Pleth Premium Email w/ Outlook Synchronization…

My partner Greg and I were discussing the possibilities of being able to synchronize your Outlook Desktop Client with your Webmail client. For example, a feature like this would allow you to accomplish the following:

  • Synchronize your calendars, contacts, and tasks between Outlook and Plethware
  • View shared calendars in both Outlook and Plethware
  • Schedule Automatic Synchronizations
  • Manage your data from any computer at any location
  • Increase productivity by giving others visibility to your calender online and offline
  • Easily set up synchronization capability between multiple computers.

This is a feature that we are going to be looking at very closely over the next few weeks, I will post updates here as to how this search is coming along.  In the meantime, if you are interested in the Pleth Premium Email Solution,

Calendar trick for Webmail + Blackberry users

Was just out surfing and ran into a post that Bill Boebel, CTO of Webmail.US, had on his Blog.  It’s a trick for Webmail users that want to keep their Calendars synced up with their Blackberry Devices.  Here is the Link to Bill Boebel: Calendar trick for Webmail + Blackberry users

Project: Google Gadgets API

I know that sooner or later we are going to have a client request that we develop a Google Gadget for them so I am probably fixing to dive into this and see what it’s all about.  What is a Google Gadget?  A Google Gadget is basically a feed that fits into a framework of sorts (Gadget API) that can be displayed on peoples iGoogle customized Desktop.  I had so many gadgets on my iGoogle screen that I had to open up a new tab the other day, it’s very useful if you have a few blogs or websites that you follow closely.  I will likely post back once I get this thing created with a link to my creation.  If you are interested in creating your own Gadget, here is a Link to Google Gadgets API – Overview

Web Hosting for Web 2.0

Source: Web Hosting for Web 2.0 | The Web Hosting Show

I have been tuning into The Web Hosting Show for a while now, they always have good relevant info, in this podcast he discusses how web hosting companies are having to make adjustments for the whole web 2.0 trend, he mentions folks like myspace.com, youtube, facebook, etc. and brings up a good point about what it takes to run sites of this magnitude, here’s an excerpt:

What some people don’t realize is it takes a lot of web hosting power to run these titans of the new digital age. A web site like digg.com is not run on a $5.99 a month web hosting account. They probably have a whole farm of servers running that single domain.

Garmin Forerunner 201

I have been researching this cool little gadget out for a while now and finally broke down yesterday and ordered me one.  It’s a GPS device that you wear when you run that will track your performance, keep up with your pace, and log your times, etc.  Definitely a cool little piece of equipment to track your workouts.  For me it’s hopefully something that will keep me interested in running and will keep me somewhat consistent because as of late I haven’t been doing any cardio at all.  I had a pretty good routine going at one time where I would head out each morning and get me a couple of miles in before I started my day.  THe funny thing is that when I was doing this I felt great and could really stay focused better on tasks during the day but for some reason I just started getting up later and later each morning before heading into the office and somewhere along the way my morning ritual got tossed by the wayside.  

Another really cool thing about this Forerunner is that it will allow me to upload my runs to Garmin’s website, www.motionbase.com. The software even does an overlay of your path on a Google Map so you can see how elevations and courses change your performance.  It’s really a cool tool, I am looking forward to getting this thing in and playing with it.  Here is a Link to Forerunner 201 -

Varying Levels of User Access in PHP/MySQL

Creating varying levels of access for users of a site is something that I wrestled with for a while trying to get my mind around when I first sat down to learn PHP inside and out.  Fortunately in PHPR (phprunner) there is a section full of tutorials that demonstrate how to setup user access to a section or table in your database.  These tutorials really helped me get my mind around it.  Here is a Link to New to PHP – Forums where Robb Helt, a new PHP Programmer posted a message on Xline’s message board w/ questions on how to setup access to a couple of different tables.  The community did a great job in answering his question and offering up a solution for doing this, I just thought that I would post a message here with a link to this forum in case anyone else runs into this issue.

For me, what I pretty much will do is to create a table called users, sometimes even create a superadmin that can do everything, but once i have my users table setup I will go through and check the tables that I want the users to be able to have access to.

