Wacdesigns | Technology, Web 2.0 and Life

While searching for some open source software today, i just bumbed onto a “new”: Streamed and clearer version of sourceforge.net website. It’s quiet nice i may say, when u enter the page, u don’t have a lot of stuff, like the normal one.

It’s a Google like home page i may say, not many actions, but the essentials that are needed is visible. Let’s say is more web 2.0

The bright orange is a bit too flashy and takes up too much of the screen i may think. It could have been a bit smaller.

For those who don’t what sourceforge.net is about here is a part of the description from wikipedia:

SourceForge.net is a source code repository and acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development. SourceForge.net is operated by Sourceforge, Inc. (formerly VA Software) and runs a version of the SourceForge software, forked from the last open-source version available. A large number of open source projects are hosted on the site (it had reached 178,832 projects and 1,861,990 registered users^[2] as of 2008, although it does contain many dormant or single-user projects).

SourceForge.net has offered free access to hosting and tools for developers of free software / open source software for several years, and has become well-known within such development communities for these services.

SourceForge.net competes with other providers such as RubyForge, Tigris.org, BountySource, BerliOS, JavaForge and GNU Savannah.

Read more about sourceforge here.

Yahoo has just opened his search engine to us developer folks, we can now mindle and medle about to improve our search result on our own website. The codename for this open API is BOSS (Build your Own Search Service). As describe in zdnet article: is this a way for Yahoo to try to get some market shares in the search industry on GOOG.

Here is an extract from Yahoo! Search BOSS YDN

BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is Yahoo!’s open search web services platform. The goal of BOSS is simple: to foster innovation in the search industry. Developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to build and launch web-scale search products that utilize the entire Yahoo! Search index. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!’s investments in crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure. By combining your unique assets and ideas with our search technology assets, BOSS is a platform for the next generation of search innovation, serving hundreds of millions of users across the Web.

I’ll try to experiment a bit on it, to see if i can get to integrate the search on this blog for a small…

Here we are, the day that many developers, specially Flash developer has been waiting for… their application can now be crawled and indexed by Google and Yahoo search engine this was officially announced by adobe on tuesday: “to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.”

They have been working together with Google and Yahoo for a way to give access to all the information that can be found in Flash application that have been hanging around the web for the some times now.

So what does that mean, in the Web world: Flash developers that have strived to create faboulous flash websites and application, that could only be reached via direct linking, will now be seen in Google and Yahoo search result, WOW this means millions of Flash application links will make their appearance in the day to day searching on GOOG.

From my point of view this is something really good. But what will happen to AJAX application with fancy effects ? will they not be replaced by Flash which is now INDEXABLE natively by the web crawler. From what i know from the internal working of flash, their are series of events that are triggered to be able to navigate in an application, so when the crawler will index it, will it be by pages or by scene… What will be the effect of this changes on the Web 2.0 era ?

i’ll make some research to see how it will be working and maybe post back something here. If anyone has extra information or reaction to this post, do not hesitate to post a comment.

Here is an article from ZDNET:

It’s a big day for rich Internet applications. Why? You can now find these newfangled Web applications a lot easier. Google, Yahoo and Adobe have teamed to make Flash file format content easier to find….

Read more

You need to archive your IIS Log often so as not to get your log folder full with HTTP Logs.

I have been searching for some quick implemented solutions for performing this IIS Log archiving task and found some quiet nice discussions and article about it. Here are the links to the different post and forums that talk about a solution to solve this issue:

http://blogs.thesitedoctor.co.uk/tim/2007/02/10/Automatically+Delete+Old+IIS+Log+Files.aspx

http://www.iislogs.com/ (Tool to automate maintenance of IIS Log)

http://forums.webhostautomation.com/showthread.php?t=5053

http://forums.iis.net/p/1022450/1388469.aspx

On my side i need something with a bit more functionality so, i modified some of the scripts that i could find on the different article related above and came up with a solution that can.

• Compress each log file found in your websites folder
• FTP the compressed files on a foreign server ( Keeping historic of your IIS log ) Uses Chillkat Free FTP ActiveX
• Delete them from your disk afterward

You can launch this process everyday and there will be no log that is older than a specified number of days on your server.

Requirement for this solution to work:

• Chillkatsoft FTP.1 ActiveX
• gzip archiver

You can download the script here.

See the entire script in the full post.

Read more »

This Saturday i attended the first BarCamp in Mauritius, which was a great initiative from the organizers(Pierre Bernard). Even though some of the persons that should be attending did not come, it was really great and everyone that attended the session was really satisfied by the level of discussion and presentations that took place.

