Wamp and XAMPP doesn’t come with default rewrite rule enabled, For enabling the rewrite rules in both of them you need to make changes in httpd.conf so that apache can work with rewrite rules.

For enabling the rewrite rules follow these rules:-

1) find httpd.conf (usually this file can be found in folder callled conf , config or something along those lines)

2) Find and uncomment the line LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

3) Find the line with DocumentRoot “C:/path/to/my/root”, There you will find contents like

<Directory>

</Directory>

Make sure the content inside these two braces looks like

<Directory>

Options All

AllowOverride All

</Directory>

4) All done now restart the Apache server and you will be all good to go

In my opinion one of the top most API’s used globaly on web portals is Google Search API, Google is famous for building world class API’s to harness the unique data Google collected with it’s excellent set of technology.

Google Labs is the ultimate playground of Google which he use for developing and testing there upcoming API’s , They have some exciting set of API’s currently in building. Which promise better web and can provide better value than Google Maps and Google Search API’s

Google O3D API:-

Virtual reality is the most discussed and researched technology few years back and it has proved it’s mark with the success of Second Life. O3D is natural extension to it and looks like it’s a extension to much hyped but failed technology VRML (Quotation needed)

Here’s a small example demo that is made using o3d Technology, Notice the amount of detail which goes in the demo video.

It’s Technical documentation can be found here , Also you can be a part of early developers league by joining this group o3D developers group

Google Wave API:-
Google Wave is another big collabration tool that Google is coming with, Aspired to be the next logical invention of Email . Google Wave innovates the collabration market with their wonderful approach of centric objects.  Google Wave can be accessed via Google wave APi which can be integrated with applications for collabrtation . Google presented a keynote which presented some cool features of Google Wave

Developers can check out some cool wave applications at Wave Sample gallery and check out the technical documentation here , Unfortunately Google wave currently have only Client libraries for Python and Java , We look forward to the Php library from Google soon.

Google Gears API:-

Google Gears and Adobe Air are two upcoming technologies that promise leveraging the power of desktop onto web , Google Gears API is a powerful tool for building web applications that can interact with the users desktops , Features like local caching, Storing user data locally and asynchronous threads are some powerful feature that can now be used on web apps.

Google Gears sample applications can be found here and Technical documentation can be found at this page

Google Analytics API:- The most common tool that webmasters use is the analytics tool for their website and Google analytics is the ultimate data churning tool for any website, If used properly Analytics can dig down to the deepest point of the content and traffic coming on web app or portal.

Several mertrics system like Mint , Quantcast etc exist today and provides extensive data, But the google analytics api can prove to be a milestone in extracting and tracking the traffic details that can effect your ROI.

Google analytics documentation can be located here

Google Coupons:- Two words that bring maximum ROI in any form of business are FREE and SALE .

Coupons are one of the most searched terms on the web, Providing ecommerce users good discount on items, What could be better than the coupons data from the leader in data collection itself !, The coupons API !

Coupons API provide easy import to coupons data which can be used by business users, This is pretty same as the legendy google base tool which allow webmasters and business people to upload information about their product listing.

Coupons uploaded through coupon API will be indexed on google and will be presented to all users on searching for that product or relevant keywords.

It’s documentation can be found at this site

Hope you guys liked this list of API’s , Will love to listen your comments and any another set of API’s i missed.

Usually programmers use a lot of JavaScript code snippets as functions regularly, These JavaScript functions are lengthy code snippets and are usually tough to understand and edit. Some of the most common functions used are form validation functions , Pagination functions etc.

The day since jQuery has been on the block , It has provided a nifty way of solving a lot of common problems for which we needed lengthy JavaScript functions. I am sharing with you guys top 20 jQuery plugins and code snippets that are pretty useful for daily coding routines.

1) Form validation plugin:- Form validation is probably the most common used JavaScript functionality used these days . However , a lot of repetitive editing is required in the forms and JavaScript regex expressions for correctly fitting the validations.

For this a nifty jquery plugin Valid8 provides a easy to use 4 line code to insert validation in any form !, Valid8 provides various methods including ajax requests, multiple regex validation etc in form validation , I have found ajax requests to be a nifty feature while checking username availability in registration and signup forms

Valid8 plugin page can be found at http://www.unwrongest.com/projects/valid8/

And it can be downloaded from:-

http://jquery-valid8.googlecode.com/files/jquery.valid8-1.2.2.js

2) Drag and Drop functionality using jQuery:- This excellent tutorial showed me a nifty way of making a drag and drop functionality , This drag and drop interface provide a excellent web 2.0 interface in your web projects for user usability. This drag and drop tutorial uses the Google JqueryUi plugin , Which we believe is used by google on it’s products  Drag and drop is used heavily by Google on it’s products such as gmail and igoogle.

