Mashable Toolkits for web developers

I have found an useful toolbox for web developers and bloggers on Mashable which is the biggest blog on social networking, ranks among the top 100 blog worldwide. I liked the following toolboxes that make our job more productive and fast. More you can find on the Mashable.

CMS Toolbox: 80+ Open Source Content Management Systems
There are plenty of Content management systems out there. Mashable collection consist of more than 80 cms system.

Analytics Toolbox: 50+ Ways to Track Website Traffic
Very handy tools and services for specially web admins to track their website statistics and make analysis.


Web Development Toolbox: 120+ Web Development Resources
As rewarding as web development is, it can also be a pain sometimes, especially if you spend half your time looking for the right tools and resources. List of over 120 web development resources to make your life easier.

Make Money Online: 100+ Tools and Resources
We have to earn some money since we helped someone, saved their time, gave advices and provided solutions. So here is the ways how to make money online.



PDF Toolbox: 40+ Tools to Rip, Mix and Burn PDFs
We often need to convert documentation files of our project into PDF format before give them to customers.

Web Design Toolbox: 50+ Tools for Web Design
There are now scores of tools that turn ordinary folks into designers and plenty of new toys for the pros, too.


Work Together: 60+ Collaborative Tools for Groups
Team! We are the part of the teams. So collaboration tools play important role in the teams.

40+ Firefox Add-ons for High Speed Blogging
Most of the developers have blogs and use Firefox. Here is the 40 add-ons for Firefox that provide quick access to handy blogging tools.


Blogging Toolbox: 120+ Resources for Bloggers.
An aspiring blogger can be overwhelmed with the vast amount of resources, tools, and advice for bloggers available on the net.

The Wiki Toolbox: 30+ Wiki Tools and Resources
Wikis, sites that can be collaboratively edited, are among the most popular tools for teams working together online.


The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS
Never again will mankind have to look for RSS info in more than one place…ok, we’re kidding, but we’ve aimed to create a near comprehensive list of all the RSS readers, tools, browser plugins, tips, hacks and directories available on the web. We hope you find it useful (we built it because we needed it), and feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

50+ Tools For The WordPress Admin
This list can be very handy for wordpress admins

30+ AJAX-Powered WordPress Plugins
The WordPress blog platform has thousands of plugins, and many of them now use ajax to improve usability.


See Also;

• Tech and Programming cheat sheets and quick reference guides
  
• Essential firefox add-ons for web programmers
• Open source .NET libraries you should be already u...
• Sharepoint and MOSS 2007 resources, articles and tutorials
• Top 10+ source code search engines
• Let's have a break - Programmer's LifePublish Post
• Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
• J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
• ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials
• What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, articles and tutorials
  

Tech and Programming cheat sheets and quick reference guides

Few days ago, i have posted "Programming Handbooks and Cheatsheets", but i have found more detailed technical resource site where you can find any kind of cheat sheets (105+ Cheat Sheets Listed) starting from Actionscript to Xml.
Do not forget to bookmart it; http://www.techcheatsheets.com/

See also;

• Top 10+ source code search engines
• Let's have a break - Programmer's Life
• Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
• J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
• ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials
• What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, articles and tutorials
  

Essential firefox add-ons for web programmers

• FireFTP - is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers, FireFTP includes more advanced features such as: directory comparison, syncing directories while navigating, SSL encryption, search/filtering, integrity checks, remote editing, drag & drop, file hashing, and much more!
• IE Tab - is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your web page displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.
• Firebug - integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
  
• The Web Developer - adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools.
• HTML Validator - is a Mozilla extension that adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla. The number of errors of a HTML page is seen on the form of an icon in the status bar when browsing.
• ColorZilla - you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page. The built-in palette browser allows choosing colors from pre-defined color sets and saving the most used colors in custom palettes.
• CSS Validator - is a Mozilla Firefox extension which Validates a page using the W3C CSS Validator. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the CSS of the current page.
• MeasureIt - draw a ruler across any webpage to check the width, height, or alignment of page elements in pixels.
• View formatted source - displays formatted and color-coded source and optional CSS information for each element.
• View Source Chart - draws a Color-Coded Chart of a Webpage's Source Code and displays Source in its Altered State After the DOM has been Manipulated by JavaScript.
• Venkman - the code name for Mozilla's JavaScript Debugger, aims to provide a powerful JavaScript debugging environment for Mozilla based browsers namely Firefox, Netscape 7.x/9.x series, Seamonkey 1.x/2.x.
• iWEBTOOL - Access over 30 Webmaster Tools for Free directly from your web browser
• http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/
• LinkChecker - check webpage links at a glance with simple color coding. Ditch those massive listings of bad links that provide no context and add LinkChecker to your arsenal of web development tools today.
• Load Time Analyzer is an extension created by Google that displays the number of events that are processed by a certain website and how long it takes to load them all. The load time displayed will obviously be influenced by your Internet connection, nonetheless it can provide a good indicator of the site speed.
• Quick Locale Switcher - Allows you to quickly change and apply a different locale (language) in your Mozilla application.
• XHTML-MP - allows firefox to render HTML content with the mime-type of application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml. For any developer working with mobile applications, this provides an alternative to using a device emulator.
• Console² - let's you display errors filtered by type (Errors, Warnings, Messages), language (JavaScript, CSS, XML) and context (Chrome, Content). Furthermore it provides a simple search box (as seen in the History and Bookmarks sidebars), hiding of duplicates, sidebar optimizations, a customizable toolbar and some more accessibility improvements.

