Describes in exhaustive detail how to change configuration settings and implement a custom php.ini file for use with the Apache Web Server.

View latest official php.ini

• When php run as Apache Module (mod_php)
• When php run as CGI
• When cgi?d php is run with wrapper (for FastCGI)

RUN PHP AS APACHE MODULEAddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php .htm RUN PHP AS CGIAddHandler php-cgi .php .htm CGI PHP WRAPPER FOR CUSTOM PHP.INIAddHandler phpini-cgi .php .htmAction phpini-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-custom-ini.cgi FAST-CGI SETUP WITH PHP-CGI WRAPPER FOR CUSTOM PHP.INIAddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgiAddHandler php-cgi .php .htmAction php-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-wrapper.fcgi CUSTOM PHP CGI BINARY SETUPAddHandler php-cgi .php .htmAction php-cgi /cgi-bin/php.cgi SetEnv PHPRC /location/todir/containing/phpinifile

Place your php.ini file in the dir of your cgi’d php, in this case /cgi-bin/

htaccess might look something like this

AddHandler php-cgi .php .htmAction php-cgi /cgi-bin/php5.cgi

Create a wrapper script called phpini.cgi to export the directory that contains the php.ini file as PHPRC

#!/bin/shexport PHPRC=/home/site/askapache.com/incexec /user/public_html/cgi-bin/php5.cgi

In your .htaccess or httpd.conf file

AddHandler php-cgi .phpAction php-cgi /cgi-bin/phpini.cgi

NOTE: Custom PHP.ini with FastCGI on DreamHost

You will have a shell wrapper script something like this:

#!/bin/shexport PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=3exec /user/public_html/cgi-bin/php5.cgi#!/bin/shexport PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=3exec /user/public_html/cgi-bin/php.cgi -c /home/user/php.ini

NOTES:

• Since PHP 5.1.0, it is possible to refer to existing .ini variables from within .ini files. open_basedir = ${open_basedir} “:/new/dir”
• In order for PHP to read it, config file must be named php.ini
• SetEnv PHPRC only works when using PHP as CGI, not when using php as an Apache Module

PHP looks for custom php.ini in this order:

Src: PHP Runtime Configuration

In the Current working directory

1. Place your php.ini in the same directory as the php executable.
2. If php executable is here: /home/user1/public_html/cgi-bin/
3. then place your php.ini file here: /home/user1/public_html/cgi-bin/php.ini

In the path specified by the environment variable PHPRC

1. If you can use SetEnv in .htaccess files–> in the root .htaccess file specify the path to the directory containing php.ini SetEnv PHPRC /home/user1
2. If you can’t use SetEnv and you are using a wrapper shell script place this in your wrapper shell script export PHPRC=/home/user1

In the path that was defined at compile time with –with-config-file-path

• The path in which the php.ini file is looked for can be overridden using the -c argument in command line mode. (cgi) /home/user1/public_html/cgi-bin/php.cgi -c /home/user1/php.ini
• With this option one can either specify a directory where to look for php.ini or you can specify a custom INI file directly (which does not need to be named php.ini),$ php -c /custom/directory/custom-file.ini my_script.php
• Under Windows, the compile-time path is the Windows directory. Place php.ini in one of the directories, C:windows or C:winnt

NOTE: The Apache web server changes the directory to root at startup causing PHP to attempt to read php.ini from the root filesystem if it exists. If php-SAPI.ini exists (where SAPI is used SAPI, so the filename is e.g. php-cli.ini or php-apache.ini), it’s used instead of php.ini. SAPI name can be determined by php_sapi_name(). you can use also use the predefined PHP_SAPI constant instead of php_sapi_name()

Read this article: If your server is running Windows

Specific to Powweb, but can be used elsewhere.

SetEnv PHPRC /home/users/web/bEXAMPLE/pow.EXAMPLE

1. In the folder above the htdocs (your ROOT) for the domain you want a custom php.ini file for, create an htaccess file with the above content:
2. Then create a blank php.ini also in your ROOT directory (/home/users/web/bEXAMPLE/pow.EXAMPLE). Next copy the powweb php.ini text to your php.ini file and customize it.
3. You can test to make sure you are using the new php.ini by running phpinfo(); If you want multiple php.ini files, then use .htaccess files to set the PHPRC variable to the directory that the php.ini file you want to use is in.

File structure from ROOT directory.|– site1.com| `– htdocs| | |– cgi-bin| | | `– dl.cgi| | `– index.html| |– phpsessions| |– php.ini| `– .htaccess|– site2.org| `– htdocs| | |– cgi-bin| | | `– dl.cgi| | `– index.html| |– phpsessions| |– php.ini| `– .htaccess`– site3.net`– htdocs| |– cgi-bin| | `– dl.cgi| `– index.html|– phpsession|– php.ini`– .htaccess Powweb File Permissions

Remember to chmod 640 all .htaccess files, chmod 600 your php.ini files, chmod 600 your php flies, and chmod 705 your cgi scripts.. if you don’t want ftp users to be able to change the file than chmod 400.

What’s the difference between PHP-CGI and PHP as an Apache module? Benefits of PHP-CGI

• php-cgi is more secure. The PHP runs as your user rather than dhapache. that means you can put your database passwords in a file readable only by you and your php scripts can still access it!
• php-cgi is more flexible. because of security concerns when running PHP as an Apache module, we disabled commands with the non-CGI PHP. this will cause install problems with certain popular PHP scripts if you run PHP not as a CGI!
• php-cgi is just as fast as running PHP as an Apache module, and we include more default libraries.

Caveats of PHP-CGI

If one of these is a show-stopper for you, you can easily switch to running PHP as an Apache module and not CGI, but be prepared for a bunch of potential security and ease-of-use issues! If you don’t know what any of these drawbacks mean, you’re fine just using the default setting of PHP-CGI and not worrying about anything!

• Variables in the URL which are not regular ?foo=bar variables won’t work without using (mod_rewrite)
• Custom php directives in .htaccess files (php_include_dir /home/user;/home/user/example_dir) won’t work.
• The $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] variable will return the php.cgi binary rather than the name of your script
• Persistant database connections will not work. PHP’s mysql_pconnect() function will just open a new connection because it can’t find a persistant one.

The configuration file (called php3.ini in PHP 3, and simply php.ini as of PHP 4) is read when PHP starts up. for the server module versions of PHP, this happens only once when the web server is started. Note: for the CGI and CLI version, php.ini is read on every invocation.

