Teach yourself programming with Webmonkey

 An Excellent web development site Webmonkey is full of tutorials for various web programming languages. See their PHP Tutorial for Beginners. When you’re ready, check out how to use PHP to talk to a database inWebMonkey’s PHP and MySQL tutorial. PHP’s online documentation and function reference is the best on the web. Each entry (like this one on the strlen function) includes user comments at the bottom which are often as helpful as the documentation itself. (I happen to be partial to PHP, but there are plenty of other server-side scripting languages you might decide to go with instead.)

23andme a Social Genome Service for the masses

The service is simple. They send you a kit. You provide a saliva sample and send it back for analysis. But the result is an amazing insight into yourself, your health, and your ancestry. Details from their web site are below: for more info visit: http://www.23andme.com

A high-density, custom genome scan.

Our customers submit a small saliva sample that is processed using a custom DNA chip. The resulting data is then presented on a secure website using interactive tools that offer information about ancestry, inherited traits and disease risk.

Hundreds of insights into your genetics,
with regular updates.

We help you understand how your genetics influences more than 80 diseases, health-related conditions and traits. We also help you explore your family relationships and ancestrywith the information in your DNA. And as new discoveries are made, we update your account with the latest findings.

Innovative sharing and comparison features.

23andMe is the leader in giving you secure, simple options toshare your genetic information with family and friends. You can also post stories and questions for other members of the 23andMe community. Other tools show you how you fit into the 23andMe customer database–and the whole human gene pool.

An opportunity to drive the future of research.

For the first time, anyone can help advance research by participating in our research program, 23andWe. Through online surveys that simultaneously collect scientific data and enhance the experience for our customers, 23andWe is designed to reveal the genetic basis of disease and contribute to making personalized medicine a reality.

Secure, permanent web-based access.

The safety of your data is our priority. Your personalized 23andMe web account provides secure and easy access to your information, with multiple levels of encryption and security protocols protecting your personal data.

Google Health Launches

Google Health Launches: “After a year and a half since the first announcement, the much-anticipated Google Health has been released at Google Factory Tour of Search. ‘Patients need to be able to better coordinate and manage their own health information. We believe that patients should control and own their own health information, and should be able to do so easily,’ said Adam Bosworth in November 2006.

Here’s what you can do in Google Health:
* create a health profile with information about your health conditions, medications, allergies
* import medical records from US hospitals that use Google’s APIs to make the conversion possible. Unfortunately, the list of partners is almost empty.
* read medical resources, information about diseases”

25 Tools every Learning Professional should have in their Toolbox – and all for FREE!

By Jane Hart, Head of Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies
to appear in e.learning age magazine, April 2008


Whether you are a corporate trainer, a Learning & Development manager, a learning designer or developer, or an educator in a school, college or university, these are the 25 must-have tools. What is more they are all free, which makes them very useful for those on a low (or non-existent) budget or simply for experimentation and exploration of the widening e-learning space.

These tools have been taken from the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list compiled from the Top 10 Tools lists of over 100 learning professionals worldwide and are a mix of personal productivity tools (for managing personal learning) as well as authoring tools (for creating learning solutions). Many of them are Web 2.0 tools that promote a social, collaborative, sharing approach to learning.

Source: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/articles/25tools.html

Keep It Simple, Stupid! | Design Showcase | Smashing Magazine

Keep It Simple, Stupid! | Design Showcase | Smashing Magazine: “Let’s put it straight – simplicity is more complex than you probably think it is. To design a web-site in user-friendly tones, presenting all information and removing unnecessary details isn’t easy. In fact, many designers don’t manage to find the right mix between details and their presentation on the screen, which usually results in an information overkill and/or decreased usability. However, some designers do manage to find the right balance and create usable, elegant and clean web-sites with simple layouts.

We’ve selected some of them. 49 simple, clean, sometimes even minimalistic designs, which all stick closely to one single principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid!.”