On the Microsoft Interoperability Blog today there's a new post looking at using PHP to help create web slices (little saved chunks of web pages) in Internet Explorer 8.

A web slice is content on a web page which a user can subscribe to. The content is then available from a button in the Internet Explorer 8 Favorite's toolbar. When the content is updated, the button glows orange to alert the user that there is new content. When the user clicks the button, they see a drop down window with the updated content of the web slice.

They show how to use PHP to create the content to fill a slice with some simple content. A slice isn't much more than a part of your web page with a div tag classed as "hslice". IE8 can then pick that part of the site up and save it to the user's browser. You can see en example here.

After looking around for different hosting for some of his projects (one that was a bit more PHP-developer friendly), Brandon Savage looked into Slicehost, a virtual server option that gives a bit more control than the larger, more typical shared hosting environments. Here's his review of the move.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was pretty amazing. Slicehost works by offering virtual servers for each account - that is, for each account they offer, you get your own box. [...] You're responsible for putting anything on it you want. And that's where the fun starts: you really can put anything you want on it.

The slices allow you to customize your PHP builds, add in MySQL, change up Apache - whatever you want. All you need to know is how to compile things and get them working together. Slicehost isn't a good option for someone that's not familiar with linux system administration, but if you know exactly what you want and how to put it there, their pricing is one of the best out there (plus they just got bought up by Rackspace so their future seems bright).

Richard Thomas, creator of the jQPie helper application (PHP for jQuery) is suggesting a broader scope for the project in his new blog post:

Now I have slightly larger goals, the Pie represents the slices of code I hope to pack within. Currently there is a php5 slice, and another person has shown some interest in working on a php4 version.

Now I am looking for you! Yea you there the one looking at jQPie thinking it would be cool to use but your knee deep in Python, or Perl, or any other language.

His ultimate goal is to have a single javascript library that can span as many languages as it can right out of the box. To help the effort along, he's offering 2 cash prizes to developers - one for the Python/Ruby-ers out there and the other for Perl-heads. The best, most complete (working) library wins. Keep an eye on his blog for more details on the contest and when it starts.

Richard Thomas, creator of the jQPie helper application (PHP for jQuery) is suggesting a broader scope for the project in his new blog post:

Now I have slightly larger goals, the Pie represents the slices of code I hope to pack within. Currently there is a php5 slice, and another person has shown some interest in working on a php4 version.

Now I am looking for you! Yea you there the one looking at jQPie thinking it would be cool to use but your knee deep in Python, or Perl, or any other language.

His ultimate goal is to have a single javascript library that can span as many languages as it can right out of the box. To help the effort along, he's offering 2 cash prizes to developers - one for the Python/Ruby-ers out there and the other for Perl-heads. The best, most complete (working) library wins. Keep an eye on his blog for more details on the contest and when it starts.