For making such a drag and drop functionality you will need the jquery Ui plugin by google which can be located here.

The tutorial can be find at :- http://papermashup.com/drag-drop-with-php-jquery/

The demo of this tutorial can be located at http://papermashup.com/demos/jquery-drag-drop/

And the complete source code of the tutorial can be downloaded from http://papermashup.com/demos/jquery-drag-drop/jquery-drag-drop.zip

3) Pagination using jquery:- This is a official plugin from Jquery guys to provide pagination on any set of data you have. This plugin is a useful replacement of the php pagination classes and provides a neat web2.0 style pagination features.Pretty useful when we have a large sets of data such as search results or data listings.

Since this is a official plugin from jquery guys , The stability of the plugin is definitely unquestionable . it uses a simple javascript funciton which takes page_index and paging container as the arguments. For complete documentation read the official documentation of this plugin

The official Plugin page can be found at:- http://plugins.jquery.com/project/pagination

The demo of the plugin can be seen at:- http://d-scribe.de/webtools/jquery-pagination/demo/demo_options.htm

4) Embed flash using jQuery:- Flash is probably the best intreactive web technology invented till date, The people tend to understand best by audio-visual effects and flash is the ultimate choice on web.

Dealing with flash variables , cross-browser issues and browsers with flash plugin not installed always left a bitter experience for a programmer, But using this Embed flash plugin this issues can be sorted out in a easy manner.

The official plugin page can be found at:- http://jquery.lukelutman.com/plugins/flash/

5) Creating tag cloud via jQuery:- Tag cloud are a excellent way of showing important keywords and categories on your website ! , Usually tag cloud are made through php class via predefined keyword density.

The official plugin dynacloud shows a neat simple tagcloud which is generated dynamically.

The official plugin page can be found at:- http://plugins.jquery.com/project/dynacloud

Demo of the plugin can be found at

http://johannburkard.de/blog/programming/javascript/dynacloud-a-dynamic-javascript-tag-keyword-cloud-with-jquery.html

6) Insert Simple ajax effects using jquery :- Simple effects plugin provides easy methods of inserting cool ajax functionality and UI in your web apps.

UI functionality like Fade toggle boxes and blind toggle boxes are cool effect that can make your web apps UI a lovely experience for your users.

The official plugin page can be found at http://www.learningjquery.com/2008/02/simple-effects-plugins

7) Creating tips with jQuery  :- Tips are some efficient way of showing simple bits of information to users, This jquery plugin gives you a excellent way to create nifty tips in html code

Plugin page can be found at:- http://codylindley.com/Javascript/264/jtip-a-jquery-tool-tip

Demo of this jquery plugin :- http://www.codylindley.com/blogstuff/js/jtip/

These are some basic plugins that can make progrrammers life easy ! Try them and let us know how you find them !, Do list out your favorites plugin below.

Also, If you are beginning your steps on jquery development , Do try this excellent book on jquery . It has all necessary details on beginning jquery development

As a wordpress consultant we come across many issues that require us to import or export large mysql database sets. And usually the clients don’t have ssh access.

Phpmyadmin is a great tool , But is a big fail when it comes to handle huge amount of mysql data. Usually ssh or some exporting tool is used for it.

I came across a very impressive and blazingly fast mysql database import tool called Big Dump, It uploaded my 40 MB database set in less than 34 secs, which is pretty fast IMO. The same mysql dump was dieing when trying to import from phpmyadmin.

The setup and import function of bigdump is quite straight forward and just need few steps

1:- Just download bigdump zip file from this link and unzip it on your desktop.

2:- Open the file bigdump.php in any desired code editor and update the database configuration settings .

3:- After that upload the bigdump.php onto the server in a separate folder.(make sure you can acess this folder from your web broswer)

4:- Upload the desired sql file also in the same folder.

5:-  Run the bigdump script on browser (for example at www.domain.com/folder/bigdump.php ),  It will scan all sql files in the current directory and will give you the list of ones which can be imported.

6:- Click on Start import for starting the import of sql file and within seconds your database will be filled with the complete sql dataset.