beTech :: Evolve Already

One of the biggest beTech audiences to date showed up to hear ITC Unix Group’s Hamp Carruth and Steve Losen share their University Web server war stories. It was a fun session chock full of entertaining ‘misguided user stories’ and tips for making Web sites more secure. Now, thanks to Scott Crittenden’s deft audio engineering, you can relive this magical moment in glorious MP3 stereo (44MB).

And for those that want to follow along, here are some of the links mentioned:

• NetBadge
• MyGroups
• Proxy

A mighty big thanks goes out to Hamp and Steve for sharing their time with us. If there’s interest, perhaps we can have them come out to chat about their services on an annual or bi-annual basis. Whaddya think?

This Wednesday, June 20, Hamp Carruth and his posse will host a rather informal, open session on the wide-ranging topic of the University’s Web servers. Come on out and hear from the Sage of Servers (official title: Computer Systems Chief Engineer) how the UVa Web server service blossomed into what it is today and how that growth guided some of the idiosyncrasies we experience. Furthermore, find out what the future of ITC’s Web services hold for the average users and all you advanced developers out there.

Hamp and his colleagues will also impart their knowledge and experience on SUPHP (and share how it can make your PHP applications more secure), MyGroups, NetBadge, and much, much more. If you have questions about the nature of the University’s Web server environment, this is the session you need to attend!

I’ve just spent the majority of my weekend trying to install and learn about Joomla CMS, only to be disheartened when I came to learn how pitifully it supports web standards and Web 2.0 style app development. By the sizes of its developer and user communities (aka the “Joomlasphere”), and the near-fanatical loyalty and enthusiasm I detected as I visited Joomla-related sites, I assumed Joomla would have long been tweaked to rock out with things like CSS layout and integration of some of the new-fangled javascript dhtml/ajax/animation libraries. Not so, at least not without undue hacking and headaches. Read this and weep (look under the “Mambo” entry, as Joomla is a branch of Mambo.) I did, after successfully installing Joomla and spending about 10 hours this weekend reading documentation, installing extensions, and configuring the bastard.

After looking at the PHP code of the main Joomla content component, and seeing how riddled it was with tables, and realizing how inextricable tables were from its core, I proceeded to search for another CMS. This time I was going for something that was built to support web standards and Web 2.0. A quick Google search landed me at the MODx site. Wow! It seemed too good to be true. From their website:

“MODx is 100% buzzword compliant, and makes child’s play of building content managed sites with validating, accessible CSS layouts—hence Ajax CMS. It empowers its users to build engaging “Web 2.0″ sites today, with its pre-integrated Scriptaculous and Prototype libraries. If you’re a CSS designer or Ajax aficionado, this is the CMS for you; and if you like what you see today, you’ll love what’s coming.”

MODx is written in PHP—support requirements are minimal enough for it to work on the UVa unix web cluster—it’s open-source, it’s free, and it looks remarkably well organized. I successfully installed it in the twilight hours yesterday, and have yet to really take it for a test drive. When I do, I’ll post my impressions and/or battle stories. One quick note: if you install it on the UVa web cluster you’ll want to rename some of the files to have .suphp extensions and put a little rewrite hack in an .htaccess file in your root. I’ll post specific instructions for this in the next few days.

Relay is a slick file manager that works more like the ones found on your desktop (Mac or Windows) than in your browser. Thanks to Ajax and a little help from PHP, MySQL, and Perl, Relay is able to offer:

• drag-n-drop files and folders
• dynamic loading file structure
• upload progress bar
• thumbnail view, including pdf
• multiple users & accounts

If you need to manage files within your web application, take this sweet little application for a test drive (online demo available). It seems to cover all the bases and, best of all, it’s free!

Ever wonder how the big kids develop web applications? Then git yur butt over to the Bare Naked App blog, pronto! Carson Systems is developing a completely new web application in a virtual glass house—every step in the process is on display. And these aren’t just some no-talent goobers looking for some publicity, they have some serious street credentials. You may recognize some of Carson Systems’ work: the Vitamin web resources site, the Carson Workshops, or their last application DropSend.

Keeping up with Bare Naked App promises to be a great way to pick up some new design and project management skills. It’s a tremendous gift from some truly talented people.

Uploading files to design, develop, and test Web pages on a remote server takes up valuable time and it interrupts the creative flow. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do all of that on our own machine and then upload a completed project?

What we need is our own Web development server, preferably something like we’re used to working with in the real world. Apache sounds nice and MySQL and PHP would be icing on the cake. Also, while we’re making outrageous demands, we’d like to do it the Mac wayâ??with minimal muss and fuss. Ooh, and we’ll get bonus points if we can do it all for free!

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Rich Gregory for his insightful PHP presentation at beTech this past Wednesday. Rich covered a lot of ground and, with some excellent foresight, created a great little resource page to view the examples a bit more close up and to take a look at his source code.