Topic: RAWK Web Development Circle

[Fairytale of 2005]

I am looking to go in to business again and I am looking for an online CRM system that I can integrate in to a small business website. Can anyone recommend a platform? I used to use a system called Business Catalyst when I was last in business, but it has since been bought out by Adobe and now looks to be for web professionals only and it seems you may have to buy their ridiculously priced Creative Suite to use it.

[koppitekop11]

Just a quick question guys. Can anyone tell me how I can remove the /index.html from my URL? Cheers

[fd1]

Just a quick question guys. Can anyone tell me how I can remove the /index.html from my URL? Cheers

Just log in to your ftp and delete it. If you do not redirect to your homepage first you will just have a blank homepage though.

Edit: If you mean you want to create clean urls for seo like you see on wordpress blogs for example then check out tutorials on mod_rewrite and look up examples.

[SP]

Just a quick question guys. Can anyone tell me how I can remove the /index.html from my URL? Cheers

http://bignosebird.com/apache/a2.shtml

[wacko]

bump. I've spent the summer learning how to develop java web apps (I'm using jsf + glassfish server) and have developed an information management system. What I need next is a nice low latency way to do server-side push (i.e. not using ajax polling from the client) but there seems to be a lot of new technologies floating about (websockets, sse, comet, atmosphere) with varying levels of compatibility and documentation. I'm feeling a little lost... if anyone has any experience with these technologies i'd be interested to here your thoughts on how well it works.

I've dabbled, but not used any of them in anger. At root, they are all client polling because that's just how HTTP works. Client-wise, it's mostly a matter of which browsers have to be supported. Server side is where it gets more involved. WebSockets require specific server support in any case, and another open port. You can use SSE and plain old long polling with just about any server, but if you have a lot of users, you'll probably need to use an asynchronous server that can handle thousands of open sockets without blinking (this'd make Apache fall over). Personally, I'd probably just go with long polling, due to the better support (it's what Google and Facebook do), but if it's more about coolness, fiddling with async servers is pretty cool. I think GlassFish supports this.

[Slick_Beef]

I've dabbled, but not used any of them in anger. At root, they are all client polling because that's just how HTTP works. Client-wise, it's mostly a matter of which browsers have to be supported. Server side is where it gets more involved. WebSockets require specific server support in any case, and another open port. You can use SSE and plain old long polling with just about any server, but if you have a lot of users, you'll probably need to use an asynchronous server that can handle thousands of open sockets without blinking (this'd make Apache fall over). Personally, I'd probably just go with long polling, due to the better support (it's what Google and Facebook do), but if it's more about coolness, fiddling with async servers is pretty cool. I think GlassFish supports this.

Thanks mate. Not a lot of users but my main concern is to minimize latency. It's quite an interesting challenge I'm working on at the moment. I'm developing an access control system with an RFID card reader. When people put their card by the reader, the guard should be able to see all their details, photo, and whether they are authorized or not very very quickly. Very easy to do if I was using a normal application, but the company prefers a web app.

I was keen to use web sockets because it's new and cool, and as I understand, the only solution that doesn't use http. I got something simple working with glassfish 3.1.2 but an upgrade to 3.1.2.2 broke it again. Even when it worked it was quite unreliable so I've scrapped it for now. From what I read, it seems like we wont get a decent implementation of WS until glassfish 4. I then tried with comet (via atmosphere) but didn't work with the latest version of glassfish either. I've gone with IcePush in the end which, as you say, is basically just ajax long polling. It works well when everything runs on localhost but I haven't tried it in a real network environment yet...   

I was experimenting with an applet last night as another alternative but it seems like there are too many restrictions on what an unsigned applet can do with sockets.

I must say I'm quite excited by some of these html 5 technologies though. Once they mature a bit it'll make for some great possibilities.

[wacko]

Sounds pretty cool.

So, you're using HTTP for the response from the server, but how does the RFID info get sent to it in the first place? Presumably, it isn't being sent via the browser.

