The Pinged Hobbit » Technical Links

Running Your Own Development Web Server

Andy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:56:20 +0000

The number of people capable of building a web site is growing daily (I said capable, I didn’t say good . Something else that is also growing along side this is the number of web based applications being built. More and more developers/people with some know how are devoting time to producing some kind of application that uses a web based language like ASP or PHP. The hard part about building something that uses a server side script like PHP is that it is impossible to test your application with out access to a web server. I suppose you could just upload it to an active web site and test it live on the internet so to speak. Would you be honestly comfortable releasing something that hadn’t been tested? It would be all too easy for some one to find an exploit to use that causes serious problems. I’d say it’s much easier to have some way of testing this on your local network, that way if you have no internet access for some reason at least you can keep working

Obviously the answer is to run your own web server on a local PC. With that in mind I’ve pulled together a list of some of the offerings out there that enable you to do this:

IIS in Windows Server: On a windows server you can enable IIS and this gives you a server you can test your files on to some extent, especially if you install asp.net at the same time. ISS doesn’t have PHP installed by default but it is possible to add it once your server is up an running and if you want a database engine you will need to install SQL. As a rule though, IIS tends to require one of the Windows Server operating system, although it is possible to install it on XP.Unlike the other applications on this list there is the associated cost of having a Windows server.
Install Apache: IIS is great if you have Windows, but what about if you are using Linux/OS X? Or how about you just don’t like Microsoft products? Apache is an open source web server that runs on all three major opperating systems. It’s also much most widely used to run web sites, in fact current Netcraft figures show it as having a market share of 47% (June 2009). Just as with IIS you will still need to install PHP and SQL.
XAMPP: If you want an easy way to install a web server on your PC that runs PHP and SQL then XAMPP is one of the easiest ways to do this. It’s a zero configuration Apache server with PHP and My SQL installed by default. It even comes with phpMyAdmin for controlling your SQL databases.
Server2Go:Server2Go is another zero configuration web server that runs PHP and My SQL (depending on which version you download). The difference between XAMPP and Server2Go is that Server2Go is designed to run on write protected media i.e. CD-Roms. There Windows service, it’s all controlled by an executable which can be started up when needed and then shut down when you are finished with the server. If you prefer you can also install it on to a USB datastick.

At the end of the day, if you are serious about being a web developer then you should at least attempt to setup your own server from scratch, installing SQL and PHP by yourself. However sometimes if you are in a hurry, or if your wanting something a little more portable then the option of Server2Go or XAMPP might well be the way forward for you.

Ring 2 Skype – Free Skype In Number

Andy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:45:45 +0000

If you use Skype you probably know all about the Skype In service. You pay a monthly fee and get a phone number you can give out to people which they can call from any phone and you received the call on your computer via Skype.

Well now Ring 2 Skype offer this same service for free. You can register your Skype account with them and then they provide you with a telephone number in any of the 40 countries you want which people can call and then reach you on Skype. You can even have lines in multiple countries if you wish. So if you’ve got friends in other countries you would like to talk to this is the perfect way of keeping in touch

The Only Thing Internet Explorer is Good For?

Andy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:15:39 +0000

A lot of people would say the only thing Internet Explorer is good for is downloading something else to surf the web with. Truth be told, I’d tend to agree. My current browser of choice is Firefox and it has been for a long time now. That’s not just because I spend most of time using a Mac either. Even when I use a Windows machine I still look for the the FF icon to do my web browsing. I only use IE when I have no other option, like if I am using an ASP based app which does seem to need IE to run properly. Judging from the ever growing market share of other browsers against IE. Its a fair assumption that more and more people I coming to realise that they don’t have to be stuck with what comes installed on their machine.

[See the full chart]

Microsoft have decided to hit back at all the negative press that IE 8 receives by pushing out some interesting propaganda. A comparison chart for the IE 8 against Chrome and Firefox. They seem to have used some unusual features to compare against and claim that IE 8 is better than all the rest. In all honesty considering the track record of Microsoft I think I’d rather have a third party do the comparisons for me, some one who doesn’t have an axe to grind either way thank you. The sad part about this is that some people will actually take this as gospel, they will believe that this chart us the truth because it is by Microsoft.

In another lame attempt to curry favour, there is also the offer of $10,000 (aus) by Microsoft Australia to people who follow an Internet treasure hunt, but only if they are using IE 8. I’m cyncially but again there are people who will fall for this and get lured back into using IE.

What do you think of Mircosofts attempts to gain popularity for IE 8?

