Snowed in with Open Source.

Since my last post I have been snowed in, in fact I haven't left my house since 12/17. This has given my a lot of time to work on some of my projects, and though I'm not quite ready to divulge any info on the projects themselves, I'd like to talk about some of the apps that I use for web development. First off, the app that without which I would more or less be sunk. XAMPP for Linux is not really an app per say that speak of, so much as a LAMP stack that is designed specifically as a development server. It provides the same resources(except for Linux, which you would presumably already have) that would be present on a true LAMP stack on an actual web server, but allows for much easier set up as it contains all of the most common components; Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Allow though the installation must be performed from a command line, it is very quick(takes about five minutes in Linux) and that instructions are very straight forward and easy to follow. In case it isn't obvious, this set-up enables you to set and run, as though in a production environment a fully functional website, and even edit it on the fly. XAMPP is available not only for Linux, but also for Windows, Mac OSX, and Solaris.

The next app I'd like to talk about is a great "programmer's editor" called Bluefish. It is geared specifically towards web development and as such, has support for most Web related languages, including(but not limited to); HTML, PHP, C, JAVA, Ruby, Pascal, Perl, Python, SQL, XML, and the list goes on. Bluefish really does a great job as a text editor, offering the features you would expect(syntax highlighting, etc.), but also offers a few that might be rather surprising to some. One such feature that I'll mention is the ability to not only access locally stored files(which is was I primarily use it for at this time), but to also access and modify remote files via FTP. I'm currently using version 1.0.7, which I acquired from the Ubuntu (Hardy) Repository through Synaptic and you should be able to get it through your distro's package repository as well. If your interested in trying it out, but are using an OS other that Linux, something to keep in mind is that; "Bluefish runs on most (maybe all?) POSIX compatible operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX, OpenBSD and Solaris. Running on Windows is possible but less supported."

Another app that I'm using, and that will come as no shock to anyone, is the GIMP(GNU image manipulation project). I won't say too much about GIMP, because it's been said, but what I will say is that I feel that it is without a doubt the BEST Open Source bitmap editor currently available and that it won't be too long before they really begin to make Adobe nervous, if they haven't already that is. GIMP is currently available on almost all POSIX systems(including Mac OSX) and Windows(32-bit). In those rare situations where I just can't seem to get a graphic just the way that I want it, another graphic design app that I use is Inkscape, which is actually a vector graphics editor, more like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, and as such has proved to be very useful for lettering. Inkscape is also available for both POSIX and Windows.

Well, not much more to write about at this time, but as I said before, when my #1 project is closer to launch I'll be making a post with all the juicy details. And in the mean time, there other things I plan to write about. Until that time, stay safe out there in this Little Ice Age, and Happy Holidays.