Project: Classmate Website (beta)

I am currently working on a project for my Mom’s classmate website.  I am building the project using PHPR (phprunner) and it is written in PHP with a MySQL database on the backend.  Her current website features an out of date content management solution that is hard for her to get around in, and it requires her to have to keep all of her classmates information up to date, which is a lot of work considering she has over 50 classmates.

With the new solution I am putting together there will be an added layer of security and privacy in that all of her classmates email addresses and contact information will be only available to other registered classmates on the website.  This will hopefully do two things, one, as I mentioned earlier, hopefully add some privacy for sensitive member information like phone numbers, email addresses, etc., and secondly, hopefully by requiring classmates to register prior to accessing other classmates information it will encourage them all to register and share some information about themselves.

I have built a complete self-registration page that allows each registrant the opportunity to enter in their contact information (cell phone, home phone, mailing address, etc.) as well as adding a short message to other classmates along with a photo of themselves.  I have also coded in an advanced feature that will make a google map for directions to each others address in the event they would like to plan a trip to visit out of town classmates. 

Once a member registers online they choose a username and password which is stored in the database and can be reset if needed as well as having an email reminder sent to them in the event they forget their information.  I also have implemented user access permissions in the database which will only allow a registered member to edit or change their own information with the exception of my Mom, i made her login information as a “superadmin” meaning that she can edit anyone’s information for them should the need arise.

One other thing that I have added in this software package is an Upcoming Events management console which my Mom can use to post upcoming events or get togethers that her classmates plan.  These events can be edited and deleted by my Mom only since she is the superadmin.  I am planning on adding an event submission area where registered members can post suggested events to be approved by the superadmin upon approval.  Once an event is added to the database I am also going to probably add a feature that will send an email notification to all of her classmates alerting them that an event or get together has been added to the site.  On the event detail page I have also coded in the Google Maps api that will automatically plot out a map to the location the party is being held at.

I haven’t gotten the site ready for launch yet but should have it ready sometime this week once I get all of the bugs worked out.  I have planned this project out for about the last week or two and finally sat down today and loaded all of the code onto the server using PHPR (phprunner) and started testing everything out.  It is projects like this that would have normally taken me a few days at least to code that I am now able to launch in just a few minutes using PHPR (phprunner) WYSWYG php code generatorIf you are looking for a cool tool to manage and create a custom PHP/MySQL web application I would suggest downloading PHPRunner from Xlinesoft.  I try to interact frequently on their forums and community message boards.

Add an RSS Feed to Microsoft Outlook

I upgraded to Office 2007 Ultimate a while back and I really like some of the new features it has packaged in.  Although I will be the first to admit that it has taken me longer to get familiar with everything than I would have liked.  One of the cool features that I am pretty fond of is the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds inside of Outlook.  They come into my outlook just like an email would, except they go into my RSS Feeds folder.  I just discovered this the other day on Microsoft Office Online and thought that I would pass the info along, here is a Link to Add an RSS Feed – Outlook – Microsoft Office Online.  This feature comes in pretty handy if you follow and try to stay up to date on a few blogs or even message boards that offer RSS feeds. 

CodeIgniter PHP Framework

I ran across CodeIgniter over the weekend and tagged it so that I could come back in this morning and do a little more research on it because it looked pretty interesting. Indeed it’s pretty interesting so I thought that I would post a blog entry about it and see if anyone else had any experience working with it.

CodeIgniter is a powerful PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. If you’re a developer who lives in the real world of shared hosting accounts and clients with deadlines, and if you’re tired of ponderously large and thoroughly undocumented frameworks then check out this Link to CodeIgniter – Open source PHP web application framework. I spent a little time this morning looking at the video on building a web blog. Definitely something I am going to be looking into a little further, I will post more on here once i have a chance to play with it some more…

YouTube – Human Slingshot

Ryan Long and I were just looking at some Crazy Stuff on YouTube and ran across this video, I couldn’t resist adding it to my blog.  The things that folks will do for fun never ceases to amaze me!  This kid gets slung through the air at no tellings how fast several times!  Priceless!  I definitely wouldn’t want to try this at home though!

As an encore to this video I also was able to locate the Fat Guy in the Human Slingshot.  This time they didn’t use the four wheeler to pull him back!  Hilarious.  What did we ever do before YouTube???