LAMPsig - Meetings

MySQL Clustering with the NDB storage engine

nospam@example.com (Peter Benjamin) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:00:00 -0400

Main Topic: MySQL Clustering with the NDB storage engine
Speaker: Solomon Chang

NDB is an enterprise-grade, scalable, and highly available clustering storage engine - a share-nothing cluster that has no single point of failure - which is capable of running on inexpensive commodity hardware. NDB allows the construction of cheap, scalable, and exceptionally reliable database clusters, without expensive, specialized or additional hardware or software.

A MySQL Cluster distributes processing over multiple servers, resulting in a single redundant and scalable solution. A cluster consists of a set of computers running MySQL servers to receive and respond to queries, storage nodes to store the data held in the cluster and to process the queries, and one or more management nodes to act as a central point to manage the entire cluster. There are many reasons for clustering a database and several different methods of clustering.

Solomon will discuss the creation, methodology, and usage of a MySQL Cluster, and demonstrate a cluster in practice with a series of virtual machines.

Solomon Chang is a MySQL certified DBA and the current acting director of LAMPSIG. He works as a professional Database Administrator in Venice Beach, and is a co-author of the MySQL Cluster Certification Study Guide.

May Meeting: Free Linux virtual servers with Xen 3.0

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Sat, 19 May 2007 21:16:00 -0400

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.

April Meeting: AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript And XML: Zip Code fills in City, State fields

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 15:05:00 -0400

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

March Meeting: Examining the SourceForge LAMP Stack

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 21:05:00 -0400

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.

February Meeting: An Introduction to Drupal

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 14:13:00 -0500

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.)

January Meeting: DNS for the LAMP Developer & SCALE 5 Preview

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:13:00 -0500

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.

LAMPsig Holiday Party!!

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:15:00 -0500

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

No Regular Meetings for November & December

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 19:39:00 -0500

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.

October Meeting: Myth TV

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 21:45:00 -0400

Main Topic: Build an Open Source Home Entertainment Network with Myth TV
Speaker: Clay Claiborne

Clay Claiborne recently had his "Linux Beach Media Center" named the "Ultimate Linux MultiMedia System" by Linux Journal. This system, which has been describe as "Tivo on Steroids" not only allows you watch, pause and record live TV including HDTV. It also rips DVDs and CDs and stores them on the hard drive, displays on your big screen TV, outputs eight channel sound or digital audio to your surround sound system, integrates Internet and home media, and utilizes a free on-line program guide. Of course it runs on Linux and the software that runs it, including MythTV is free. Clay will be demonstrating this system and giving members a general update on developments in the Linux world.

Clay Claiborne (cjc@Cosmoseng.com) is CEO of Linux hardware integrator Cosmos Engineering Company. He has worked in the computer industry off and on for 30 years, and has been a Linux enthusiast since 1995. In 1996 Clay developed the concept of selling Linux pre-installed on a hard drive and produced Linux On A Disk. He founded Linux Users, Los Angeles and was its president for eight years. Clay currently resides in Venice, CA.

September Meeting: MySQL Replication

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:37:00 -0400

Main Topic: MySQL Replication - Solomon Chang

MySQL Replication is the means by which one or more MySQL databases can keep data synchronized with a master server. The scope of replicated data can cover any range, whether a single table, or indiscriminately all the databases on the master server. MySQL Replication is beginning to find progressively more exposure in corporate production environments, where it sees use from providing hot backups, to distributing access load amongst large numbers of users.

This lecture will cover four main topics:

* Requirements of MySQL Replication
* Concepts of MySQL Replication
* Configuring MySQL Replication
* Troubleshooting MySQL Replication

Solomon will provide a master to replicate from, so attendees are encouraged to bring their own computers running MySQL (4.1 or later, please) to configure as a hands-on slave. Attendees will also have full access to Solomon's master. If there is time, more advanced topics will be discussed:

* Pyramid Architectures
* Dual Masters
* Circular Replication
* Circular Replication of Masters

Solomon Chang, a MySQL-certified DBA, practices his skills at PriceGrabber.com and has been involved with LAMPsig since its inception in 2003. He is also currently co-authoring the MySQL Cluster Certification Guide by MySQL Press. SCALE attendees may remember Solomon entertaining us at the grand piano during lunch breaks.

August Meeting: Symfony, a PHP Framework (part 2)

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:16:00 -0400

Main Topic: The Symfony PHP Framework

Symfony is one of the hottest PHP framework projects in the LAMP development community. Demo apps built with Symfony recently made the front page of both Digg.com and Ajaxian, and thousands of developers have downloaded and are using symfony to build their applications. Kevin Moreland is a freelance Linux sysadmin and LAMP developer who has been using Symfony in the development of an enterprise level application. He'll provide an introduction to the framework, and demonstration of its abilities, using the same basic outline from the CakePHP presentation from last month. The presentation will cover the following material:

-Introduction
- The Symfony structure: directories explained
- Models, Views, Controllers
- Starting with symfony
- using the command line tools
- Introduction to Propel
- Prototype an Application
- scaffolding what you need
- Customize the Application
- add a nice layout and enhance the views
- Example(s)
- Extending the Application with helpers and components
- Conclusion / Q & A

July Meeting: CakePHP, a PHP Framework

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 21:30:00 -0400

Main Topic: CakePHP, Rapid Developement Framework - Garrett J. Woodworth

CakePHP is about rapid development. Therefore, Garrett Woodworth will build a sample application as a demonstration of its ease of use.