The first presentation was on Ubuntu Linux release performed by Malcolm(hobbyist bater bis). He detailed several aspect of the OS as it is becoming more and more popular for it’s ease of use and growing community support. And the possibilities for anyone to have access to a free operating system that enables any user to perform basic PC operating. With slides showing Firefox 3.0 installed by default on the latest version and Open Office with is a pretty good free alternative to Microsoft Office.

Then came the intervention of Vincent(bloggeur solidaire humorist), on how to install, manage and optimize a new WordPress installation. His presentation started with the installation of the WordPress zip file in a virtual directory that is used by his Apache server on a local machine. He created a new database using phpMyAdmin and then finalized the installation explaining the purpose of a good prefix for your WP Tables, which is by default “WP_”. After the installing we shown how to use plugins and widgets to enhance your WP Experience and you pages presentation. There was also a small debate on SEO Optimization on WP and how to enable permalinks or clean links to be better reference by search engine. It was a good introduction to WP and how i can be use to perform day to day blogging on the web.

OpenID Mauritius, this conference was performed by our Organizer Pierre Bernard, who will be the representative of OpenID in Mauritius.  He discussed on the advantages of using OpenID compared to have multiple authentication information for each website you are using. OpenID will be keeping all your authentication in one and only one location so that you need to remember only one password the one of your OpenID account and you should be able to have access to any of your favorite websites. You can find a list of comprehensive sites that are using OpenID here.

There was several other small brainstorming and discussing mainly on the use of the different video streaming technology used for making web conference on the web. SEO: the good, the bad and how it the mystification about how it actually works. There were also some discussion about a possible creating of some Linux Ubuntu user group to show people that there are other OS out their that can suit their needs too without the hassle of having to pay a license.

Hoping that you enjoyed this little resume about the first BarCamp that was held in Mauritius. We are hoping of doing another one in August to celebrate the anniversary of BarCamp. As soon as i can hold of the photos i’ll update this post.

Update: 23.06.2008

You can also have access to the minutes of the BarCamp available in french on Bernard’s Blog with video’s and photos

Good news Firefox 3.0 is finally out !!!

You can have a taste of it: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Here is the official screen shot of Firefox 3.0 on Windows Vista

This is the first barcamp in Mauritius. It has been organized by Mauritius Network, and will take place from the 20th to the 21st of June 2008.

For information on what is a barcamp

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

Read more here.

On the menu of this rendez-vous:

• Blog Creation
• Web 2.0 Application Demos
• Multimedia Workshops
• Historicals of information technology
• and much more…

You can register for this event here.

Microsoft Virtual PC, which is a quiet efficient tool but needs licences to work with. Today while browsing the web i came to get accross a free open source alternative: VirtualBox

I installed it, had a copy of Linux Ubuntu and created it new virtual guest OS, it took me about 1 hour to set everything up.
From VirtualBox website:

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See “About VirtualBox” for an introduction.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Sun ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria.

That said, I seriously encourage any developer, who needs Virtual OS to run, to either to make a development platform or doing test.

Here are some screen shots of running Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux.

Several articles are going along the web saying that Google home page has baffles the “California Online Privacy Protection Act.”, which states that:

Any commercial net operation that collects personal info about its users “shall conspicuously post its privacy policy on its Web site.” This means a link to the policy must be “located on the homepage or first significant page after entering the Web site.”

Thus an army of privacy-minded people have came out to reason to make Google add a link to their privacy policy on their home page.

Here are some articles related to this:
World realizes Google home page is ‘illegal’
Google Fights for the Right to Hide Its Privacy Policy
Is Google Violating a California Privacy Law?

I found this article on infoworld.com it was written by Richard Casselberry. Here are some of them you can read the rest of the article here.

1. Be able to fix basic PC issues. These can be how to map a printer, back up files, or add a network card. You don’t need to be an expert and understand how to overclock a CPU or hack the registry, but if you work in IT, people expect you to be able to do some things.

[ If you have IT staffers who aren't up to snuff, fire them. Learn how to do it right. ]

2. Work the help desk. Everyone, from the CIO to the senior architect, should be able to sit down at the help desk and answer the phones. Not only will you gain a new appreciation for the folks on the phones, but you will also teach them more about your process and avoid escalations in the future.

3. Do public speaking. At least once, you should present a topic to your peers. It can be as simple as a five-minute tutorial on how IM works, but being able to explain something and being comfortable enough to talk in front of a crowd is a skill you need to have. If you are nervous, partner with someone who is good at it, or do a roundtable. This way, if you get flustered, someone is there to cover for you.

4. Train someone. The best way to learn is to teach.

5. Listen more than you speak. I very rarely say something I didn’t already know, but I often hear other people say things and think, “Darn, I wish I knew that last week.”

Read more…