• Page validator - validates a page using the W3C Markup Validation Service. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the current page. Opens the results in a new tab. This is a simple extension that will work only for online pages.
• xmldeveloper - helps XML developers with their programming efforts by supplying a central toolbar for everything XML.
• The Total Validator - provides one-click validation. Once installed all you do is browse to the page you want to validate then click on the 'TV' icon in the browser status bar.
• Modify Headers - allows the user to Add, Modify and Filter out HTTP request headers. See the help tab in the Modify Headers window for more information.
• The XPather - is a simple extension that integrates both with the browser and its DOMInspector. Thus, is't very lightweight and cross-platform. It is valuable mainly as a web/XML-app development and hacking tool.
• LiveHTTPHeaders - display http headers in real time while pages are being downloaded from the Internet
• Font Finder - Get all CSS styles of selected text in Firefox

See Also;

• Tech and Programming cheat sheets and quick reference guides
  
• Open source .NET libraries you should be already using
  
• Top 10+ source code search engines
  
• Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
• AJAX Frameworks and Resources
• J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
  
• What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resourc...

Checkout;
Webmasters running an online hosting providing business too, need fire fox plug-ins to smoothly track the record of their business opportunity and work progress. Famous hosting companies i.e. godaddy and

ipowerweb are of the opinion that much of Fire fox's authority originates from its add-ons platform and dedicated servers.

Open source .NET libraries you should be already using

As we know, there are many good, enterprise level, open source libraries, frameworks and projects implemented in Java. Most of them are being ported into different platforms like .NET and PHP, so developers are migrating to the these platforms with their familiar tools. For example, i have been using Ant, JUnit, Log4J, iText and many mores when i was developing in Java, but now i am still using Log4Net and Nunit in my current .NET projects. You can find many more open source .NET alternatives from the following list;

• AOP.NET (NAop) is an Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) framework for .NET framework
• NAnt - NAnt is a Ant like build tool for .NET
• ZedGraph is a set of classes, written in C#, for creating 2D line and bar graphs of arbitrary datasets. The classes provide a high degree of flexibility -- almost every aspect of the graph can be user-modified. At the same time, usage of the classes is kept simple by providing default values for all of the graph attributes. The classes include code for choosing appropriate scale ranges and step sizes based on the range of data values being plotted. ZedGraph also includes a UserControl interface, allowing drag and drop editing within the Visual Studio forms editor, plus access from other languages such as C++ and VB
  
• NCover - A test code coverage tool for C# .NET
• YetAnotherForum - Yet Another Forum.net is a opensource discussion forum or bulletin board system for web sites running ASP.NET. It is ASP.NET based with a MS SQL backend database.
• SharpDevelop - #develop (short for SharpDevelop) is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform.
• NInstall - A project to produce an package that can compete with the commercial installer products
• StructureMap - StructureMap is a lightweight Inversion of Control (IoC) Container written for .NET development. StructureMap can improve the architectural qualities of an object oriented .NET system by reducing the mechanical costs of good design techniques.
• BugBye - BugBye is a web-based bugtracking system developed using ASP.NET technology and C# as scripting language
• log4net - log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime.

• OpenSmtp.net - OpenSmtp.net is an SMTP component written
• NMail provides an SMTP client & server, POP3 & IMAP4 servers written in C#
• iTextSharp - iTextSharp is a library that allows you to generate PDF files on the fly.
• iBATIS.NET helps you create better persistence layers for .NET applications.
• Personal .NET Portal - is a .NET based Web Portal for personal use. The purpose is to build a Homepage easily. Pages are build through Tabs and Modules.
• NProfiler - An application profiler for .NET
• User Story.NET - This project is a tool for Extreme Programming projects in their User Story tracking.
• RSS Bandit - A desktop news aggregator written
• NxBRE is the first open-source rule engine for the .NET platform and a lightweight Business Rules Engine (aka Rule-Based Engine)
  
• NetCvsLib - NetCvsLib is a CVS client written entirely for the .NET platform. It is implemented as an assembly, and thus can easily be incorporated into other projects.
• Database Commander - Database Commander is a database manager with user-friendly interface for Windows operation system.
• NVelocity - NVelocity is a .Net-based template engine. It permits anyone to use the simple yet powerful template language to reference objects defined in .Net code.
• NUnit - NUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .Net languages. Initially ported from JUnit
• Maverick.NET - Maverick.NET is a .NET port of Maverick, a Model-View-Controller (aka "Model 2") framework for web publishing. It is a minimalist framework which focuses solely on MVC logic, allowing you to generate presentation using a variety of templating and transformation technologies.
• SharpWebMail - SharpWebMail is an ASP.NET Web Mail application that is written. It uses a POP3 server as the mailstore and sends mail through a SMTP. It is very simple to configure (Only a few settings in the web.config file). You can compose HTML messages, search your inbox, read complex mime messages and much more.
• NUnitAsp - NUnitAsp is a tool for automatically testing ASP.NET web pages. It's an extension to NUnit
• ProntoWiki - is a wiki engine/site written in C# with VWD (Visual Web Developer), using ASP.NET 2.0 with SQLExpress 2005 as the backend. The wiki engine is quick and easy to use, and allows text markup equivalent to that of a rich text editor. It accepts image and file attachments automatically through the web interface. Other features include page preview prior to post/update, user authentication based on roles, a customizable appearance and layout using web parts, history tracking, and search functionality.
• ScrewTurn Wiki is a fast, powerful and simple ASP.NET wiki engine, installs in a matter of minutes and it's available in different packages, fitting every need. It's even free and opensource.
  
• SAX.NET - SAX dot NET is a C# port of the original Java based SAX API specifications.

