Stephen L. Michel

The acronym LAMP is gaining critical-mass credibility among developers. Staying away from describing how it will "light up" or "illuminate" the development landscape, let's just simply say that LAMP is an acronym that generally means Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. LAMP is a collection of open-source tools that provide full-service web solutions. One of the things that makes LAMP so popular is the wide variety of hosting solutions for it; it's easy to find an inexpensive hosting service that offers these services. One of the interesting things about taking a LAMP approach is the total flexibility of the solution. Any, or even all, of the particular technologies can be replaced, yet you will still have a LAMP solution. Let's look at the individual pieces (experienced developers, please bear with me): Linux practically defines the term "open source," and represents the ... (more)

Can MySQL/LAMP Challenge Oracle, Microsoft, and Sybase?

This week's MySQL User Conference in Santa Clara, CA, looks to be the biggest and most important gathering of the MySQL faithful yet. Those signed up for the conference are getting hit by at least an email a day, inviting them to stop by such-and-such a booth to see so-and-so's new product. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the overarching one is the recent releases of two versions of the database program, giving it new features that make it much more palatable for database traditionalists and likely making it more welcome in IT departments. MySQL Version 5.0 promises more f... (more)

What Does Apple on Intel Mean?

What does the Apple/Intel thing mean? It may not mean an awful lot. The first question that springs to mind is, will Macs be cheaper? Maybe, in the long run. And Mac users will probably get faster processors sooner now than they would have from IBM. But probably not as fast or as soon as we would have if Steve had climbed into bed with AMD instead of Intel. In the portable arena, the changes will be more dramatic; the G4 & G5 have been notoriously difficult to produce in minimal wattage systems. What it doesn't mean, especially in the medium term, is that you'll be able to buy ... (more)