What is AMP?

AMP stands for Apache, MySQL, PHP and together this team works as a platform for running interactive websites on Mac OS X. Apache is the dominant worldwide web server, hosting the vast majority of all websites. MySQL is a powerful Open Source SQL database solution that rivals high end offerings from Microsoft and others. PHP is a web scripting language in a category called middleware. Middleware means that PHP can speak multiple languages fluently. The languages it can speak include PHP, HTML, and SQL. In this way, a PHP script can tell a PHP server it wants to look up records in a MySQL database and present them to the web visitor as a list on a web page. This web page will be HTML created dynamically by PHP and served to you by Apache.

Usually to connect these types of technologies together requires driver configuration, but Apache, MySQL, and PHP plug into each other automatically and start working. This and the fact that they are all free and very powerful makes them a compelling business solution. So compelling that more PHP solutions are available than possibly all its competitors combined! But even so, AMP does not run by itself in all cases. The most powerful AMP solutions also call upon Perl to do some of their work. Perl is commonly used for converting or creating images on the fly and other special services for AMP software. In this way, Perl could generate a dynamic chart for PHP to supply back to the web visitor and it will have used MySQL to collect the necessary data for this chart.

Enough technology talk and on to what you can do with it! Some of the most exciting PHP solutions are Content Management Solutions (CMS). A CMS is the modern way to run a website. Instead of building your sites in Dreamweaver or Golive, they are managed in a MySQL database via interactive web pages in your CMS. The most exciting CMS today is Mambo. Mambo allows you to edit prebuilt templates that already have CSS and ready to edit Photoshop PSD files waiting your customization. Mambo currently offers three visitor levels: guest users of your site, registered users, and special users. Mambo's back end provides additional users levels for the people building the site: Editors, Publishers, Administrators, and Super Administrators. Mambo controls your site content and what areas different visitors have access to. You can delay release of site content until a certain date and also have the content expire automatically at another date. Mambo can be easily extended via third party software that can be installed into your Mambo site to expand its capabilities. There are custom made components for Mambo and major third party projects that are best of class also can be installed into Mambo. Some examples of these include PHPBB2, an online forum system as well as Gallery, an online web photo gallery. When added into Mambo, they abide by Mambo's rules for user rights and look and feel of the website.

AMP Solutions can be used for public websites but also for internal business solutions that do not connect to the internet. There are many AMP solutions that focus on common business tasks such as project management and time tracking. If you have a need, its possible there is a solution. A good place to search is Hotscripts. Hotscripts allows you to search thousands of PHP solutions in a variety of categories to find the one that best meets your needs.