When using PHP as an Apache module, you can also change the configuration settings using directives in Apache configuration files (e.g. httpd.conf) and .htaccess files. you will need one of these privileges:

AllowOverride OptionsAllowOverride All

With PHP 4 and PHP 5, there are several Apache directives that allow you to change the PHP configuration from within the Apache configuration files.

NOTE: with PHP 3, there are Apache directives that correspond to each configuration setting in the php3.ini name, except the name is prefixed by “php3_”.

php_value name valueSets the value of the specified directive. can be used only with PHP_INI_ALL and PHP_INI_PERDIR type directives. to clear a previously set value use none as the value.php_flag name on|offUsed to set a boolean configuration directive. can be used only with PHP_INI_ALL and PHP_INI_PERDIR type directives.php_admin_value name valueSets the value of the specified directive. this can not be used in .htaccess files. any directive type set with php_admin_value can not be overridden by .htaccess or virtualhost directives. to clear a previously set value use none as the value.php_admin_flag name on|offUsed to set a boolean configuration directive. this can not be used in .htaccess files. any directive type set with php_admin_flag can not be overridden by .htaccess or virtualhost directives.

NOTE: Don’t use php_value to set boolean values. use php_flag instead.

mod_php .htaccess example

add settings to a .htaccess file with ‘php_flag’ like this:

php_flag register_globals offphp_flag magic_quotes_gpc on

In .htaccess, only true/false on/off flags can be set using php_flag. to set other values you need to use php_value, like this:

php_value upload_max_filesize 20M

PHP_INI_SYSTEM can be configured per-directory by placing it inside a per-directory block in httpd.conf

# Selectively enable APC for wildly popular directories# apc.enabled is off in php.ini to reduce memory use<directory /usr/local/apache2/public_html/forum>php_flag apc.enabled On</directory>

NOTE: In order for these settings to work in your htaccess file, you will need to add “Options” to your AllowOverride specifications for the directory/webserver if it’s not already allowed.

Src: How to change configuration settings

<ifModule mod_php5.c>php_value include_path “.:/home/askapache/lib/php”php_admin_flag safe_mode on</ifModule><ifModule mod_php4.c>php_value include_path “.:/home/askapache/lib/php”php_admin_flag safe_mode on</ifModule><ifModule mod_php3.c>php3_include_path “.:/home/askapache/lib/php”php3_safe_mode on</ifModule>

When running PHP on Windows, the configuration values can be modified on a per-directory basis using the Windows registry. The configuration values are stored in the registry key HKLMSOFTWAREPHPPer Directory Values, in the sub-keys corresponding to the path names. for example, configuration values for the directory c:inetpubwwwroot would be stored in the key HKLMSOFTWAREPHPPer Directory Valuescinetpubwwwroot. The settings for the directory would be active for any script running from this directory or any subdirectory of it. The values under the key should have the name of the PHP configuration directive and the string value. PHP constants in the values arenot parsed. however, only configuration values changeable in PHP_INI_USER can be set this way, PHP_INI_PERDIR values can not.

Regardless of how you run PHP, you can change certain values at runtime of your scripts through ini_set().

If you are interested in a complete list of configuration settings on your system with their current values, you can execute the phpinfo() function, and review the resulting page. you can also access the values of individual configuration directives at runtime using ini_get() or get_cfg_var().

One of the most common reasons why you get

No input file specified

(AKA ‘the second most useful error message in the world’) is that you have set doc_root (in php.ini) to a value which is to the DocumentRoot defined in the apache configuration.

This is the same for other webservers. for example, on lighttpd, make sure the server.document-root value is the same as what is defined as doc_root in php.ini.

PHP.ini file Downloads

• DreamHost non-cgi php.ini
• Development php.ini from php CVS
• Default PowWeb php.ini file for PHP 5.1.5

External Links

• Apache module mod_env
• PHP: Using PHP from the command line
• PHP: Apache 2.0 on Unix systems
• Maven Apache Mod Fastcgi PHP
• Using PHP As a Shell Scripting Language

User-Contributed Notes

There are a couple of errors in the mod_rewrite directives given. I found that the following works:

RewriteEngine onRewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !200RewriteRule ^cgi-bin/php.cgi – [F]

I have noticed that some people have noted that running PHP as a CGI program can run slowly compared with a compiled in module. some have noted that they want to use FastCGI but are hesitant. I found that using the Apache 2′s CGID module was a great way to speed up performance almost to the same level as an “so”-installed PHP module but you get the added benefit of running each virtual host under it’s own user and group.

In my testing I got 44 pages per second using PHP as a module and I got roughly the same performance (within 5%) running PHP as a CGI program through CGID. CGID is also really easy to set up. just add –enable-cgid to your Apache configure command and you’re good to go. just set up PHP as a CGI normally. I’m sure that there’s extra RAM used for this method but RAM is as cheap as borscht anyways so it shouldn’t be a major factor when trying to speed up PHP CGI.

Here are my two cents of knowledge about php-cgi when running CGI script from prompt: If you get the “No input file specified.” error, create the environment variable “SCRIPT_FILENAME=C:filestest.php”. If you get “Security Alert!” error and it tells you to create the REDIRECT_STATUS environment variable, it is because you have the SERVER_NAME variable set but not the REDIRECT_STATUS variable. Hence, if you have SERVER_NAME, you also need REDIRECT_STATUS, but not otherwise. and you pretty much should have SCRIPT_FILENAME at all time.

–enable-force-cgi-redirect won’t work in FastCGI mode as of 4.3.10, it is only supported in CGI mode. however, you can achieve the same result with mod_rewrite under Apache.

RewriteEngine onRewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !=200RewriteRule /cgi-bin/path/to/php – [F]

This will only allow internal redirection, thus forbidding direct HTTP access to php interpreter.

PHP CGI with VirtualHosts. this is what I found out while trying to get php to work as CGI with Apache VirtualHosts.

1. set ‘cgi.fix_pathinfo=1′ in php.ini or the apache logs will show ‘unexpected T_STRING’ in the php binary.
2. leave doc_root commented out (php.ini also) or you’ll only see ‘No input file specified.’, instead of the expected output.