5 Apps To Add Effects To Your Photos Without Photoshop

Andy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:25:00 +0000

Everyone likes to make pretty effects on their photos but not everyone can afford Photoshop (and lets face it not everyone has the skill to use it properly). But fear not there are plenty of tools out there that give you the ability to add some pretty neat effects to your photos with out needing to have PS. We thought we would bring you a few of our favourites.

Original Image

Poladroid:- Most people who were born more than 20 years ago will remember polaroid cameras. Those handy little things that removed the need to wait ages to see your photos (for you younger ones this is before the age of digital cameras). You pointed the camera, took your shot and then waited as the camera spit out a little sheet of card, you’d watch as the image magically appeared on the blank sheet, developed infront of you. Feeling a little nostalgic? Missing those slightly tinted photos from the 80s? Well Poladroid gives you the chance to recreate that effect on your brand new digital photographs, all you have to do is drag and drop your image and let Poladroid do the rest, you even get the white border just like those old pics. There are a few settings you can alter if that picture’s just not quite right too. (Downloadable app: Windows, Mac. A free beta edition)

Poladroid Version

FotoFlexer:- An online photo editor, probably one of the best online editors. It has some nice effects that can be applied to your photographs. Doodle on your photos or add those oh so ‘lovely’ sparkle starts that seem to be on every one’s myspace page (there not annoying at all, honest). You can upload a file from your computer or pull one in from web based services like Flickr if you wish. (Web app: free to use, you don’t even need to join if you don’t want to)

FotoFlexer

Photoshop Express:- Okay the title of this post says “Without Photoshop” but we are sure you realised that we meant the desktop based application, not its slimmed down web based baby brother, right? We’ve talked about Photoshop Express before and in the year since we did there hasn’t been too much updating done to it. It’s still got a nice set of basic features but now in beta testing on there are some decoration options. Not the best things in the world to be sticking on your photos but still whatever floats your boat. It can link with services like Flickr (Web based, Free to use but you have to register)

Photoshop Express

Be Funky: Another web based photo editor we’ve mentioned previously. Be Funky has none of the basic photo editing tools of Photoshop Express but it does have a few more effects that can be added straight to your photo. There’s no need to sign up to use this one, but any photos you do edit will be stamped with the Be Funky logo and web address at the bottom (Web based, free, watermarks photos)

Be Funky

Photo! Editor: The last one on our list for today is Photo! Editor again its a web based application. Photos can be uploaded from your local PC and edited on line. There’s scope for various techniques to be applied (including one to denoise images shot under poor lighting). Unfortunately we cant show you an after shot as our test image doesn’t work too well with the app having facial recognition for applying effects.

Got any more you think we should add to the list, let us know in the comments.

Ammyy Admin – Free Remote Support Utility, Works Like Team Viewer

Andy — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:12:14 +0000

Remote support utilities are one of the things I find very useful in my normal working life. I’ve spoken before about Teamviewer and Logmein Rescue. It’s so much easier to support a client when you can see what they are seeing on their screen. The biggest problem with both Teamviewer and Logmein Rescue is their cost. There not particularly expensive, but if your a small IT company with a few distributed clients it might be too much of a stretch to your budget to afford them. Ammy Admin is a free utility that provides much of the functionality of the paid for apps, but at no cost.With that in mind I present Ammyy Admin, a free utility for providing remote support to your clients (or family members ). Ammyy Admin works in a in similar way to Teamviewer. Just like in Teamviewer you direct the client to a website where they download an application. They then run this app on their computer and it provides a code that they relay to you, one slight difference here is that the system isn’t set to receive remote connections straight away, even with the code you can’t connect until the client hits Start. Once they do, as the operator you put their ID into your copy of Ammy Admin and click connect. Ammy Admin then routes it’s self through their servers to the remote PC and presents you with a view of their desktop. From there you can move the mouse, start applications, open files and input data with the keyboard just as if you were sat at the computer.

While it may not be quite as fast as Teamviewer, Ammyy Admin is more than capable of providing the kind of support your client needs. It might not scale the remote desktop to fit your window but easy to use scroll bars make it easy to move around the screen. Ammyy Admin supports file transfer just as Teamviewer and Logmein do. However it does also support connections through Windows RDP if it is available While the download of Ammyy Admin is free, there is a charge for commercial use. The charges are much lower than the Logmein and Teamviewer ones though. The free version does not have the nag screens seen in Teamviwer either.

