Year: 2004

Categories
Diversity

Web two, oh?

I find myself in agreement with Dave Winer and Marc Cantor about O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 conference, but maybe not for the same reasons.

I don’t have a problem with a more traditional presentation format, but Web 2.0 sounds, frankly, closed door and elitist. It seems like Tim O’Reilly is forgetting his open source, just plain folks roots.

What is it lately with events where we have to ask to be invited. Google has started this with both Orkut and Gmail, then Movable Type with the 3.0 beta, and now O’Reilly with this conference. Request an invitation frankly sounds like Oliver crying out, “Please sir. May I have some more?”

I don’t want to have to ask for an invite and then magically get one because there’s “room” (i.e. the event holders decide that you would add class to the event), or not (because we’re classless). If people want an invite only event, have one. I think these events do nothing more than promote the same *Upper One Hundred that always get promoted around here, and therefore the results of these events are highly suspect–but at least that would make more sense than Request an Invite

I can also see that the female/male speaker ratio follows the rigidly set and now infamous O’Reilly conference guideline of 10% women. However, in previous conferences, I have given O’Reilly the benefit of a doubt that if women aren’t applying to be speakers, it’s not the conference presenters fault if there are no women.

But unless I missed the call for papers earlier, it seems like the Web 2.0 speaker list is also invite only. Am I mistaken? If not then events such as these do much to promote technology and the Web as a genderless environment–genderless in this case meaning only one gender need apply.

I find myself getting tired of elitistism and “Request an Invite”. Events publicized such as these only serve to feather the nest of the people attending. “Oh look at us,” they say. “We’re the elite. We make the decisions. Give us your money, but you can keep your opinions to yourselves. If you want to matter, start a company and make a billion and we’ll listen.”

If we on the street doing the work, and buying the books, and using the tech, and keeping the companies running aren’t good enough, well, the Upper One Hundred can just take their little iPods and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

*Play on the term ‘Upper Ten Thousand’ used to designate the nobility in regency England

Categories
Diversity

I knew this one was coming

Surety be damned, the hell if I’m going to see women made the scapegoats for Abu Ghraib.

We’ve gone from this incident being one of frat boy behavior (and supposedly harmless) to blaming it all on women.

My first reaction is: Since when did President Bush get a sex change operation? Buck stops at the top, people. Buck stops at the top.

In some ways, this does reflect the issue of surety and twisting circumstances to an extreme so that a given ’side’ remains blameless. But we women shouldn’t feel singled out– the pundits are also blaming the Muslims and the Academic Left, too.

Personally, I blame the Australians. Damn Aussies, it’s all their fault. If they didn’t drive on the wrong side of the road, and throw around terms like ‘Bugger’ so much, this wouldn’t have happened.

They eat Vegemite, too. I mean, what kind of sick bastard eats Vegemite? But, not content with contaminating their own land, they send their actors and films and music and writing and culture to our country, and what’s worse, speak with a devastatingly sexy accent, which just lures in our youth (and not a few older of us, too), and then look what happens–good clean innocent American boys and girls pile naked men into a pyramid.

Bugger. Vegemite. Hugh Jackman. I rest my case.

(via Feministe)

Categories
Weblogging

A helping hand

While working on my next LAMP post, my thoughts drifted to those who are interested in using open source weblogging tools, but don’t want to play with the technology. After all, weblogging is about writing. I think it is. Isn’t it?

Another alternative to learning about LAMP and managing your own software updates is to hire someone to do the work for you. After all, there might a PHP-proficient student out there who needs 40.00 dollars to buy a text book, and here you sit with 40.00 and a burning desire to use WordPress. or Textpattern. Or b2evolution. Or Bloxsom. Or…

Instead of cash, consider barter (which I think is the better approach, myself): Tech person helps you install WordPress, and in exchange you buy them that CD or book or movie they’ve been wanting at Amazon.

As far as I know of, there is no central site anywhere listing webloggers who have technical skills, and who are willing and able to help others. So I’m starting one here, in this weblog page.

