Meetings

Main Topic: Free Linux virtual servers with Xen 3.0: a great developer tool
Speaker: David Rolston

David will explain what Xen is, and walk us through the setup on an existing Linux server. He will cover the basics of running multiple instances, and explain how a developer can easily set up multiple virtual Linux servers with completely separate LAMP environments, or conversely, how to clone an existing server with a complete LAMP environment.

David Rolston learned PHP and MySQL during a stint as head moderator of the PHP community site PHPFreaks.com and MySQLFreaks.com, he went on to author tutorials on LAMP and PHP OOP which have been read by over 100,000 people. David has participated in several Open Source projects, including The Serendipity Blog, as the author of the GeSHi plugin, and is the project leader of the Mambo & Joomla gallery plugin PonyGallery. These days he works as a consultant focused on open source technologies used in the creation of interactive web sites and web services.

Main Topic: AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript And XML: Zip Code fills in City, State fields
Speaker: Peter Benjamin

There is movement afoot towards thick client applications using AJAX. Combining JavaScript in your web page to go back to the web server and run server side CGI scripts to send back small chunks of information to display on the page is the "thickening" of the thin web client.

Simple database applications are increasing the user friendliness of web forms with prefilling fields based on a just entered value, for example, in the United States entering the 5 digit zip code also defines the City and State values. Why have the customer type those values in as well, when AJAX can do it for them?

AJAX methodology using the XMLhttpRequest method or ActiveX equivalent will be overviewed using the Zip Code as an example. The lesson will be based on JavaScript and PHP and MySQL code.

Peter Benjamin is a freelance computer consultant with three decades of experience; he's programmed mainframes and minis, and more flavors of Unix than you can shake a stick at. Peter also leads a Web technology study group called Web Spinners; see http://LAWebSpinners.org

Main Topic: Examining the SourceForge.net LAMP Stack by Ross Turk

Ross will speak about SourceForge's heterogeneous LAMP-based, open source infrastructure, providing in-depth descriptions of several core components, their interactions, and scalability models. He will analyze strengths and weaknesses of the site.

SourceForge.net, the world's largest open source destination, consistently ranks among the busiest 100 web sites. The services provided are various and, in some cases, very complex. Ross will present key site traffic and demographical metrics, and will discuss their constantly changing business requirements.

Ross Turk has served in multiple capacities since joining the Open Source Technology Group family in 2000. Most recently, as the Engineering Manager for SourceForge.net, he has led efforts to improve the site's usability, including the new Software Map and Search along with major navigation and aesthetic overhauls. In his current role, Ross is responsible for communicating with the SourceForge.net community and responding to its needs.

During his twelve-year career, Ross has focused on assessing and optimizing the business and engineering processes of a wide variety of engineering organizations, always with a passion for Open Source methodologies.

Ross recently spoke on this same subject at Linux World. Slides and podcast are available here.

Main Topic: Introduction to Drupal by Richard Schave

Richard's quest for social context engines, knowledge management, semantically interchangeable metadata and a user-based paradigm as tracked through the development of the last three releases of Drupal.

Content Management Systems are becoming more and more versatile in quickly building complete Websites with a minimum of coding. Drupal is one of the most popular and best established.

Those who saw our Joomla presentation should check out this comparison of Drupal vs Joomla feature sets.

Richard holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from calstatela (class of '05), and is deeply concerned with building communities that matter as a function of the improved dissemination of information between niche groups. He regularly attends the sisters of jazz sunday night jam at the world stage, and has recently built his first bio filter for his japanese goldfish pond. (They're just being Koi.)

Main Topic: DNS for the LAMP Developer by Peter Benjamin
**** Meeting Date Change****: Saturday, Jan 20th, 1-3pm

Most talks on DNS are for bind/named services for corporate LANs, which excludes what the everyday LAMP developer needs to know to create multiple web sites with separate domain names on their office computer. Also, to be included is how the Registrar and Global Registry systems work to create new domain names, transfer names, expire names. In addition, Registrar web interface to multiple accounts to handle domain names will be expounded.

Peter Benjamin is a freelance computer consultant with three decades of experience; he's programmed mainframes and minis, and more flavors of Unix than you can shake a stick at. Peter also leads a Web technology study group called Web Spinners; see http://LAWebSpinners.org

After the DNS presentation we will go over announced SCALE sessions as they relate to LAMP programmers.

Special Event: LAMPsig Holiday Party!!
Special Day: Saturday Dec 9th
Special Place: Philippe's French Dip

Join us for lunch and camaraderie at Philippe's French Dip at noon on Saturday December 9th.

We will try to get a room upstairs so that we don't disturb other diners with our well-known ribaldry. Make merry with fellow coders.

For those unfamiliar with Philippes, this is the birthplace of the French dip sandwich. They are also popular for their '40s-style menu and servers. Sides include coleslaw, potato salad, beef stew, and chili. Desserts range from pies to tapioca pudding to baked apples.

You can have a great meal for $10 or less!

Philippe The Original
1001 N. Alameda St.
Los Angeles CA. 90012

located 1 block north of Union Station, Olvera St, and the Hollywood 101 Freeway at Alameda and Ord St.
(213) 628-3781

Due to holidays near the fourth Wednesday of the next two months, LAMPSIG will not have our normal meetings during November and December.

We are not hibernating though. We will be working on our project for SCALE 4 in February of next year. We will soon be asking for volunteers to help with the project. Stay tuned for more information.