Mike Cogan wondered on his blog why php is more popular than java. Most of his argument seems to be based on the assumption that PHP coders want to get a website up and running as soon as possible with no regard for proper planning and design. Somehow, simply choosing to use Java makes you plan and design better. Huh?

I really don't understand why PHP, etc. dominates the free/cheap hosting solutions. Tomcat is a production class Servlet Container and JBoss easily holds it own against the commercial application servers.

to which Jeff Moore has replied quite thoroughly and clearly why PHP is more popular. PHP is popular for a number of reasons. I wouldn't overlook that its bundled by default in practically every linux distrubtion a hosting provider might want, integrates easily with Apache, and can be shared across a number of users/sites on a server - which is not as easy to do with java.

Cogan also suggests that PHP solutions would be unmaintainable, unscalable, and unprofessional. I disagree. I think these qualities have more to do with the programmer than with the language.\ I think Cogan's attitude may be typical of the MIT Approach that seems to prevail in the java culture. Zend should take note of this. The road into the enterprise is an uphill battle, fighting against the MIT attitude all the way. Instead, Zend should do everything they can to grow the commercial PHP small business/consumer web application market.

Extremetech has a somewhat speculative article about expanding digital video recorder capacity through external, possible USB, hard drives. Let's disregard the fact that your typical Tivo, or wannabe DVR you use, probably has more TV recorded each day than you can possibly wathc and still have a normal life. Why would I want to add another peripheral, and power plug, to the mess of cables near my TV? I have a USB drive for my PC, and that thing is noisy too - no way I'd want it on all the time. Seems like upgrading the internal hard drive is more preferable.

The concept is simple: as PVRs fill up with recorded video, consumers either have to delete their recorded content or somehow add more capacity through modifying the PVR with a separate hard drive. A third option, burning content to a built-in DVD, has primarily been confined to Japan.

If there's anything that could motivate me more for the election this fall, it's crap like this - care of the so-called Patriot Act that Ashcroft rammed through Congress after 9/11. Yes, voting out the current administration won't magically make this sham piece of law disapper, but its a start.

The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now.\ The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government.