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I saw this week 2 applications I found very interesting.

One is to highlight areas on the map with JavaScript which you might use in your applications as an useful tool. Another one is Hyplet - which is a website to create yourself online id’s or personal cards.

This post intereste mostly my Turkish readers administrating their own website. If you didn’t read the recent post in shiftdelete.net, please continue to read this post.

I will list you some tools to check the speed of your website:

• Test the loadtime
• Test dead links
• Validate your CSS and HTML codes
• Clean and optimize your CSS code
• Compare the screenshots of your website in various browsers (to check the compatibility)
• Check the familiarity of your website with the search motors.

Please consider also Google’s webmaster guidelines for web page quality.

Doodlekit is a new project to build your own personal website in a minutes - and online!. Worth to check it out.

Doodlekit is an online website building tool and content management system that allows you to manage your website with ease from anywhere. Going beyond the average content management systems, Doodlekit stores your information permanently in a database, allowing you to create your own Blog entries, Forum discussions, Shopping Carts, page security, photo albums, file uploading and much more.

As I was surfing this week on the net I have found many generator websites for webpage design, logo design, label design etc.

Here is a list where you can find many sources for the mentioned subjects above:

(There can be similar websites in each lists I gave, I couldn’t check every webpage )

• Warning Label Generator
  http://www.warninglabelgenerator.com/
• ifx+
  http://www.ifxplus.com/post/More-than-100-Web-20-Online-Generators.aspx
• CSSjuice
  http://cssjuice.com/13-online-generators-for-web-20-design/
• 15 Excellent examples of Web typography
  http://ilovetypography.com/2007/09/19/15-excellent-examples-of-web-typography/
• 100 legal sources for free stock images
  http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2007/100-legal-sources-for-free-stock-images/
• Names of Colors
  http://chir.ag/phernalia/name-that-color/

I couldn’t write anything this week because I was a little cold and needed to rest evenings. I was also in a Kaizen workshop which kept me very busy. I decided to write a wrap-up and also number it with “#1″. That’s a sign I can post in this way this also later again!

The first thing is Kaizen. It is a great philosophy and thanks to Toyota which company is the founder of this philosophy and also the “lean manufacturing“. I had a training on Monday for the main aspects of Kaizen and applied them in other 3 days in our production line in the plant.

The second one is I’ve got a present which made me very happy. It is a very soft (I think it’s 100% polyester) football, bought from Ikea. Now I can play football at home, too! Hooray!

I’d like to recommend and/or inform you a few websites I met while I was surfing whole week. For instance, I’ve been informed that the famous PHP IDE Komodo has begun to a new project called Open Komodo. It’s kinda freeware Komodo and I couldn’t try it yet but in my opinion it is worth to try it absolutely.

Another useful site is the Cheat Sheet site, where you can find many reference books or “cheat sheets” for various subjects, especially about programming.

The last one is related with web design and I have found it while I was surfing to find a solution to my urgent need. I was trying to find some stylish icons for my new website and found out that there is an open-source project called Tango Desktop Project. You need to look at it. I am sure you’ll need that package someday.

Yes, I am still working on my website project and also registered with my girlfriend to Facebook together.

Why am I telling you that?
These were the reasons why I couldn’t write on my blog  since some time.

I think, I can develop also some widgets for some websites like Facebook, Last.fm etc. that could be some fun, but this is a long-term idea and my first priority is to finish my new website. As an update, I can say that the database design is almost done, but I still don’t want to rush, because after going-live it would be very hard to update whole database structure and also the codes written for it.

I suppose, this time will last a while but after that, it’ll go very quickly and very soft.

By the way, it is very unrelated to this post’s content but I am very sorry for Sevilla player Puerta, who died yesterday after having a heart attack on the field. He was a prospective star! Rest In Peace, Puerta!

I am a very lazy guy but I am very eager to publish my new website so I have started to code and design.

People may expect very cool effects, graphics or extreme layouts but no way, if anyone out there has seen my previous websites or projects, he/she knows that I am a very minimalist guy with a great obsession to optimization. Therefore, it will be a simple website.
(Of course, I will put some cool stuff there, don’t worry! )

You can watch the changes day-by-day from the beta section and I would be very happy if I can get some feedback about it. Anything is appreciated; thoughts, ideas, suggestions…

But as I said before, this blog stays the same, includes personal and daily posts.

I hope you don’t want me post only for PHP and related subjects right?

You can take a look at the top 20 Symfony plugins here.There is a new Turkish website with a very interesting content. A video sharing platform, but the thing is that all the videos is about a subject and the creator of this video is an expert of that subject. Cool idea…

As you know, using templates by creating dynamic websites is a very good way for optimization. Since a long time there have been many template engines but one of them was always one step further and was developed in a very professional manner, Smarty.

Yes, I’ve used it also and I think it is a well-coded, detailed, fascinating engine.

Now, I’ve heard a new one and in a very short time it gained many users and is developing very quickly. It is called Blitz. I couldn’t have the time to use it, but I have a new project idea and maybe I can try Blitz as a template engine in this project. The chart at left actually took my interest about using it, too.

However, before using it, I recommend all of my readers to read this blog entry written by Rob Peck.

I am a big fan for books but I am a little selective about its content depth and quality. Because of that I will recommend you some books about PHP and webdesign for reference and guide which I think, would help you a lot.

Here is the list:

• The PHP Anthology, Volume II: Applications (Anthology)
  by Harry Fuecks
• The PHP Anthology, Volume I: Foundations (Anthology)
  by Harry Fuecks
• Professional Ajax
  by Nicholas C. Zakas
• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
  by Martin Fowler
• Advanced PHP Programming
  by George Schlossnagle
• PHP 5 Power Programming (Bruce Perens Open Source)
  by Andi Gutmans
• PHP Unleashed
  by John Coggeshall
• Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design
  by Eric Meyer
• AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications
  by Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea

I hope you will take a look at these books and find them useful, too.