In uk.net.web.authoring John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:

>> Rather than relying on back-ups of a site, a far better policy is to
>> maintain a development version of the site on your own machines and
>> refresh the production site from the development site as and when
>> required.

> See: <http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-virtual-hosts-xp.html>
> on how to create local versions of your site(s). (Windows XP).

Hi John... greetings in a different forum than usual.

A good guide.

The approach I adopted (on MACOSX) was to assign different private IP
addresses in /etc/hosts and configure httpd.conf accordingly.

Your approach makes more sense in using 127.0.0.1 as the one base
IP address when only using a single local machine, which I'm doing
at the moment... it saves having to edit configuration files when
moving to a different network (a couple of months ago I had to
switch to a 10.0.1 network).

Although I have a development site on my local machine which I use
to check out things before uploading... I do my real development a
stage before that by using Makefiles, the htp 1.15 HTML pre-processor
(old, but it works just fine) and various perl scripts to create
the deveopment site, or parts thereof. In other words I write as
little HTML as possible.

Axel

axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:

> In uk.net.web.authoring John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
>> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:


>> See: <http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-virtual-hosts-xp.html>
>> on how to create local versions of your site(s). (Windows XP).
>
> Hi John... greetings in a different forum than usual.
>
> A good guide.

Thanks Axel, I have been working today like crazy to update it to 2.0 and
fix some minor issues with the 1.3.x version.

> The approach I adopted (on MACOSX) was to assign different private IP
> addresses in /etc/hosts and configure httpd.conf accordingly.
>
> Your approach makes more sense in using 127.0.0.1 as the one base
> IP address when only using a single local machine, which I'm doing
> at the moment... it saves having to edit configuration files when
> moving to a different network (a couple of months ago I had to
> switch to a 10.0.1 network).

It depends a lot on what you want, I don't want most of my sites to become
visible on the LAN :-)

> Although I have a development site on my local machine which I use
> to check out things before uploading... I do my real development a
> stage before that by using Makefiles, the htp 1.15 HTML pre-processor
> (old, but it works just fine) and various perl scripts to create
> the deveopment site, or parts thereof. In other words I write as
> little HTML as possible.

Ditto. I use XML for the content, and parse and process it with Perl into
HTML. All things that the Perl script can solve it does (like finding out
the values for width and height attributes for the img element).

Another script creates the RSS feed (it extracts the title from the page,
and uses it as the title for the feed, etc.).

And another script uploads the stuff using plink (part of PuTTY).

And all is kicked into action using ant :-)

ant local to update the local version
ant upload to update the local version, and the remote one :-)

--
John Skilled Perl programmer for hire: http://castleamber.com/

Fox noGO:http://johnbokma.com/firefox/removin...earch-bar.html

John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:

> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:
>
>> In uk.net.web.authoring John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
>>> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:
>
>
>>> See: <http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-virtual-hosts-xp.html>
>>> on how to create local versions of your site(s). (Windows XP).
>>
>> Hi John... greetings in a different forum than usual.
>>
>> A good guide.
>
> Thanks Axel, I have been working today like crazy to update it to 2.0
> and fix some minor issues with the 1.3.x version.

New version should be available at:
http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-...-hosts-xp.html

You might want to hit refresh :-D


--
John Skilled Perl programmer for hire: http://castleamber.com/

Fox noGO:http://johnbokma.com/firefox/removin...earch-bar.html

In uk.net.web.authoring John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:

>>> See: <http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-virtual-hosts-xp.html>
>>> on how to create local versions of your site(s). (Windows XP).

>> A good guide.

> Thanks Axel, I have been working today like crazy to update it to 2.0 and
> fix some minor issues with the 1.3.x version.

Niks te danken

>> Your approach makes more sense in using 127.0.0.1 as the one base
>> IP address when only using a single local machine, which I'm doing
>> at the moment... it saves having to edit configuration files when
>> moving to a different network (a couple of months ago I had to
>> switch to a 10.0.1 network).

> It depends a lot on what you want, I don't want most of my sites to
> become visible on the LAN :-)

I see your point.

>> Although I have a development site on my local machine which I use
>> to check out things before uploading... I do my real development a
>> stage before that by using Makefiles, the htp 1.15 HTML
>> pre-processor
>> (old, but it works just fine) and various perl scripts to create
>> the deveopment site, or parts thereof. In other words I write as
>> little HTML as possible.

> Ditto. I use XML for the content, and parse and process it with
> Perl into HTML. All things that the Perl script can solve it does
> (like finding out the values for width and height attributes for
> the img element).

