far away mac » PHP

Moodle: A Quick Install for Educational Sites

Brian Stucki — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:12:05 +0000

We work with a lot of schools, universities, and academies. Moodle is a good fit for those those looking for a “free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.”

Because Moodle uses the great MAMP package, it is as simple as dragging and dropping to get started with the site on a Mac server. And for those who use Leopard Server, there is a step-by-step guide for you too.

Moodle is free and can be downloaded for PPC or Intel Macs from the official site.

Asaph: A Small Blogging System

Brian Stucki — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:20:51 +0000

Asaph is a blogging system, but not like one you’re used to. I’d say it’s better described as a combination of Wordpress and Twitter.

Once you download and install the application on your server, you can quickly post quotes or pictures to your blog. You can either do that thru the admin section, or quickly with a bookmarklet in your browser. (He has a video showing you how this is done.

To get an idea of how it looks, you can take a look at the developer’s Asaph blog. Or if you want to jump right in and play with it, you can get it at the developer’s site. (This is a link to his Asaph Category on his blog. Since the app is still in beta, he is releasing versions of it via his blog.)

Chyrp: A Lightweight Blogging Engine

Brian Stucki — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:04:12 +0000

“Chyrp is a blogging engine designed to be very lightweight while retaining functionality. It is driven by PHP and MySQL (with some AJAX thrown in), and has a pimpin’ theme and module engine, so you can personalize it however you want.”

I’m a big fan of Wordpress and use it often in sites that I build. But, Chyrp seems to be a good option as well.

Head on over to their site to learn more about it and to use their cool demo system. Once you’re convinced, you’ll be glad to hear the download and use of chyrp is free.

Google Analytics: Track Your Website Traffic

Brian Stucki — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:01:55 +0000

As with all things Google does, Google Analytics is an incredible useful tool that is easy to use and is free.

Google Analytics has been re-designed to help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. It’s done by simply adding a little bit of code to your web pages.

You can learn more (and get started) on the official Google Analytics site.

Zen Cart: Open Source Shopping Cart

Brian Stucki — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:02:06 +0000

A lot of our customers at Macminicolo have a machine to run the shopping carts for their business. They like the idea of controlling the whole box that will deal with transactions and financial data.

Zen Cart “is an open source online store management system. It is PHP-based, using a MySQL database and HTML components.” The install process is not too difficult, and there is a great community to help with any issues.

You can see the long list of features and download the program from the Official Zen Cart site.

Roundcube: Nice Webmail With Easy Install

Brian Stucki — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:57:25 +0000

Some of the more popular webmail installs (Horde, SquirrelMail) are a bit slow and not very good looking. Yesterday I installed RoundCube and was very impressed. It really behaves like an online application and looks wonderful. It’s responsive and quick with searches.

Roundcube is quite easy to install and runs on a standard PHP/MySQL configuration. Change a few lines in the code, create a database and you’re ready to go.

You can download the projects at the Roundcube project page and the install instructions are there too.