This is intended to be a monthly wrap-up, but my memory’s not good enough to go all the way back to the beginning of the month. Therefore, you just get the last few weeks. As a bonus, though, I threw in a few stories from May 1.

April 13, 2009

YaBB 2.4 Released

The latest version of YaBB Forum Software came out with a long list of bugfixes and some nice new features.

April 20, 2009

CenterNetworks Switches to Wordpress

Our sister site, CenterNetworks, made the switch from Drupal to Wordpress. While far from painless, the transition seems to have gone smoothly and the site is moving right along on the new platform.

Oracle Buys Sun Microsystems

It will be very interesting to see how this effects the marketing strategy for MySQL, being that MySQL and Oracle DB are direct competitors. With MySQL being open-source, it can’t actually go away, but the focus might change dramatically.

Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition Released

Although I am not an Ubuntu user, I do use Linux Mint (which is based on Ubuntu) as my primary OS at home. This release means that a new version of Mint is in the works and should be released fairly soon.

April 24, 2009

OpenSUSE 11.2 Milestone 1

The OpenSUSE community released the first milestone of OpenSUSE 11.2. Then, on May 1, they also released an update to OpenSUSE 11.1. I am seriously considering either replacing one of my other distros with the new version of SUSE or installing it as my Linux distro at work. Unfortunately, my attempts to test OpenSUSE 11.1 in VirtualBox have consistently failed miserably.

April 25, 2009

New Boxee For Ubuntu, Mac and AppleTV

I have not yet tested the new version of Boxee, but the Linux update apparently fixes Hulu (for now, at least), introduces Pandora Radio and more. I will probably give it a try this weekend.

April 29, 2009

Mandriva 2009.1 (Spring) Released

Mandriva 2009.1 came out the other day. I am still working on trying to successfully upgrade to this version, but from what I’ve seen, it looks really good. The new version comes with KDE 4.2 natively and includes quite a few other “enhancements.”

Drupal 6.11 and 5.17 Released

The Drupal team put out two new releases with various fixes and changes.

May 1, 2009

Microsoft to Give Away Windows 7 For 13 Months

Microsoft will apparently let people use Windows 7 without paying for it for a little over a year. Unfortunately, though, they will stop letting you use it at that point if you don’t pay. I think a better model would be to allow beta testers to use Windows 7 perpetually for free, but then start selling it commercially to everyone else.

Voting Opens for the eduStyle Awards

The premier site for showing off your higher education Web site and soliciting public opinion on your design opened voting on the second annual eduStyle awards.

Too often, I see job opening advertisements that seem unrealistic. There are quite a few organizations that advertise for Web gurus, and don’t really know what they’re looking for. The first distinction that needs to be made is between a Web designer and a Web developer. The two are generally mutually exclusive, and it is extremely rare that you will find one person that can do both jobs well. Unfortunately, a lot of these organizations don’t find that out until it’s too late. They hire someone who talks a good game, but just can’t bring anything to the table once they’re asked to do something. Continue Reading »

Anyone that’s dealt with a Web application using a MySQL backend has probably dealt with incomplete backups. Those of you that use phpBB have almost certainly encountered this issue. Unfortunately, within phpBB and quite a few other PHP/MySQL-based applications, the backup scripts fail miserably with any reasonably large amount of data. Most of them fail because of either PHP time outs or file size limits. This article will show you two different ways to successfully back up that data. At least one of these two methods should be available in almost every remote hosting package that uses MySQL and PHP. Continue Reading »

Having recently acquired an iPhone, I thought this might be a good opportunity to attempt to compare the iPhone with the Microsoft Zune and see how the two stack up against each other. Obviously, the iPhone is going to have some capabilities that simply cannot be matched by the Zune, but I think you might be surprised to see how they stack up when evaluated strictly as portable media players (PMP).

I do love my Zune, which will show through in this article a good bit. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am not a Microsoft fanboy, nor am I an Apple fanboy. I do have a certain bias against the iPod (mainly because of the iTunes software), but I have tried to write this article as objectively as humanly possible. I am definitely open to comments about any mistakes, incorrect assumptions, etc. I make in the article. I am not, however, looking for fanboy comments from either side spouting subjective opinions about whether Apple is better than MS or the other way around.

In my personal life, I am almost exclusively a Linux user, which makes it difficult to truly enjoy either device. Keep that in mind as you read my opinions on the matter at hand. Continue Reading »

A few days ago, I got an iPhone from work. I have played with it a bit, and have to say that I’m impressed for the most part. However, there are still quite a few issues that I would love to see solved. Following is a list of the pros and cons of this gadget, as I see it. Continue Reading »

I added a 404 tracking database to my blogs so I can track what pages are broken. The database includes the IP address of the computer attempting to access the item. Most of the listings in the database are webpages and/or images that are broken.

But what I’ve also noticed is that there are a huge number of rows for the following item (with variations):

• tag/web-3.0/feed/favicon.ico

When I lookup the IP address (174.129.123.x), it resolves to Amazon Web Services. I have an AWS account but have no idea why they would be trying to hit this file 100 times a day.

Anyone out there have an idea on why or how to correct the issue? Thanks in advance.

Here are today’s Eight Links — links for web developers:

1. JsPDF – create PDF files completely using JavaScript
2. The Database Rant – begins with “It’s time for SQL to die.”
3. iPhone app sales – a developer explains the income his app has generated and how changing pricing didn’t change sales
4. Why writing software is like writing
5. 18 Seriously Helpful Cheat Sheets for Easier Coding
6. Google Analytics API Launched
7. Finding and Fixing Memory Leaks in Python
8. A Design for a Distributed Transaction Layer for Google App Engine

Last month, Smashing Magazine posted a great article explaining quite a few different ways to integrate Twitter with your Wordpress blog. Many of the suggestions are “hacks” for Wordpress, while some are just plug-ins, but they are all helpful.

Here are some of the things the article shows you how to do:

1. Automatically create TinyUrls for your blog posts
2. Display your latest tweet without a plug-in
3. Create a “Tweet this” button
4. Create a Twitter page on your WordPress blog

In 2001, Jeffrey Zeldman wrote a book called Taking Your Talent to the Web. The book apparently offered some great advice on making the transition from designing for pring publication to Web design. The book is now available for free as a PDF from Zeldman’s Web site.

Drew, the “College Web Guy” (the Web designer for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock), had this to say about the book:

there was ONE book that ultimately served to jump start my career in web design. I carried that book in my big red car for an entire semester, highlighting and sticky-noting and referencing it like a sacred text.

Check it out, and let us know what you think of the book.

I found a great article on .edustir today regarding social media, generation Y and millennials. In the post, Ron makes some very good points about how social media should be used, what you need to watch out for, and what you should and should not post.

2. Social media does not make you invincible: Personal branding is bunk. The only think you can sell are demonstrated experiences that other people will vouch for. You’d get a lot further spending time cultivating personal relationships at work with colleagues and superiors, than you’d ever do worrying about your web site, your bio or trying to position yourself as an expert in your field. Writing stuff because you don’t think anyone is listening is the mistake of a great fool. You never know whose listening or reading. So if you can’t vouch for it to everyone from your mom to your boss to your best friend, don’t write it.edustir, Apr 2009

You should read the whole article.