Tom Clifton: Fluid Flow: Frontier and Radio

BloggerCon III

Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:36:49 GMT

Last Saturday, I went to BloggerCon III at Stanford. It was an interesting conference with a format that could promote a discussion of a wide range of topics. In reality, however, most of the sessions that I attended quickly focused in on one or two topics with opposing camps arguing points of view. To that end, it wasn't very enlightening.

That is not to say I didn't enjoy it. But I guess that I was hoping for more.

I sat in on the Academia, Journalism, Mobile Blogging, and Making Money sessions.

I had an epiphany in the Mobile Blogging session when someone asked about using a cell phone to create audio-blogs. I realized that I have all of the tools to do this now. PhoneValet supports caller ID, answers my phone, and records messages to disk. Radio Userland ftps files dropped into particular folders to my server and handles my blog posts. To get a mobile audio-blog working, I would need an AppleScript that checks incoming calls, if they are from my cell phone, it would then move the audio file to my audio-blog folder, where Radio would ftp the file to my server. The script then needs to create a post in Radio and provide an enclosure link to the new audio-blog.

I am going to play with this when I get a chance.

Userland's New Manila web-hosting

Tue, 27 Jul 2004 06:55:44 GMT

Userland is getting into the Frontier/Manila hosting business

Priced at $1099 complete (even less for qualifying academic institutions), no other content management system combines the capabilities, usability, and value of UserLand Manila. For those users who don't require their own in-house system, UserLand now offers Hosted Manila enabling low-cost, high-impact hosted websites with all the power and functionality of Manila starting as low as $299 per year. In addition, for those organizations desiring help getting started with a new Manila system, our Professional Services Group is ready to assist with project scoping, installation, customization and training...

Interesting. So, finally Userland is getting into the hosting business (again). After cutting down on all their free hosting services (editthispage, manilasite,...) over the last few years, Userland is now trying to set up a new income source through hosting its Frontier/Manila package. [Sebastian Fiedler] Interesting news, ES Designs now has a hosting competitor that is charging premium rates. At Userland's prices, they must be focusing on users who don't think the can get an enterprise weblog solution for under $1100. For the rest of us, ES Designs and other Manila hosting services provide hosting at rates that are far more affordable for small business, non-profit and educational groups. Check us out.
Thanks to editHere.com for developing and maintaining this list

In the news

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 03:13:51 GMT

We made weblogs at school Now this is kind of cool. The BBC reports on the Hangleton Junior School weblogs. ES Designs hosts these weblogs. I guess that we are helping make school a little more interesting for 10 year olds. Of course, the big kudus go to Peter Ford at Weblogs4Schools for teaching schools how to set up weblogs. I am glad that we have been help by providing a reliable hosting platform.

New posts on the ES Designs News site

Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:06:46 GMT

Here are a couple of new posts on the ES Designs News site: Recent Consulting

have been doing a little Radio Userland consulting for the online addition of The Hook, a weekly newspaper in Charlottesville, VA. What this local newspaper is doing with Radio is pretty impressive...

Performance Issues Revisited

After a long search through Frontier's code and some help from Steve Hooker on the Manila-dev email list, I discovered the source of the performance issues on my server...

Dealing with a tricky problem

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 01:41:53 GMT

This past week we had a problem with one of the sites on the De Anza Faculty website. It started generating errors: Sorry! There was an error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "276" hasn't been defined Reload: Sorry! There was an error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "1060" hasn't been defined. Reload: Sorry! There was an error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "1168" hasn't been defined The strange thing was that I made a copy of the site and put it up on another server and it worked fine there. After spending a day trying to find the problem with no success, I took an axe to the problem. Since I had a working copy of the site locally, I deleted the site on the server, then reinstalled it from my local copy. The site is now working perfectly. Sometimes, all you need is an axe.

favicon Plugin

Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:58:06 GMT

I just added a new plugin for ES Designs' hosting clients. The favicon plugin allows managing editors to add favicons to their top level sites. The interface is very simple, just select a favicon file on your local computer and click on the add button. The favicon will now appear in the address bar of most modern web browsers.

