’s appearance settings. The windows that I have hidden are back each time I launch. Not a program that I am happy about quitting and starting up again.

    • Of course the program has many good points as well. The syntax highlighting is great. The error underlining as you code is very worthwhile and the command completetion is great.

    Overall, it seems to be beta quality software on the Mac. I may continue to use the free version (despite the ugly messages about not being able to do things in this version) but unless the edges are more polished, I can’t justify paying more than $200.

    ITP Winter Show 2004

    ITP Winter Show 2004
    Sunday, December 19 from 2 to 6pm
    Monday, December 20 from 5 to 9pm

    A two-day explosion of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP.

    An oversized Greenwich Village loft houses the computer labs, rotating exhibitions, and production workshops that are ITP — the Interactive Telecommunications Program. Founded in 1979 as the first graduate education program in alternative media, ITP has grown into a living community of technologists, theorists, engineers, designers, and artists uniquely dedicated to pushing the boundaries of interactivity in the real and digital worlds. A hands-on approach to experimentation, production and risk-taking make this hi-tech fun house a creative home not only to its 230 students, but also to an extended network of the technology industry’s most daring and prolific practitioners.

    Interactive Telecommunications Program
    Tisch School of the Arts
    New York University
    721 Broadway, 4th Floor South
    New York NY 10003

    Take the left elevators to the 4th Floor
    This event is free and open to the public

    No need to RSVP

    For questions: 212-998-1880
    email: itp.inquiries@nyu.edu
    http://itp.nyu.edu/show

    Hillary support’s The INDUCE Act

    I was dismayed to learn that Senator Hillary Clinton has come out and in fact co-sponsored Senator Hatch’s Induce Act. What follows is a draft of a letter that I am writing to Sen. Clinton to express my concern. I hope that others will do the same.

    Here is some background material:
    http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S.2560:
    http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64315,00.html
    http://techlawadvisor.com/induce/
    http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/004563.html
    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040618-3906.html
    http://www.futureofmusic.org/articles/INDUCEanalysis.cfm
    http://action.eff.org/site/pp.asp?c=esJNJ5OWF&b=164928

    Like your iPod, read this:
    http://www.eff.org/IP/Apple_Complaint.php

    Please comment on the letter as you see fit.

    Dear Senator Clinton,

    I was dismayed to learn that you have come out in support of Senator Hatch’s Induce Act. I hope that on further consideration of the issues that this bill covers that you change your stance to better reflect the opinions of your constituents and for the betterment of our society.

    The Induce act as it currently is written does much to stifle free-speech, artistic and fair uses of media. Imposing legal responsibility on the makers of devices and software for illegal use such device or software will create a burden so great on manufacturers and creators of such programs that they will not develop or offer products that have potential for misuse.

    I fear that by trying to curb the theft of copyrighted material you will instead be curbing the ability for individuals and groups with legitimate uses for the technology that enables such to use it. Being thoroughly immersed in an academic and artistic atmosphere, I am witness every day to fair uses of technology that would not exist today were such a law in existence. In fact I feel that the software that I am using to write this letter would not have been developed simply because it includes the ability to cut and paste text from any source into the document.

    I believe that should this Bill become law that it will undo much of the progress of free-speech and alternative media creation that has been enabled by the internet, personal electronic devices, computers, tape recorders and so on. Furthermore it will be a giant step backwards and lead to increased power by the media and further relegate citizens to the role of consumer without a voice.

    I hope that you will reconsider your position on this matter.

    Thank you for your time.

    Sincerely,
    Shawn Van Every

    Internet Archive Hosting Creative Commons licensed audio and video

    Killer CC App: The Publisher, beta version
    Bye bye bandwidth bills for *free* media (maybe because I don’t think bandwidth and disk space is really that cheap that it can just be given away in large quantities, yet).

    Oh yeah, the link above is for their nice tool in support of this.

    Microsoft Research: building a Memex

    Stuff I’ve Seen – Home Page
    More about Vannevar Bush’s Memex
    From the site:
    SIS is a prototype tool that makes it easy for you to find information you’ve seen before, whether it came as email, attachments, files, web pages, appointments, tablet journal entries, etc. We do this by providing a single unified stored of different sources and providing an interface with quick sorting, filtering, previews and thumbnails.