[Slick_Beef]

Sounds pretty cool.

So, you're using HTTP for the response from the server, but how does the RFID info get sent to it in the first place? Presumably, it isn't being sent via the browser.

I've written a really simple driver for the RFID reader in C that opens a tcp socket to the web application on glassfish, and then that gets all the relevant info from the database* does the push to the web page.   

Now that you mention it - I was actually wondering if it might be possible to write a browser extension so that the info read from the rfid card could go straight to the browser (instead of the server), perhaps with user info cached in the browser, to save on round trip time, but I've never done that before and I suspect there are too many restrictions on browser extensions for it to be possible. If anyone has messed with browser extensions in this way before however, I'd be interested to hear thoughts.  Otherwise, i'm going to present to them this web application with ice push as "plan a", and then also adapt the code into a standard j2se application executed on the client with user data cached as a "plan b".


*just another little thing to add - I've used redis (http://redis.io/) as the database for the first time. I absolutely love it. It's lightning fast and it can be used for a broader range of things than I had imagined. I'd recommend it to anyone.

[wacko]

I've been looking for a reason to give Redis a try myself, but with programming being mostly a hobby, I don't have much use for databases beyond SQLite.

I'm pretty sure an extension wouldn't work: the browser sandbox will prevent the extension from accessing other parts of the system, so you'd have to push the data into the browser rather than pull it in, and browser aren't designed for that.

Beyond writing a desktop app with caching or a locally-replicated database, I think the standard HTTP optimisations are your best options: setting appropriate Expires, Cache-Control and ETag headers for the images, reducing the data sent and perhaps gzipping it.

What kind of latency are you expecting on the company network?

[Surprise me.]

I've got quite a specific question regarding hosting. I've built an Android application that gets it's data from a collection of MYSQL databases and displays them on various pages of the app. I've used WAMP to do this locally and it works just fine. So I have the system set up I just need it to not be local.

Does anyone know of any decent hosting companies that will let me host A LOT of databases each with a different URL? I presume they all do that anyway..? The app pulls the data via a URL, doesn't matter what it is, could have a million characters but as long as they each have a different URL the app can select different databases for different pages.

Possibly an even better question would be what wording should I look for on a companies website that signifies they will provide what I need?

Another thing is I do have a spare laptop if it's possible to make it so it hosts to the world and not just locally..? They'll be a problem if I get high traffic to my app but that would mean it is starting to generate some revenue and I can then reinvest in either a better internet connection or a proper hosting company so that way would be fine for me too.

Really appreicate any advice.

[Slick_Beef]

I've been looking for a reason to give Redis a try myself, but with programming being mostly a hobby, I don't have much use for databases beyond SQLite.

I'm pretty sure an extension wouldn't work: the browser sandbox will prevent the extension from accessing other parts of the system, so you'd have to push the data into the browser rather than pull it in, and browser aren't designed for that.

Beyond writing a desktop app with caching or a locally-replicated database, I think the standard HTTP optimisations are your best options: setting appropriate Expires, Cache-Control and ETag headers for the images, reducing the data sent and perhaps gzipping it.

What kind of latency are you expecting on the company network?

Thanks for the advice mate, really helpful. Although I'm doing this for a company I'm also writing it up as part of my masters thesis so it's good to understand the alternatives and justify my choices. I presented my implementation that uses IcePush the boss yesterday and he seemed pleased with it. Looks like we're going to roll it out for real in January and if it's not working well I'll fall back to plan b. Not had a chance to test the network connection on site yet but will hopefully get a chance to before then.

[wacko]

I've got quite a specific question regarding hosting. I've built an Android application that gets it's data from a collection of MYSQL databases and displays them on various pages of the app. I've used WAMP to do this locally and it works just fine. So I have the system set up I just need it to not be local.

Does anyone know of any decent hosting companies that will let me host A LOT of databases each with a different URL? I presume they all do that anyway..? The app pulls the data via a URL, doesn't matter what it is, could have a million characters but as long as they each have a different URL the app can select different databases for different pages.