If you’re proficient with PHP, MySQL, Perl, Python, Linux, CSS, .NET, Java, or any other variation of technology we use within weblogging, and are interested in helping other webloggers get their sites going, put a note in the comments with a link to your site or resume, as well as a description of skills and weblogging tools you consider yourself proficient with. Or you can ping this post from your site, if you prefer.

If you’re interested in moving to a different environment, and need some help, consider contacting one of the people in this list. (If there is a list. There may not be webloggers with tech skills who need extra bucks, or a nice CD from Amazon. After all, aren’t we all rich, as well as popular?)

Note that I’d prefer that we restrict this to open source technologies. The reason why is that several proprietary tools have restrictions in their licenses about who can and cannot provide support for the tool. I don’t want to get into licensing issues.

Now, before you ping or comment, or contact anyone on this list, a couple of notes:

For those providing help:

When you agree to help someone, this means you have to help them. You can’t be impatient, surly, disdainful of their questions or skills, disregarding of their requests, and definitely–you can’t tell them what you think they should “need” or “want” (other than that which is necessary to run the tool, or in response to their request for your opinion).

Additionally, aside from a group of A-listers that can afford to do the ‘global hop and echo-echo’ dance, most of the people you’ll be helping won’t be rich. Keep your prices fair. Don’t cheat yourself, but don’t consider this a way of getting rich.

Take responsibility for your work. If you install a product and modify it, if it breaks because of your modification, fix it as soon as possible. Don’t push it off; don’t blow off the person; and definitely don’t blame it on the tool developers. Efforts like Textpattern and WordPress, and the other open source weblogging efforts, are difficult enough for the developers without them being blamed because you made a mistake.

Finally, be prepared to spend time answering questions and not charge for the time. You might charge a person 40.00 (or get a gift of a couple of CDs) to install WordPress and make some minor modifications, but they may have questions later–if you count every minute, then you’re missing the point of this effort. You’re helping another person, they’re helping you with a few bucks or a nice gift, but you both gain more from the exchange then just the compensation. Heck, you might even become friends.

For those requesting help:

Make sure you look at the experience and resumes and feel comfortable with the person before asking them for help. See their modifications in action, and how their own site works. Be prepared to give a good description of what you want before asking them for a quote.

Be responsible for your choice–please don’t come back to me and say it’s all my fault your site is now screwed because I’m attempting to bring folks together in this way. You are going with an open source product and getting help from someone you may not know; there are some risks involved. I personally think this adds interest, but respect that this may scare you to death.

In addition, no software is perfect. Bugs happen, and the best approach to a bug is with a sense of humor. Remember that not being able to post immediately will not result in anyone’s death or global warming. The developer has a responsibility to help you fix a problem, in a timely manner, but you shouldn’t ask them to wake up in the middle of the night to do so–unless the problem is severe enough to threaten to take down your server. This shouldn’t occur, though, because the only developers who sign up here are those who test their work, and ensure that it’s secure and using good, common sense development techniques. Ahem.

(And no, if the developer doesn’t read your mind and automatically give you everything you don’t know you want until after you want it, this is not a bug.)

Finally, don’t be cheap. If you’re not comfortable with the upfront costs, then you might check with other developers, or negotiate. But when the work is done and it looks good and works according to your request, pay up. The price may be in books from Amazon, or in bucks to PayPal–but regardless, pay up.

And ask questions if you have them, but don’t expect that buying that book at Amazon for the developer entitles you to free updates and modifications, forever. That would be taking advantage, and we don’t take advantage of our friends.

This is an experiment of trying to get those with skills to offer connected up with those who need the skills. We’ll see how it goes. If enough interest is generated, I’ll put a permanent link to this page in the sidebar.

(As for income tax and laws of the land, this is why I prefer barter…)

Categories
Weblogging

Textpattern: live and in action

I was going to write another LAMP essay tonight, but my mind isn’t in it, and I think I’d rather work on the books, instead.

But I did want to mention that you can see Textpattern in action with a couple of people who are moving from Movable Type to this new weblogging tool.