During our meeting, Garrett will lead us through:

- Installing CakePHP

- The CakePHP structure- directories explained

- Models, Views, Controllers

- Starting with bake.php - using the command line tools

- Prototype an Application - scaffolding what you need

- Customize the Application - add a nice layout and enhance the views

- Extending the Application - we probably need some helpers and
components

- Conclusion / Q & A

Garrett J. Woodworth aka gwoo has been the Project Manager for CakePHP since August 2005, just after the release of 0.9.1_dev. Now CakePHP has passed 1.0 stable and has grown into one of the largest PHP communities. The CakePHP community has over 1900 members, a solid development and documentation team, and is supported by the Cake Software Foundation. Garrett is responsible for the CakeAMFPHP package, which links CakePHP with AMFPHP for Flash remoting goodness. Gwoo also produced several sample applications with CakePHP including a blog/photo gallery, a code-sharing bin, a Google Maps application, and a web based bake utility.

Garrett started developing PHP applications in 1999. He holds a JD, focused on intellectual property, and MBA in information systems from Fordham University.

June Meeting: More Joomla CMS

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:44:00 -0400

Main Topic: Joomla Content Management System (Part II) - Jorge Garifuna and David Rolston

Because the Joomla/Mambo Presentation by David Rolston and Jorge Garifuna was so popular and because we had to cut the meeting a little short, many attendees asked that we continue our discussion of Joomla at the June meeting. We have gotten a tentative acceptance to have a follow-up.

Jorge's demonstration showing how easy it is to install Joomla made this old dog try a new trick. Within 20 minutes I had the skeleton of a complete Website up and running.

This month we will go into more depth on the tools and add-ons available to Joomla. I heard several people say they would like a discussion of the templates and how they are used.

David Rolston is a Los Angeles based system developer who has worked for a variety of entertainment and game companies including Paramount Pictures, Broderbund software, and Vivendi Universal Games. He has focused most of his recent efforts on LAMP and is one of the founders of LampSIG. He contributes to a number of open source projects including Joomla, and is the project lead of a popular Joomla gallery component called PonyGallery.

Jorge Garifuna is the CEO of Garinet Global Inc. which offers a multitude of Website services for organizations, businesses, entertainers and family members. Jorge has been using Joomla customer sites for some time now.

May Meeting: Joomla Content Management System

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 24 May 2006 20:59:00 -0400

Main Topic: Joomla Content Management System - Jorge Garifuna and David Rolston

Content Management systems offer the promise of publishing tools, user authentication, modular structure and support for plugins, and most of the things an average person or business needs to build a professional looking full featured website.

Mambo/Joomla is both a CMS and one of the highest profile open source LAMP projects going, boasting a substantial user community and a number of open source awards.

David and Jorge will present a brief history of Mambo & Joomla, clarifying the connection and differences. They will include an installation of Joomla, explanation of the basic paradigms and terminology one needs to know to effectively install, administer and configure Mambo or Joomla, and offer some insight into the extensibility of Joomla from a developer's standpoint, by looking at some of the parts of a Joomla component and Joomla module.

David Rolston is a Los Angeles based system developer who has worked for a variety of entertainment and game companies including Paramount Pictures, Broderbund software, and Vivendi Universal Games. He has focused most of his recent efforts on LAMP and is one of the founders of LampSIG. He contributes to a number of open source projects including Joomla, and is the project lead of a popular Joomla gallery component called PonyGallery.

Jorge Garifuna is the CEO of Garinet Global Inc. which offers a multitude of Website services for organizations, businesses, entertainers and family members. Jorge joined LAMPsig at the end of last year and has added a new spark of enthusiasm to our group. He is quick to answer maillist questions or bring up new topics of interest to LAMP developers.

April Meeting: Open Source Exchange Replacement Platform

nospam@example.com (Jim Workman) — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:23:00 -0400

Main Topic: Open Source Exchange Replacement Platform - Charles Wyble
Now there is an Open Source alternative to Microsoft Exchange in the office network. Charles Wyble is the project founder and lead developer of OSER Platform. He will show us how to get rid of expensive per-seat licenses without giving up core functionality.

The OSER Platform uses Postfix and Courier IMAP for email, Jabber for collaboration, Clam Anti Virus and Spam Assassin to provide world class protection. It uses OpenLDAP and SyncML for Contact Management, and a Webmin-based administration suite to easily control all aspects of the applications.

If time permits, Charles will also cover a sub project which is an Asterisk+Festival+Sphynx interface.

Charles Wyble is a senior Linux administrator with a consulting firm on the side. He also works on the Open Source Chicago Project to provide compatibility with Excel & Powerpoint files, and belongs to the Los Angeles/Ventura Asterisk Users Group. He will be joining us all the way from Oxnard.