Possibly an even better question would be what wording should I look for on a companies website that signifies they will provide what I need?

Another thing is I do have a spare laptop if it's possible to make it so it hosts to the world and not just locally..? They'll be a problem if I get high traffic to my app but that would mean it is starting to generate some revenue and I can then reinvest in either a better internet connection or a proper hosting company so that way would be fine for me too.

Really appreicate any advice.

If you can manage the server yourself, something like Linode would do the trick. It's entirely your own (virtual) server, so you can do whatever you like with it. You can run as many databases as your server can handle.

In any case, if you can't install as many databases as you want, you can probably use table prefixes to put multiple databases in one (that's how most forum software works, for example).

You could host it from home if you set up dynamic DNS (and probably some port forwarding at your router), but even the best domestic connections have shitty upstream speeds compared to real data centres (10 Mbit or so vs multiple 100+ Mbit connections).

A laptop is a really bad place to host a database server, anyway, due to the really slow 2.5" disk, and you aren't going to get the same kind of reliability you'll get from a proper data centre (they have multiple Internet connections, redundant power supplies and monitoring systems that'll restart your server if it crashes).

[Surprise me.]

If you can manage the server yourself, something like Linode would do the trick. It's entirely your own (virtual) server, so you can do whatever you like with it. You can run as many databases as your server can handle.

In any case, if you can't install as many databases as you want, you can probably use table prefixes to put multiple databases in one (that's how most forum software works, for example).

You could host it from home if you set up dynamic DNS (and probably some port forwarding at your router), but even the best domestic connections have shitty upstream speeds compared to real data centres (10 Mbit or so vs multiple 100+ Mbit connections).

A laptop is a really bad place to host a database server, anyway, due to the really slow 2.5" disk, and you aren't going to get the same kind of reliability you'll get from a proper data centre (they have multiple Internet connections, redundant power supplies and monitoring systems that'll restart your server if it crashes).

Thanks for the advice, the term "virtual server"; does that suggest that Microsoft Virtual Server would work too?

I can understand the downsides of hosting from home, especially with a basic broadband connection but it's one of those things that I can upgrade as I go along. I could learn a lot along the way and as I build more applications I can get a proper company with servers designed for this sort of stuff to handle things for me. For now I don't think having an experimental setup would be a problem at this time. Something to just get me off the ground so to speak.

I'm tempted to use various free hosting companies to host 5-10 databases each since it's just my very first application. Very unconventional but if each database is given a unique URL then it would work just how I need it and they could handle everything server wise.

[wacko]

Thanks for the advice, the term "virtual server"; does that suggest that Microsoft Virtual Server would work too?

I can understand the downsides of hosting from home, especially with a basic broadband connection but it's one of those things that I can upgrade as I go along. I could learn a lot along the way and as I build more applications I can get a proper company with servers designed for this sort of stuff to handle things for me. For now I don't think having an experimental setup would be a problem at this time. Something to just get me off the ground so to speak.

I'm tempted to use various free hosting companies to host 5-10 databases each since it's just my very first application. Very unconventional but if each database is given a unique URL then it would work just how I need it and they could handle everything server wise.

Virtual server in this context means a virtual machine running the OS of your choice. Windows would be a *much* more expensive option than Linux, and if you're using WAMP, you should be using Linux (or some kind of UNIX) on the server (and ideally also for development) anyway because that's the *AMP native system: Apache, MySQL and especially PHP on Windows are iffy hacks.

Regarding free hosting, you get what you pay for. Those aren't virtual servers, where your server is guaranteed a minimum of RAM and processor power, but are shared systems, where there might be literally hundreds of websites served from the same machine. If another one of those sites has a good (or a bad) day, it will impact your site, too. Also, you're not going to have any say in the software configuration (i.e. if the server doesn't support the functions/modules you want/need, and you're shit out of luck).

Why do you need 5-10 databases, and what do you mean by giving "each database a unique URL"? Database servers don't have URLs. Only webservers do.