You can then turn on the php support for a particular vhost by defining an action/handler inside the corresponding <virtualHost>

Action php-script /cgi-bin/php

PHP works with Apache and suEXEC like this: (Assuming that suEXEC ist allready installed and working)

Install PHP as CGI binary (e.g. in /usr/local/bin/php) (compile with –enable-force-cgi-redirect) and create a Link inside cgi-bin directory to make php-cgi accessable:

cd /usr/local/apache/cgi-binln /usr/local/bin/php php

Edit your httpd.conf file:

AddHandler php4-script .phpAction php4-script /cgi-bin/php <virtualHost 123.456.789.0:80>User exampleuserGroup examplegroup …</virtualHost>

Restart Apache and PHP-scripts are now called under the user-id of exampleuser and group-id of examplegroup.

A replacement for suexec is suphp (suphp.org).

suPHP is a tool for executing PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners. it consists of an Apache module (mod_suphp) and a setuid root binary (suphp) that is called by the Apache module to change the uid of the process executing the PHP interpreter.

A tip for Windows-users: PHP first seem to look in the php-directory for php.ini, and if that file does not exist, it looks in the Windows directory. I renamed the file php.ini-dist to php.ini and copied it to my Windows directory, and then I modified the infamous “cgi.force_redirect = 0″ in the php.ini file located in the Windows directory, to make it work. But it did not because it reads from the “original” php.ini – So when I deleted this php.ini things started working again

If you are using php per cgi and have additionally mod_gzip enabled you have to disable mod_gzip for the php cgi binary to use –enable-cgi-redirect. mod_gzip sets the REDIRECT_STATUS always to 200 which makes it impossible for the php binary to know when it was called directly or when it was called by a redirect.

To use php-cgi with suexec it will be nice that each virtual host has ist’s own php.ini. this goes with :

SetEnv PHPRC /var/www/server/test.com/conf

But suexec will kill this environment cause it don’t know that it is “save” so you must edit the suexec.c for compiling

When using php in cgi mode, it’s often a good idea to take a look at the apache suexec feature in addition to the –force-cgi-redirect option.

If you do virutal hosting, you can turn safe mode on and off for different Apache Virutal Hosts using the php_admin_value directive. this also allows you to have customised maximum execution times, disabled functions, etc; anything which is set in php.ini. Note that by placing a base_dir for each virutal host, this means PHP CANNOT access files below this heirachy; strongly recomended for customer hosting.

Example (httpd.conf):

<virtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>DocumentRoot /var/www/html/safephphost/ServerName safephpphp_admin_value safe_mode 1php_admin_value open_base_dir /var/www/html/safephphost/php_admin_value sendmail_from user.mail.net</virtualHost>

If you care about security, you are better of setting: register_globals = off, enable_track_vars = on.

If you want to use suexec and reference your php interpreter via #!/usr/local/bin/php, be sure to compile php WITHOUT –enable-force-cgi-redirect.

suEXEC require CGI mode, and slow down the scripts.

1. Install php as DSO mode. (for max speed and low secure)
2. Make a seperate CGI install with –enable-force-cgi-redirect, place php to cgi-bin
3. For more secure with suEXEC, choose one of the following method:
   1. Place a .htaccess file containing this to override main config to protect All php files in subdirectory:AddType application/x-httpd-wphp phpAction application/x-httpd-wphp /cgi-bin/php
   2. add following in httpd.conf and rename sensitive files with the ext .sphp AddType application/x-httpd-wphp sphpAction application/x-httpd-wphp /cgi-bin/php
   3. Add “php_value doc_root /home/user/html_docs” to each virtual host directive in httpd.conf

Notes on User Notes

cgi.fix_pathinfo Provides real PATH_INFO/PATH_TRANSLATED support for CGI. PHP’s previous behaviour was to set PATH_TRANSLATED to SCRIPT_FILENAME, and to not grok what PATH_INFO is. for more information on PATH_INFO, see the cgi specs. Setting this to 1 will cause PHP CGI to fix it’s paths to conform to the spec. a setting of zero causes PHP to behave as before. Default is zero. you should fix your scripts to use SCRIPT_FILENAME rather than PATH_TRANSLATED.

cgi.force_redirect gi.force_redirect is necessary to provide security running PHP as a CGI under most web servers. Left undefined, PHP turns this on by default. you can turn it off at your own risk.

cgi.redirect_status_env If cgi.force_redirect is turned on, and you are not running under Apache or Netscape (iPlanet) web servers, you may need to set an environment variable name that PHP will look for to know it is OK to continue execution.

NOTE: Setting this variable may cause security issues, know what you are doing first.

fastcgi.impersonate FastCGI under IIS (on WINNT based OS) supports the ability to impersonate security tokens of the calling client. this allows IIS to define the security context that the request runs under. mod_fastcgi under Apache does not currently support this feature (03/17/2002) Set to 1 if running under IIS. Default is zero.

Article Sources: Custom PHP.ini tips and tricks

Apple just released its annual environmental update, which whether you view it skeptically or not, comes with an intriguing surprise: The company says it’s planning to build a massive 100-acre solar array to power a new data center in North Carolina.

In its “Facilities Report: 2012 Environmental Update,” after describing all the energy improvements it claims to have made from 2006 forward, Apple mentions the 2011-commissioned Maiden, North Carolina data center, a facility it says “demonstrates [its] commitment to reduce the environmental impact of our facilities through energy- efficient, green building design.”

Boasts Cupertino: “The facility is exceptionally energy efficient and has earned the coveted LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. we know of no other data center of comparable size that has achieved this level of LEED certification.”

(MORE: Want a Green Funeral? Liquefy your Body with the ‘Resomator’!)

The LEED rating — the name stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” — isn’t without its issues, but as a benchmark for “building sustainability,” it’s probably the most prestigious rating a company can earn, and “Platinum” is at the tip-top of a scale that includes (in rank order) “Certified,” “Silver” and “Gold.” The first structure in the U.S. to receive it was a building in Washington, D.C., and that only a few years ago. The D.C. building reportedly earned top marks for its “low-emissive glass in the curtain wall combined with chillers for energy efficiency and a solar-reflective roof with an 8,000-square-foot vegetated area to reduce heat island effect and peak storm runoff.”

Apple’s Maiden center will itself include its own battery of environmental conservation measures, including outside-air cooling mechanics, higher voltage power (to increase efficiency by reducing power loss), LED lighting with motion sensors, a “construction process” sourced from recycled and local materials and a “white cool-roof design to provide maximum solar reflectivity.”

