Tom’s Graphic Design Journal

I always write about CakePHP and love it. I give it mad respect because the guys behind that project not only deserve it, but without it I'd be stuck in the dark ages. Perhaps I'd move to Zend or Symfony, but I'm glad there's CakePHP. However, there's a bunch of other web frameworks that aren't well known (not that any of them really are in the big picture), they include CSS, Actionscript, JavaScript/AJAX, and more...but I'm just going to talk about the two most important of the current tools in my shed.

CakePHP

CakePHP is (obviously) a PHP framework that was inspired by Ruby on Rails...but thank god it's not using Ruby. Despite the fact that Ruby is now available on more and more web hosts...I just believe PHP to be a more popular and better choice. Not to get involved in a whole which language is better situation, but for WEB APPLICATION development, I prefer PHP over .NET, ASP, Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, and whatever else I'm missing. I find it a very friendly, popular, fast growing, flexible, and stable language for internet use.

What CakePHP really does at heart is gives you a structured approach to development. It keeps everything well organized (or helps...you can still make things messy), it keeps things secure (unless you go and break it), it keeps things moving along quickly, and it does all this efficiently and helps you work with databases very efficiently. This is why I use CakePHP. I couldn't possibly develop something (large) more efficiently without it. I'd be making too many database queries or I'd have confusing code that wasn't re-usable.

Granted for small scripts I won't use CakePHP, the overhead and number of files doens't make sense. An example here would be a simple form...However, if I wanted to make a larger application that served up a variety of forms that would change all the time...then I'd use CakePHP.

I feel CakePHP is the best choice to build a CMS with. WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal -- I've used them all. I know now that I can do better and make better applications. Those were created a "long" time ago and didn't get to benefit from all the technology we have now. The creators of those projects couldn't abandon their original code because it would be too hard on the communities that they established. People wouldn't know what's going on, they wouldn't be able to upgrade their sites, etc. Mass chaos. So they are stuck. This is also my theory for things like Myspace. In my eyes, that site is the biggest pile of garbage on the internet. I know it could be done better, but it grew too fast and too large. God only knows the server power required to run that. God only knows how much more efficient it could be...but EVERYONE knows how ugly it looks and the design wasn't well thought out. So facebook looks like the victor there...but I'm not going into that stuff.

My point here is CakePHP requires upgrading as well, but it's not mandatory. You could have a very nice application on an older version of CakePHP and not ever need to upgrade. Not that upgrading is too difficult, the core files sit outside your application so it's easier than say upgrading a modified Joomla! or Drupal site. However, it's your code that is the real thing to improve upon when building an application with CakePHP.

With CakePHP, you could build a blog application in a day. So happens the one I'm working on is not just your average blog and I don't have a lot of time to work on it...so it's taking a while. However, I have build a custom CMS for a site with CakePHP within 10 hours. It allows the user to update their site (almost entirely) and it's well done. It makes far less queries to the database than WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla!, and has less overhead. That would the solution if not for CakePHP too. Use some pre-existing CMS to get the job done. That kind of thinking is so wrong. It actually takes LONGER to modify Drupal, Joomla!, etc. to get it to work exactly how you need in most cases. Now, if you want a site that works exactly how these other CMS' work, then use them. Then it's faster. However, that's just not the case for most sites.

Blueprint CSS

I've rambled on enough the backend efficiency and code of the site. CakePHP is perfect for making a lean and mean site. However, what about the looks? Sure, the new 1.2 version of CakePHP starts you off with the ability to cleanly theme your applications so you can easily switch out designs and keep all your visual code yet again seperated out and well organized...but how about CSS?

Well, I found out about CSS frameworks...Huh? Sounds bizarre right? Well, I guess anything that follows rules and such is considered a framework. It does, there's a paradigm here to follow and guess what? It comes out looking REAL nice.

Blueprint CSS, like CakePHP will let you build EXTREMELY fast. It also has compressed css files to help speed things up. Again though...if you're looking for a small site or just a page, you should skip out on Blueprint because it'll be too much overhead for something so simple. Knowing when to use these tools is so extremely important and so is using them properly. Otherwise, you could end up with a lot of mess and even wasted time -- the exact opposite of what you were after in the first place.

So. What does Blueprint do? How's it work? It keeps your CSS clean and working across multiple web browser and it works off a grid system. So things end up looking the same (for real) on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safri, Netscape, Opera, etc. You don't even have to think about it. That's the best part of all. Before, one could spend hours trying to hunt down compatibility issues and aras where one browser rendered something perfectly, but the next rendered it a different way and it broke things. Now, those issues are far far less and are super easy to identify and fix.

This also gets print design closer to web design. Grid systems are extremely important in design and before we only had a loose system for the web. One would have to make that themself and it would be hard to stick to it. Blueprint works off a great grid system that's already there for you to customize and it's easy to stick with because you pretty much have to.