Manila Server Maintanence

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:22:13 GMT

This is the second installment of my discussion on Manila best practices. In the first, I discussed server hardware. Today I want to look at server maintenance. Server Maintenance The chief source of problems for Manila servers is the loss of speed in accessing the databases that back the Manila application. Over time as data moves in and out of the databases, they get larger and it takes longer to find and process data needed to server Manila pages. Compacting the databases using Frontier's "Save A Copy..." command will reduce the size of the database, speed data acquisition, which in-turn speeds the servers response. Compacting Frontier's databases is a processor intensive task and you will not be able to server files during compaction. Also, you will need to compact multiple databases for optimal speed improvements. For this reason, you should turn off the webserver before you start compacting databases. Otherwise, you could receive a request between "Save A Copy" that alters a database that you have already compacted. You cannot "Save A Copy" over an existing database while Frontier is running. So you must save the compacted database to a new location, then quit Frontier and right over the existing database with the compacted version. As you can see compacting your databases can be a long and arduous process. Depending on the size of your databases and the frequency that you compact them, it can take your webserver offline for several to tens of minutes. With a decent maintenance schedule and reasonably-sized databases you should be able to limit your servers downtime to under 5 minutes. So which databases should you compact. At a minimum you should compact config.root. and manilaWebsites.root (and any other website databases). These are the databases that will change most frequently and are most likely impacting server performance. If you are running the news aggregator, aggregatorData.root is also a good candidate. The application databases, Frontier.root, mainresponder.root, and manila.root don't seem to change that much overtime, but it won't hurt to compact them. Any tool or plugin that frequently writes and deletes data, should be routinely compacted. My current approach is to compact all of Frontier's open databases. This is overkill, but it is easier to script than a solution that compacts some open databases and not others. From the discussion above, you should see that while it is a necessary maintenance step, it is a pain to compact databases. It is definitely one that calls for a scripted solution. I am currently testing a pair of scripts to handle this maintenance. The first script is in Frontier, it turns off the webserver, compacts all of the open databases to a set location (a directory within the Frontier directory), and then calls an external script. The external script (written in AppleScript), quits Frontier, moves the compacted databases to their correct locations within the Frontier directory, then restarts Frontier. These scripts are currently running nightly on my development server. My plan is to run them weekly on my production Manila server. I should be able to specify a weekly downtime to my clients. I will report back as I get more data.

Does the commment link work for you?

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:52:38 GMT

I am seeing a strange problem with the comments link. They don't work when I click on them from my primary computer, but they do when I click on them from my development box (which sits two feet away). Strange. Anyway I was wondering if anyone else was having problems with the comments link on Fluid Flow.

StencilEditor Plugin

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:52:31 GMT

I have released a new Manila plugin for my ES Designs hosting clients. The stencilEditor plugin allows Managing Editors modify the appearance of many of my custom macros output. I have mentioned stencils here before and how they make my life easier, since I don't have to dive in the macro code to make changes to the appearance of the macros output. Through the stencilEditor plugin, I can give Managing Editors the same ability to modify the appearance.

Manila Best Practices

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 23:15:15 GMT

There was request today on the Frontier User email list asking for information on best practices for implementing a Manila Server. I have implemented the Manila environment on three servers, so I can provide some insights here. I'll start with talking about the server. Future topics include maintenance, backups, Virtual Hosting and DNS, setting site parameters, and Server Admin. The Server I run Manila on Mac OS X and Windows 2000. My preference is OS X (10.2) because it is very stable and has Apache built in making it very easy to implement static sites. Windows 2000 also works well, it is just bit more difficult to me to manage (partially a problem with familiarity with the system). My server admin complains that frontier crashes frequently on Windows 2000, but I haven't seen this while monitoring the server. If you are running on Windows 2000, you will probably want to run it as a service. You can use AutoFrontier to do this. Running as a service will ensure that Frontier always launches when the server boots and you will not have to login to the server to run Frontier. You cannot run Frontier this way in OS X, you must login to the server before running Frontier. To make sure that Frontier is aways running, use the KeepFrontierRunning applescript. I use a modified version of the script that opens, checks to see if Frontier is running, launches Frontier if not, and then quits. The script is called by a cron job every minute. As far as hardware specifics go, any decent modern processor will work. My OS X server runs on an Apple Xserve box with a 1G G4 processor, 768 MB of RAM and two 60 G hard drives. Nightly Frontier backups are written to the second drive.

Hosting Success

Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:09:26 GMT

I am pleased to state that at the one year mark, ES Designs Manila Hosting is a success. We are hosting domains for non-profit and educational groups in the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, and India. In the past year, my clients have challenged me to provide a better hosting environment. In response, I have developed an number of new features: Every new site under a domain can now have custom preferences. The subscription page for new sites now starts with a list of feeds from that domain only. And, there are new macros that provide sites and domains information that they need. I thank all my clients for their business and suggestions. In the coming year, I am committed to exceed your expectations. Thank you again, Tom Clifton

Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:11:28 GMT

Manila: News Item Department Enhancements. We've released some enhancements for Manila's news item departments feature: News item departments now each have their own RSS 2.0 feeds. In addition, each Manila site now has a page which lists all the departments in the site, along with links to each department, and its RSS feed. See this page on the Manila site for details. [Jake's Radio 'Blog] Enhancements are always nice. Thanks Jake!

