March 2007 - C. Daniel Chase

March 31, 2007

Links of Interest to Web Programmers

I was catching up on reading my favorite blogs this morning–see my blogroll on the lower right of this page–and discovered that I was sending several links to my boss that might be of interest to my readers here. So, I’m going to share them with you as well, and my boss will get less email. Everyone wins!

We use Oracle in house with some commercial applications, and we sometimes leverage it’s data for other purposes on our web site, so I thought this post on improving PHP to Oracle response would be of interest: When a few seconds are important: improving PHP Oracle connection speed
We’ve been investigating various IDEs and/or RAD applications to help our staff with the move towards more & more web applications. This morning I found that CodeGear (formerly Borland), now Embarcadero Technologies has released Delphi for PHP. Thanks for the lead from JASLabs: High Performance PHP.
I’ve been working on developing a Subversion environment for web development and had previously come across an article from Karl Katzke on Best Practices for Managing Releases with Subversion. Today Karl directed us to Thomas Aylott on Web Development Environment and Workflow. Thanks Karl & Thomas!
If you have not read The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt & Dave Thomas, you must! It’s essential reading for any programmer or web developer. It covers the core thought process & philosophy behind the code you should be writing. I will probably quote it often in the future! Today, I was reading Dave Thomas’ blog and found some interesting insights relating to the use of REST (REpresentational State Protocol) in relationship to the ATOM Publishing protocol using Ruby conventions for examples: The RADAR Architecture: RESTful Application, Dumb-Ass Recipient.

As I come across other interesting links, I’ll be sharing… Be sure to stay tuned!

March 29, 2007

K2 Theme Updated to SVN

I figured out that the last released version of the K2 theme I’m using, doesn’t support WordPress 2.1.2 very well. Little things here and there weren’t quite right. I downloaded r323 from the K2 subversion repository, and it fixes the obvious problems. I’m also getting reacquainted with configuring K2’s options. However, at the moment, I can’t get the side bar category module to show the blogroll. I know it’s just a matter of selecting the ‘blogroll’ category, but I can’t find it. Hmmm, OK, that’s true. However, I just realized while typing this that I’ve been confusing that function with the ‘category list’ module. That’s obviously not the right module to customize! Blogroll is a category! I guess the module for a blogroll hasn’t been developed. I’ll do a little more hunting, then maybe I’ll make my own…

If you are not familiar with using Subversion to get the most up-to-date code, I’ll be doing a follow-up entry describing the process. Right now, I’m focusing on getting all the options in place, and developing the design for the site. Then I can get into more detail on the how-to!

Update: After the above realization, went back and look at the blogroll management in WordPress and realized while there is a relationship to categories, they actually call them ‘links’. In the K2 modules, there is one for ‘link list’… so, adding that did the job!

March 28, 2007

Smooth Sailing at Media Temple

I was getting my feeds redirected through FeedBurner tonight & claiming my blog over at Technorati and did a quick search on ‘Media Temple’ and came across a post at Derek Davis’ The Journal that I commented on about all the fuss over Media Temple. Neither of us understand it. As I mentioned previously, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. I forgot to mention it in my post at Derek’s, but I think that it is just a case of the few that have the problems being ‘louder’ and speaking out. I can understand that to a certain extent, but I’m more about keeping my problems quiet, not blaming anyone, and just working it out. That’s how I ended up at (mt)! My previous host, who will rename nameless as they did serve me well for years, just wasn’t offering me the tools and support I wanted. So, I started searching for someone that could do so for a reasonable price. Media Temple met my qualifications, and then some. See my comments at Derek’s again regarding their world-class data center.

March 27, 2007

Locked Out of WordPress

Tried to write a post last night… but, could not get logged in for the life of me! However, after a good night’s sleep and a day of work, I came at the problem with a fresh outlook. I began with the WordPress Codex and thankfully I shortly found a solution for the password issue that wasn’t. The problem was with TeaTimer in SpyBot S&D. SpyBot has always done good by me, but I guess I’ll have to go without TeaTimer. This forum post from Christine Evron led me to try turning off TeaTimer.

Now, I can write the post I intended to last night!

March 25, 2007

24 Hours on Media Temple

Last night I finally made the move to a new, more reliable and supportive web host. Media Temple (mt). After a lot of research and watching them iron out their difficulties with the Grid Server (gs)–which I’m using for this site–I am optimistic about the new world. We all know that grid technology for the web is new, and there have been pains in getting it implemented at (mt), but I’m giving them a chance despite all the negative things I’ve read.

I’m an optimist. I like to read good things about people and companies. Media Temple has been praised for their customer support, and their data center is nothing less than world-class. And they are offering us web developers the opportunity to use it for a song! Here’s my take: If you are dependent on a web site for mission critical systems, then it should be a dedicated server, or Dedicated-Virtual (dv) in Media Temple’s offerings. Those of us living on The Grid are just incubator projects… When you grow up, you get a real server. 🙂

Here’s my experience of the past 24 hours:

6:40 pm – Requested account
6:45 pm – Received Service Activation email
Added A record entry for www in my DNS name servers to point to my Grid Server Access Domain (I left primary host address, cdchase.com, pointing at old site since that is the address I advertise) – site available immediately!
Added alternate A record entries to my DNS to allow access to old site under new subdomain temporarily
Pointed my MX entry to mail server at (mt)
4:30 am – DNS had timed out for old MX entry, so mail was being delivered to (mt)!
Copied web site content from old site to new
Changed A record for cdchase.com to new site, updated all other A records to CNAMEs for neatness
Sent a few test emails & updated SPF entry in DNS
Since all was working, I replaced several A records pointing to the common address at Media Temple with CNAME records
Done! Nobody new the difference that the site was in transistion!

OK, OK… I had a little benefit from managing my own DNS off-site. 🙂

I will follow-up this post with more details on how that works in coordination with a name-based hosting site like The Grid. Also more details on using SPF records to help prevent SPAM from your domain.