Found a cool site that talks about the world of design as it is right now.
Interesting points about the tools and techniques of the modern web designer.
Be sure to check out Webdesignfromscratch.com.
Check out their page on current web style here.
I found a great HOW-TO on how to replace the base installation of Apache 1.3.x on Mac OSX over at Chalmers Tekniska Hogskola’s website.
This is very helpful information if you use apache on your Mac to develop websites and web applications locally.
Without further ado, here is the article.
Installing Apache2 and PHP 5.0.4
Staying at the top has a cost. Hours of trying to figure out how to install new software.
Recently I (after lots of mistakes) managed to install Apache2 and PHP 5.0.4. To make it all simple for and only invent the wheel once I decided to put up this guide.
The idea was that I wanted Apache2 together with PHP on my webserver and start and stop Apache from the System Preferences pane. In other words I wanted to remove the old installation of Apache 1.3.x and replace it with Apache2. Roaming the Internet gave me absoulutly no clue whats so ever how to achive this. The guides I found was generally set up so you had two webservers or a lot of fiddling with the httpd.conf file. Also I would have to make a script to launch Apache2 at startup, and as said before “There is no reason to invent the wheel again”.
So here is what you need to do: I assume that you are familiar with using a terminal window, if not, this is a good time to try it out.
Prerequisites:
You need to have a compiler installed. This comes for free with XCode. I’m running gcc 4.0.
glibtool (GNU Libtool) version 1.4.2 or higher
autoconf verion 2.5.2 If you don’t have these download them using fink. If you don’t have fink, download and install it! These are needed for the installation of Apache2 . If you don’t want to use fink Remember that GNU Libtool is in a normal *unix system named libtool. If you don’t compile it as glibtool you will run into trouble later on when installing other programs developed by Apple.
Was having all sorts of problems with my G4 17″ Powerbook today and last night, thought I would give this a try.
Thanks to Tech Support Technician “bobw” at Macosx.com
- First disconnect anything connected to the machine (printer,modem, scanner, etc) and see if the Kernel panic still happen. (’your computer needs to be restarted’ in various different languages is a Kernel panic)
- Next, run Disk Utility from your Utility folder to Repair Permissions.
- Next run ‘fsck’;
To run fsck, you first need to start up your Mac in single-user mode. Here’s how:
- Restart your Mac.
- Immediately press and hold the Command and “S” keys.
You’ll see a bunch of text begin scrolling on your screen. In a few more seconds, you’ll see the Unix command line prompt (#).
You’re now in single-user mode.
Now that you’re at the # prompt, here’s how to run fsck:
- Type: “fsck -f” (that’s fsck-space-minus-f).
- Press Return.
The fsck utility will blast some text onto your screen. If there’s damage to your disk, you’ll see a message that says:
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
If you see this message–and this is extremely important– repeat running fsck. It is normal to have to run fsck more than once — the first run’s repairs often uncover additional problems..
When fsck finally reports that no problems were found, and the # prompt reappears:
- Type: “reboot” to restart, or type “exit” to start up without rebooting.
- Press Return.
Your Mac should proceed to start up normally to the login window or the Finder.
Definately want to check out this tutorial.
Using Ruby on Rails for Web Development on Mac OS X
Why Ruby on Rails?
First, you might be wondering: Web application frameworks are a dime a dozen, so what’s different about Rails? Here are a few things that make Ruby on Rails stand above the crowd:
- Full-Stack Web Framework. Rails is an MVC web framework where models, views, and controllers are fully integrated in a seamless fashion. That means you automatically get all the benefits of an MVC design without the hassle of explicitly configuring each component to play well with the others.
- Real-World Usage. The Rails framework was extracted from real-world web applications. That is, Rails comes from real need, not anticipating what might be needed. The result is an easy to use and cohesive framework that’s rich in functionality, and at the same time it does its best to stay out of your way.
- One Language: Ruby. Everything from business logic to configuration files (there aren’t many) are written in the Ruby programming language. With just one language, you hope it’s a good one, and Ruby doesn’t disappoint. Ruby is a full object-oriented language with clean syntax and it has a way of making programming truly fun. Using one language means you don’t have to juggle between multiple languages and dialects as you’re building your application.
- Convention over Configuration. Rails works hard to take care of all the repetitive and error-prone chores associated with starting to build a web application, and maintaining it over time. Rails uses simple naming conventions and clever use of reflection to make your work easier with near-zero configuration.
- It’s Productive! At the end of the day, Rails is all about helping you stay productive.
The introduction of new object-oriented programming (OOP) features in PHP V5 has significantly raised the level of functionality in this programming language. Not only can you have private, protected, and public member variables and functions — just as you would in the Java™, C++, or C# programming languages — but you can also create objects that bend at runtime, creating new methods and member variables on the fly. You can’t do that with the Java, C++, or C# languages. This kind of functionality makes super-rapid application development systems, such as Ruby on Rails, possible.Before I get into all that, however, here’s a word of caution: This article is about the use of very advanced OOP features in PHP V5 — the kind of features you won’t necessarily need in every application. Also, the kind of features that will be difficult to understand if you don’t have a solid grounding in OOP and at least a beginner’s knowledge of PHP object syntax.
