Colophon: about this site
Some Stuff About Software Used on this Site
by Web Monkey Buz ™
As one who collects other people’s photos Charles is truly appreciative of how little credit clever people often receive for having done great things.
Here, then, is recognition of the fantastic achievements of a bunch of strangers, who, by sharing their efforts and ideas, have truly expanded what the word “community” means and helped to make this site possible.
CharlesPhoenix.com is built atop WordPress, an open-source, community-supported blogging system that’s written in PHP with a mySQL database back there someplace storing all of this nonsense that he writes. While there’s lots of freely available software out there for running a blog, WordPress is a true stand-out in its ease-of-use, features, and customizability (there are something like two and a half bazillion plug-ins for extending the already nifty built-in features). Plus, their slogan “Code is Poetry” strikes me as a Zen way of approaching one’s work.
We’re also using phpList for our mailing list management. Like WordPress, phpList is written in PHP (duh?) and uses mySQL. We migrated off our old email system to phpList because of its superior management features — and amazingly, it is free, too, and works like a champ!
Analysis of our web server’s logs requires yet another piece of free (can you believe it?) software called awstats (written in Perl, which is different from PHP like Jell-O Pudding Pops is from Jell-O Snackables, just don’t ask me how). AWSTATS provides really nifty reports with graphs and detailed visitor break-downs that really are invaluable in learning how people are using this site.
This site is hosted on DreamHost’s Linux servers running Apache. DreamHost provides tons and tons of storage and bandwidth, and ask very little money in return. I’m told they’re able to do this at a profit, no less, because they don’t maintain a costly data center, but instead employ refurbished mood rings that glow green when all systems are ‘go’. This explanation made sense to me, though now with the advantage of hindsight I see that they were probably fun’n me.
To all of the people who work on, extend, and support these programs and services – I salute you and wish to acknowledge a sincere dept of thanks for writing great stuff, documenting it, and then giving it away.
For an in-depth description I’m currently writing-up a lengthy, and to most ears, incomprehensible, explanation of the various tools used in constructing this site, particularly the exceptional WordPress plug-ins we’re using. I’d advise you to surf over there if you want more info.
this file: page.php
