Month: December 2002

File under save for later: sysctl

(As in man sysctl, or sysctl -a)

Also see: Getting List of All Processes on Mac OS X

Hmmm, I had thought Go Daddy was a good registrar, but upon trying to hit their site today I see:

We’re performing system upgrades that require us to take this site down temporarily. We’ll be back up and running in about three hours — so please check back! You’ll have a faster, more secure, higher capacity site to enjoy when you do!

Is it just me, or does that seem pretty unacceptable? I was worried because they used Microsoft servers, but had hoped for the best… arrgghhh…..

Someone emailed me about Pivot, which according to the site, is a tool written in PHP, to create weblogs (and to some extent other dynamic websites). Pivot is almost finished, will be Free (as in beer speech), and easy to use. Also of note: All data is stored using XML and no database is required, just plain PHP. Oh, and of course you’ll want to look closely at any system that has instructions like Files and folders have to be chmodded to 777. Because we all know that just isn’t a good idea…

The Content Thing weblog is very interesting. It’s a look into the CMS that Network World Fusion is using, and how they are using it. For even more fun, read up on the CMS they used to use, and how well that all worked out. I have this sinking feeling that history is repeating itself elsewhere in the world right now…

Oh look, it is… Here’s another horror story from CMS Watch. Though the author thinks there are two solutions, buy a system, and extend it, or build one from scratch, I think there’s a third option, and it’s this: Find an open-source CMS (with a license you can live with) and dedicate resources towards building exactly what you need. This has a number of advantages, but basically they can be summed up in one word: Freedom. If you can find a system you like, and you’re lucky, you have the freedom to do with the code whatever you see fit, you have an active and diverse community that you can look to for support (and possibly a consultant pool) you don’t have to worry about the vendor going out of business, being bought, or changing direction. You’ve got a system that is being used by many groups/people not just your own… I know there can be disadvantages as well, but in my mind, the pros outweight the cons, and honestly I’m not sure if I can think of any disadvantages that are unique to an open-source solution that might not also be applicable to a commercial solution.

From InfoWorld:

After years of pumping out great-looking niche machines, Apple took the chance that the general market would go for a Unix box if it was done properly.

I suppose you could say that NeXT took the chance, and it didn’t quite work, until they had the Apple brand, and the loyal Apple customers, behind them.