Entries for archive: 2006-07

Found 6 entries.

iPic4You pretty much finished

I said on 11th July that I would be doing a new photo site for my family. Well I'm mostly done :-)

In this article I mentioned a new site I wanted to develop for my family to upload photos to. Well, I'm pretty much done.

I've done a backend Perl module, built the pages in Perl/Mason using a PostgreSQL backend and it is running on Debian. Yup, you know the score.

I downloaded the design from those guys at \[p]{Open Source Web Design|http://www.oswd.org/} and put the thing together using some scraps of scripts I've had for a while but mostly new stuff.

There are just one or two tweaks to make, at which point I'll put up the source code for everyone to play with (it'll be GPL/Perl Artistic License).

If anyone wants to take a look at the site, head over to \[p]{http://photos.chilts.org/|http://photos.chilts.org/}. You guys will only be able to see any photos the users have marked as public (not many so far and I don't expect there will be) but you get the jist. The main reason for the site though is for my dispersed family to be able to share photos with at least some privacy.

Hopefully other people can use it too.

Once I've updated the code, tied up a few loose ends and made some documentation, I'll be putting a new section onto kapiti.geek.nz under /software/ and will start putting some of my other projects up too.

Labels: photos, planet-catalyst, ipic4you, damp

Inserted: 2006-07-31 22:38 (3 years, 7 months ago)

A New Perspective on Life

Sometimes you think that the big things will change your life, but sometimes it's the smaller things that do it.

Over the last couple of days, there has been a few things which made me sit back and think. I won't go into those things here, but let's just say that those few things once added together can add together to be more than a major event.

You think that it's the big things that will change you, a new job, a change in family circumstances - a death or a birth - a disaster, a relationship, or even moving house. Now I'm not so sure. Sometimes we prepare too much for these things to have as big an effect. Sure they change circumstances, but they don't necessarily shift your outlook. They change your priorities but not necessarily your habits.

I've had a good few days to think about things, and in addition those points which made me sit up and channel my thinking a bit more. I think I've realised which things are important and which aren't. Also, I've realised what can be done in the position I am. I am priviledged in some respects and I think it should be used in the right way.

I know this has been a vague entry, but yeah, let's just say I'm happy at the moment. It seems to be mostly coming together.

Labels: perspective, happy-day

Inserted: 2006-07-31 22:03 (3 years, 7 months ago)

Photo Site for my Family

Previously, I set up a really simple photo site that members of my family could log into and view photos in. This time I'm going to do it properly.

The old site was run on my computer at home via my cable modem. That made it slightly slower for those guys, but there was a more major disadvantage. I didn't yet give them the ability to upload their own photos.

This time I'm going to do it properly. It will be hosted on my server, it will have proper login details and invites to friends and, of course, you'll be able to upload your own images.

I think it should take between 2 and 3 weeks to get mostly right, then I'll release it to the masses.

Labels: photos

Inserted: 2006-07-11 23:40 (3 years, 8 months ago)

Searching with Swish-e and Swish++ - First Look

After playing with Swish++ today, I'm thinking, that looks cool but a little unintuitive. Swish-e looks more straightforward.

After a bit of messing round, I managed to index a few files and search them using swish++. The funny thing is, it seems to have slightly strange ways of doing its command line arguments. Hmm.

I just read a little bit about swish-e that swish++ was based on. I'll learn a bit more about that tomorrow. Will probably post a few comparisons sometime in the next few days.

Labels: search, index, swish-e, swish

Inserted: 2006-07-10 22:54 (3 years, 8 months ago)

Forget about LAMP, why not try DAMP!

Now that kapiti.geek.nz is a living breathing thing, I thought I'd offer you my thoughts on the technologies being used to run the thing.

There are many different packages being used to help with the site, but there are five main projects of major use here.

The site is run on a Debian Sarge box, the webserver is Apache, the pages are written in Perl using Mason and PostgreSQL is the backend database. I have become quite accustomed to using each of these and the main thing for me is that each of them is the best at what they do. Collectively, I think they're even better.

Of course, all of this is my opinion and you are welcome to offer your own alternatives. This is my alternative and I like it.

For this, I offer you a new accronym. Forget LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). I'm using DAMP:

 D - Debian
 A - Apache
 M - Mason
 P - PostgreSQL

(Of course, Mason implies Perl).

So next time someone asks if you're using LAMP, reply "Nope, I'm using DAMP."

Labels: planet-catalyst, damp

Inserted: 2006-07-09 21:45 (3 years, 8 months ago)

Newsflash: kapiti.geek.nz goes Live

A new playground for Andrew Chilton, kapiti.geek.nz is now live.

Not much yet, but there will be, I promise. Just you wait.

Labels: geek, kapiti

Inserted: 2006-07-09 17:36 (3 years, 8 months ago)