For detailed lists of open source .NET projects, go to SCharp Source.

Hope it helps ;)

See Also;

• Essential firefox add-ons for web programmers
  
• Sharepoint and MOSS 2007 resources, articles and t...
• Top 10+ source code search engines
• Let's have a break - Programmer's Life
• Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
• J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP

Sharepoint and MOSS 2007 resources, articles and tutorials

From now on, i will try to introduce one blog in a week. Here is the Heather Solomon's Blog, which contains an index of resources for SharePoint products and technologies. This list is slightly slanted towards design and customization, but there are also several resources related to other SharePoint topics. All links are organized into categories, then into resource type (article, blog post, topic, etc).

This is the some titles of categories, each including more than 10 articles, blog posts and tutorials.

• SharePoint References and Resources
• Reference Sites
• SharePoint 2003 - Customization/Modifications Tutorials and Articles
• SharePoint 2003 - Miscellaneous
• SharePoint 2003 - Product and Technology Info and Tools
• SharePoint 2003 - Web Parts
• SharePoint 2007 - Customization/Modifications
• SharePoint 2007 - Miscellaneous
• SharePoint 2007 - Product and Technology Info and Tools
• SharePoint 2007 - Web Content Management (WCM)

Top 10+ source code search engines

Programmers are coding and coding in somewhere for some purpose. I wonder how many lines of code is written in a minute on the world :) I guess thousands of lines. But most them are coding the same snippets of code again and again. I always used "Koders" not to reinvent america, means not to rewrite the codes someone else have already solved. There are plenty of code search engines out there to serve us (programmers) with the millions of lines of codes to fasten our job. Here is the most used ones i could found on the internet.

• Koders.com - is the leading search engine for open source code. Our source code optimized search engine provides developers with an easy-to-use interface to search for source code examples and discover new open source projects which can be leveraged in their applications.

• O'Really Labs Code Search - The database currently contains over 123,000 individual examples, composed of 2.6 million lines of code — all edited and ready to use.
• Google /*Code Search*/ - is a free product from Google which debuted in Google Labs allowing web users to search for open-source code on the Internet. Features include the ability to search using operators. These are lang:, package:, license: and file:. The code available for searching is in various formats including tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar, and .zip, CVS and Subversion repositories as well as snippets from HTML pages such as Wikipedia itself.
  

• Codase - is an innovative and unique search engine for source code. Codase offers the best search results than any other services available today in source code search space.
• Krugle - is a search engine that allows programmers and other developers to search Open Source repositories in order to locate open source code, and quickly share the code with other programmers on the internet.

• JExamples - provides the ability to search for Java projects. The examples extracted from open source search engine understands the semantics of Java, so the search yields more accurate results than a text search. The site also provides the ability to rate examples so the highest rated examples will be shown first.
• JSourcery - Search open source Java APIs
• Merobase - is a software search engine that allows developers to find, share and reuse software components from the Internet. The engine harvests software components from a large variety of sources, including Apache, SourceForge, and Java.net.
• All The Code - is a source code search engine, presently for the Java language but with more languages being added soon. Unlike similar source code search engines, All The Code considers the relation between code and uses this to help judge the relevance.
• http://csourcesearch.net/
• EMC Dev Network - Searching 312,750 lines of code at EMC Developer Network. Powered by Kders.
  
• Codefetch - Its mission is to connect programmers and authors so that programmers get the information they need, and the work of authors is supported and encouraged.
• DevX's Sourcebank - is a directory of links to source code and script posted around the Web. Use the Search option to find terms within the source code. To cast the widest net, use the search with All Types selected. Or, you can browse through a subset of the code by categories (below). First, select a filter, such as C or Java, by clicking on one of the square buttons and then choose one of the categories (such as Mathematics) from within that filter.

See Also;

• Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
• J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
• ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutoria...
• What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resourc...
• MCAD or MCTS, MCSD or MCPD
• AJAX Frameworks and Resources

Hope it helps ;)

Checkout;
To take advantage of the source code search engines is highly beneficial for the purpose of search engine optimization. Programming is the essence of web design. Reputable web hosting service providers are apt to focus on coding as much as they spend on advertising.

Let's have a break - Programmer's Life

Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins

This is the list of the Visual Studio Add-ins, most of which are open source or free. I hope this list will help you to code more faster and effective. If there is not your favorite add-in in the below list, do not hesitate to add it as a comment.

