Tools that help you get more done are always of serious interest to us.  And since we have moved to a very software oriented, server side content structure – what better post to write on than one that deals with web project frameworks!

The tool that I am talking about is Deploy.

Deploy is a great little gadget that lets you deploy valid xhtml and css code in only seconds – shaving serious time off of that next custom coded project.

It’s got xhtml specs, css specs, can include the jquery library, and has a couple other options…

Seriously cool for any fellow web builder or developer!

JD

Team collaboration software is something we are going to see more and more of in the future.  With businesses struggling to survive in these economic conditions, they’re going to start waking up and realizing that technology exists that will let their people work from home!

I could get into all the ‘business’ reasons why it’s more productive to let your staff stay home and work – but I won’t.

Instead, we’re going to check out Mindquarry, a server-side/client-side application that will let you and your team do more without sitting in the same room!

Mindquarry is an Open Source collaborative software platform for file sharing (documents, images, media files, etc.), task and project management, team collaboration and Wiki editing that meshes simplicity and functionality. As a result, knowledge workers are able to connect with team members and share information from wherever they are, effectively improving team-work and increasing productivity within the company.

There are all sorts of cool features to the open source software like:

• The ability to work offline or online
• Undo/redo any team content
• Wiki server
• Coordinate tasks
• Form and manage teams
• Secure authentication

If anyone has used this stuff and has an opinion, please feel free to share!  If there’s another piece of software you like instead – let me know.  I’ll get it featured!

JD

 

 How To Build A Server Side RSS Reader: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 How To Build A Server Side RSS Reader [.mov]: Download
 How To Build A Server Side RSS Reader [.wmv]: Download
 How To Build A Server Side RSS Reader [.mp4 - HD]: Download

RSS readers are a dime a dozen.  My personal favorite is Google Reader.  It’s got great integration and support which makes keeping up on news all the more easy.  But to me, that’s a whole lot of data that I could use more efficiently if it was on my own server!

Today, we’re going to show you how to set up your very own server-side RSS reader.  It’s going to poll the feed list every 30 minutes and display the new items in a nice, ajax style list so you can get through them quickly and efficiently.  It will also have a search function so if you forget a piece of news, you can search for it.

The open source software that we’re going to use is Rnews.  Its a feed aggregator that works really, really well.  There is a Firefox plugin available at Sourceforge so you can post any blog or RSS feed directly to your server.

The concept is relatively simple through the web installation wizard…  Here’s the install instructions:

Any serious technophile loves monitors.  I personally have a monitor fetish – 4 screens in all.  You can just do so much more with more monitors!

Well, let’s take that one step further…  What about multiple workstations?

Right now, I am running Ubuntu Desktop with the server kernel to accomodate all 8 gigs of RAM.  But as you know, Adobe doesn’t like Linux.  Neither does Camtasia – the software I do the screen recordings in.

An obvious solution is to dual-boot between Ubuntu and Vista, and I do.  But it takes so long for Windows to start up!

So the answer is to run two workstations – side by side.  One monitor on the Vista machine, three monitors on Ubuntu.

This is achieved using a software package called Synergy.  Synergy allows two or more machines to share the same keyboard and mouse.  So when I move my cursor off of the Ubuntu machine, it will show up on the Vista PC!

Synergy has all sorts of documentation that accompanies it.  And the windows setup is easy.  But the most useful resource I found for Ubuntu was this How-To…

Below, you’ll see a picture I found of the most amazing desktop I have ever seen.  It’s 6 total monitors with two laptops, all sharing one keyboard and mouse!  Simply nuts..

This was done using Synergy…

Check out his full setup at StefanDidak.com

If you have any experience putting Synergy to use, please share!

YourFonts is a free font generator using your own handwriting for the letters and numbers!  All you do is print out the template, complete it, scan and upload it!

Here are some of the features:

• Your own handwriting turned into your very own font for free
• Optionally include your signature and digitally sign your contracts
• You’ll have your very own font within 15 minutes
• Make as many fonts as you like
• Use your fonts on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
• Personalize your digital scrapbook pages and invitations
• Make your own “family handwriting history”
• Use your fonts in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and every program that you own

Try it out and see for yourself!

For this last christmas, I got a Popcorn Hour to stream movies and podcasts from my media server.  I love it, I really do.  In fact, I have been thinking about dropping cable because most of the time I am watching Internet programming on Hulu or podcasts.

Recently, I started playing with Boxee.  Boxee is a grown up version of the Xbox Media Center app that you can install on Windows or an old Xbox console.  It’s a simple application that aggregates endless Internet video content so that you can watch it on your computer.