With Blueprint, I've been able to convert Photoshop design comps to web sites faster than ever before and with less errors across browsers. Like CakePHP, it is a power tool that you should not miss out on.

Conclusion

With thes two powerful tools, one could make a very beautiful web site/application and quick. The most important thing to note with both of these frameworks is their flexibility and their ability for customization. You can override these frameworks and make them work the way you need. You can do so without modifying core files...so you can always upgrade (if neeeded) and you can re-use code with greater ease. So you're never stuck.

It's a very exciting time to be building dynamic web sites. There's a learning curve and I'd always reccommend learning how to make things "the old" way or the long way first. It helps you understand these tools better. It also allows you to appreciate them. It's just like setting type and designing on a computer, versus hand drawn and older photographic methods of design. It's super important to understand the history behind all of these creative mediums.

You should also choose the framework(s) that you're most comfortable with. There are others. Check them out. Frameworks I didn't dicuss, but are worth looking into include; Flex (for Actionscript), Symfony, Zend (PHP), Ruby on Rails (Ruby), jQuery, Mootools, YUI, Scriptculous, Aflax (Javascript - some of these also just considered libraries, but speed your development along - Prototype would be the "framework" for many things), and more. Check them out, they can really help you with some complex tasks and make your life easier.

So I've made a little bit of progress on my media blog. I'm off a deadline of mine for final beta, but I hope to finish up with that really soon. I have started to figure out how I'm going to release it though. There was some debate in my mind about setting up a social/community site with it much like a blend between flickr, youtube, blogger...but I am putting that on hold. Still researching other sites out there that would come close to the features I would be offering. I'm wondering if I'm trying to cover too much. Maybe, maybe not. The application is very well organized and very easy (and quick) to use. The number one reason why I'm not making a social site/app out of this is due to legal issues, investments and initial required capital. What people don't realize is that it's actually quite easy these days to make a site like facebook, myspace, etc. actually it's even possible to make a better and more efficient site than those. Minerva of course runs off the CakePHP framework...now it could have run off Zend or Symfony or whatever, but I liked CakePHP best and chose to learn that...and I didn't like Ruby on Rails.

So that said, here we are. Some new progress and basically I've setup a demo to show off how a blog could look. It shows how collections (or galleries) can be pulled into articles. Either a video gallery, photo gallery, or an audio collection. In the future, there will be the opportunity for mixed media galleries as well. For now, I'm sticking to the "keep it simple stupid" plan.

Tagging is coming. Rating is coming. So everything you see on that other media blog out there that shall go unnamed, will be possible. In fact, I could reskin mine to look exactly like it just to prove a point - but I won't.

The thing that is really going to set Minerva blog apart from the crowd is how efficient, scalable, easy to use, and easy to theme or skin it is. The theming will work close to how one would make themes for WordPress. If you don't make a file to override the default, the default will be used. I'm keeping the code very clean, xhtml valid, and 100% css. You will see no tables. Variables will be easy to print out and clear about what they do. So making themes will be a breeze. Later on there will be some remoting methods and provisions setup so that one can make Flash/Flex themes as well. So I guess we really can be like that other media blog out there huh? =)

Again back to my original point. It's not very difficult (in my opinion) to do these things. Working nights and weekends I've been able to setup this wonderful blog and with a little bit of planning and thought - I truly believe it will be the best one out there.

I'll go over some more tech specs in a later post, but if you're familiar with CakePHP, then you know how well this blog can perform and trust me I'm taking every step I can to ensure it will run like an efficient CakePHP app should. Add on top of that the easy ability for load balanced servers, clustered databases (again, the benefits of CakePHP) and some heads should start turning. 

So check out the little demo of Minerva media blog I've set up. I am also trying to see if I can get any of these spam bots over there hammering on my captcha and other little tricks. 

Ok so this is my prediction. It's not really far fetched and I'm sure I'm not alone on it...but all TV will be through the internet. Television programming that we watch will come through the internet. We already are seeing this so it's not that big of a leap. I felt this way for a while though - but after AppleTV and Windows Media Center (or should I flip those to be correct), the potential is quite apparent.

We see podcasts too. They now have had video podcasts for a while too. This is what feeds things like AppleTV.. eh does it? Well it does Windows Media Center and XBox. Also your computer (iTunes, that Lemon thing, Winamp and more). Actually, winamp has been streaming video for many years. Aside from Real, Winamp was the pioneer of this stuff and that's ultimately when I knew the future of TV would be over the internet. Think about those...those were still with dial-up in some cases. The video quality very very low. Naturally. Now, we have free streaming HD quality content available to us.