• TestDriven.NET - makes it easy to run unit tests with a single click, anywhere in your Visual Studio solutions. It supports all versions of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and it integrates with the best .NET development tools including NCover, NCoverExplorer, Reflector, TypeMock, dotTrace, NUnit, MbUnit, ZaneBug, MSBee & Team System.
• AnkhSVN - is a Visual Studio .NET addin for the Subversion version control system. It allows you to perform the most common version control operations directly from inside the VS.NET IDE. Not all the functionality provided by SVN is (yet) supported, but the majority of operations that support the daily workflow are implemented.
• C# Refactory - performs a large number of refactorings, allowing you to re-shape your c-sharp code as needs arise. Refactoring is an essential part of the extreme programming development approach. C# refactory enables you to automate many refactorings thus increasing the reliability and speed with which you can refactor your c-sharp code.
• GhostDoc - is a free add-in for Visual Studio that automatically generates XML
  documentation comments for C#. Either by using existing documentation inherited
  from base classes or implemented interfaces, or by deducing comments from
  name and type of e.g. methods, properties or parameters.
• SharpTools is an extensible add-in to the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET development environment, and a software development kit (SDK) supporting the rapid development of further extensions which will run within SharpTools.
• Google Plugin - Search Google from Visual Studio .NET
• Resource Refactoring Tool - provides developers an easy way to extract hard coded strings from the code to resource files.
• BIDS Helper - A set of VS.Net add-ins that extend and enhance the functionality of the SQL Server BI Development Studio.
• Power Toys for Visual Studio - are small tools that provide aid to developer pain-points or assist in diagnosing development-related issues. In addition to providing support, the power toys are released as Microsoft Shared Source to provide sample code to real-world solutions and allow for collaborative-development.
• Koders IDE - enable software developers to perform Koders searches directly from within the Eclipse or Visual Studio development environments by extending the reach of the Koders.com open source code index to the desktop.
• Codekeep - Once you've downloaded and installed a CodeKeep add-in, you can manage your code snippets and search for other code snippets without ever having to leave Visual Studio.
• CodeShare - Add-in is a Visual Studio.NET plugin for sharing code snippets in an enterprise. It provides menu options within the IDE to contribute and find code snippets from a central repository.
• RSS Blog Reader - open source add-in and a full-featured RSS / Blog aggregator which integrates into the familiar dockable panes of the Visual Studio.NET IDE.
  
• csUnit is a free and open source unit testing tool for the .NET Framework. csUnit works with all .NET languages including C#, Visual Basic .NET, J#, and managed C++. It comes with a choice of command line, graphical user interface, and an addin for Visual Studio.
  
• Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET - The Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET (ODT) is a tightly integrated Add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio. Features are generate SQL scripts for Oracle schema, generate ASP.NET web applications with very little coding required, drag and drop and automatically generate .NET code, seamlessly step from your .NET code into your PL/SQL stored procedure code and back out again, etc...
• WSCF - A Free Visual Studio Add-In and Command Line Tool for ImprovedSchema-Based Contract-First Web Services Design and Programming
• ZipStudio - provides a means of zipping up complete or partial Visual Studio solutions and projects and associated files, directly from in Visual Studio itself.
• MySQL Developer Tools is a powerful add-in designed to simplify the MySQL database application development process. It integrates into Visual Studio and Delphi, making all database development and administration tasks available from your favorite IDE. It provides an easier way to explore and maintain existing databases, design compound SQL statements, query and manipulate data in different ways.
• Comment Reflower - is an Add-in for Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 to reflow the text in comments in source files to have even word wrapping. It does more than simply just wrapping all text in comment blocks.
• VSCmdShell - provides users with a shell window inside the Visual Studio IDE that can be used for Visual Studio commands as well. Current version allows user to use either Windows Command Shell (cmd.exe) or Windows PowerShell.
• IBM Database Add-ins - development Add-In and managed provider for the Microsoft .NET platform includes RAD features, DB2 database project, scripting wizards, and CLR stored procedures to simplify building DB2 applications using Visual Studio .NET.
  
• VSdocman is a tool for commenting and the quick automatic generation of class documentation from your C# and VB .NET source code files. It is ideal tool for you if you create .NET component, control, application, smart device or web site (ASP .NET) projects
  
• CopySourceAsHtml - An add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 that allows you to copy source code, syntax highlighting, and line numbers as HTML. CSAH uses Visual Studio's syntax highlighting and font and color settings automatically.
• Codexchange - is an Visual Studio.NET add-in providing you with instant integrated access to an online repository of ready to use .NET code snippets
• ADO.NET Express - is an add-in for Visual Studio 2003 that automates common tasks of writing repetitive data access code. ADO.NET Express generates class methods for calling stored procedures and executing common types of SQL statements.
• VSTypeFinderAddin - for Visual Studio 2005 provides the possibility to search for all classes, structs, enums and delegates in a solution.
• AopDotNetAddIn - is a Visual Studio AddIn that provides the aspect oriented capabilities to the .Net languages (C#,VB.Net,J#), this AddIn was developed as a graduation project
• Reflector is the class browser, explorer, analyzer and documentation viewer for .NET. Reflector allows to easily view, navigate, search, decompile and analyze .NET assemblies in C#, Visual Basic and IL.

[Updated 25/07/2007]

• DPack– Free collection of VS .NET 2003 and 2005 tools. Brings tools designed for greatly increase developer’s productivity, automate repetitive processes and expand upon some of VS features.
• Regionerate (pronounced ri-jeh-neh-rate) is a new open-source tool for developers and team leaders that allows you to automatically apply layout rules on C# code.
• Consolas is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. All characters have the same width, like old typewriters, making it a good choice for personal and business correspondence. Optimizing the font specifically for ClearType allowed a design with proportions closer to normal text than traditional monospaced fonts like Courier. This allows for more comfortable reading of extended text on-screen.
• Project MRU Cleaner Add-In
• Explore In Windows Add-In for Visual Studio 2005

Resources and Articles on Visual Studio Add-in

• Creating Visual Studio .NET Add-Ins
• Bring Windows Desktop Search Into Visual Studio With Our Cool Add-In
• Creating a tool window add-in with Visual Studio 2005
• Addin Manager for VS 2002-2005
• A Custom Action for Deploying Visual Studio 2005 Add-in
• Tutorial : Creating Visual Studio Add-Ins
• Line Counter - Writing a Visual Studio 2005 Add-In
• A Visual Studio Add-In That Converts C# Code To Visual Basic
• Powertoys WebLog
• More Freeware SharpTools Plug-ins
• Visual Studio Add-in: Use Vista Search directly from Visual Studiot
• List of Microsoft Visual Studio Add-ins
• 
  

See Also;

1. J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
2. ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials
3. What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, Articles and Tutorials
   
4. SQL Injection Resources
5. Prevent robots from submitting data
   
6. Programming Handbooks and Cheatsheets

Checkout;
The ecommerce web hosting lessons provides access to add in hosting which enables you to inquire the pipeline root directory for add-ins executing a definite interface for cheap web hosting. You can extend your web design applications with external add-ins. Though, it would be a real pain if you’ve to create all the web development assemblies at your own. Rather it’s easier when performed with the help of 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins tutorials.

