mac's weekly disposables..

After a few hickups of MySQL and OpenVZ, one of the lowcost servers we are currently building up is serving as a db-read host for tauschbilder.com. I wish the project all the best during that time.. and if you think about other online paneenee exchange portals: don't look any further, it's the best!

A long time ago and recently, I held 2 techtalks at our office..
One is about `optimizing PHP' and the other is about `mysql 5.1 / 6.0 - some changes'

Optimizing PHP Apps: Download here

Mysql 5.1 / 6.0: Download here

Now we can really celebrate. After a long time of work, we were finally able to release v.1.0.0 of Okapi (Which is our preferred framework).
Why another PHP framework you might ask.. A pure sign of the `not invented here' syndrome :)
Why is it better than other frameworks? It's pretty darn fast! And it lets the developer hack a lot of stuff on his own - which, I've been told, is the intended way in PHP :)
And it's still a framework! Not like some other frameworks which are just one big include to get stuff like A() B() C() D() E() and the like..
We actually tend to keep the core very simple and small and try to support as many custom extensions as we can, to keep extensions which are not as documented and tested as we want them to out of okapi. But since we can't do everything on our own, it's actually very simple to include PEAR and ZendFW code into your Okapi application/project.

Find okapi here: okapi.liip.ch
Find the buzz here: blog.liip.ch

And I really want to personally thank Patrice for keeping his flock of sheep (us) together and to make us write documentation and tests! (Actually, documentation required a lot of his effort!) Thanks a lot!

Urteil der Fachjury: Die Site schafft es, sich von den blichen Tourismusangeboten abzuheben. Sie ist grosszgig und gepflegt gestaltet, ohne Schnickschnack oder unntige Spielereien. Das Gefhl des Winterurlaubs erfasst einen beim ersten Besuch der Website. Laax.com spricht sicher trotz oder gerade wegen des modernen Auftritts ein breites Publikum an und ist fr andere Ferienregionen in puncto Gestaltung und Konsistenz sicher ein Vorbild.

Uhm.. seriously.. What page did you visit? Did you guys visit the site or did you just skim through the screenshots?!
Damn, this is ridiculous and pathetic..

Today, I had to decide what project to vote for in the best of swiss web contest..

Well.. They all look kinda fancy, kinda blingbling, kinda oh-here-we-go-make-it-bumbumbumpengpeng, kinda give the user the chocolate they want..
Have these boys EVER used a shell? I don't really think so.. If you grew up with a shell then you would NEVER turn into that hamptidampti mode, for sure.
Anyways.. hampdidampdi pages are nice for hampdidampdi blingbling style people.. What about disabled people? what about richard stallman? what about THE FRIGGIN IPHONE USERS?!
Sometimes you really have to lose faith in this world..
Just a quick review:

radio 105tv: not usable w/o js/flash.. [Diese Seite benötigt Flash Player 8.0. Bitte laden Sie den Flash Player hier.] .. at least you'll get rid of all the ads (which is about 50% of the page)

cmsbox: works FLAWLESS! (nice job :) I prefer haskell, but who cares..)

freitag: at least you get some content.. but nothing is working.. [ To see the content of this page correctly, you need to upgrade your Flash Player.] at least pictures in the background..

oSkope: yeah, well.. this is of course not working, but flash is kinda the heart of that thing - it wouldn't really work without :) - of course the searching would be possible..

capricorn/remix graubuenden: http://screencast.com/t/PBUWgHlUxEv - that's it :) not even a hint that you need flash

kpt einzeltraining: no personal trainer without flash.. awwwwwww.. but not even a page.. you need flash or get fat! (which is odd, since flash makes everything fat and slow.. usually)

le menu: works flawless.. and even very very nice and usable content.. the register thing bugged me though.. but nevermind

laax.com: MY FAVORITE.. there is not even a comment needed: screencast.com/t/EQiG7eSof

tvprogramm.sf.tv: first I thought: this will never work w/o js.. well, it does! this is quite cool. (i like the project anyway.. nice job) but you don't have the full functionality (you can't add stations and stuff)

iconomix.ch: yeah well, I worked on that thing day in - day out, I can't really rate it.. But.. (facts now) All the content is available without flash/js, except the games.. (people w/o js probably won't care about games anyway)

So boys of the web2.0.. what's wrong with you? This web thing was about information, not about hampdidampdi.. but I guess publicity has a bigger money-weight than usability.. Go on make stuff fancy and useless..

UPDATE:
lejoe_> marca: didn't you mean accessibility instead of usability in your last sentence (blog post)?

- I actually meant both..

just came across that one :) (never seen it before)

Yes, boys and toys..
But today the rest of the server arrived and this is definately not a boy-toy :)
We are looking forward to prabably switch in the next 2/3/4 weeks..

Well, due to limited resources on our old server, I had to buy a few new gadgets.
the case and the power supply did not arrive yet, but I picked up the first load yesterday.

Soon we will run our core system on this machine:
- 2.4ghz AMD 64 X2 EE (4600+ 65W) Processor
- 2gb Kingston DDR2-800 ECC CL5 Main Memory
- Asus M2R32-MVP, XPress 3200 (RD580) Mainboard
- 2 x 250gb WD Caviar RE (24/7) Harddisks (go into RAID1)
- Chenbro RM217 2U 19" Rack Case
- Seasonic SS-460H2U, 460W, 2U Server Power Supply

The base system will be Gentoo with a few Debian and Gentoo OpenVZ server.

well, I just had a nice experience with debian. besides many other things in debian which are really just crap, I found a hidden feature today..

first, read this..

5.5 /var/cache : Application cache data
5.5.1 Purpose
/var/cache is intended for cached data from applications. 
Such data is locally generated as a result of time-consuming I/O or calculation. 
The application must be able to regenerate or restore the data. Unlike /var/spool, 
the cached files can be deleted without data loss. The data must remain valid between 
invocations of the application and rebooting the system.

Files located under /var/cache may be expired in an application specific manner, 
by the system administrator, or both. The application must always be able to recover 
from manual deletion of these files (generally because of a disk space shortage). 
No other requirements are made on the data format of the cache directories.

If you haven't heard it from here || from here || from here || from here || whereever else there is something about liip, then you are probably not that much into webthings these days but anyway.. Bitflux and Mediagonal from Fribourg/Berne decided to go the same way with the same name - with very desirable colors..



not enough of news yet? (yes, here comes the crazy stuff) as the week has gone by, cablecom kinda set up the new line.. kinda? yes, kinda. they kinda forgot to set us up for 50% of the world.. but now, everything works as it should. crazy speed (100mbit) :) thanks a lot gassi!