Steve Himmer has moved to Textpattern, and it seems to be working nicely. At least, I thought so when I was reading his wonderful Potato Salad recipe.

(Note that there is no trackback within Textpattern. However, with links tracked in Technorati now, much of the demand for Trackback has decreased.)

Joseph Duemer is in the process of moving to Textpattern. I’m not sure where he’ll find the time because he’s also trying to write one poem a day. He’s turned comments off for the time being, and sometimes that’s a good option to take, especially if you’re taking your writing into non-traditional ‘weblogging’ paths.

Sometimes you want a conversation. Sometimes you just want to write.

And sometimes you want to dance naked on the tops of mountains and roll in wild orchids.

Categories
Technology

Survival guide to LAMP: The command line is fine, come on in

L is for Linux

When you’re writing for a large audience–you are a large audience, aren’t you?–you can’t predict what level of knowledge your readers have, so you have to pick a point to start, and then hope you won’t either overwhelm the less knowledgeable, or bore to death the experienced. With a book this problem becomes acute, and it’s one of the toughest tasks of technical writing: trying to define your audience and then focus the writing accordingly.

Writing to a weblog is much easier, because the experienced can just skip the section covering tech they’re familiar with, and the less experienced can ask questions of the author directly, in comments or in an email. In addition, others can contribute or correct, as the need arises. I suppose I could do this in a wiki, but I won’t.

Having sufficiently covered my butt, I hope, time for the next LAMP essay:

To install both WordPress and Textpattern, first I need to create or clear a location for the products. Then I need to download the application files from the tool sites, unzip them, and move them to their permanent home. At that point, I may have to change the permissions on one or more files to get them to work.

Chances are if you’ve installed software before, you’re familiar with this routine. One technique you can use is download the zipped file to your home computer, unzip the files there, and then FTP the files up to your site. You can also use FTP to create a subdirectory, and change permissions, if your FTP software provides this functionality, and most do. I use FileZilla and it does everything you can need to install software on your site.

However, there is a drawback to this approach, which is why I never use it if I can avoid it. First, you have to download the files to your computer; then you have to upload the files to your site. In addition, you have to use a tool that is really meant to transfer files to do site file and directory management, and again, this is just something I don’t care for. It’s not efficient.

Instead, what I do is use SSH (Secure Shell) to virtually log onto my site, where I can then move easily about, deleting and moving files, changing permissions, and even downloading files easily and quickly using any number of utilities and tools that are traditionally installed with more full featured versions of Unix.

SSH is a way of creating a virtual shell (operating environment) on your remote site, and then running commands at the command line. If you have a good broadband connection, accessing the command line using SSH is very fast. Even modem access can be acceptable. By using SSH, you’re also very secure when working with your remote site because all communications between you and the site are encrypted, and protected from prying eyes.

Not all hosting companies provide SSH support, but the more comprehensive ones do, though you may have to have the ISP turn SSH support on for your site. (To know if you have SSH access, check with your ISP.) If your ISP does support it, then you’ll also need to have client SSH software installed on your home computer.

Users of Mac OS X are lucky, because SSH is built into the underlying Unix-based environment for the operating system. To access SSH directly, you can open a Unix command window using the Terminal application installed as part of the operating system utilities. You can also locate it using Finder, typing in “Terminal”.

The Terminal application gives you a Unix command line interface, so you can play around within your home computer before logging into your remote server–just remember that some commands are quick to run, but slow to recover from. When you’re ready to access your site, type in a command such as the following:

ssh -l shelley burningbird.net

This allows me to create a secure shell into burningbird.net, specifying my username for the site. I’ll then be asked for my password, and the SSH application will also provide you some feedback that an exchange of necessary information has been made between the server and the client. This exchange, then, allows all communication between you and the remote server to be encrypted, and safe from prying eyes.

(Note, if you’re concerned about something Nasty invading your pretty TiBook, no worries – inbound SSH, as with FTP, is turned off by default at installation.)

