Web Hosting

There is the area where I tend to have the least amount of luck. That being said I have had some success with these guys:

• Host Gator – I haven’t been with them long enough to say for sure, but they have had the best reliability and features with services I’ve used so far. They’re relatively inexpensive too!
• Linode – Really fast, really flexible, really cheap…. I’m in love! Well not really, but Linode is an awesome VPS hosting solution. I have had zero complaints so far.

Web Platform Frameworks

• WordPress – WordPress is by far my favorite platform for blog-centered websites, primarily because it is packed with feature and development is hoppin’. I haven’t delved far into customizing it or theming it, but the little I’ve done has been promising.
• CakePHP – For custom web applications, or anything beyond a static site, CakePHP is the easiest, fastest, and cleanest way to get something from paper to prototype quickly. I’m currently on a major project using CakePHP and I love how quickly I can make changes to the design and database appear in the product. I haven’t seen how the framework stands the test of a production site yet, but for development, CakePHP is king.

Libraries/Tools

• JQuery – This award winning javascript libraries is probably the item on this list I’ve used the longest. I first began using javascript libraries a couple of years ago with mootools. While mootools was great, I quickly found the power and flexibility of JQuery to far more appealing, and I’ve used it ever since.

There are a few other libraries I’m currently toying with, and there are still plenty of gaps in my tool-chain to be filled. These are the basics of my web development though. Enjoy!

So I’ve been reading bits and blips about the new MVC(Model View Controller) framework coming out for ASP.NET for a little while now, but I hadn’t really thought much of it. Microsoft has a tendency to release demos and previews for products that won’t actually see the light of day for some time, and I hate wasting my time on such things. So, as cool as it is, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Things changed, though, when I had opportunity to go see MVC demoed and explained by a Microsoft evangelist on Tuesday night. It turns out the ASP.NET MVC framework is actually much more robust and feature-filled than I originally thought. What’s even better, it’s bin deployable! Basically meaning you can use it now, you don’t have to wait for Microsoft to roll it into an ASP.NET version 3 years from now.

Since I discovered that golden bit of information, I’ve slowly begun rolling it into my top secret project that I’ve been working on this summer. The MVC pattern gives ASP.NET a much better model for web applications than traditional web forms. We may finally see an end to those ugly post-back-every-click websites and see some slick, user-friendly asp.net sites. Another great feature that has been added is routing. This is something that php on apache based servers have had for awhile, but IIS and ASP.NET have lacked. This basically means you can uses pretty, sensible urls (www.micahlee.com/blog/post/edit/1) instead of cryptic ones (www.micahlee.com/index.aspx?action=editblogpost&id=1). ASP.NET MVC includes a very nice and easy-to-use routing library that, when combined with controllers, makes web application design and development in ASP.NET a breeze.

Overall, MVC is a revolutionary addition to ASP.NET.  If you do web development, you should check it out. Here’s a link: http://www.asp.net/mvc/