And that’s just what’s inside the building. Cupertino says it’ll power much of the facility with what it describes as “the nation’s largest end user-owned, onsite solar array,” built on land surrounding the data center. We’re talking 100-acres, 20-megawatts big. Apple says it’ll supply the Maiden facility with 42 million kWh of “clean, renewable energy” each year.

Furthermore, Apple says it’s building a 5-megawatt fuel cell installation beside the Maiden data center that’ll go online later this year, making it the “largest non-utility fuel cell installation operating anywhere in the country.” It’ll power the installation using “100 percent biogas,” allowing it to provide “more than 40 million kWh of constant renewable energy each year.”

The Maiden data center is Apple’s latest attempt to improve its lackluster environmental image. just last year, Greenpeace placed Cupertino at the bottom of a list, calling it the “least green” tech company because of Apple’s allegedly “dirty” data centers. In its report, Greenpeace noted North Carolina had become an attractive location for new data centers because of huge tax incentives and cheap electricity prices, but noted the “generation mix in North Carolina is one of the dirtiest in the country, with only 4% of electricity generation from renewable sources and the balance from coal (61%) and nuclear (30.8%).”

Greenpeace says the U.S. harbors about 40% of the world’s data center servers, and that it’s estimated these farms guzzle nearly 3% of the nation’s power. Noting Apple’s Maiden data center cost $1 billion to build, Greenpeace says it could use up to 100MW of power, or about as much as you’d need to power some 80,000 U.S. homes.

Despite Apple’s “coveted” LEED award, then, the question seems to be whether a “green” facility that still consumes incredible amounts of allegedly “dirty electricity” is, in the end, providing a net benefit.

MORE: Apple’s Mountain Lion Developer Preview Bricked my MacBook

Article Sources: Apple Building Mammoth Solar Array in North Carolina, but State’s Electricity Among ‘Dirtiest’ in Country

The various elements of Umbraco’s CMS database are referred to as document types. you define how a document type functions and operates by way of macros (not how it looks; that’s done with CSS). from version 3 of Umbraco, which was only a few years ago, up until now, there have been unofficially three, and actually four somewhat different methodologies for producing macros. Version 3 relied on XSLT, a W3C standard since the late 1990s. XSLT effectively leverages XML to embed server-side instructions into an HTML page, that translates data from an outside source into content and HTML markup. the client never sees the code, or, to use W3C’s term for it, the stylesheet, even though it wasn’t being used for style in this context.

XSLT seemed to be the right choice at first, because it was inarguably a world standard, nobody owned it, and it was well documented. it was terribly cumbersome, however. Here’s an excerpt from a CMS I created for Umbraco v3 two years ago. It’s a code segment that projects the three newest headlines from a blog with my name.

<xsl:param name=”currentPage”/>
<xsl:template match=”/”>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select=”$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::root/descendant-or-self::node [@nodeName='Scott Fulton']/node [string(data [@alias='umbracoNaviHide']) != ’1′]”>
<xsl:sort select=”data [@alias = 'DisplayDate']” order=”descending” />
<xsl:if test=”position() <= 3″>
<li>
<a href=”{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)}”>
<xsl:value-of select=”data [@alias='DisplayHeadline']“/>
</a>
</li>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>

It looks far more confusing than it actually is. the easiest part is spotting the pure HTML, such as the UL block where the results are rendered. you can spot certain global variables, or parameters, by the $ prefix, as in $currentPage. Then the whole bit about ancestor-or-self::root and all that is part of another W3C standard called XPath, which is used here to navigate through the database tree. to make sure the articles are sorted by the date of publication as opposed to the date of creation, I invoked the DisplayDate variable as the sort parameter sent to the xsl:sort instruction. (Every single XSLT instruction has an xsl: prefix. I sometimes spent hours wondering why some macros were stuck, only to find I had written “xslt:” as the prefix.)

But the layers of abstraction between the variable name and the XSLT instruction were three-fold, and this was the case all the time. select=”data [@alias = 'DisplayDate']” used single quotes to denote the variable separate from the attribution, which was always preceded by @alias (JavaScript devs, imagine always having to write “the name of the variable is” before every variable), which is demarcated by [square brackets] that separate the attribution from the data market (“the following data is data”), which is then set off from the property name using double-quotes. the result looked like the cat had danced on the keyboard, and few XSLT veterans would claim it as legitimate.

With version 4, the Umbraco developers began taking controversial, but necessary, steps to move toward a more sensible approach. As Microsoft began its major push for an architecture called MVC (Model / View / Controller) for ASP.NET, it only made sense that Umbraco adopt it somehow. it fit perfectly with Umbraco’s original philosophy of separating the data from the rendering of the data, and separating that from the device that controls it.

But the easiest route to embracing MVC appeared to be the direct one, which with respect to a Microsoft technology meant embracing a Microsoft language: C#. After Microsoft made available a broader array of development tools such as WebMatrix that didn’t tie devs down to using the commercial Visual Studio, the skepticism winded down.

Now using Umbraco’s third iteration of Microsoft’s Razor – its scripting language based on C# – it is entirely feasible for the above monstrosity of an excerpt to be boiled down to a single instruction.

With thanks to long-time Umbraco contributor Warren Buckley, here’s a complete example of the change in legibility from XSLT to Umbraco v5 Razor. the following two excerpts do the exact same thing. Here’s the Umbraco v3 version:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [ <!ENTITY nbsp " "> ]>
<xsl:stylesheet
version=”1.0″
xmlns:xsl=”w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform”
xmlns:msxml=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt”
xmlns:umbraco.library=”urn:umbraco.library” {0}
exclude-result-prefixes=”msxml umbraco.library {1}”>

<xsl:output method=”xml” omit-xml-declaration=”yes” />

<xsl:param name=”currentPage”/>

<!– Don’t change this, but add a ‘contentPicker’ element to –>
<!– your macro with an alias named ‘source’ –>
<xsl:variable name=”source” select=”/macro/source”/>

<xsl:template match=”/”>

<!– the fun starts here –>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select=”umbraco.library:GetXmlNodeById($source)/node [string(data [@alias='umbracoNaviHide']) != ’1′]”>
<li>
<a href=”{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)}”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@nodeName”/>
</a>
</li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Here is the Umbraco v5 version:

@inherits PartialViewMacroPage
@using Umbraco.Cms.Web
@using Umbraco.Cms.Web.Macros
@using Umbraco.Framework

@{
//Get the macro parameter and check it has a value otherwise set to empty hive Id
var startNodeID = String.IsNullOrEmpty(Model.MacroParameters.startNode) ? HiveId.empty.ToString() : Model.MacroParameters.startNode;

//Check that we have a HiveId to work with
if (startNodeID != HiveId.empty.ToString())
{
var startNode = Umbraco.GetDynamicContentById(startNodeID);

//Check that startNode has child pages
if (startNode.Children.Any())
{
<ul>
@foreach (var page in startNode.Children)
{
<li><a href=”@page.Url”>@page.Name</a></li>
}
</ul>
}
}
else
{
<p>HiveId is empty</p>
}
}

Article Sources: Umbraco CMS’ Latest Reinvention Finally Complete

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numerous small enterprises now put a lot of energy into seo tactics. It adds them an opportunity to fine-tune the seo tactics. Smaller the net design company which you opt provides you with prime well-liked, custom net design and will be able to meet all of the requirements of your organization. Share: Tweet

Article Sources: Customized Web Design To Increase Profits

Since the emergence of the Internet in early 90s, experts have been predicting the use of software applications over the Internet, whereby users did not need to install any applications software and servers on their own premises. instead, they could simply connect to the Internet and access their applications and data from their service providers, much like the telephone, where all the telephony networks and infrastructure are installed at the telephone company’s operating centers and users only need to buy a phone to use all the telephone-related services they need.

The concept was particularly appealing for small and medium businesses (SMBs) that did not have adequate financial and technical resources or the scale of operations required to install the required IT infrastructure in-house. Indeed, up until recently, many SMBs found themselves at a disadvantage in competing with large companies, which implemented the new (and often resource-intensive) complex applications to improve their productivity, develop new products and services better and faster, and provide superior customer service.

In recent years, however, the playing field has begun to be leveled with the emergence of cloud computing, whereby the servers, applications and networking equipment are installed at an external hosting company and users can use the applications they need using any device they want (e.g. desktops, notebooks, tablets, smartphones) without incurring any large capital expenditures upfront, paying for the use of applications on an as-needed basis. one of the most famous examples of such cloud computing is the CRM application offered by Salesforce.com, the single largest pure play cloud computing vendor in the world. While large companies spent tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to install, maintain and periodically upgrade their CRM applications from large vendors like Oracle and SAP to serve their customers, SMBs can now acquire similar capabilities by paying a few dollars a month per user.

Several changes have taken place in recent years and now the stars seem to be finally all aligned for a rapid and sustained growth of cloud-based solutions.  Enter cloud computing accelerated by mobility and the work from anywhere and anytime culture.

The new Economy and Increased Demand from SMBsThe dramatic shock to the global economy in 2008 had a multifold effect on the decision making of businesses. With sharp drop in revenues and profits and decreased availability of credit, SMBs found themselves starved of the capital they required to invest for in-house IT infrastructures to meet their increasing IT needs to improve their employee productivity, develop new products and services and provide higher levels of customer service to compete in the globalized economy. With the global economy unlikely to recover anytime soon and resume its long-term growth of earlier years, SMBs have become quite averse to make large capital investments and prefer to pay on an as-needed basis. Cloud computing meets this need of the SMBs by converting capital expenditures into operating expenditures.

Increased Employee MobilityA second factor that has increased the demand for cloud solutions is the increasing mobility among SMB employees and their need to be able to access their applications anytime from anywhere using any device (e.g. desktops, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones). Cloud solution providers have developed new capabilities in recent years that allow SMB employees to do precisely that. Applications and data can be accessed over fixed and wireless connections and they adapt the data views automatically depending upon the access devices being used by the mobile workers.

Technological DevelopmentsCloud computing is also being enabled by the fact that new applications are increasingly being developed with Internet delivery in mind rather than just adapting the older client-server technologies for the Internet. a key element of this new trend is the evolution of integration platforms that allow users to integrate the web-based and on-premise applications to work together and exchange data on an as-needed basis automatically. Over time, this will allow SMBs to have multiple applications that work seamlessly like a single system without SMBs having to be concerned about transferring the data accurately and quickly for use by different applications thereby reducing their needs for internal IT skills.

Cloud computing is also becoming more economical by the increasing use of virtualization, which allows use of fewer servers to serve the needs of multiple SMB customers. Virtualization also allows for greater security, backup & recovery and higher levels of IT availability, which have become increasingly important for SMBs with their increasing reliance on IT.

Development of the Cloud Computing EcosystemFinally, a more complete ecosystem is evolving, consisting of cloud solution developers (e.g. Salesforce.com, Netsuite, Taleo, Concur) , infrastructure providers (e.g. Dell, IBM, Cisco, HP, etc.), hosting companies (e.g. Equinix, Savvis, Rackspace) as well as local channel partners that collectively have the capability to develop and deliver cloud-based solutions to the large number of SMBs spread out all over their markets. furthermore, collectively they have the financial & technical resources and credibility to convince SMBs to adopt the new technologies.

Tavishi AgrawalTechaisle

Article Sources: Cloud Computing Levels the Playing Field for SMBs

Sydney, Australia (PRWEB) February 08, 2012

in the internet marketing space, the importance of a brand ownership and reliable web hosting service cannot be stressed enough. as the saying goes, time is money, and each minute a business website is down could cost its owner a fortune. Online business expert James Schramko is very cautious when it comes to selecting a domain name supplier. for his own business domains, Schramko uses Namecheap. He lets readers know why in his Namecheap review – now up on BuyWithBonus.

For the full review visit buywithbonus.com/internet-marketing-reviews/namecheap-review-namecheap-bonus/

“The first thing you should always look for is reliability, and of course 24/7 support, because there is always the possibility that you need to contact the provider at any given time. I register a lot of my business domains on Namecheap. They have everything I look for in a domain company plus some added security features that other companies only offer when you register in bulk. Great deals at low prices.” –James Schramko

Select an available domain name and register it with Namecheap. Web hosting plans start at as low as $2.95 per month. everything needed to get a website up and running is available at Namecheap.

Privacy and Security Features

This is of utmost importance on the web. Any vital piece of information should be kept hidden away from anyone who may use this information to their advantage.