I suppose my approach came from something I originally some years ago.
We wanted to scan, cut and paste press releases from a specific market
area. I found the simplest approach was for those who did it was to fill
in a blank file with two or three lines starting with '#' indicating the
title, possible subtitle and company. Such a brain-dead scan, copy and
paste thing that anyone could do it.

Obviously formatting and clickable URLs were lost, but it was a free
service and if more was wanted, it could be paid for.

Originally it had been an experimental thing with actual HTML files
being filled in (a 3-stage business process... test something in raw
HTML, if it is found of interest move to a script, and then finally
to a database if decided worthwhile).

That was interesting especially when someone, ok, mea culpa, was
rushed/lazy and forget to replace the text 'XXX' markers that had
been set up for cut-and-paste. The result: Many hits from over the
world on a press release of little interest to anyone outside a
limited audience from all over the world and offers to buy the
URL... not the domain, but specifically the individual deep URL.
We were bemused, but then found out why... on a search engine search
for 'XXX' (I think it was Yahoo... it might have been Alta Vista)
it was turning up in the top ten results.

> Another script creates the RSS feed (it extracts the title from the page,
> and uses it as the title for the feed, etc.).

> And another script uploads the stuff using plink (part of PuTTY).

I use scp (well, we use different OS's)... I make an initial copy and
then ssh in and run an update (delete and move files) script.

> And all is kicked into action using ant :-)

Yes... that makes a lot of sense.

Although where do you find the time to do all this!? I'm still behind
uploading a few cat photos taken over a month ago... ag, I'm just a
lazy toad (my tutor at university always called me that).

Axel

axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:

> In uk.net.web.authoring John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
>> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:
>
>>>> See: <http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-virtual-hosts-xp.html>
>>>> on how to create local versions of your site(s). (Windows XP).
>
>>> A good guide.
>
>> Thanks Axel, I have been working today like crazy to update it to 2.0
>> and fix some minor issues with the 1.3.x version.
>
> Niks te danken

:-) I should try to reply to messages when I mark them as todo at least
within a short time frame :-) Anyway, the 2.0 version is up, still
working on PHP though.

[..]

>> Ditto. I use XML for the content, and parse and process it with
>> Perl into HTML. All things that the Perl script can solve it does
>> (like finding out the values for width and height attributes for
>> the img element).
>
> I suppose my approach came from something I originally some years ago.

:-) I once started my own macro language based on LaTeX somewhere in
1997. Later I dropped that approach, and used mostly plain text with
subtle hints, and a smarter parser. Much later (2003) I started to move
to XML but for various reasons it took me almost a year to start using
it in combination with Perl for my johnbokma.com site. The
castleamber.com site still uses the plain text approach.

[..]

> That was interesting especially when someone, ok, mea culpa, was
> rushed/lazy and forget to replace the text 'XXX' markers that had
> been set up for cut-and-paste. The result: Many hits from over the
> world on a press release of little interest to anyone outside a
> limited audience from all over the world and offers to buy the
> URL... not the domain, but specifically the individual deep URL.
> We were bemused, but then found out why... on a search engine search
> for 'XXX' (I think it was Yahoo... it might have been Alta Vista)
> it was turning up in the top ten results.

:-) I have a picture with a horse on my site, and one of the comments
has xxx (as kisses). And yes, I get people looking for horse xxx (I
guess that's special pr0n to get stallions in the mood in horse breeding
programs?)

>> Another script creates the RSS feed (it extracts the title from the
>> page, and uses it as the title for the feed, etc.).
>
>> And another script uploads the stuff using plink (part of PuTTY).
>
> I use scp (well, we use different OS's)... I make an initial copy and
> then ssh in and run an update (delete and move files) script.

Somewhere on my todo list is: find new files, tar those, gzip, and use
plink to tar zx them in the web directory. Currently quite some time is
wasted in building up the connection and breaking it. Not a big issue
though with 10 files, but with 30+ it eats up a lot of time.

>> And all is kicked into action using ant :-)
>
> Yes... that makes a lot of sense.

Ant is weird at first, but it has some nice things. I also use it to
pack perl modules + script(s) + other files into a zip file and mail it
to a customer in one go.

> Although where do you find the time to do all this!? I'm still behind
> uploading a few cat photos taken over a month ago... ag, I'm just a
> lazy toad (my tutor at university always called me that).

By trying to post less on Usenet. But I have a huge "stack" of digital
photos that I have to put on line some day, and countless of pages I
still have to write.

And lazy is good, makes excellent programmers or scientists/engineers in
general. Always looking for shortcuts, so there is more time to do fun
things.

--
John Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

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