Also, making an actual database server directly accessible via the Internet is a very bad idea.

There is a middle ground between basic shared hosting (the cheap stuff) and running your own virtual server, and that is managed hosting (i.e. you tell 'em what you need, and they set it up for you), but that's expensive.

[wacko]

Here, what happened to Deano06.

Has he not grown up a bit since he started this thread?

[Surprise me.]

Virtual server in this context means a virtual machine running the OS of your choice. Windows would be a *much* more expensive option than Linux, and if you're using WAMP, you should be using Linux (or some kind of UNIX) on the server (and ideally also for development) anyway because that's the *AMP native system: Apache, MySQL and especially PHP on Windows are iffy hacks.

Regarding free hosting, you get what you pay for. Those aren't virtual servers, where your server is guaranteed a minimum of RAM and processor power, but are shared systems, where there might be literally hundreds of websites served from the same machine. If another one of those sites has a good (or a bad) day, it will impact your site, too. Also, you're not going to have any say in the software configuration (i.e. if the server doesn't support the functions/modules you want/need, and you're shit out of luck).

Why do you need 5-10 databases, and what do you mean by giving "each database a unique URL"? Database servers don't have URLs. Only webservers do.

Also, making an actual database server directly accessible via the Internet is a very bad idea.

There is a middle ground between basic shared hosting (the cheap stuff) and running your own virtual server, and that is managed hosting (i.e. you tell 'em what you need, and they set it up for you), but that's expensive.

I think I may have used the wrong terms. I have one database and about a million tables within that. Can a table have a URL? I presume so since that's what I've been working with locally. Different tables for different pages on my app. I guess I have to look into shared hosting or running my own virtual server.

[wacko]

No, a table can't have a URL. No part of an SQL database can have a URL (at least not MySQL databases—there may be exotic databases out there that have web servers built in, but I don't know any). Like I said, only webservers have URLs.

What you're (probably) talking about is a web application where specific URLs map to specific databases. It might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but it is important to understand that your database and web app are separate things.

A thousand (web app) URLs can map to the same database, and one URL can map to several databases.

When you're building a web-based application, it's very important that you understand exactly what's going on because security is so much more important than with a desktop app (with most desktop apps, only you can access them and only your data is in it, but with a web-based application, anyone with an Internet connection can poke your app with a stick and potentially access the data of any of your users if your security isn't up to snuff).

[danwms]

Never knew this thread existed.

[JimmyGrunt]

Been using Druple to knock up a basic site for my uncles business. By fuckinghell its not straight forward. inconsistent terminology, different versions which are totally different to one another.....alot of bugs.

I was thinking about sacking it off and using Wordpress. Can wordpress build a fully funtional, nice looking site, or it it only for blogs etc?

Cheers

[Surprise me.]

No, a table can't have a URL. No part of an SQL database can have a URL (at least not MySQL databases—there may be exotic databases out there that have web servers built in, but I don't know any). Like I said, only webservers have URLs.

What you're (probably) talking about is a web application where specific URLs map to specific databases. It might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but it is important to understand that your database and web app are separate things.

A thousand (web app) URLs can map to the same database, and one URL can map to several databases.

When you're building a web-based application, it's very important that you understand exactly what's going on because security is so much more important than with a desktop app (with most desktop apps, only you can access them and only your data is in it, but with a web-based application, anyone with an Internet connection can poke your app with a stick and potentially access the data of any of your users if your security isn't up to snuff).

Wow, if true this is quite a big setback for me. I'm hoping one of us has got the wrong end of the stick. In fact having just looked over my code, I think it was me. I did the code quite a while back to make sure I had a template then built the rest off my application. To get the data from a table into my app I wrote a PHP script which collects the data and then I can call the URL of the PHP script not the actual table. I've been a right bellend, haven't looked over that part of my code in ages.

Anyway in that case I don't need to worry about unique URLs because a PHP page will have that. Currently this is the URL i've used (http://192.168.0.13/testdatabase.php). Just a case of deciding whether to use shared hosting or host it myself.

