graham brookins’s blog

Squirrelmail that is … with the non-free package Nutsmail (theme + webmail extended functionality and polished design)

It looks very nice, if only a free software solution existed of the same caliber.

Ever wonder just how you can use filters in SquirrelMail to filter out spam that is tagged by SpamAssassin?

Well I did, just now actually … see cause I found myself cleaning up my mail server configuration (semi-annual maintenance), see unlike most people I get tens of thousands of spam messages a month, on holidays hundreds of thousands a week. Fortunately with the power of software I read none of it and see almost none of it.

Well the good folks at nova.org have given the world this very simple and direct tutorial on just how to do it.

Updated!: I have added a demo of svn running on php 5.0.5, php5.demo.ezcommunity.net
We are looking for several other users and developers in the eZ publish 2 community to sponsor the development, documentation and release of php4.4 -> php5.1 improvements to eZ publish 2.3. Contact Brookins Consulting for more information.

Backstory …

I was working on some server administration this weekend (very hush hush mumbojumbo ).

I started thinking about using eZ publish 2 on versions of PHP greater than 4.3.9, say like 4.4.x or even php 5.0.x

I have been meaning to checkout eZ publish 2.3 (svn) and do a little more work to the community build in svn, review extra modules in svn as contributions, give a little more back to the community. (Is anyone even listening or care anymore ) No matter I do what I do and so will you.

Results of testing at first glance (php5) ..

• As normal with eZ publish 2 (on newer versions of php 4). eZ publish 2 generates a lot of php `warnings` in the httpd error log file.
• It seems that many of the index page errors (running under php5) are of a more serious nature than normal php4 warnings

Seems that several new kinds of `warnings`, `notices` and `fatal errors`.
1) PHP Notice: Trying to get property of non-object
2) PHP Warning: Call-time pass-by-reference has been deprecated - argument passed by value;
3) PHP Fatal error: Cannot redeclare eZOnline::$OnlineTypeID
4) PHP Notice: Undefined variable: (most common)
5) PHP Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() (second most common)

It seems that the core of eZ publish 2 has a number of places in the software code which are dependant on depricated PHP features, functionality, syntax, etc.

(more…)

It took me a long time to get to the point where I learned to like irc and really understand it. Now that I do … it seems like I live in irc
Great sources of knowlege, help and humor are available from irc. Places I have found most helpful …

FreeNode : A support resource for f/oss developers and users.
freenode.net
irc.freenode.net

#bash, #linux, #xemacs, #plone, #php, #ezpublish, #rubyonrails

TechPhile : A fun place to talk about iptv and cc’ media.
irc.techphile.ca

#hak.5 #techphile #WASD.TV

Only now does 7x / Dana’s Advise Begin to slowly make sense …

I’ve been really getting into all things OPML, it’s really exciting, thanks Dave

I recently decided to post a bit about OPML to the forums but kracker beat me to it …

Again heh, found this through planetapache.org and thought of mcspectrum

sudo apt-get install rails irb
sudo apt-get install libhtml-htmltokenizer-ruby libxml-parser-ruby1.8

I saw this today browsing planetapache.org and found it very insightful.

October 25, 2005

preparing for the post-sourceforge world

People have asked the question What if SourceForge disappeared? for years now, but I have to wonder if we should be asking this question again. Now, SourceForge has its warts, but it’s ultimately a beneficial service. And, even if they did disappear, it’s highly unlikely that the open source movement would be handicapped for any real length of time.

But here’s why I ask the question:

phil goes into some more detail, wondering whether GOOG or YHOO might be prepared to take over. Maybe the woes of sourceforge can bring some long-needed fresh air though:

I think that the problem with SourceForge is that they are providing 1999-era functionality based on a business model that really is not much more than an afterthought after the collapse of their hardware business. Consequently, the core functionality in the SourceForge project hasn�t changed all that much in the past six years. All the projects on SourceForge are effectively partitioned we don’t see any tools for figuring out code reuse possibilities or anything particularly innovative.

3 years ago, i researched the state of the art of open source production, and developed a matrix to map activities, actors and tools.

To say that there are many areas of improvement in the way open source software is produced is an understatement. The obvious observation that there are a power laws in effect with regards to quality and popularity of a project makes me wonder what can be done to improve life for the countless small projects out there that have neither their act together code-wise, nor any audience.

A considerable subset of these projects deserves to do better on both fronts with the right tooling. Done correctly, a post-sourceforge integrated site could act as a large-scale lab for novel collaboration and software engineering techniques. Tool vendors might be willing to integrate their technology in return for widespread usage and name recognition, and the rest of us might finally break free of the anachronisms of mailing lists and other 1980s-era solutions.

Furthermore, the site could be made to emit statistical data for open source research. Most academic papers in the field already look at sourceforge anyway, if they had a way to get better data, they might actually arrive at some useful conclusions, including reuse patterns, social network analysis, and many more. Such a site could therefore be a downpayment on discovering the finer points of peer production, slated to become ever more important in the larger economy.

Posted by gregor at October 25, 2005 10:46 PM