Tag: IT

maol, I suggest you take a look at OpensourceCMS.com, which is, as odd as it may sound, one of the best things since sliced bread[1]. It allows you to test-drive the most current stable versions of many Open Source CMSes without needing to install them. This saves a lot of time and therefore widens your evaluation matrix. For example, you can easily evaluate several dozens of CMSes in just one day. Select your killer criteria and you’ll end up with a couple of CMSes you’ll want to take a closer look at (e.g. code inspection, estimations about the maintenance effort, performance measurements etc.). Great :)

As I’m looking for an alternative to Moveabletype myself, I’ve evaluated quite many open source CMSes with the help of OpensourceCMS.com (kudos to the people behind that service at this point! :) My current favorite is WordPress as it doesn’t suffer from an amateurish architecture such as MT (tedious rebuilding of static pages, duh!) and it offers some distinct features for bloggers (e.g. a smart editor with the possibility to look up words in dictionary.com on a finger-tip, password protected posts, integrated blogrolling features, standards compliance etc.). Probably the best weblog server-side software at the moment. Last but not least WordPress is open source software (Free Software, GPL) and not covered by a proprietary license like MT :)

If you’re looking for general (not blogging-specific) CMS software, I don’t have a favorite yet. But OpensourceCMS.com will be of valuable help for sure. The best choice probably depends heavily on the intended use and purpose of the CMS (there are quite many CMSes which are well suited for very large sites but an overkill for a more or less personal website).

K, so far. I’ll be off skating as long as the sun is shining down on me that kindly ;) Eventually I’ll take my cam with me to shoot some lousy “action” movies.. hehe ;)

[1] Seriously: Somebody should adopt the idea behind OpensourceCMS.com, a test-drive farm for open source content management systems, to open source (eventually even closed-source, depending on the target group) operating systems. Reason: There are so many different open source operating systems and distributions – it’s virtually impossible to evaluate them all. Having the possibility to quickly compare the different OSes and distros in action would be beneficial for both users and developers as it would intensify competition and reward good projects or good approaches and ideas more quickly. I know there is an OS test-drive farm by HP, but that one just covers a couple of (partly closed source) OSes. I also remember there was a test-farm where you could test-drive RedHat Linux when they presented their unified Gnome/KDE desktop for the first time.
What we need, is a test-drive farm that covers most (if possible all) of the open source distros and OSes out there. One that is well maintained and current. So if somebody picks up this idea, this would be great :)

i need an instant messaging client for my mobile phone. unfortunately, there aren’t any native clients for the sonyericsson t630 such as the allegedly great agile messenger. what’s left? j2me midp applets aka “midlets”:

quicksilver messenger (uses jabber) (jad, jar)
im+ for java phones and pdas (trial versions: jad, jar)

i’ve just found a nice news forum posting which concisely explains how to install knoppix 3.4 (c’t edition, featuring kernel 2.6) on a hard disk.

eventually, this is the most convenient way how to end up with “debian” on your hard disk! ;) as knoppix is a relatively slim distro (fitting on a single cdrom) there might even be enough space for it on my notebook’s “shrunken” hd.

ps. don’t forget to update to kernel 2.6.4 after installing knoppix (recently, some serious kernel security holes have been found -> always run the the most current kernel version. i’d also recommend to patch your kernel with exec-shield for better protecting your box)

running win98 se on my notebook didn’t match my needs very well (e.g. network throughput when using pscp was only about 40 kb/s). consequently i quickly replaced it by windows xp pro (downloaded from codezone.ch). using windows xp, pscp throughput is about the tenfold (~400 kb/s). i guess scp on linux would yield even better rates, but as i lack space i decided not to install linux on that box anymore.

fortunately, the blog you’re reading won’t let you miss even a single tiny bit of the following extremely interesting and worldshaking news:

i’ve installed windows 98se on my stone-age-notebook! oh yeah baby – that rocks! it’s the most sophisticated os you’ll ever see.

next i’ll try to install onebase linux (features, screenshots), a promising distro i’ve recently discovered on distrowatch.com.

[update: onebase seems to be very similar to gentoo (and other source-based distros) by concept. it’s just not as powerful and flexible but a bit more joe-average-friendly in exchange. now that i realized that onebase still needs to be compiled from scratch, i probably won’t test it on my notebook (as it would take too long)]

that’s all, folks!

ps. sorry, i’ve forgotten to feed the current blogger hypes! ..like the hysteria about that french band.. uh what was its name again? some three letter thingie.. hm.. *cough* ..looks like i’m somewhat lost in translation here. further there seem to be more and more pin striped suits reading business class.. ehm.. flying, of course. apropos flying.. there’s a new virus circulating which forces bloggers prove their savoir-vivre by posting two-tone world maps. sure, that’s almost monotonous, so better publish a book with your blog’s best entries instead. don’t hesitate, the world has been waiting for it too long. or just stick with blogging and become a us-president one day ..eventually, that is. spicing up your blog with blurry pics and juddered video-feeds (a new “dogma”) may serve as afterburners.. eventually. last but not least, don’t forget to make some fun about those trend-followers, hypers and karma whores – that’s trendy and will make you superior and immortal. remember: “you’re unique, just like everybody else” :)

pps. oops, i did it.. be assured it will never happen again ;>

i tried to install the new progeny componentized linux on my notebook, but the kernel of the installation cdrom crashed when probing for pcmcia support (most kernels fail at this point, my notebook seems to have a wacky pcmcia implementation). unfortunately even the “noprobe” kernel option didn’t help. a componentized, debian-based linux is a nice approach however.