[wacko]

Yeah. You put the PHP script on your webserver and call the script from the client. The script then pulls in the data from your database. The database server itself should never be accessible from the Internet.

As you say, you can just use different scripts (or URL parameters) to give you your different URLs.

Without knowing what's in your database, you might want to think about using table prefixes. Shared hosting typically limits you to only creating a few databases, but you can create as many tables as you want.

[Claire.]

Been using Druple to knock up a basic site for my uncles business. By fuckinghell its not straight forward. inconsistent terminology, different versions which are totally different to one another.....alot of bugs.

I was thinking about sacking it off and using Wordpress. Can wordpress build a fully funtional, nice looking site, or it it only for blogs etc?

Cheers

Drupal isn't too difficult once you get over the initial learning curve. There's plenty of resources out there to help you and if you need to know how to do something, maybe you can get some help in here. A lot of the time in drupal the hardest thing is knowing how to build a fucking site in it

[Surprise me.]

Yeah. You put the PHP script on your webserver and call the script from the client. The script then pulls in the data from your database. The database server itself should never be accessible from the Internet.

As you say, you can just use different scripts (or URL parameters) to give you your different URLs.

Without knowing what's in your database, you might want to think about using table prefixes. Shared hosting typically limits you to only creating a few databases, but you can create as many tables as you want.

Been doing a lot of research into hosting services and I think I might be better off paying for hosting. I've heard that a lot of big websites use Amazon's web service and considering they let you use it free for 1 year before you have to start paying it sounds like a good plan. I just have to learn all the bloody terms they use in their descriptions.

Over the coming year I'm planning on settings one a few websites so it could work out overall. I guess I need to find out the costs after the year is up first.

[wacko]

Marco Arment talks about hosting (VPS vs cloud) for the last 15-20 minutes of the latest episode of Build and Analzyse.

Cloud hosting is pretty expensive compared to VPS/dedicated servers, but sounds like a good idea if it's free for a year.

One tip: assuming you're using a standard Linux instance, carefully document everything you change on the server (installed packages, altered configuration files etc.), so you can easily replicate your setup if you decide to change host or need to add more instances.

[zERo]

this aint web related, but didnt want to start a new thread.

I want to convert  .png to .dds direct draw surface, is there any free programs out there that can do this, it should be windows 7 operable, as the one i found didnt run on windows 7.

[Surprise me.]

Marco Arment talks about hosting (VPS vs cloud) for the last 15-20 minutes of the latest episode of Build and Analzyse.

Cloud hosting is pretty expensive compared to VPS/dedicated servers, but sounds like a good idea if it's free for a year.

One tip: assuming you're using a standard Linux instance, carefully document everything you change on the server (installed packages, altered configuration files etc.), so you can easily replicate your setup if you decide to change host or need to add more instances.

Fair enough, I just thought about backing up things like databases or websites but I guess they'll be little settings related to the host that I can't back up and will have to record somewhere. I looked around and you can install Drupal on this thing which will be pretty good. I'll probably do that. I've only worked with WordPress as of now but learning Drupal will be at the bottom of the list for the minute.

Thanks for you advice btw, a great help. This is a great thread too.

[wacko]

You can install just about anything on it: it's a proper Linux OS.

There's a lot of configuration involved in getting a server up and running. It's always a good idea to back up your config files (server, firewall settings etc.) and keep a note of what you installed. If like me, you're no expert, it's a good idea to save or at least bookmark any tutorials you followed, too.

[WorldChampions]

Wish I could get back in to web development. My boss has decided to lump me with the task of updating some legacy VB6 apps The sooner these are updated to .net the better 

[Slick_Beef]

Wish I could get back in to web development. My boss has decided to lump me with the task of updating some legacy VB6 apps The sooner these are updated to .net the better 

Ouch. VB.. did you run over his dog or something?

[Surprise me.]