Namecheap offers a WhoisGuard protection upon registration. this valuable service protects the identity and contact information of the website owner and is free for an entire year, regardless of how many domains one registers. (Other web hosting companies offer this service only if a minimum of 5 domains are registered in bulk.)

Business and Reseller Hosting

From simple blogs to complex shopping carts, Namecheap is equipped to handle everything. Each package includes access to the cPanel – an advanced and easy to use control panel for their website. also included are pre-installed scripts for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, phpBB, Magneto to facilitate installation.

Web developers and designers usually sign up for Reseller Hosting and sell to clients at their own pricing.

For details on how to avail of an exclusive Namecheap Bonus or to learn more about Namecheap visit buywithbonus.com/

James Schramko’s catalog of preferred and trusted internet marketing tools and products. With literally thousands of tools from various developers to choose from on the World Wide Web, the products on BuyWithBonus represent the bulk of tools tested and used regularly by the SuperFastBusiness team.

Schramko started SuperfastBusiness in 2005. James has since become one of the most sought-after Internet Marketing Experts in the world. Author of the tremendously successful Traffic Grab as well as founder of leading SEO company, SEOpartner.com, James provides search engine optimization services to hundreds of clients around the world. LinkJuice.com is yet another welcome SEO innovation for competitive businesses.

Article Sources: James Schramko’s Namecheap Review Now Up on BuyWithBonus.com – Quality Domain Name Service at a Bargain

ActiveState, which prides itself on its ability to deliver software to help developers and enterprises to innovate from code to cloud smarter, faster and safer, calls Komodo 7 the

Article Sources: ActiveState Delivers Komodo 7 IDE for Dynamic Language Development

“Rackspace is committed to helping the government radically improve its level of IT efficiency and we are naturally very pleased to be on the government’s procurement list for G-Cloud services,” said Taylor Rhodes, Managing Director International at Rackspace. “We believe that cloud should be truly pay-as-you-go and now the UK government can maximise its cloud computing opportunity to the full potential.”

Rackspace applauds government recognition of the cloud model’s ability to disaggregate computing structures and engineer more flexibility into the public sector IT framework. The G-Cloud framework team has been clever and planned for hybrid hosting environments to be used while the platform in its entirety stabilises. Offering departments the option to use a mix of public cloud platforms and traditional dedicated hardware is probably the most prudent measure to further seed interest and confidence in hosted solutions for the longer term.

Rackspace is in the special position of being able to offer cloud services for both data processing and secure storage from its UK cloud data centre. as the government looks to address compliance and governance issues pertaining to the cloud, Rackspace also offers maximum levels of proximity with minimised latency.

About Rackspace HostingRackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, the open source cloud operating system. Rackspace provides Fanatical Support ® to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. in 2011, Rackspace was recognised by the Sunday Times Best Places to Work and Financial Times Top 50 great place to Work in the United Kingdom for the seventh year in a row. for more information, visit rackspace.co.uk.

Want to receive FREE alerts when your website is down? Sign-up for free website monitoring at UptimeSpy.com.

Article Sources: Rackspace Eyes Government G-Cloud Contracts

Technology is changing. Places where web pages are being served up are multiple. Tablets, IPADS, Nooks, mobile phones, smart phones are all expecting to be able to see and read webpages. How does the Web Designer know everything? Finding the tools and ability to do design and development in a cost effective way becomes the driving force behind the work.

Enjoy the Ride

Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress with a multitude of developers creating plugins or widgets or themes allows the Web designer freedom. Freedom to put together a nice Website for both the simple and complex. for more complications make all sites easily accessible by many people with varying degrees of abilities is important. Many options for both the customer and the designer.

Learning HTML5, CSS3, PHP, and many other Internet technologies is an option. Technical Web Designers will have more opportunities on reduced budgets. why? because of their multitude of talents will allow them to be utilized for many tasks.

The Future looks bright for Technical Web Designers for the Web and all the Internet dependent devices and platforms. Find and teach yourself the right education for the future design. Research Web Design Trends or Predictions on the Internet to find out what others believe.

__________________________________________________________

Eileen Lud­wig of Web Design School brings to the world insights about com­put­ers, Web Design, Inter­net Tech­nolo­gies, Social Media Tools, Word­Press, Blog­ging, Face­book, LinkedIn, Twit­ter. she is owner of four sites: Pho­tog­ra­phy, Web Design School, Social Media School and Free­lance Tourist. Each are in dif­fer­ent stages of devel­op­ment and evolution.

We all gather in this place to share expe­ri­ences, strengths, and school of hard knocks, on Job Train­ing (OJT). we can use this space to explore and under­stand the trends and con­cepts both as a begin­ner and advanced user. Point­ing oth­ers in the right direc­tion when needed.

• Twit­ter
• Web­site
• Face­book

Article Sources: Predicting Trends Web Design 2012

The story of Node.js reads like it came from a Hollywood script assembly line: Some kids are monkeying around with scrap they picked up around the Internet and find a new way to snap it together. the next thing you know, they’re lapping the pack at the racetrack and coasting to the winner’s circle.

In technical terms, the Node.js team, which is largely led by Ryan Dahl, began looking for a new way to serve up documents from a website without chewing up as much RAM as the traditional tools. they grabbed a copy of the V8 JavaScript engine to speed up their code, then created simple libraries that connected the V8 engine to the TCP/IP ports. Presto change-o, it was answering requests very quickly.

[ Also on InfoWorld: "JavaScript conquers the server" | Node.js is an InfoWorld 2012 Technology of the Year Award Winner. For more insight on software development, subscribe to InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter. ]

Once people noticed the speed, they started actually using the tool and the challenges began. It’s easy to make a car by bolting together spare parts that are lying around, but it’s an entirely different task to make something that can carry a load or stand up to the daily commute. the first version of Node ran from a command line containing the name of the file where the instructions were stored. That’s not a great way to run a big, stable, professional website.

The scruffy, junkyard quality of the Node realm is rapidly disappearing as programmers build extras for Node as quickly as Node itself was born. Now Node is more of an ecosystem, with its own conference and a collection of tools that orbit around it. there are IDEs, deployment tools, and companies looking to offer Node hosting as a service. all are helping to transform Node from science experiment to real contributor in the data center and the cloud.