RSS in the Neighborhood

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 21:15:45 GMT

It looks like I will be making a presentation at the United Neighborhoods of Santa Clara County (UNSCC) Conference on October 18, 2003. The title of the presentation is "Working with the Web". The idea is to present how neighborhood groups can use weblogs to provide information to their members and to other neighborhood groups throughout the county. I would love to hear from other neighborhoods/developers/implementors on their experiences with this.

ESD Plugin

Sun, 22 Jun 2003 02:03:24 GMT

I have a new Manila plugin in the works. It is simply a container for macros that I write to use on the ES Designs hosting server. I currently have three macros available to my hosting clients; pageCount, pageAuthor, and spamEncoder. PageCount and pageAuthor simply return the number a page has been viewed and the author of the message. SpamEncoder converts an email link to html entities, so the link will still work but it is harder for spambots to read.

Wed, 04 Jun 2003 17:46:45 GMT

Last year on this day I started work on My Weblog Outliner tool. I gotta get back to work on that soon. It's a good thing. Outlining for Movable Type users. [Scripting News] Dave's weblog outliner seems a bit like webScheduler. I have been working on it for ages, but it's not in a releaseable form.

RobotsEditor Plugin

Sat, 31 May 2003 07:44:07 GMT

I have completed a beta version of the RobotsEditor plugin (I was previously calling it the RobotsTxt plugin). The plugin provides a simple interface for creating the equivalent of robots.txt files in Manila. The plugin installs a custom responder that returns a text string. The default text string allows all robots to visit all pages in the subdomain (this is equivalent to having no robots.txt file). Alternatively, you can use the plugin to edit the robots.txt file to limit robot access to portions (or all) of your site. The responder looks for and returns these site specific robots.txt files. The plugin is currently only available for testing by ES Designs hosting clients. However, if you are interested in testing the plugin, let me know and I can set up a test site for you.

robotsTxt plugin

Thu, 29 May 2003 00:24:15 GMT

I am working on a new Manila Plugin that allows Managing Editors to set up robots.txt responses for their sites. Several years ago I added a robots.txt responder to my development server. It provided a generic "go away" message. I don't want search engines linking to applications that I am currently developing. But now that I am hosting sites, I realize that my clients may want a visit by search engines. So, I need to enhance my responder to provide clients with the ability to set thier own robots.txt responses. I got the basics working this afternoon. Now I need to develop the UI that lets ME's specify the robots.txt response for different paths on a site.

Radio is finally working again.

Mon, 26 May 2003 05:46:25 GMT

I am not completely certain what I did to fix the problem, but Radio is finally working the way it should. For the last month, I had to restart Radio to get any file streamed up. I believe the problem was caused by one or more bad (erroneous) paths stored in radio.root. During this time, I was less than impressed with UserLand's support. I don't think that anyone is manning their costumer support email address. The other option is that they were just ignoring my posts. I knew, eventually, I would find the problem. I can always walk through the code line by line and find where it fails. But the known tedium of that process, kept me restarting Radio and hoping that someone else would find the problem. Then quite by accident, I discovered a bad path in the radio.root database. Realizing that this could be causing problems, I did a global search and replace to fix the paths. Now Radio seems to be working as it should.

Incorporating legacy pages in Manila sites

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 23:49:02 GMT

While I have been using Manila to generate and maintain the Naglee Park website for the last two years. I have used static rendering to hide its dynamic roots. On Monday, I decided to stop using the static site and serve the site directly from Manila. The process of converting a static Manila site back to a dynamic one is pretty simple. But this site had some legacy pages from before I started using Manila. To serve these pages from Manila, I had to remember back to the days of Frontier 4. The description below is for serving files at the root level of your site. If you need to create deeper levels, it is usually easier to map a path to a directory using the Domain Admin Tool. The process is pretty simple. Go to your manilaWebsite database and add a new table called "#templates" in this table add one wpText item named "plain". In plain, add the following text: {bodytext}. Now for each legacy page that you need to serve, create a new wpText item with the same name as the legacy file (ie. oldIndex.html) in your manilaWebsite database. Open the wpText item and write '#template "plain"' in the first line. Type return twice and then paste the complete source of your legacy page. Save. Now, go to your browser and type "http://yourDomain/yourLegacyPage". Manila will serve up your legacy page.

