As the number of cloud storage services increases & projects may require using multiple services at the same time, it becomes complicated for a developer to learn the details of each provider.

Simple Cloud API is an open source project that aims to create a common PHP interface for using cloud services.

It currently supports the storage API for:

• Amazon S3
• Windows Azure Blob Storage
• Nirvanix
• Local

and, in the near future, aims to support Rackspace Cloud Files, GoGrid Cloud Storage besides the queue & document APIs of all services.

The project is backed by Zend & supported by IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace, Nirvanix, and GoGrid.

MyClientBase is a web-based, free & open source invoice management application which is built with PHP (using the CodeIgniter framework) & MySQL.

It enables anyone to create invoices, view payments, get reports & more..

The application is flexible & variables like:

• currency symbol
• date format
• next Invoice ID
• tax rate

can be customized easily.

It is possible to define tax rates per invoice or globally & create multiple invoice templates.

xmoovStream Server is an open source http streaming server built with PHP.

It creates a layer between the web & your files to provide you control over them in many ways like:

• stream Flash videos
• force file downloads
• logging of every action
• hot link protection
• hide original file locations
• bandwidth throttling & burst loading
• & more..

xmoovStream is a centralized server which can manage different kinds of content from different urls under a single installation.

Like mentioned, it is not limited to streaming Flash videos, it can simply stream any file type including the video player itself or a thumbnail.

The server also comes with a lightweight video player & an audio player for streaming your content.

P.S. The resource is free for non-commercial website & requires a license for any other usage.

jsFiddle is a shell editor that eases writing JavaScript code by creating a custom environment based on popular JS frameworks.

It presents an interface which is divided into 4 pieces:

• HTML editor
• CSS editor
• JavaScript editor
• and the output

You can select the framework & the version of your choice (MooTools, jQuery, Dojo, Prototype, YUI, Glow,Vanilla). Also, if there is, you can add a complimentary framework like jQuery UI or MooTools More.

A great feature is the ability to save & share the code created with a unique URL generated. Optionally, jsFiddle has an embedding feature too.

It is an almost perfect platform for trying & sharing your JavaScript code without the need of a website.

What would be better is the ability to select multiple JS frameworks at the same time (also having a server-side file & an editable database would make it a complete playground).

Most web developers have ready-to-use libraries under their hands that were created in past projects & will make developing future projects easier.

If you are not happy with your library, want to improve it or don't have one, you'll love BackPress.

BackPress is an open source PHP library that offers the core functionality for web applications.

The library inherits the bulk of it’s code from WordPress & bbPress.

Some of its features are:

• logging
• permission-based user system
• database connections (across multiple servers & multiple datacenters)
• HTTP transactions,
• XML-RPC server & client,
• caching
• formatting
• XSS and SQL injection protection with various powerful escaping functions
• & more..

libcloud is a standard client library, written in Python, to access popular cloud hosting providers.

Using cloud services without the need to learn APIs for each of them & building web applications that use multiple providers become much easier.

libcloud currently supports ~8 cloud hosting providers including Amazon EC2, Slicehost & Rackspace.

It would be lovely to see similar libraries built for other scripting languages which will make the lives of developer easier.

Today, e-mails are one of the most important parts of a web application as the app. may need to:

• connect to the user's e-mail addresses,
• send large volumes of e-mails,
• detect if the e-mails sent are bounced back or not,
• & much more that are vital for the application to function correctly

MailBee.NET Objects is a set of powerful & flexible .NET components for accomplishing any e-mail related task easily.

There are 6 components provided: SMTP, POP3, IMAP, Security, AntiSpam & Outlook where each of them can be bought seperately or as a bundle with serious discounts (upto 66%).

What are the components?

SMTP

It is the component for composing & sending e-mails with just a line of code.

E-mails can be sent with/without (can perform DNS MX lookups) a relay server & it supports every authentication type.

SMTP component can also send bulk mail + do mail merge over database, track accepted/refused recipients & much more.

POP3

It downloads mail from POP3 servers, parses them & prepares for display.

If wanted, the component can download only the headers & get "already downloaded messages" (great for broken connections).

It also has support for secure TLS/SSL connections out-of-box (supports Gmail, etc.) which is generally a headache without such a component.

IMAP

It is the POP3 component + download/manage folders, search, flag, upload, move, copy messages, download message envelopes or any specific parts or attributes of messages, etc.

Security

This is for enabling MailBee.NET objects to communicate with TLS/SSL enabled mail servers & use S/MIME for e-mail encryption.

It can sign e-mails with a digital signature, DomainKeys and/or DKIM signature.

AntiSpam

Using the AntiSpam component, it is possible to analyze messages using the Bayesian filters, return a spam score & take action (if necessary).

The best part is, it offers an auto-learning feature that will help keeping the spam database up-to-date.

Outlook

It simply makes converting e-mails from .MSG format into .EML format & vice versa possible with a single line of code.

Conclusion

To sum up, MailBee.NET Objects offer every feature that can be expected from e-mail components. And, they go few steps further & enable processing server-side tasks like DNS MX lookups or antispam.

Also, the components are very well documented with samples & supported by a professional company + an active community.

P.S. This post is a sponsored review.

USVN is an open source PHP application that enables us to reach Subversion repositories from a web interface.

It has a permission-based users/groups administration for defining the access levels of users to the repositories.

New repositories can be created, browsed & files can be displayed easily (code highlighting is supported).

The application requires PHP 5 & Apache server to run.

PeoplePods is an open source toolkit built with PHP/MySQL for creating websites with social networking capabilities with ease.

It can be used to build stand-alone sites or layered onto existing sites for adding social functionality.

It has the popular social functionality such as:

• friend lists
• personalized content views
• bookmarking
• voting, etc.

and standard web application features like:

• log-in
• personalization
• content creation and management
• & more

The toolkit is object-oriented & comes in 3 pieces: the core, plugin modules & administrative tools.

PeoplePods has support for theming & can be improved further easily with its plugins module.

For a web application, It is always a good idea to provide access to it from other platforms like mobile or desktop programs.

As web designers/developers, desktop applications are harder to create considering they have a totally different environment.

In order to fill this gap, we can make use of site-specific browsers which enable us to lock a website inside an application-looking browser that can interact with the system tray/dock & display notifications.

Some usage examples for site-specific browsers:

• displaying new orders, support tickets for an e-commerce website
• showing system tray alerts when a new visitor visits your website
• or even locking your whole application inside a site-specific browser and offering it as a desktop application.

To sum up, they simply help us convert a website into a desktop application. Here are free & mature tools for creating site-specific browsers:

Mozilla Prism (Win-Mac)

Prism is a very easy-to-customize tool that supports Windows & Mac.

Applications created can be:

• minimized to system tray/dock & a navigation can be added there
• set to display status messages & popups in the system tray/dock

Prism apps. will be running seperately from the browser & will stay alive even if the browser isn't.

P.S. You can also read a more detailed post about Prism at WRD.

Read the rest of this entry »