J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP

In this article, I wanted to compare the web application development platforms which I have been using for recent years. My comparison has no aim to make one platform better than others, or vice versa. These are all my own thoughts and what I have experienced during the development of web applications using the three platforms. It is open to you to express your opinions and stands as a comment.
Scores mean
10 – Best.
9 – Very Good.
8 – Good.

Syntax
I love Java syntax, a real object oriented syntax. PHP have some odd characters like “->, ::” and function calls are made directly like “substr, strreplace” which makes me feel like using procedural language. For ASP.NET, I have been using VB.NET.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 8

Easy to Learn
Believe or not, I learned PHP in two weeks. One day I decided to learn PHP and visited PHP official website. The website had one question explaining what is PHP and how and where to start. Manuals, documentation and samples were all there and ready to download. To prepare development environment was straight easy. ASP.NET was also easy to learn but bit difficult than PHP. J2EE was the most difficult and long process for me.

J2EE: 8, ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 10

Development Speed
For simple, small-size and CRUD applications, ASP.NET is the fastest one because of the pre-implemented controls, components and APIs. In PHP, if you use the right framework, it is also fast process.

J2EE: 8, ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 9

Platform
Although PHP works best on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) environment, you can deploy PHP web applications on other platforms such as Windows, Solaris etc…
ASP.NET have only one choice; Windows. There is a Mono tool for development and deployment of ASP.NET on Linux, but not ready for enterprise use. J2EE runs best everywhere.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 8, PHP: 9

Database
Simplest theory is MySQL for PHP, Oracle for J2EE and MSSQL for ASP.NET. There are many other good databases out there. You can use most of them with all three languages by adding or installing appropriate drivers.

J2EE: 10 , ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 10

IDE – Integrated Development Environments
ASP.NET has only one choice, Visual Studio which is very cool IDE but costs puff ;) PHP have commercial and open source IDE-s. Most known PHP IDEs are Zend Studio and PHP Coder as far as I know. J2EE has nice open source choices as well as commercial. Eclipse is the most used and best IDE I have ever used. With its plug-in structure, you can use Eclipse almost for all purposes, even for PHP development. Beside Eclipse, there are some more good IDE-s like IntelliJ, Netbeans, Sun Studio etc…

J2EE: 10 , ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 9

OOP – Object Oriented Support
J2EE and ASP.NET win here. PHP have OOP support in its latest versions.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 9

AOP – Aspect Oriented Support
J2EE have some AOP frameworks one of which I have used. I don’t know whether ASP.NET and PHP supports AOP or not.

J2EE: 10 , ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 9

Security
J2EE is the most secure one I guess. Once, I had my PHP web application hacked by someone. So PHP is secure only when you code secure ;) For ASP.NET, people have some doubts because of previous versions of windows security holes and hells. I didn’t experience any security problem of ASP.NET till now.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 9

Performance
I liked PHP Performance. For web applications I have ever developed, the most satisfied application was written in PHP. J2EE was little bit heavier to start, and consumes huge system resources. I have not tested my ASP.NET applications against huge loads in real life. Till now, I didn’t have any complaint about performance of my ASP.NET applications.
J2EE: 9 , ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 10

Web Server
ASP.NET has only one choice; IIS. For PHP and J2EE, you have plenty of choices; commercial and open source. Apache is the most popular one for PHP. Sun AS, JBoss AS, Oracle AS, Weblogic, Tomcat, and some more are for J2EE. Most of the J2EE servers cost high.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 10

Libraries and Frameworks
All of three languages have third party libraries and frameworks. In PHP and J2EE, most of the frameworks and libraries are open source or free. In ASP.NET, most of the libraries and components out there are commercial.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 10

Support and Community
There are plenty of forums, mailing lists, user groups, communities, developers, blogs and websites for all of three platforms. Most of the ASP.NET support, documentation and forums are managed by Microsoft, while PHP support is given by developers itself. J2EE have both commercial and open source support groups.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 10

Cost
PHP have big advantage on cost, both TCO and Maintenance. You can have IDE, Web Server, Operating System and Database all for FREE ;)
For ASP.NET development, first you have to pay for Visual Studio, then for Windows Server and for MSSQL. I don’t how much it costs total because my company already paid for them. For J2EE, you have choices. As I mentioned before, there are commercial and open source tools and software available. It depends on you and your company whether to use commercial, supported alliances or not. For example, if you plan not to pay, you can use Eclipse as an IDE, Tomcat or JBoss as a server, MySQL as a database.

J2EE: 9, ASP.NET: 8, PHP: 10

Conclusion
These three platforms are the most popular platforms for web development (of course, here we should mention Ruby On Rails, Django and few more ;) and they all have some advantages and disadvantages against each others. You have to choose the right platform according to the project behavior, size and scope, but also the criteria I listed above. I will not sum the total scores which will be unfair since I didn’t list all the available features of the platforms.

Related Comparisons and Discussions

• Web Development Technologies Comparison by Jason M. Hanley
• PHP vs Java vs Ruby
• .Net vs Coldfusion, PHP, JAVA
• .NET Vs PHP
• Ruby on Rails vs. ASP.NET
• JSP vs. ASP.net development time
• J2EE vs .NET
• Why choose ASP.NET vs. J2EE ?
  