This article was from IBM’s alphaworks website
TECH TITANS CONTRIBUTE BROWSER-BOOSTING AJAX TECHNOLOGIES TO OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY (PDF)
“Open Ajax ” Initiative Members to Drive Collaborative Innovation to Make the Web Easier to Use Armonk , NY , February 1, 2006 . . . Prominent computer industry vendors and Internet-based businesses today announced that they are making it easier for an open-source community to form and popularize Ajax . Ajax is a fast-growing open client technology that businesses are incorporating into their external and internal Web sites to simplify the browsing experience, and make it easier for users to shop, work, plan, correspond and navigate online.
This is a very nice list of things to try to get your overall pageweight decreased. I have several pages, where I need to get load times down, and this article was very helpful in giving a laundry list of things to try.
Thanks Alexander!
10 Realistic Steps to a Faster Web Site
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006 at 11:56 0100 (CET) by Alexander KirkI complained before about bad guides to improve the performance of your website.
digg it, add to delicious
I’d like to give you a more realistic guide on how to achieve the goal. I have written my master thesis in computer sciences on this topic and will refer to it throughout the guide.
Looks like the folks over at Google are really keeping busy on their 20%. I might just have to download this when I find it, and reformat the ol linux machine.
Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business - desktop software.
A version of the increasingly popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as Goobuntu.
Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for.
It’s possible that it’s just one of the toys Googleplex engineers play with on Fridays, when they get time off from buffing the search engine code or filtering out entries about Tiananmen Square.
It could be for wider deployments on the company’s own desktops, as an alternative to Microsoft, but still for internal use only.
But it’s possible Google plans to distribute it to the general public, as a free alternative to Windows.
I love Jeffrey Zeldman. As a young and aspiring web developer, living rent check to rent check, I feel personally close to this article. Web 2.0 has been an interesting trend, much talked about, and yet hard to find or actually define. Read this article to find a particually well defined view of what the wrong version of Web 2.0 is. The web today will not be the same web tommorow. Business has been redefined by the internet, and those companies which don’t see that will get farther and farther behind. The concept of value though has not fundamentally changed. The internet does force
Without further ado, please, read this article, and become wise with the ways of Zeldman….. and the force, when you get a chance.
A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0
Web 3.0
by Jeffrey ZeldmanWeb 3.0
Some small teams of sharp people—people who once, perhaps, worked for those with dimmer visions—are now following their own muses and designing smart web applications. Products like Flickr and Basecamp are fun and well-made and easy to use.
That may not sound like much. But ours is a medium in which, more often than not, big teams have slowly and expensively labored to produce overly complex web applications whose usability was near nil on behalf of clients with at best vague goals. The realization that small, self-directed teams powered by Pareto’s Principle can quickly create sleeker stuff that works better is not merely bracing but dynamic. As 100 garage bands sprang from every Velvet Underground record sold, so the realization that one small team can make good prompts 100 others to try.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
Ever since I first saw the three part video series The Triumph of the Nerds, I have loved Bob Cringely’s “I, Cringely” column. He recently released his predictions for 2006 on January 5th. Of these I find that #4 is really interesting to me:
4) Enough about Apple. Google will continue to roll out new products and services as it builds out its infrastructure for a huge push in 2007. They’ll need money, of course, so I predict a supplemental stock offering timed with a 20-to-1 stock split. 2006 is a building year for Google.
Will it be a building year for Google? If so won’t Google want a web product that is aimed at getting the world more fit through information and collaboration? They will. They will buy Collabofit. If they don’t, then Yahoo will.
All right, the 2006 predictions for Ben Wann are over. See you in 2007 
Here is the rest of the I, Cringely Article.
I, Cringely: Win Some, Lose Some
Now for this year’s predictions:
1) This one is easy: Apple will eventually announce all the products they were supposed to have announced at this week’s MacWorld show, but didn’t, including a bunch of media content deals, a huge expansion of .Mac to one TERABYTE per month of download capacity per user, a new version of the Front Row DVR application, and two new Intel Macs with huge plasma displays, but with keyboards and mice as options — literally big-screen TVs that just happen to be computers, too.
2) The reason Apple changed its MacWorld announcements at the last minute was because the company sued little Burst.com a few days before, trying to invalidate the Burst patents. But since Apple sued Burst, Burst shares have gone UP by 30 percent. The market is rarely wrong. Suing Burst was an enormous mistake for Apple, casting a pall on their video strategy and potentially costing the company strategic alliances with networks and movie studios. Apple realizes this now and is struggling internally to find a way to change course and put a positive spin on the course correction. Apple will lose and Burst will win, and Apple won’t be able to afford to wait for the courts to decide anything, since time is critical in staking out Internet video turf. I predict that Apple will eventually take a license from Burst, that is UNLESS SOME OTHER COMPANY (Google? Real? Yahoo?) doesn’t snatch up Burst first. Here’s something I’ve noticed lately: Big companies believe in patents as long as they are talking about THEIR patents. Because Burst is three guys in an office in Santa Rosa, companies like Microsoft and Apple tend not to take them seriously. They forget that Burst spent 21 years and $66 million developing that IP, and the company has code that is still better than anything else on the market — code not even Microsoft has seen. Unless someone buys the company first, Burst is going to win this and eventually license the world. They are in the right, for one thing, and in practical terms they now have as much money for legal bills as any of their opponents. Apple can’t win this one.