Portable Apps: USB drive applications to carry anywhere

Andy — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:05:21 +0000

I’ve spoken before about portable applications that I like to carry with me on a usb drive just to make my life easier. Well as it’s been a while since I covered them, the utilities on my stick have changed some what. Some have fallen out of favour, others have taken their place. With that in mind I thought I would put together a more upto date list of what I find it useful to carry around with me.

Codessey

Codessy on it’s own isn’t very useful, but I find it very helpful as an application launcher. It might be that I am lazy but I can never be bothered with going looking for an application when I want to start it. With Codessy I get a Start Menu like option in my system tray I can click on to launch the applications on my pen drive.

PeaZip

Next on the list is PeaZip. PeaZip is a compression utility, it can create 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ,PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX and ZIP archives. It can open extract over 80 different archive types. It has a nice and simple interface and is just as easy to use as it looks.

Infrarecorder Portable

It’s still nice to be able to burn some things to CD rom, even in this day an age of 1GB+ usb drives there are still times when you need the info on CD Rom (You tried installing Linux from usb?). Thats why my usb pen drive has InfraRecorder on it. InfraRecorder Portable is the popular InfraRecorder CD/DVD burning program packaged as a portable app, so you can do your disk burning on the go. It has all the same great features of InfraRecorder including the creation of custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and recording them to physical discs as well as disc images. It even lets you burn an iso to disk

DTaskManager – DTaskManager is an enhanced version of windows task manager. It doesn’t just show you the running processes and applications, it also gives you the location of the executable files for the process. It allows you to suspend and reactivate a process or group of processes and it has one other add on that I really like, it allows you to see what ports are in use by which applications, very useful for tracking things.

VLC Player

VLC player, does anything more really need to be said? This is one of the best media playing applications around. Great for watching your dvds as well as avi files. No need to worry about not been able to watch a file because the PC you are using doesn’t have the right codex installed.

Show My PC - I do a lot of remote support both personal and work related. Sometimes I get called while I’m not at my own PC. With Show My PC I can instantly get access to some one else’s PC remotely with out having to install software on the local PC. Just run this app and get the supportee to do the same, then just get their displayed session password and away you go. It use’s TighVNC as a back end.

Lan Search Pro – A useful little app, not just as a portable. Lan Search Pro is like a supped up Windows search. Give it part of a file name and it will search for any files containing it, but it wont only search on your local PC, it will also search across any network shared directories.

SoftPerfect Network Scanner – It will ping computers, scan for listening TCP ports and show what types of resources are shared on a network (including system and hidden). In addition, it allows you to mount shared resources as network drives, browse them using Windows Explorer, filter the results list and more. SoftPerfect Network Scanner can also check for a user-defined port and report if it is found open, resolve host names and auto-detect your local IP range.

Portable Ubuntu - What better why to work portable than to carry your own operating system? Portable Ubuntu is the popular Linux OS packaged to run from a pen drive. It runs inside Windows kind of like a virtual PC. Better have a big stick for this one though, it takes 1.85GB of space on your stick!

There are other things that I carry on my stick but those are the main ones. Got any others you think I should add to the list? Let me know in the comments.

Tonido: Cloud Computing Under Your Control

Andy — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:35:50 +0000

Cloud Computing is the new buzz word. It’s all over the place as people believe that in the future desktop apps will be replaced by web apps. Instead of having Word and Excel installed on your local system, you will use something like Google Docs to create and edit your files. Instead of using Oulook you will keep all your emails in a web based email solution like Gmail.

For mobile workers like me this is ideal. No matter where I am working I would be able to access the apps I usually use and the data I need to work with. But putting my other hat on, that of IT admin and data security ‘expert’ it’s a bad thing. With cloud computing you lose control of your data and your what your users are actually doing with it because the apps and the data are no longer on your server. You cant track who is doing what and you cant effectively back up your data because it is stored on somebody else’s server.

The obvious answer to this is to host the Cloud Apps on your own web server. That’s where Tonido comes in. Tonido is a browser based operating system, or web OS, that runs on your server rather than some third party server.

It comes with a host of apps installed on it such as PIM, photo sharing, browser based media player and even the ability to share a folder on your own Tonido network but the data is still stored locally, no longer are you relying on some third party supplier having a secure data center.