See Also;

1. Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
2. ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials
3. What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, Articles and Tutorials
4. AJAX Frameworks and Resources
5. SQL Injection Resources
6. Prevent robots from submitting data
7. Frameworks are more important than Programming Languages
8. Programming Handbooks and Cheatsheets

ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials and Toolkits

ASP.NET AJAX is a free framework for quickly creating a new generation of more efficient, more interactive and highly-personalized Web experiences that work across all the most popular browsers.
ASP.NET AJAX allows the developer to create web applications in ASP.NET 2.0 (and to a limited extent in other environments) which can update data on the web page without a complete reload of the page (a "round trip" to the server). The key technology which enables this functionality is the XMLHttpRequest object, along with Javascript and DHTML.


ASP.NET AJAX Introduction

• ASP.NET AJAX Overview
  
• ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Released
• Perspectives on ASP.NET AJAX
  
• ASP.NET AJAX Extensions
• Enhance your Website with ASP.NET AJAX Extensions
• AJAX-enable an Existing ASP.NET Web Page
• Getting Started with AJAX 1.0
• A Technical Look at ASP.NET AJAX

ASP.NET AJAX Tutorials and Articles

• ASP.NET AJAX Official Tutorials and Documentations
  
• Videos on “How Do I?” with ASP.NET AJAX by Joe Stagner
• ASP.NET AJAX under the hood secrets By Omar Al Zabir
• Build Google IG like Ajax Start Page in 7 days using ASP.NET Ajax and .NET 3.0
• Consuming Web Services With ASP.NET AJAX
• ASP.NET AJAX Control Development
• DotNetNuke 4.5 and ASP.NET AJAX
  
• ASP.NET AJAX in Mono/Grasshopper
• Integrating ASP.NET AJAX with SharePoint
• An Introduction to AJAX Techniques and Frameworks for ASP.NET
• ASP.NET Ajax Grid and Pager
• Dragging and dropping with ASP.NET 2.0 and Atlas
• Debugging ASP.NET AJAX
• Sample Ticker Application To Integrate WPF/E and ASP.NET AJAX
• Developing ASP.NET AJAX Repeater
• How to create an HTML Editor for ASP.NET AJAX
• Introduction of ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit - CollapsiblePanel

ASP.NET AJAX Sites

• Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Official website
• AJAX Control Toolkit

ASP.NET AJAX Blogs

• ASP.NET AJAX Team Blogs
• Jim Zimmerman
  
• Mike Ammerlaan's Blog
• Nikhil Kothari's Weblog
• Michael's Blog
• Damian Mehers Blog
  

ASP.NET AJAX Controls and Toolkits

• AJAX Control Toolkit - is a joint project between the community and Microsoft. Built upon the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions, the Toolkit aims to be the biggest and best collection of web-client components available.
• Ajax Data Controls - The purpose of this project is to Develop data controls such as GridView, DataList, Repeater, DetailsView, FromView, ObjectDataSource on top of Microsoft Ajax Framework for Client Centric Development model.
• Ajax Sprite Toolkit - is a collection of ASP.NET AJAX Controls and Behaviors that aid in the development of 2D sprite based games that run in a web browser.
  
• ASP.NET AJAX Control Set (AjaxSet) - is a project to build AJAX control and extender library. Currently only the first one control is in package Validator Extender. More controls to come. If you want to contibute feel free to contact me.
• GSAjaxControls - General & Specialized AJAX Controls built on top of the AJAX Control Toolkit and ASP.Net AJAX 1.0

ASP.NET AJAX Resources

• ASP.NET AJAX Learning Guide
  
• Microsoft Ajax Library Cheat sheet
  
• Official Asp.net Ajax Forum
• Dotnetslackers Atlas Forum
• ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit - ASP.NET Forums
  
• Asp.Net Ajax Resources, Links and Documentation
  

ASP.NET AJAX Downloads

• ASP.NET Extensions v1.0
• ASP.NET AJAX Documentation
• ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit
• Microsoft AJAX Library
  
• ASP.NET AJAX Source Code
  
• Expression Web - Trial
  
• Visual Web Developer Express - Free
• ASP.NET Futures
  
• ASP.NET AJAX Sample Applications
• Screencast: Introduction to AJAX, ASP.NET AJAX and the AJAX Control Toolkit
  

See Also;

1. AJAX Frameworks and Resources
2. What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, Articles and Tutorials
   
3. SQL Injection Resources
4. Prevent robots from submitting data
5. Frameworks are more important than Programming Languages
6. Programming Handbooks and Cheatsheets

What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, Articles and Tutorials

Recently, I have been regularly hearing about Microsoft Silverlight which is going to replace Adobe Flash and Action script. Actually, I love it because i can develop rich interactive applications using my current .NET knowledge without having to learn new technology or scripting language like Actionscript. XAML is also based on XML which i already know. It also support languages lik Ruby and Python. Sounds coool. Here is the definition of Silverlight on Wikipedia.
Silverlight is a proprietary runtime for browser-based Rich Internet Applications, providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation. Version 1.1 also includes a complete version of the .NET Common Language Runtime, so that Silverlight applications can be written in any .NET language. Silverlight aims to compete with Adobe Flash and the presentation components of Ajax. It also competes with Sun Microsystems' JavaFX, which was launched a few days after Silverlight

I have collected number of resources on Silverlight which are listed below. I hope it will save your time and money. List will be updated continuesly when i find new resources.

