Google Launches App Engine

Google just launched a new platform called App Engine.  Basically it allows you to run your web application on Google's servers using much of their main infrastructure such as BigTable and GFS.  The best part is, you write App Engine apps in Python and they include Django out of the box!  Mike Arrington has a video of Guido Van Rossum talking at the launch event as well as a pretty good summary at TechCrunch.

It should be very interesting to see what this platform can do and how people will put it to use.

VPS Hosting

While not technically part of web development, hosting is a major part of any website.  A good host can help you through the roughest of times and help grow your site while a bad host can cause tremendous amounts of pain and suffering.  Similarly selecting the right type of hosting can give you the flexibility you need to accomplish your goals while the wrong type of hosting can leave you stuck in a corner or with an empty wallet.  Today I'm going to talk about one particular type of web hosting many people should consider, Virtual Private Server or VPS hosting.