You can install just about anything on it: it's a proper Linux OS.

There's a lot of configuration involved in getting a server up and running. It's always a good idea to back up your config files (server, firewall settings etc.) and keep a note of what you installed. If like me, you're no expert, it's a good idea to save or at least bookmark any tutorials you followed, too.

So have you used AWS before then? Am I right in thinking that I should set up a Amazon Relational Database Service to get my MySQL database up and running? That's the part of the AWS that will get me interacting with my Android app? Lots to read in the meantime. All the jargon they've come up with is so annoying.

[wacko]

Not personally, no. I use Linode.

I think you can just install MySQL on your standard EC2 instance. The Amazon Relational Database is more for larger apps (i.e. when you start using separate web and database servers). It's a convenience method for running a database server.

Don't believe for a second that you app magically becomes infinitely scalable by deploying to AWS.

Th Amazon Relational Database Service will most certainly not be interacting with your Android app. As we've talked about before, your app does not directly contact the database (which must not be Internet-accesible for security reasons). Your app will talk to PHP scripts running on a webserver, and the webserver will talk to the database via the local network or loopback interface (if it's on the same host).

What you want is a bog-standard EC2 micro instance with MySQL and a webserver running PHP installed.

[Surprise me.]

Thanks. EC2 is what I've been looking into, I'll probably base it on a Windows Instance to begin with. Once it's all set up and running I can learn how to use the Linux Instance which seems to make things a lot easier.

[Claire.]

Long time no see for this thread, but I'm getting back on the iOS development horse and last night came across the iOS 6 O'Reilly book (3rd Ed, 2013) for free, so thought I'd share - http://it-ebooks.info/book/1854/

Just had a proper look on the site where that book is linked from, there's a lotta useful stuff on there. Not sure of the legality of it all, but I hope it's all fine 

[koppitekop11]

Been having a couple of issues doing a company website, hoping someone here can help me!

I've been developing a company website over the past 10 months (just a little side project) - not done much web design (only in first year of uni where I got a pretty shit 59).

Done most of the design which I'm really pleased with, now I just need to get a contact page working. Earlier in the year I just used one I created on Form2go, really simple but looks pretty shit.

Now I'm trying to create a form that has a background I created in Photoshop so it looks much better, only I don't know how to code the form so that it gets emailed to me.

Is this pretty simple to implement? If so can anyone put me in the right direction? (obviously I've tried Google but am a little lost in all that code )

Cheers!

[CraigDS]

Can use a simple php script to do it, and style the form using CSS to fit in with your design.

Search google for php contact form tutorial and should see plenty of sites.

I'm not a pro webdesigner though so sure someone will be along with better/more up to date advice!

[koppitekop11]

Cheers mate. Managed to get it working.

Last thing I need is to know how I customise the form that gets sent to recipient e.g. put the data in a presentable table as opposed to a boring block of text. Any ideas?

Cheers

[Claire.]

What you mean, mate? Tidy up the email?

[Claire.]

Came across this yesterday, sure many of you already know about it and have used them, but I was having a horrible time with an IE7 problem yesterday. I normally don't bother with a 'real' IE7 because the mode in IE9 is fairly reliable, but anyway, these VMs stopped me from going mental, and it means you don't have to have a million licenses for Windows (and it's free!)

http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads

[koppitekop11]

What you mean, mate? Tidy up the email?

Aye, managed to spruce it up a little now though.

Took the existing website offline today and uploaded the new design. Everything went great apart from one final thing and its driving me mental!

When I use the contact form and submit my data I get a message saying "The system cannot find the path specified". First thing I did was go back into Dreamweaver and check my code to make sure I had typed in the correct file path for my action (mail.php). Everything within the code seems fine to me. The business uses Cyberduck (don't know if that's good or shit) but I'm starting to believe it might have something to do with that and not my actual coding.

Any ideas guys? Thanks!

[Claire.]

Can you give us a link to have a look?

Can't see it being anything to do with CyberDuck as it's just an FTP app.