These tools aren’t luxury goods yet. They’re largely the first builds, which means there are rough spots and glitches. they are typically small, simple, and far from full-featured solutions, but they’re also a chance for the Node users to rethink what did and didn’t work with the previous generation of Web tools. Node is addressing some of the problems people have found with the traditional stack and fixing them.

They’re also rediscovering some of the reasons why the previous generation of Web developers did many of the things they did. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that Node exists because it can be so costly to allocate the RAM to start up a new thread, but the Nodesters are beginning to understand why the last line of programmers created the threads in the first place. there are already a number of angry posts about Node filled with four-letter words because the JavaScript callback paradigm is too unnerving.

To understand a bit of the excitement coming from this corner of the Net, I spent some time unpacking the Node tools and putting them through simple tasks. the more I experimented, the more I found. the area is growing quickly, and this summary is already incomplete as I file it. the good news is that the ground is incredibly fertile. Node.js has revealed that running a website doesn’t need to be that complicated. the tools it is spawning may not be perfect yet or ready for everything an enterprise requires, but they’re real and they’re beginning to play a role.

Node.js tools: Cloud9 IDEThe Cloud9 IDE is a development environment built into a website or, as the ad copy reads, development-as-a-service. you build your code with the Web app and the optional Chrome plug-in. then, after testing it locally, Cloud9 will deploy the code into Heroku, the Joyent Cloud, or Microsoft’s Azure (more on these clouds below).

The Cloud9 editor is sophisticated, providing more than the basic options available with a &lt;textarea&gt; field. Bolted-in extras include a JavaScript beautifier that will fix white space and clean up indentation. the code is colored, given line numbers, and semiparsed to identify undeclared variables.

Although many of the features won’t surprise anyone using an IDE on their desktop, the surprise is that Cloud9 feels like a desktop tool in your browser. My favorite part is the command-line field where you can type in Git commands just as you would in your terminal window.

The service is not just aimed at Node programmers. you can also upload PHP and Ruby. the editor even claims the ability to colorize the syntax of C++, although I’m not sure what would happen to this code.

Everything here is free if you’re willing to share your code with the world. if you want private projects and a private environment when it’s available, the price is $15 per month. Cloud9 also promises to add collaboration tools.

Node.js tools: DreadnotOn the surface, Node looks easy to use in a product. Once you write your code, you move it to the machine and type node myprogram.js. the node runtime handles everything because you’ve coded many of the details into the JavaScript yourself. you choose the port for listening and the protocol, all in JavaScript code.

Alas, there are never enough configuration options in life, so serious Node folks created Dreadnot, a terrible pun, and set it to work organizing the Node stacks of code. It logs into your Git directory, checks out your code, and starts it up on your server. you control all of this with another configuration file, and Dreadnot handles the deployment. this is a nice way to begin automating a checklist of what needs to be fixed and checked before you run your code in production.

The Dreadnot code, now open source, was based on a tool called Deployinator created by Etsy to handle some of the workload around its craft marketing site. There’s not much documentation, but that isn’t a problem yet. Most of the options are self-explanatory, except perhaps the password file. But the code is all there and it works.

Node.js tools: Eclipse JavaScript debuggerOn the other end of the spectrum is the Eclipse IDE. there is now an Eclipse plug-in from the Google Chrome team that connects the venerable tool with the back end of the V8 JavaScript engine. if you start Node.js with the &lt;tt&gt;–debug&lt;/tt&gt; option, Node will look to talk with any remote debugger. Google’s Eclipse plug-in for debugging Chrome seems like just the ticket.

It’s a nice idea, but I found it buggy. A decorator function kept clogging the stack of Eclipse, and nothing seemed to communicate as well as it could. while I could pause Node and poke around, I found it easier to debug Node using the output of the command line that started it. the Eclipse interaction was too much trouble.

These glitches are usually cosmetic. It’s entirely possible that you won’t experience them on your version of Eclipse or your version of Node. (I used Eclipse Indigo EE and 0.6.10.) My problems may also have been caused by all of the other plug-ins littering my Eclipse install.

Node.js tools: FeedHenryIt’s not really fair to think of FeedHenry as just another Node hosting service — it’s much more. It’s really a tool for building client/server apps that just happens to use Node underneath. you write your server-side code in JavaScript, and it runs on Node, even if that’s not immediately apparent. FeedHenry emphasizes the advantage of using Node by including a shared directory for code that runs on both the client and the server.

There are many ways to construct an IDE for Node, and like Cloud9′s, FeedHenry’s is built for the browser. the development environment and your code sit in the FeedHenry cloud. you work through your browser, which also pops up an emulator.

The IDE is just the center of the universe because FeedHenry can build your app into stand-alone versions for a long list of mobile platforms. in addition to the most popular (iPhone, Android, RIM), FeedHenry supports other mobile platforms that aren’t as well known: Opera WGT, Nokia Web Runtime. this cross-platform magic is possible because FeedHenry builds your application in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Node.js tools: Nide“Nide” stands for “nice integrated development environment,” and it’s one of the simplest development environments I’ve seen. It’s surprising, at first, how little is required to make it possible to create software, but then I keep forgetting what people did in the ’70s and ’80s with vi. We’ve become fat and spoiled.

Nide is a Web app that lets you browse through files and edit them in your browser. It is, as they say, a perfect example of the Node team eating its own dog food. When you save a file in the right directory, Node will find it and start serving it up. then you check it in another tab on your browser. Node handles all the compilation — if that’s what you call what V8 does — and most of the other packaging that IDEs normally do. that leaves Nide to focus on displaying and editing the files.

Debugging is the tricky part. you have to put in code for printing and use local tools like Firebug to watch the traffic move back and forth. the “d” in “Nide” doesn’t stand for “debugger.” Nide’s big nonediting feature is a tool for browsing the packages installed by NPM (Node Package Manager). you can power this indirectly.

Is Nide really “nice”? yes, but only if you’re looking for something simple. if you want to step through your code, it won’t help you.

Node.js tools: HerokuThe Heroku cloud is another to embrace Node with both arms. Heroku also hosts Java, Scala, Clojure, Python, and Ruby, although Node seems the most ideal for Heroku’s approach, which is to put your process in a “Web dyno.” this is sort of like a virtual machine, but with a better name that avoids any confusion with a real machine. you choose how many dynos you want, and the virtual stack will spin them up.

