A few of the NYPHP mailing list members decided to create a new website for  rewarding achievement, strengthening relationships, and getting cool stuff.  The website is called Kerbeaz.com, the idea behind the site is very unique however it will require a lot of work on the users end to actually take-off.  The site is a place where you can go to set a goal.  The goal can be anything you wish from getting your homework done on time or learning to cook something new.

Once you setup the task and you become the performer the real work kicks in.  You have to find someone to sponsor that task.  Sponsoring the task means that when you accomplish the task they will reward you with points called Beazels.  Finding people to sponsor you might seem tough when you first think about it.  If you are a kid why not try to get your grandparents to sponsor you?  Maybe your parents?  If you are an adult maybe it’s time to talk to your boss maybe they could reward you for some things.  How about rewarding your students if you are a teacher?  The ideas on how this tool can be used are endless

Ok so you have built up a collection of Beazels now what do you do?  You can redeem them for cool stuff on the site, currently they have gift cards for several different vendors.  You might be asking why they only have a hand-full of gift cards to choose from and why they don’t offer anything other than gift cards.  Well give them time, they did just start the site recently.  Maybe in the future they will expand on their rewards.

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When you are working with remote data feeds it will definatly impact the load time of your site.  For instance if you are using multiple curl calls to reach out to Google and Yahoo to get search results and Google takes 1 second but Yahoo takes 3 seconds it takes your application 4 seconds to load.  Now this can add up very quickly if you are making several connections.  The load time for your site becomes the total load time of all sites you are reaching out to.

What about simultaneous requests?  Well this would make sense because the load time of your application would be as long as the call that takes the longest.  In the example above the load time would be 3 seconds as opposed to 4 seconds.

Stoyan Stefanov wrote a nice article with example code showing just how to accomplish thi.  I cannot wait to give it a shot and boost the performance of my apps.  Thanks for pointing this out Stoyan.

If you are a geek like me then you must have watched TechTV’s Call For Help.  This is where I first heard the name Chris Pirillo.  Chris has been known as a Windows expert and has helped a lot of people through the TV show.  On Valentines evening Chris posted an article that states 50 reasons to switch from Microsoft Windows to Mac OS X. 

One of his best points is the fact that the cost comparison for Mac vs. PC is about the same.

A Mac costs about the same as a comparable Windows PC - for hardware and (for argument’s sake for those who don’t believe me) bundled software. And for those who still claim that Macs are still more expensive, they obviously have never seen or priced a gaming rig. Price / cost is relative. If you want a cheap machine, that’s your prerogative. The resell value on Macs has always been higher than that of an equivalent “Windows” machine.



Everyone always seems to think that the Mac costs more and at one point I did too until I priced a PC with the same hardware as my mac pro. Granted you could opt for cheaper hardware but you will not get the same performance.

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