The Suburban Chicago PHP & Web Development Meetup

Attention Wizard, the heatmap-generating site I demonstrated at our January meetup, is out of beta. Way to go, guys!

You can still get one free heatmap (with a big watermark) every day.

A “pro” version with a smaller watermark costs $10-$25 based on how many credits you buy at one time. The “pro unwatermarked” version is $15-40.

For those who missed the presentation, this site simulates eye-tracking algorithmically. Eye tracking is the new “big thing” in usability, as it lets you see how much attention various elements on a page attract. AttentionWizard claims 75% accuracy with their algorithm, at a cost far below traditional eye-tracking equipment, and without the hassle of recruiting people for eye-tracking studies.

No, it’s not a substitute for proper eye-tracking. But it’s a start, and a good way to test a rough design concept before committing to it.

Well, tomorrow is the October meetup, so I guess I’m way overdue for posting the slides from last month’s Cufon and Lint presentations.

I wish I had known about this sooner, as it’s almost Christmas (you did finish your shopping, right?).  OmniTI, a New York web development consultancy, is publishing their annual PHP Advent blog.  Today’s article, Yet, echoes a lot of my feelings toward PHP these days.

If there were a product statement for PHP, it’d probably be something like “only a drunken Martian could come up with this.” [. . .] I, myself, have been known to go through episodes of periodical rejection, during which I can’t stand a particular feature of PHP (and, often, of other products, but that’s a different story), but I haven’t given up on PHP—yet.

I also enjoyed Coping with the Holiday Shopping Spree, an article on enhancing client-side site loading performance.