If you’re a Windows user, you’ll have to install SSH client software. I use a commercial product called SecureCRT, and I’m very happy with the tool. However, why pay bucks if you don’t have to. According to the Wikipedia, PuTTY is a favorite free SSH client for Windows and Unix. (If you know of other good ones, please put a note in the comments.)

Your ISP may also provide an online SSH client that you can use. A word to the wise, though: these almost invariably work miserably. You’re better off just using SSH software for your computer, or using what’s already installed.

The steps I’m going to take to set up a working subdirectory for each of these tools assumes that you’re using SSH to access the site’s Unix interface.

Creating a home for your weblogging software, and pulling in the files

First, I’m going to create the subdirectories for the tools. I’ve decided for these tutorials to create a semi-permanent home for these products under their own subdomain names: wordpress.burningbird.net and textpattern.burningbird.net. If your hosting company allows you to create subdirectories, it will also provide you the software, or the instructions, or both to create these. When the subdomains are created, the physical sub-directories are also, usually created.

However, to create a subdirectory is easy in Unix, as long as you have permission to create directories. If you can create directories with FTP, you can create them at the command line.

To create a directory, and make it accessible via the Net, you’ll need to change to your public Web site directory. In my environment, when I log in using SSH, I need to change to the public_html (or www, which is an alias) directory using a command like the following:

cd public_html

The ‘cd’ command is ‘change directory’, and as you can see, it’s pretty simple to use. If you want to go to a specific absolute address, you specify the entire directory structure, such as the following:

cd /home/shelley/public_html

If you want to move to the directory above your current location, use:

cd ..

or

cd ../../..

To move up three directories.

Once in the target directory, create your subdirectory as follows:

mkdir textpattern

At this point, a subdirectory called ‘textpattern’ is created. Change to that directory (using ‘cd’), and you’ll be ready to download the software.

On many Linux systems, there are some very helpful utilities installed. One of the more common ones is an application called Wget. What this application does is access a file and download it to your current location, whether that file is an HTML file, or the compressed file containing the Textpattern files.

To get the recent Textpattern build, I find the link for the file and then download it:

wget http://textpattern.com/deanload/textpattern_g118a.tgz

If wget is not installed on your system, or you don’t have a comparable program from your ISP (check with them), then download the zipped file to your client machine, and FTP it down to your server.

Note that I’m accessing the Gzip file, not the zip one. Once you see how fast wget works–remember that you’re now taking advantage of your ISP’s superior connections–you’ll see why I rarely use FTP to install software on my server.

Once downloaded, I need to both unzip the file as well as pull the contents out of the packed tar file. Again, making use of existing facilities, one way to unzip the TGZ (or tar.gz) files is to use gunzip to uncompress it, and then tar to pull the files from the tar file:

gunzip textpattern_g118a.tgz
tar -xf textpattern_g118a.tar

You can also use a Unix shortcut, which is to take the result from the gunzip operation and pass it to the tar program using what is known as a Unix Pipe:

gunzip -c packedfiles.tar.gz | tar -xf –

With this, the results of the gunzip program is passed as input to the tar application. It’s a shortcut, nothing else.

At this point, we’re ready to install Textpattern, but we’ll do that in the next essay, after we create the MySQL database for it. For now, what we’ll do is the same procedure for downloading WordPress:

  • Creat the directory for WordPress, using your ISP’s tools or by creating the directory using mkdir:

    mkdir wordpress

  • Change to the subdirectory just made using cd:

    cd wordpress

  • Download the software using wget:

    wget http://wordpress.org/nightly/wordpress-2004-05-05.tar.gz

  • Unzip it using gunzip and tar:

    gunzip -c http://wordpress.org/nightly/wordpress-2004-05-05.tar.gz | tar -xf –

If you’ve not experimented around with the Unix command line interface before, at this point you officially be bad.

This has been a rather fast intro to some basic Unix commands. For a more detailed one, I’ve recovered my Ten Basic Commands of Unix, and re-posted as a Survival Guide entry.

After that, we’ll start getting into the database and install both products.