PHP is perfect to handle wishlists

While thinking yesterday on how I was starting to run out of time for my Xmas shopping, I figured having a wishlist application on my website would be a nice way to manage the gift-giving act. Actually, not so much manage my buying lists (I’d use my Sony Clie for that) than to announce what the kids want/need, so that the family can get to it easily.

After visting Sourceforge, I found a few candidates and decided to try them all. I finally settled on The Community Wishlist Server, which provides some documentation and a way to create locales for other languages (it ships with English and German). Items can include a name, a URL and a description (use to provide price, color, etc). Visitors can check out what they’ve bought so others don’t buy the same thing.

The install is relatively simple: drop all the files in a directory on your server, enter your settings for your MySQL database and define an Admin ID/PW. Done! I really like PHP/MySQL for things like this: simple to install, to use, and a quick ROI.