Silverlight Introductions and Overviews

• Getting Started with Silverlight
• Get Started Building A Deeper Experience Across The Web - MSDN Magazine
• Silverlight Introduction and Overview from the author of Silverlight, Scott Guthrie
  
• Silverlight 1.1 Alpha QuickStarts
• Sierpinski Triangle - An Introduction into silverlight by Example
  
• Silverlight: The Web just got richer
• Microsoft: Silverlight More than a Flash
• Silverlight Intro by example
  

Silverlight Sites

• Microsoft MIX07
• Microsoft Silverlight Streaming - Admin Home

Silverlight Blogs

• Silverlight Tutorials
  
• Silverlight Resources and Links
  
• .NET 3.0 Cornucopia
• Bryant Likes's Blog
• Dan Wahlin's Weblog
• Devlicio.us - Blogs
• Tim Sneath
• ScottGu's Blog
• Web.Next
• Joe Stegman's Weblog
• Mike Harsh's Blog
• Delay's Blog
• Chris Craft's Blog
• ExplosiveDog.Com
• Silverlight - TestDriven.NET by Jamie Cansdale
• Brad Abrams
• Sean Alexander's Blog
• Somasegar's WebLog
• Laurence Moroney's Blog
  
• Tim Sneath's Blog
• Dave L. Campbell's Blog

Silverlight Articles

• Silverlight Architecture
• Silverlight Articles by ScottGu
  
• http://silverlight.net/Showcase/
• Digital Clock using silverlight and Javascript
• Silverlight articles on ASPAlliance
• Silverlight articles and tutorials on Wynapse
• Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Putting Mix, Silverlight, the CoreCLR and the DLR into context
• Software Development in the Real World Top 10 Reasons Silverlight Will Change the Web
• Why Silverlight Is Important
• Silverlight and .NET - This is HUGE!

Silverlight Videos

• MIX 2007 Silverlight Sessions and "How Do I?" with Silverlight Videos from official Silverlight Websites
• Just Glue It! Ruby and the DLR in Silverlight

Silverlight Applications

• Silverlight Airlines Demo
• Silverlight Disco
• Yet Another SilverLight XAML Demo
• Hong Button, Matrix Digital Rain, iPhone, Rolling Gear, WPF/E Reflection
• Silverlight Jelly and Source Code
• Silverlight puzzle game
• Silverlight Sample Applications
• Layout System and Controls Framework: Demo and Source code
• From A to Z... 50 Silverlight Applications
  
• Ant attack (with source code)
• TetrisLight
  

Silverlight Downloads

• Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha
• Microsoft Visual Studio codename "Orcas" Beta 1
• Microsoft Silverlight Tools Alpha for Visual Studio codename "Orcas" Beta 1
• Expression Blend 2 May Preview
• Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Software Development Kit (SDK)
• Microsoft ASP.NET Futures (May 2007)

Silverlight Resources

• Mind map of rich set of Silverlight resources, tutorials, artices, links, applications, games and other stuffs
• Silverlight Forum
• Silverlight Gallery

See Also;

1. Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
2. J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
3. ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials and Toolkits
   
4. Frameworks are more important than Programming Languages
5. AJAX Frameworks and Resources
6. SQL Injection Resources
7. Prevent robots from submitting data

Updated 22/07/2007;

• 6 Silverlight Screencasts (MSDN Nuggets)
  
• Silverlight vs. Flash: The Developer Story
• Silverlight Configuration Tool
  

MCAD or MCTS, MCSD or MCPD

I have been studying for Microsoft certificate for recent days, and I have made some research on which certificate is right for me. There are many programs for Microsoft developers and specialists such as MCAD - Application Developer, MCSD - Solution Developer, MCTS - Technology specialist, and MCPD - Professional Developer.
MCTS and MCPD are newer certificate programs which are more focused on latest technologies and products from Microsoft. MCTS enables professionals to target specific technologies and to distinguish themselves by demonstrating in-depth knowledge and expertise in their specialized technologies.
So for programmers and developers, MCTS: .NET Framework 2.0 is most suitable choice. To get MCTS certicate, you only need to pass two core exams related to .NET Framework Foundation and Client development for web, windows or distributed. For me, i plan to become MCTS on .NET 2.0 Web Application, firstly.

MCAD seems more difficult to get, having to pass 3 exams and also it is focused on older and wide technology: As you know, .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1 which are now less used, about to lose its popularity. Furthermore, to become MCAD, one should be familiar with all of three platforms, i.e, Web, Windows and Distributed.

After becoming MCTS, you can upgrade to MCPD - Professional developer, by giving only one more exam. Lets say that you have MCTS: .NET 2.0 Web Application certificate, you will have one more exam and then you will become MCPD: Web Developer which is similar level to the MCSD. MCSD is more difficult to get, having to pass total 5 exams and focused on old technologies.

If you plan to certify you knowledge by Microsoft, i suggest you to study for MCTS and MCPD not MCAD and MCSD. I will post my experience, resources and links related to preparation, practice and exam for MCTS after i got my certificate.

AJAX Frameworks and Resources

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a web development technique used for creating rich and interactive web applications. Ajax is asynchronous in that loading does not interfere with normal page loading. JavaScript is the programming language that Ajax function calls are made in. Data retrieved using the technique is commonly formatted using XML, as reflected in the naming of the XMLHTTPRequest object from which Ajax is derived.