currently, i try to install mandrake 10.0 rc1. eventually i’ll also have a look at the new gnustep livecd..

astonishingly most linux livecds easily detect and correctly configure the hw of my somewhat special notebook whereas most distros already fail when booting the installation cdrom. and if they don’t fail at booting, they usually require the administrator/user (iow: me) to configure most things manually. obviously it’s not the linux kernels but the distros’ installers which are responsible for the installation nightmares.

[update: installation of mandrake 10.0 rc1 failed. its installation routine was rather buggy and quite many essential (base-)rpms couldn’t get installed for unknown reasons. the gnustep livecd failed to recognize the ide controller as, even in expert mode, i couldn’t supply the required ide2=0x180,0x386 kernel option. i know i could supply it using grub’s fallback-menu, but this would be bad style for a livecd..]

an ideal linux installation would be: boot knoppix, then let it install itself (including the configuration!) to the hard disk. good news: it can be done, though i’ve never tried it myself. it’s described in the knoppix faq, last question! uhm.. i think i should give it a go :)

[update: the livecd distro morphix seems to be suitable for persistent installation :) ]

i just tried to install the windows longhorn pre-alpha preview edition (downloaded from http://00001001.ch/students/).. and.. well, you know.. there was a bluescreen 5 seconds after booting the installation cdrom ..which in turn abruptly ended my endeavour. i guess that’s why it’s called pre-alpha ;)

never mind, it’s xp-erimental only..

time to start believing in voodoo..

first, i figured out that the wlan card (zyxel zyair g-100) i bought upon recommendation (by another lugs-member) is not that great at all.. looks like an increasing number of wlan card manufacturers don’t include flash-eprom chips anymore.. as a consequence, one needs to fiddle with firmware files for using this card with linux. how nasty! and this just because of a lacking 0.10 $ piece i’d gladly overpay with 10 $. thus: don’t buy this card or any other card with a prism54 chip unless you know what you’re doing!

next, i’ve booted my notebook just to find out that its very new 40 gb hdd is broken. it made some rattling noise and that was it. nada, nothing worked anymore.

murphy #1: the data i had on my notebook was the only data i didn’t have backups for (yesterday i remembered i should backup the stuff soon). gone my nice fluxbox-setup, my suse and win xp installations, most of the stuff of my studies, my mindmaps and so on.

murphy #2: i bought this hdd from a shop (computerexpress) that went bankrupt shortly thereafter. can’t return it.

antimurpy #1: murphy #2 doesn’t matter that much as i would never return/send in a hdd containing private data anyway. no way to “dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda”-it, it’s severly broken.

at least i still had the old hard disk at hand. transplantation went smoothly, patient (i.e. my notebook) is alive again. yet it’s a very regrettable thing. apart from losing my data i now have to live with the ibm-hdd’s much smaller (6 gb instead of 40 gb), slower and louder predecessor again. dang.

this is now the 3rd 2.5″ hdd within 15 months that died (r.i.p.) and for the first time it was my notebook’s hdd (the other two hdds died due to overheating inside my barebone-server). two of these hdds were manufactured by ibm (now hitachi). coincidence?

antimurphy #2: i probably won’t install linux on that 6 gb hdd again. it’s too much of a hassle (my notebooks hw is rather specific) and space is scarce. positive effect: no need to worry about proprietary and silly wlan cards anymore ;)

antimurphy #3: having lost all that data i am at the starting point again. plenty of options, no more legacy stuff.. os-wise i might even try to install longhorn. i doubt this is a good idea (hw is probably not powerful enough), but it might be worth trying.

it’s not only time to start believing in voodoo, it’s probably also time to watch the market for new notebooks/tabletpcs..

looks like an interesting project.. i’ll take a look at it as as soon as there is time: linux on windows (via circle.ch)

[update 20030126: there seem to exist other, similar projects: colinux (german introduction by symlink), umlwin32 ]

recently, i’ve checked out magnolia cms. it can be installed and configured very quickly (in about 10 minutes). editing is easy as well. in fact, i’ve never seen any cms with such an ease of use before. sure, it only offers basic features so far (story publishing, simple forms, basic content-management), but my impression of it was a good one. i particularly like its emphasis on standards, notably the upcoming jcr (java content repositories).

so far, i haven’t taken a look at its internals though. i thus can’t comment on code-quality, architecture, documentation etc. yet.

all in all recommendable for anybody who doesn’t need bells and whistles but simple yet flexible, easy content management with an excellent protection of investment (both open-source and built on standards). well suitable for personal, soho and smb use.