The PHP Extension and Application Repository, or PEAR, is a framework and distribution system for PHP code components. The PEAR project seeks to provide a structured library of code, maintain a system for distributing code and for managing code packages, and promote a standard coding style. Though community-driven, the PEAR project has a PEAR Group which serves as the governing body and takes care of administrative tasks. Each PEAR code package comprises an independent project under the PEAR umbrella. It has its own development team, versioning-control and documentation.

A PEAR package is distributed as a gzipped tar file. It can consist of source code or binaries or both. Many PEAR packages can readily be used by developers as ordinary third party code via simple include statements in PHP. More elegantly, the PEAR installer which comes with PHP by default may be used to install PEAR packages so that the extra functionality provided by the package appears as an integrated part of the PHP installation. Unlike the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) archives, which PEAR took as its model, PEAR packages do not have implicit dependencies so that a package’s placement in the PEAR package tree does not relate to code dependencies. Rather, PEAR packages must explicitly declare all dependencies on other PEAR packages.

The PEAR base classes contain code for simulating object-oriented destructors and consistent error-handling. Packages exist for many basic PHP functions including authentication, caching, database access, encryption, configuration, HTML, web services and XML.

PECL (PHP Extension Community Library) is conceptually very similar to PEAR, and indeed PECL modules are installed with the PEAR Package Manager. PECL contains C extensions for compiling into PHP. As C programs , PECL extensions run more efficiently than PEAR packages. PECL includes modules for XML-parsing, access to additional databases, mail-parsing, embedding Perl or Python in PHP scripts and for compiling PHP scripts. Originally PECL was called the PEAR Extension Code Library, but it now operates independently of PEAR.

List of package categories

    * Authentication
    * Benchmarking
    * Caching
    * Configuration
    * Console
    * Database
    * Date & Time
    * Encryption
    * Event
    * File Formats
    * File System
    * Gtk Components
    * Gtk2 Components
    * HTML
    * HTTP
    * Images
    * Internationalization
    * Logging
    * Mail
    * Math
    * Networking
    * Numbers
    * Payment
    * PEAR
    * PHP
    * Processing
    * Science
    * Semantic Web
    * Streams
    * Structures
    * System
    * Text
    * Tools and Utilities
    * Validate
    * Web Services
    * XML

Just one day after the completion of the $3.1 billion DoubleClick Inc. acquisition, Google has announced a new, and free, ad serving platform. Called Ad Manager, Google’s newest offering is still in limited beta testing. Once officially launched it will aid small to medium sized businesses with the selling, scheduling, delivery and measurement of their entire directly-sold and network-based inventory.

The Ad Manager service will be offered free of charge, unlike many similar ad serving businesses including DoubleClick’s very own DART.

Ad Manager users won’t be limited to carrying ads from Google AdSense. Ads from other online ad networks can be used and can be in various formats including video, text and display.

Erin Teare Martin, Advertising Manager for Infoplease.com, has been involved in the limited beta. "Using Google Ad Manager, the delivery rate of our ads has improved by 10-15%. Before Google Ad Manager, we were maintaining two servers to keep ads running and they required ongoing maintenance. Since Google Ad Manager is a hosted solution, we have freed up those resources."

New Platform Will Enable Developers to Easily Build Rich Applications for Mobile Devices

AOL announced the AOL Open Mobile Platform, which it plans to make available to developers this summer. The new open platform will help stimulate innovation by providing developers with ready access to the tools and source code they need to build and distribute applications across all major mobile device platforms and operating systems including BREW, Java, Linux, RIM, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. As a result, developers will be able to create applications for a wide variety of mobile devices.

The AOL Open Mobile Platform is based on proven technology acquired by AOL that has been deployed across more than 150 different handsets on carrier networks in the U.S. The platform will consist of three components: an XML-based, next-generation markup language; an ultra-lightweight mobile device client; and an application server. A dynamic presentation layer will allow for rapid deployment of new features and easy optimization for a wide variety of mobile devices, allowing developers to build and update applications once, and then distribute them across all supported devices and platforms.

In addition, it will be possible to integrate applications built using the AOL Open Mobile Platform with third-party APIs, as well as with AOL’s open APIs for AIM, AOL Mail, AOL Video, MapQuest, Userplane, Truveo, Winamp, and others. The AOL Open Mobile Platform will also give developers the ability to monetize their mobile applications by utilizing advertising resources, such as clickable banner ads, provided by AOL’s Platform-A.

“The use of mobile services continues to increase at a steady rate and for any developer looking to build applications for this growing space, the AOL Open Mobile Platform couldn’t make it any easier,� said Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President of AOL. “Our new open platform will provide developers with a new breed of tools, including source code, for creating robust mobile services and will encourage product innovation.�

“AOL is committed to providing developers around the world with access to our core technologies which give them the ability to build and deliver innovative new products,” said Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President of AOL. “Mobile is an important example of how we’re opening AOL’s products to the developer community and providing access to new open tools and source code. As more developers leverage our open technologies, we look forward to seeing exciting new products that serve a global audience.”

The AOL Open Mobile Platform is expected to be available this summer. More information on the AOL Open Mobile Platform can be found at http://dev.aol.com/openmobile.
pular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services runs one of the largest Internet access businesses in the U.S., and provides a full set of advertising solutions. A majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., AOL LLC and its subsidiaries have operations in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. Learn more at AOL.com.

The Android Developer Challenge is proceeding nicely. We’re excited about the interest people have shown so far and have enjoyed talking to everyone working on new Android Apps.

As a quick reminder, the first phase of the challenge will be ending on April 14. In the Android Developer Challenge I, the 50 most promising entries received by April 14 will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.

Keep working on your applications, and be sure to post in the forums if you have any questions!

David McLaughlin
Android Advocate

Android SDK m5-rc14 now available. There are a couple of changes in m5-rc14 which can be highlight:ed

    * New user interface - As mentioned once it was introduced the m3 version of the Android SDK, we’re continuing to refine the UI that’s available for Android. m5-rc14 replaces the previous placeholder with a new UI, but as before, work on it is still in-progress.
    * Layout animations - Developers can now create layout animations for their applications using the capabilities introduced in the android.view.animation package. Check out the LayoutAnimation*.java files in the APIDemos sample code for examples of how this works.
    * Geo-coding - android.location.Geocoder enables developers to forward and reverse geo-code (i.e. translate an address into a coordinate and vice-versa), and also search for businesses.
    * New media codecs - The MediaPlayer class has added support for the OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats.
    * Updated Eclipse plug-in - A new version of ADT is available and provides improvements to the Android developer experience. In particular, check out the new Android Manifest editor.

You can find more information about what’s changed in a couple of documents that have been published. First is an overview of the changes to the Android APIs in API Changes Overview. If you want a more granular view of what’s changed, an API diff between m3-rc37 and m5-rc14 is also available. Finally, Upgrading the SDK provides links to the two previously referenced documents and the release notes, as well as instructions on how to upgrade your development environment.

We still need your help in shaping the platform, so if you find issues with the Android APIs or the developer tools, please let us know through the Android Issue Tracker. If you have general comments or questions, please head on over to the Android groups to get in touch.

We’re looking forward to all the applications that developers will create using this new version of the Android SDK. Of course, you can use m5-rc14 or any older version of the SDK for your Android Developers Challenge submission.

Jason Chen, Developer Advocate
Google Android