I, like many others, made the decision to attempt an install of Ubuntu 6.06 server with the preconfigured LAMP option without having ever attempted using Linux before. My goal was to build a setup that I could host my personal web site from. Embarking on this journey I had no idea how much knowledge I lacked and in turn would learn in my quest to host. I floundered around on forums and clung helplessly to Google for aid in all the places I fell short. I found that a really good resource for building a LAMP configuration for complete Linux noobs was either not available, or stuffed neatly in some Google Bermutan triangle which my browser was afraid to go. Hence, I am writing this as a partial documentation of my trials and tribulations with hopes of aiding all Linux noobs on the steps necessary to create a basic Linux, Apache2, MySQl5 and PhP5 system with FTP. Again, this document is tailored to complete Linux beginners and is in no way a complete guide to attacking such a setup. It will get you up and running but will need security hardening like no other.

“LAMP: The Open-Source Web Platform”

My PHP rewrite of Rael Dornfest’s Blosxom perl-based blogging system. PHPosxom is no longer under active development by me, but the BSD-licensed code is still available.

Download PHPosxom

PHPosxom’s sourceforge.net homepage

Why is PHPosxom no longer being developed?

The reasons for ceasing development on PHPosxom were varied, but the primary one is that at the rate things were going it would eventually re-invent the fine WordPress platform, which seemed a silly thing to do.

As I say, the code is still available, and whoever would like to is welcome to begin their own branch.

Thanks to everyone who tried out PHPosxom!

Thistle

Matt Gemmell (of Irate Scotsman and Scotland Software fame) created a fork of PHPosxom called Thistle (the name for which I will immodestly point out I came up with ;), added features, and really hammered the code into better shape. However, like me, he has left the *osxom projects behind for different blogging software waters.

On the ADC, in the Internet Developer section…

Though normally used with applications built with the Carbon and Cocoa frameworks, Project Builder is an excellent tool for Web developers working in languages like PHP and Perl….I regularly use Project Builder and CVS to create and maintain complex PHP applications with dozens of source files. In this article, I’ll illustrate some of the advantages of Project Builder and show some of the tricks I’ve learned….

Continuing the theme of naming text editors after food (see Smultron), Taco HTML Edit is a bare-bones[1] text editor geared towards — wait for it — editing HTML.

Nothing too fancy-schmancy: commands/dialog boxes for adding tags, clippings, project files, syntax coloring and checker, preview, etc. There is some basic PHP support as well.

Keyboard shortcuts are generally good. The most-used tags have direct key combos, and there’s an Advanced Insert palette you can bring up to step-by-step add tags and sub-attributes pretty easily. The only beef I have is that the long list of tags in that palette does not allow you to jump ahead by pressing initial letters (like jumping to <em> by hitting the letter e). This forces you to either scroll with the arrow keys for a long time, or use the mouse — and since this is one of the few if not the only places that happens in this program, it definitely could use that extra feature.

The one thing I missed from using BBEdit was the HTML support, and since Taco adds Cocoa Tiger goodness like the new in-place spell-checking plus thesaurus action — not to mention a non-abusive Preferences dialog, always a plus — this program is definitely worth a look. Especially if you’re just looking for a text editor that will let you do some markup but stay out of your way.

Taco HTML Edit is free, though not open source, so be aware it could go commercial any time.

[1] pun not originally intended, but what are you going to do?