Category: Web development
Well I bagged myself a SiteVista account today, many thanks to Paul at Salted. For some time I’ve been considering purchasing an iBook purely to test on Safari, but now, well there really is no need!
SiteVista is a brilliant little web application, it’s simple, intuitive and easy on the eye and turns one of the most dreaded tasks in web development into a simple case of point click and submit.
Testing on various browser combinations, screen resolutions, colour depths and platforms can easily eat up hours if not days. SiteVista automates the task. Just give it a URL and select your target browsers from the ever growing list and off you go.
The response isn’t immediate, but usually you’ll have all of your results back within a few minutes, and you can have the application email you a little reminder when it’s done.
SiteVista keeps a record of all your previous ‘tests’ so you can re-visit them at any time and from what I’ve heard they also have some exciting new tests on the horizon, including; loading speed videos, colour blindness tests, screen reader tests and googlebot rendering (whatever that might be?).
The browser tests don’t always seem to work as expected, asking SiteVista to test your latest kick ass XHTML/CSS layout on Internet Explorer 4 can result in what seems to be a screen grab of the backend app, but hey it was going to look pretty cack anyhow so I’m not fussed.
I’d be interested to know a little more about the set-up behind SiteVista, is there a factory full of monkeys hurridly typing in URLs and hitting ‘print screen’ or (more likely) some hefty server side scripting going on. I’m sure Paul, David and Matt can enlighten us if prodded.
So, in conclusion, SiteVista is a tidy little application, if you don’t want the hassle of maintaining numerous versions of IE, and having to shell out for a Mac, ‘just for testing’ then go get yourself an account.
Taking the plunge and deciding on the right CMS for a new project can be a hard choice to make. I’ve had a ton of experience using Textpattern the last couple of years but now I need to find a solution which is going to be more suited to ‘general’ content management on a corporate website of a much larger scale, we’re talking version control, user management etc.
I’ve just been taking a look at ExpressionEngine and although there’s a price tag ($249) it looks like it might be just right for my requirements.
Obviously there are other contenders, Mambo and Drupal to mention a few and I’ll be taking a look at both over the next few days.
My experience in the past has always been with bespoke content management solutions for such projects, but I’m not convinved that’s the right path to tread when I’m most likely going to be doing all the work myself, and to be brutal I’d rather pay for something that’s had all the bugs shaken out already so I can concentrate on design and development upon a stable base.
Here and there I’ve been finding time to continue with my Debian install. I have the most basic of installs finished and so over the past few days I’ve been adding some ingredients of my own to make this install even more scrummy.
The majority of my set up is pretty typical of any PHP">LAMP Server so you could follow my notes as instruction for yourself if you wish, although I must admit I’m no guru on the subject so don’t go directing any technical questions my way! This is Step 1 in the process which covers remote administration and visibility on a Windows network.
As I’ve already stated I did a bare bones Debian install, I followed instructions that I found on OSnews.com but bailed out at installing XFree86 as I have no plans to use my Linux box as a desktop client. So with my linux box running, connected to my home network and logged in as root, I begun.
Remote administration
First up I wanted to sort remote administration, primarily because my Linux box was sitting in our lounge next to the TV, and my PC is in our office upstairs. I was getting pretty fed up with googling, running downstairs, trying something, running back upstairs etc.
To remotely administer a linux box all you need to do is install SSH and a suitable client such as Putty on your PC.
apt-get install ssh
Once installed pop back to your PC, launch Putty and connect to your Linux box, if you have problems try pinging the box from the Windows command prompt just to be sure you’re not doing anything stupid. :)
In theory you can now disconnect the monitor and keyboard that you had been running up and down the stairs with and do the rest from the comfort of your PC.
Visibility on a Windows network
Next up I want to be able to browse part of my Linux box from Windows Explorer on my PC. To be able to do this I need to install an application on my Linux box called Samba.
apt-get install samba
Once installed I navigated to ‘/etc/samba/’ and backed up the example smb.conf file and replaced it with the following:
# Global Parameters
workgroup = MSHOME
netbios name = Samba
encrypt passwords = yes
[homes]
read only = no
browseable = no
[sites]
path = /var/www
browseable = yes
write list = @admins, root, nathan
As you can see above I’ve given write permission to a few users, one of these (nathan) is a non standard user that I’ll create now using Samba. I’ll be using these user credentials to connect to the linux box so that I can browse my sites folder.
At this point you may realise that the Domain or Workgroup name that you specified during the Debian install process is incorrect. If this is the case you can easily amend it by editing the first line in the ‘resolv.conf’ file which is located in the ‘/etc/’ folder.
If you didn’t already create a Linux user (nathan) during the Debian install you can do so now.
To add a new Linux user…
useradd -m nathan
passwd nathan
Then to add the associated Samba user…
smbpasswd -a nathan
Samba will prompt you to enter a password, do so and then run:
/etc/init.d/samba restart
…to restart Samba. Once this is done fire up ‘My network places’ (Windows XP) and select ‘View workgroup computers’. You should see a machine called ‘Samba’. Select this and you should see a couple of available shares, select ‘sites’ and enter the username and password you gave Samba (above) to connect. Voila.
So I’ve taken my first step. I downloaded the latest stable release of Debian (3.0r5) via BitTorrent, burnt it to CD and then completed a basic installation. I have been using a fantastic walkthrough that I found on OSnews.com and it’s helped to make sense of the less than jargon free choices you have to make during setup.
Currently I do not have a wireless network card for my linux box so I have yet to set up any sources for updates etc and have yet to make the box visible on my network. My next step is probably to plug the machine directly into my wireless router and make it visible. Then configuring Apt to use FTP or HTTP and install Samba.
Once I have the box visible via a cabled connection then perhaps I’ll take the next step, purchasing a suitable wireless network card and configuring it. Off to google that right now… I’ll let you know how I get on.
Today I’m going to pick up a couple of old Dell PC’s from my dads workplace. What would I want with a couple of old PCs you may ask.
I’m planning to set up my first Linux box here at home for the purposes of web development. I’ve never done this before, have no idea where to start and no idea how long it will take.
Perhaps you’ve done this before? If you have, you might be able to give me some pointers.
My requirements are simple. I want to serve web pages across my local home network, use PHP and MySQL, be able to access the ‘httpd’ folder as a mapped drive on Windows, and perhaps install some other services such as subversion.