Here is the list of ajax frameworks for different programming language;




Java

• DWR - allows Javascript in a browser to interact with Java on a server and helps you manipulate web pages with the results.
• Google Web Toolkit - is an open source Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language.
• ZK - is an open-source Ajax Web framework that enables rich user interface for Web applications with little programming.
• ThinWire - is an LGPL open source, free for commercial use, development framework that allows you to easily build applications for the web that have responsive, expressive & interactive user interfaces without the complexity of the alternatives.
• AjaxAnywhere - is designed to turn any set of existing JSP or JSF components into AJAX-aware components without complex JavaScript coding.
• AjaxTags - is a set of JSP tags that simplify the use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) technology in JavaServer Pages.
• Telosys - is an Open Source framework designed to build easily Web 2.0 applications, based on a “Client/Server” principle, using J2EE (Servlet, JSP, JDBC), lightweight clients and AJAX technology (XML requests via HTTP).
• Swato - is an opensource framework that help you develop your webapps easier via AJAX.
• OpenJacob - is a free framework for building a new generation of richer, more interactive, database driven, highly personalized cross-browser web applications.
• Javeline
• SmartClient - delivers on the promise of AJAX, enabling high-performance, high-productivity web applications to be deployed today.
• Java Web Parts - is a project that provides small, reusable and largely independant Java components of interest to all web application developers.
• Ajax4JSF - is implemented using a component library that adds AJAX capability to your existing pages without having to write any JavaScript code or replace existing components with new AJAX widgets.
• xWire - is both a framework and a programmer's toolkit and is based upon several popular open source libraries.
• WidgetServer - is a component based, server-side, Java/XML rich-client-framework
  

.NET

• ASP.NET AJAX - is a free framework for quickly creating a new generation of more efficient, more interactive and highly-personalized Web experiences that work across all the most popular browsers.
• Ajax.NET Professional
• Magic Ajax - is a free open-source framework, designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to integrate AJAX technology into their web pages, without replacing the ASP.NET controls and/or writing tons of javascript code.
• Anthem.NET - adds AJAX-like features to ASP.NET.
• Visual WebGUI - is built on top of Microsoft ASP.NET (C#) platform and extends it by providing WinForms like development for web applications.
• The AJAX Engine - is built upon the webservice standard protocols SOAP and WSDL for transferring the data between the browser client and the web server instead of using a new or proprietary protocol.
• ComfortASP.NET - is an AJAX like framework for ASP.NET that doesn't actually require you to learn any AJAX programming.
• OutPost
  

PHP

• Xajax - is an open source PHP class library that allows you to easily create powerful, web-based, Ajax applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. Applications developed with xajax can asynchronously call server-side PHP functions and update content without reloading the page.
• Sajax - is an open source tool to make programming websites using the Ajax framework — also known as XMLHTTPRequest or remote scripting — as easy as possible.
• Feather Ajax - is more or less an Ajax framework that is designed to be built upon. It's meant to be as simple as possible so that you can understand how it works to learn Ajax, and continue its development for your own purposes.
• Echo2 - is the next-generation of the Echo Web Framework, a platform for developing web-based applications that approach the capabilities of rich clients.
• Zephyr - is an ajax based framework for php5 developers. you can easily develop business applications using this robust framework. this is extremely easy to learn and very simple to implement. you can deliver a full fledged ajax application with strong business layer in backend within some minutes. installation and deployment of packages that you develop for zephyr is hassle free.
• SimpleJax - is a lightweight (2.3KB!) combination of JavaScript and PHP that allows you to create highly flexible, AJAX-enabled applications on the web.
• TigerMouse - is a modern web applications framework for PHP. It relies on AJAX technology, so in pair with being lightweight enables you to build dynamic, responsive and interactive web applications.
• AjaxCore - is an open source PHP framework that aims the ease development of rich AJAX applications, using Prototype's JavaScript standard library. This means it uses Prototype as the core for making the AJAX requests, as it's proven to be reliable on any browser, plus adding all Prototype's features and shortcuts that reduce typing and help avoid the reinvention of the wheel.
  

General Purpose Ajax libraries

• Clean AJAX
• qooxdoo
• Yahoo! UI Library
• TIBCO
• Dojo Toolkit
• Zimbra
  
• JQuery
• Prototype
• Script.aculo.us
• Mootools
• Microsoft AJAX Library
• Rico
• JSMX
  
• Moo.fx
• Rialto Toolkit
• Mochikit

Here is the list of ajax articles and resources;

• http://webdeveloper.econsultant.com/ajax-tutorials/
  
• http://www.ajaxshack.com/showcategory.php?cid=111
• http://www.ajaximpact.com/articles.php
• http://www.ajax-blog.com/
• http://www.ajaxlessons.com/
• http://www.ajaxtutorial.net/
  
• http://www.ajaximpact.com/tutorials.php
• http://ajaxian.com/resources/
• http://ajax.solutoire.com/
• http://blog.joshuaeichorn.com/ajax-resources
• http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/java/ajax.html
• http://www.ajax-resources.com/
• http://www.ajaxwith.com/
• http://tutorialblog.org/100-ajax-tutorials-and-resources/
• http://www.dihe.org/main/?q=node/148.
• http://www.ajaxprojects.com/ajax/projects/Ajax_Resources/
• http://www.ajaxfreaks.com/
  
• http://www.ajaximpact.com/resources.php
• Complete List of Ajax Libraries, Frameworks and Toolkits By Joe Stagner
• Huge Ajax Scripts Resources AJAX & JAVASCRIPT
  

See Also;

1. What is Microsoft Silverlight? Silverlight Resources, Articles and Tutorials
   
2. SQL Injection Resources
3. Prevent robots from submitting data
4. Frameworks are more important than Programming Languages