Sizeasy: Making buying online easier

Andy — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:00:26 +0000

Most people are quite comfortable buying goods online these days. They will happily use sites like Dabs and Amazon to purchase the goods they need. One of the things I have always disliked about shopping online is knowing exactly how big something is before I buy it. Just about every item ever has its size listed in it’s description. This is great but sometimes it’s very hard to actually work out how that looks in real life. Well enter Sizeasy. Sizeasy is a nice site with a simple concept, you give it the dimensions of the item you are looking at and a real life objectand sizeasy then shows you a diagram with the two objects draw to scale side by side. Can be quite useful for working out just how big that phone you are ordering is!

Postbox: Thunderbird Tweaked!

Andy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:22:04 +0000

For the past week or so I’ve been using a new email client. I’ve been a big fan of Thunderbird for a while, I like it’s simplistic style and it’s easy of use. I also like that it’s not made by Microsoft! The biggest draw back I’ve found with Thunderbird is it’s search routines. I find it to not always be reliable for looking for things that I know are in my inbox somewhere. I stumbled across Postbox and thought I would give it a try.

Postbox is based on the same code as Thunderbird and to be honest, from my experience it still feels a lot like using Thunderbird but with a lot of added features. It looks cleaner than Thunderbird, it still has a message list and a message preview but it breaks down separate mail boxes showing only the folders specific to the highlighted mail box.

Here are some of the added features you get with Postbox:

Advanced Search – You don’t just get the search box at the top right to fill in, you can bring up a pop up menu where you can search specific fields in a message like sender email address or contact name.

Conversation View – Messages with the same topic are grouped together, much like they are in gmail’s web interface, meaning you can see a whole conversation (both received and sent) in one view making it much easier to keep track of whats being said.

Introspective Pane – When a message is clicked all images, links and addresses are shown on a pane (much like attachments are) to the side allowing you to easily see anything you might need.

Email Tagging – Emails can be tagged to particular topics, even to multiple ones allowing you to quickly find all related emails. Kind of like filtering on the fly.

Tabbed Browsing – Open up different folders in different windows then swtich between tabs just like you would in Firefox.

To Do List – Hold you to do list in your inbox, mark emails as to do as well.

List Attachments/Links/Images – With postbox you can list search through your folders and produce a list of all attachments, web links or images included in them. Can be quite useful if you know you received a certain file but cant remember the sender.

The main downside for me is that it doesn’t currently have a calendar and as it doesn’t support adds (like Thunderbird does) you can’t install the Lightening add on to get around this. It’s still in beta so there is the possiblity that this may be added yet.

Best (Free) Screen Casting Apps

Andy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:17:47 +0000

In this time of credit crunch a lot of companies are trying to cut their costs which is completely understandable. A major source of out goings can be travel costs. Most companies have travelling salesmen, guys who move around from place to place for a one hour or two hour meeting, which basically consists of a short conversation and a demonstration of the software they are trying to sell (obviously I am only talking IT salesmen here). With that in mind one of the most obvious ways to cut the travel costs is to look into doing online demos of the software linked with video conferencing. That way your sales guy can sit in the office and hold demos one after the other, not only cutting travel but also increasing the number of demos possible in one day.

There are quite a few payed for offerings out there that allow you to share you screen with multiple people over the web, take for instance Cisco’s WebEx. But if you are like me and don’t want to pay for it there are quite a few open source/free alternatives available if you do a little digging. With this in mind I thought I would look at some of the examples I have found:

		Abode Connect Now: Part of Abodbe’s free offerings on its web site (along with Photoshop Express. The free to use version of their Adobe Connect Pro web meeting software. It’s not a bad piece of software, the website looks clean, it has the ability to share your desktop via a web browser interface. There are no exe’s for your viewers to download and it also provides instant messaging facilities for chat.

		TeamViewer: I’ve talked about Teamviewer before and mentioned its usefulness as a remote support tool but I did not mention the fact that it can also be used to show your desktop to others. If you are running the full client (i.e. not just the quick support app) you can set a session as either remote support or presentation. In presentation mode when your partner connects they will see your desktop be unable to interact with it.

		A nice app and reasonably easy to use, however the one downside is that it requires both sides to download an application and also sign up for a CrossLoop account on the plus side it has 128 encryption on the link for security.

		Yuuguu is quite easy to use. As with Adobe Connect it gives you chat as well. However it did seem rather slow when I used it.

		Mikogo: I found Mikogo to be relatively simply to set up and easy to use for none technically users once it is installed. It’s a basic client with no flashy parts to it but it gets the job done. It’s also a little bit quicker than the other in this list (at least in my experience).

There are a few other alternatives out there, some i haven’t had chance to try yet (like Zoho: Meeting) and some that I tried and just found to be hard to use (Dimdim). If you have any other suggestions for this list please let me know