Pretty crazy. In fact, I find more (quantity and interest) content in HD on the internet than I do on tv. There's many steady internet "tv" stations or podcasts. For example; diggnation, rocketboom, techtonic, rawdio, and more. Now some of those right there are in HD resolution. There's literally hundreds (I think) of "channels" available to you through TV Tonic's plugin for Windows Media Center. That's a VERY important plug-in. Everyone should have it and everyone should have windows media center. If not - all is not lost, iTunes picks up podcasts and if you have an XBox...you're set too.

XBox can be used as a media center extender - which totally kicks ass.

Also note how we can store our movies and even get some of our movies now. There's services like Vongo out there that let you download and watch movies straight from the internet. XBox LIVE also has services. Also (though illegal) there's many ways of downloading movies from the internet. Why? Because we have grown acustom to watching them on our computers...or if you have a handy (and they are cheap, like $80 when I got mine a year ago) DVD player that can play divx and such, you're in awesome shape. There's even people who have ripped HD and Blu Ray DVDs.

So do the math and add up the following factors:

1. Drive space is becoming incredibly cheap. A 500GB hard drive is reasonable. Hook that up to things like network storage (also affordable) and you can have two drives in a wireless enclosure ($100 device at Circuit City, I'm sure cheaper elsewhere) and you have a ton of space for media. MP3's, movies, etc. You're spending less than the cost of an expensive blu ray player too here ... then go download HD movies. Ok that's illegal - scratch that.

2. Network entertainment solutions are becoming popular. Things like Windows Media Center, AppleTV (even though I think that bombed), XBox, and other devices are out there and are affordable. Also take note of some of the services out there to share media...sling box, orb.com, and some of the more obvious and less hi-tech sites such as youtube and so on. Also note cheap youtube clone scripts like PHPMotion and Clip-Share. We are sharing a TON of media on the internet now more than ever and there's many ways to do so.
3. Look at services out there like the iTunes store, Rhapsody/Real, Vongo, etc.
4. Now we have the means. Let's get into the rough points. First, the writer strike. Well before that, hold up, there's been a downward trend in quality television shows. More and more crappy reality and game shows. Granted the new game show with people hooked up to a polygraph looks cool - I'm sure the novelty will wear off fast...but yes the strike is hurting television BIG.
5. Lack of HD content. There's not many stations with HD content. ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. have it but not too many shows in HD. Bummer. HBO, etc. also have it but you have to pay on top of your regular cable for premium channels.
6. Costs. Cable sucks ass. Whether it's Comcast, Time Warner, or whoever else...It's super expensive. Paying for the premium channels to get movies in HD sucks too. The cost of HD DVD players and Blu Ray players is also expensive right now. Also don't forget production costs. Any yahoo with a video camera can put up video in a podcast on the internet. Things like Amazon S3 also make for cheap solutions for handling high demand too. HD quality filming costs? Well look at things like the Red camera. While it's super expensive, it's certainly MUCH cheaper than other cameras out there that you'd need...and for most things you don't even need that. You can get high quality video cheap these days.
7. Rules, laws, ethics, and commercials. TV is so limited. Your web server is not. You can put all sorts of content up on the internet if you have the right host in the right country =) So I'm sure at some point there will be some sort of system put in place for adult content and such, but that's so extremely hard to sensor anyway. Kids are gonna get through any security measure. It's a game to them and good training for the future if you ask me. They gotta learn about computers some how...oh and yea that stuff too haha. Anyway, less commercials is a bonus as is less rules.
8. Talent. Quality. The number one thing that's gonna determine if internet tv is a success or not is quality. If there's nothing good to watch no one will. Same can be said for regular tv too though. I'd wager television is less watched these days anyway due to just people getting news off the internet and more hype on movies (especially HD quality movies). I must admit a lot of internet tv is bad...but as I sit here now typing on my laptop and watching an HD feed of a music video channel (ok the commentary is HD - but music video quality is high, I think computer videos stretch better on an HD tv than normal tv but for the most part this must be above 480 anyway)  I feel satisfied. It streams nice. Sometimes it gets stuck, buffers for a min and we're good...but this is less frequent than tv commercials. I only see one tv commercial every so often for wave express or microsoft. No big deal. It doesn't interrupt my show either. It's AFTER it. When commercials should be.

So those are the points I'd like to make to the world. I hope someone else out there gets it and I hope there's more and more content out there soon. Windows Media Center is the best thing to happen to us people. Who'd a thunk it? A Microsoft project that REALLY REALLY works well. Of course if you can hook your computer to your tv (hey, there's wireless vga adapters) or like watching video on your computer anyway, you don't even need media center.

If I had the time I'd setup a video podcast and support the internet tv movement. We all should. Think about how profitable it can be for the earlier ones in on it all. The money in advertising, the power of having many viewers, airing people's shows and content, etc. Basically, history is starting a new chapter and anyone now could be the head of something as big as a network television station. We're starting from scratch here pretty much. Get on it!