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Stephen
Pasties Resumé Consulting Mi Jobs C CGI libraries Astro Images Astro Links |
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Offsite Links
Project Blue Book SETI Mendelssohn Club |
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Maintained by
suitti@uitti.net,
Stephen Uitti |
Send me
email, or call (313) 389-5609.
Web Master
I provide Web Master services for
Project Blue Book,
a non profit
SETI@Home
club. This site features data derived
daily from user statistics data published for clubs such as
Project Blue Book.
Data is added to a database, and historic data is
charted.
Even for sites without appliations ability, new content
can be delivered daily giving a dynamic feel to a site.
Apache installation and configuration
I like to install the Apache Web Server
from source, rather than binary distribution. For some platforms
such as Linux, one can use compiler options for the specific machine(s)
to be used. A binary installation is likely compiled for the
80386 so that any x86 processor will run it. Further, I like to
compile in static support for the modules that will be used all the
time, leaving modules that are not currently in use as dynamically
loadable modules. For some platforms, this yields a 5% improvement
in performance.
For some platforms, such as AIX,
Sun SPARC,
or Tru64,
the native compiler can out perform the open source
gcc C compiler.
Recently, Norton Healthcare
made use of my installation services. Included in the plan were four
sessions of overview for the permanant staff. Also,
The Webalizer was installed
for low overhead, quick glance summary statistics. A simple cron
script ensures that the generated web pages are up to date for
each server.
One simple
database backed application,
keeps track of potato chips consumed at the office.
It provides data entry, correction, and searching.
Sounds frivolous? It is. It was written as a demo
for a C language CGI library, soon to be released publicly.
The library supports
Oracle,
Postgres,
and
msql,
along with simple data password access to an ndbm or gdbm database.
Most people access the net from home via fairly slow dialup.
Often, 56K modems deliver less than 2,000 bytes per second.
Therfore, my bias is towards web sites whose pages are small,
load quickly, and display quickly.
I've used
Dreamweaver,
MS Front Page,
and even converted word processor documents and spread sheets
as HTML. Though these techniques can produce pages that almost
do what you intend very quickly, they tend to produce huge pages
that require long downloads and often considerable browser CPU time
for display. Therefore, most of my web pages are
created with a simple text editor, such as Emacs, notepad, or vi.
Oh, yes, I use meta tags when appropriate, so that
search engines can
be used to find content.
For starters, without discipline, a web site quickly becomes
disorganized and unmaintainable. Obsolete files clutter the
web server and serve as a distraction from the task at hand.
Worse, on site search engines may provide unintended access
to incorrect, obsolete, or proprietary data. Automated tools
provide the ability to identify unused and orphaned files.
Lists of such files can be examined and the tree can be pruned.
Many graphics programs produce images that take more space than
they need to. In these days of cheap disk space, one is tempted
to say, "Who cares?". But these images take longer to download,
and reduce the effective speed of your web site. Simple open source
tools have been shown to reduce
Photoshop
and
Paint Shop
GIF images by an average of over 30% - without changing a single
pixel. Why? These products do not seem to optimize the color
palette very efficiently. Images that have only 16 distinct
colors can be encoded using a color lookup table with just 16
entries, and each pixel can then be represented with just 4 bits.
The GIF format will then happily encode two pixels per byte, instead
of one byte per pixel. The LZW compression then makes them smaller still.
My work at one company
involved 1,204 images. New images were, on average, 69.6%
of the original size, for a savings of 534,990 bytes. One overnight
script run was required.
Sure, it's time to move to
PNG images.
Tests with many images show that PNG's compression is better,
even after the above optimization.
GIF supports images with up to only 256 colors.
PNG supports 24 bit color images with lossless compression.
Smaller, faster, cheaper, better!
Jpeg is great for 24 bit color photos where a small amount of
compression loss still provides acceptable visual performance.
Web Applications Development
Numerous web based applications have been developed. Many
for corportate intranet web servers. These have been implemented
in C, Perl, sh, and Java, with Apache and Netscape Suitespot servers.
Some applications operated under Apache and Netscape simultaneously.
Some applications required SSL security. Many emited pages with
embedded Javascript. Some applications were not CGI applications
in themselves, but rather were called by server side include scripts.
This last option allows a web designer considerable freedom in
crafting a web site while accessing dynamic data easily.
Web Applications Integration
Why reinvent the wheel? Why buy a commercial product when
one can get high grade applications for free or cheap via open
source software?
My customers loved
The Webalizer.
They still use
Perlfect Search.
There are many, many such applications available, covering most
of the tasks that many sites need.
In the old days, companies would required that vendors put
the source code to their proprietary product in escrow, so
that if the vendor closes up shop, the customer would not
be left out in the cold.
With open source, you have the source. You can cut your own
CD archive. And, there are hundreds of thousands of people like
myself who will support it, upgrade it, enhance it, integrated it,
or do whatever it is you need.
Web Design
Web Performance Tuning
Everyone has access to
resources
to check web pages easily. I have the discipline to use them.
I look for five stars. There are also simple tools like
the Apache Benchmarking Tool (ab) that comes with an Apache
source distribution. Simple tools like this produce the
important answers quickly. For internet pages and some applications,
ZDNet
provides quick statistics.
Web Site Cleanup
Web servers and browsers provide excellent means to provide
access to up date data and interactive applications.
Just copy a file to the server and it's published.
What could be easier?