Thu, 24 Apr 2003 22:19:14 GMT

Does Manila save money?. Quote: "Anyway, before Manila we had about 30 faculty web sites - after about 5 years of development and training. Three months after we began offering Manila sites and training we had over 150 sites. We now have well over 200"
[Serious Instructional Technology] I am more than a little pleased with De Anza's success. I provided Manila consulting services on this project. So I will stick a feather in my cap. But the credit really goes to Dan for pushing the project, to Cindy for making it a reality, and to David and the other trainers for getting the faculty up to speed. Bravo, for a job well done.

Syndicate.root

Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:24:09 GMT

Syndicate.root is the answer to one of my problems. I wanted an rss feed to tell me when comments are posted to my site. UserLand generates an rss feed whenever the home page is changes. But, new comments don't touch the home page. David Carter-Tod's Syndicate.root plugin, however, generates a RSS file for the last 15 messages. With this plugin, you can track any message that is posted to a site, not just those that appear on the home page. Many thanks to David for this plugin.

Running scripts on a remote server

Fri, 18 Apr 2003 06:25:57 GMT

Don't try this unless you really know what you are doing. While Frontier's admin tools provide most of what you need to keep Manila happy and functioning, there are some things that require direct access to the server. For example, if you want to install tools, plugins, or themes on your server, you need to place those files in the correct location in Frontier's directory structure. This is easy to do if you have phyisical or remote access (ie Timbuktu or PCAnywhere) to the server. But what do you do if remote access isn't allowed and physical access is difficult? You can create, move, and delete files on your server by using webEdit and accessing a script generated webpage on your server. The process is tedious and potentially dangerous (and points out why you don't want to give webEdit access to anyone). The basic procedure is to upload files via gems, move them to the correct location, and run any install scripts. To do this, you need to know where gems are stored and the directory path of where your files need to be stored. For example if I wanted to install a new theme, here are the basic steps to follow: 1) Upload the theme as a gem to a site and figure out the path to the gem. This is the path to the gems directory, plus the canonical site name. 2) Move the file to the themes directory. This is the tricky step and done by using webEdit to check out a script that generates a webpage ( I usually use the default page of a manila site). Then add a call to file.copy to copy the file from the gems directory to the themes directory. Check the script back into the server and then load the page. As the page is built file.copy is called and the theme file is moved to the correct directory. 3) Clean up your mess, by checking out the page again and deleting (or commenting out) the file.copy call. Check the cleaned script back in and your done.

Code via RSS

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 20:28:30 GMT

Some handy Cocoa source code. I'm pleased to announce the opening of an open-source repository of some useful Cocoa tidbits used in Watson and some other projects I've been working on. Unlike the Omni Frameworks or CocoaTech's new frameworks, this is a lot less ambitious and less packaged. It's really just a weblog (Yes, Virginia, there is an RSS feed) where each entry is just a snippet of code. You need to copy and paste into your projects as needed. The copyright is, I believe, extremely liberal (certainly not infectious like the gnu license), but let me know if you feel it can be improved.

Why do this? Just a way of giving back to the Cocoa community that has been so helpful to my efforts in building Watson.

I'll add to this repository occasionally as I run across more generic bits of code, but don't expect a steady stream! :-) [Karelia Software] I am not much of a programmer, but this seems pretty cool. You can subscribe to a RSS feed that gives you code snippets for your projects. Amazing.

The Joy of Stencils

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 23:30:55 GMT

Stencils Over the past couple of years, I have come to rely on stencils for building macros, tools, and plugins. My simple definition of a stencil is that it is a template for macros. It is the html code that is used to produce the macros output. Stencils may be more complex than Manila templates, because they may need repeating or conditional structures. A stencils job is to separate the output from the code. If the code generates the output (like html), then the users must know how to code to change it. Using stencils allows the user to design the output, without knowing how write, view, or understand the code. Through stencils, the user decides the macro's output. They might like the html table based output that I designed, or they may rather have it appear as a bulleted list. The output, in fact, doesn't even have to be html, the stencil could product xml or even plain text.

It's nice to be noticed. Thanks!

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 21:52:39 GMT

Tom Clifton of ES-Designs shares a success story with Manila. He built some very cool new admin tools for Manila too. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] Thanks! It's nice to be noticed in the larger community.