Right now, you can only install it on Apple or Ubuntu – both of which are extremely easy.  You don’t need to unzip and compile – just edit the sources list, update and apt-get.  They’re getting a Windows version ready for distribution as well!

For more information or to sign up, check out boxee.tv.  If you’ve used it, let us know your favorite programming!

Last week, I talked about what some of the problems were with using social bookmarking services on the web.

Personally, issues I have are that the good services charge and all your information is sitting on someone else’s server!

Today, I am going to walk you through setting up your own social bookmarking application that you can open up to the world, or you can close off to yourself.  Either way, all you data is going to be safe and secure, and you’ll have your databases for backup!

For this tutorial – we are going to be using Scuttle – the open source bookmarking app.

1. First and foremost – download Scuttle
2. Extract it to your desktop
3. Upload it to your webserver, whichever folder you want it to live in.
4. Create a database and import the .SQL file found in the scuttle folder to create the necessary tables.
5. Edit Scuttle’s config.inc.php.example file to your own parameters
6. Set the permissions on the /cache/ directory to 0777
7. Go to the url!

Here’s a video tour:

 

 How To Build Your Own Social Bookmarking App Using Scuttle: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 How To Build Your Own Social Bookmarking App Using Scuttle [.wmv]: Download
 How To Build Your Own Social Bookmarking App Using Scuttle [.mov]: Download
 How To Build Your Own Social Bookmarking App Using Scuttle [.mp4 HD]: Download

Now, with Scuttle, there aren’t any admin screens or any way to protect against spam.  There are Scuttle versions such as SemanticScuttle which provide a capcha like question for a user to answer before they sign up.  It should work and I am testing it as we speak..

If there are any questions or thoughts, please let me know!  There are two other server side bookmarking apps that I’ll be covering in the next couple posts, but if you know of any – please feel free to jump in!

Jason

I live on the Internet.  I’m on here for 9-10 hours a day.  And inevitably, I come across all sorts of cool sites that I want to save for later.  A lot of times, I pass by them thinking I’ll read them later or maybe this will be a cool project someday.

But I bookmark them, nevertheless.

There are all sorts of tools out there that help people like me.  There’s:

• The Read It Later Firefox Plugin

  This Firefox plugin is great.  I see that now it’ll sync to a server so that you can manage your bookmarks from any browser.  When it was first launched, it would just save to a special folder in your bookmarks.My problem was that you couldn’t add notes…

• Readbag

  Readbag was another goodie I found.  And I used the hell out of it.  There is probably 500 or so bookmarks in there – most of which I have read and want to save.  But now, they’re requiring a fee to save anything more.

  Not that I mind paying – but there is still the ownership issue.  In fact, the system resides on Google’s servers, so you are still at their mercy.  After all, one corporation can only be SO powerful and have SO much data, right?I have gotten very accustomed to the mindset of doing things like this – just ‘cuz I can!

So I ventured off to build my own bookmarking service.  Something that I can use for me.  If other people want to use it as well, that’s cool – but that wasn’t the intent.

Over these next couple posts, I am going to show you how to deploy a completely free bookmarking app on your own server.  It can be the same one that your blog resides on.  And if you’re real ambitious, you can even build your own server out of old components and go from there!

Here’s is my bookmarking site: markbots.com

And if you want a firefox extension for it: Go here

Read the rest of this entry

 

 How To Create A Social Bookmarking Site: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 How to Install Ubuntu Server In VirtualBox: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 How to Install Ubuntu Server In VirtualBox [.mov]: Download
 How to Install Ubuntu Server In VirtualBox [.wmv]: Download
 How to Install Ubuntu Server In VirtualBox [.mp4 - HD]: Download

This video podcast will show you how to set up Ubuntu Server as a virtual operating system. That way you can build applications or websites without taking the time to continually upload and download files from a web server!

Things you’ll need to get your web server  up and running:

• VirtualBox
• Ubuntu Server

Once that’s set up, head over to this post to see how to install EHCP.

 

 How To Quick Set Up A Web Server With EHCP: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 How To Quick Set Up A Web Server With EHCP [.mov]: Download
 How To Quick Set Up A Web Server With EHCP [.wmv]: Download
 How To Quick Set Up A Web Server With EHCP [.mp4 -HD]: Download

30 different how-to articles will tell you 30 different ways of setting up a web server environment. My personal preference is using EHCP.

EHCP is a quick and easy framework for quickly installing all your PHP, Apache and email goodness. It’s self automated and will grab all the libraries you need to host your own websites in a matter of minutes.

After you have a working version of Ubuntu or any other Linux operating system, install putty and ehcp. Here’s where you’ll need to grab:

• Putty
• EHCP

And the video will show the rest.