It’s probably not fair to focus too much on Node when talking about Heroku because the most impressive aspect of the Heroku cloud is the sheer variety of features. There’s a big collection of add-on services that range from databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB) to connections to APIs (Twitter, Amazon). It’s a big ecosystem that’s getting bigger, and Node is just a part of it.

Node.js tools: Joyent CloudNode creator Ryan Dahl works at Joyent, which would probably be sufficient endorsement of the company for many people. But as they say in the television ad game, “Wait, there’s more.” Joyent is building out its own cloud for hosting Node applications (and other software), pricing the machines by the hour just like everyone else these days.

Joyent offers free development machines for those who want to try out the platform. just go to no.de, a domain name Joyent bought to show its commitment. Joyent also sells SmartMachines if you want to get an IP address and hang up a shingle in the DNS tables. the “smart” here refers to the flexible structure of the virtualization, which Joyent says makes more RAM and more CPU cycles available to the instances. To back this up, the company offers benchmarks that suggest you get 5 times more CPU computations, 14 times more disk I/O, and 3 times more memory I/O than a similarly priced machine in Amazon’s EC2 stack. Naturally, your mileage may vary.

Most newcomers will start and stop their Joyent machines through the Web interface, which offers slick real-time graphs of the loads. if you want to automate the process, there’s a JSON-driven API that can handle the configuration through a script.

The machines let you deploy your code via Git, the repository-based version-control mechanism that’s becoming more and more standard. if you push your version of server.js, Joyent will do the rest. if you need root access, you can log in with an SSH key, but it’s not clear to me that you’ll ever need to. It helps to be familiar with Solaris because the Joyent SmartOS is based on this venerable tool. if you don’t want a SmartOS machine, you can choose from Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Windows. the premier database is MongoDB, the latest favorite for Node users, but Riak and MySQL machines are also ready to run.

Node.js tools: Microsoft Windows AzureMicrosoft took one look at Node.js and obviously was smitten. Redmond put it to work immediately, giving it a place of honor in the Azure cloud alongside .Net, Java, and PHP. if you want Microsoft to host your Node server in their cloud, it will charge you by the minute at competitive rates. It’s all ready.

The Azure toolkit comes with a large collection of tools and so-called cmdlets that let you debug your server.js file on your own machine. When it’s ready, you push it right into the cloud. Microsoft’s tools for your machine are largely driven by the command line. you type long commands like Join-AzureNodeRoleToMongoRole, and all local configuration issues are handled for you. you don’t need to remember the details. I’m sure Microsoft is working on a push-button application. Soon you won’t even need to type all of the commands.

Azure’s Node tools include most of the latest Node goodies like the connection with MongoDB, one of the more popular NoSQL databases. you can install these packages with NPM, then accelerate the development by letting Microsoft’s cmdlets massage the XML in the configuration files.

The integration is still fairly preliminary. while all of the Node packages are available through NPM, you’ll have to make some connections by hand to important options like SQL Server. Some people use the REST interface to SQL Server that Microsoft makes available. although MongoDB is a nice option, Azure offers a number of reporting tools that are integrated directly with SQL Server.

I found that the Azure tools and documentation were quite nice but far from perfect. Microsoft brings a polish that’s rare in the world of experiment where Node.js began. It clearly wants to capture Node users with the Azure cloud. Still, I found strange glitches that I couldn’t get around. the local emulator would keep popping up alert windows at times, and they made it hard to debug.

Microsoft’s investment in Azure is already substantial, and the decision to include Node shows that the tool is drawing plenty of interest in the corporate world. I think the technology holds a great deal of promise in the world of shared virtual servers because it’s designed to minimize how much RAM is consumed, a premium in this realm. It would be fascinating to see a thorough study on whether Node is dramatically cheaper for Azure owners based on the consumption of resources.

In theory, you should be able to do more with Azure’s smaller servers when running Node.js. the test versions start off using “extra small” instances, which are only 4 cents per minute. the longer you can hold off consuming larger machines, the cheaper your jobs become.

Node.js tools: NodejitsuThe cloud services from Nodejitsu aren’t available for users yet because they’re still in private beta. however, Nodejitsu is already releasing its tools under a generous open source license, so it’s possible to poke around and see what the company is building.

The major tools simplify the process of creating and deploying Node applications to the cloud. the core piece is Jitsu, a command-line tool for juggling Node applications that’s similar to Microsoft’s Azure tools. you type one command and a new application is created. Type another command and the application starts up for testing. Type yet another and the application will be pushed to the Nodejitsu cloud (coming soon).

If you want to build your own cloud, you can use Haibu, a local application server that allows Node applications to capture as much of the CPU as they might need. Haibu will wrap your application with a layer of code called a “carapace” and turn them into “drones” — Nodejitsu’s term for the copies floating around the cloud.

Nodejitsu is pushing the Node community forward with these tools, and the open source license makes them attractive for companies that want to experiment without being locked into the Nodejitsu cloud.

Reinventing the Web stackThere’s plenty of good news to report. the Node.js ecosystem is growing at an exponential rate, and there’s a bazillion times more code that’s ready to use and enjoy. Of course, it’s only natural at this point in time because it’s easy to grow quickly when you start with nothing. These tools are building a sustainable infrastructure that’s already doing useful work in small corners of the enterprise world.

It’s easy to predict that there will be even more advances coming very soon and to imagine new tools that shouldn’t be hard to build. I’m sure we’ll soon start seeing versions of the IDE that are tightly integrated with the website itself. Many of the Web content management systems such as Drupal have little switches that appear when an administrator logs in. if you want to change a part of the site, clicking on the nearest switch will take you to a screen where you can simply edit some PHP and hit Save. There’s no need to fire up a text editor or sift through a pile of files for the source code. Everything is done right on the browser.

This kind of development environment would be ideal for Node, if only because the structure of the framework is even more disjointed than the typical programming language. Node’s nested callback structure lends itself to a form-based tool that would have separate sections for code that’s executed before and code executed after. I find the callback structure maddening and difficult to work with, especially when it’s several levels deep. A nice UI into these depths would simplify matters dramatically. Only geniuses can manage to count all those nested brackets.

An innovation like this would go a long way to fixing some of the biggest problems that people are reporting with Node. You’ll have no trouble finding developers’ blogs filled with four-letter words because they hate the “spaghetti callback” design paradigm. People can manage this when the site is a simple layer on top of some database, but they go nuts when the application gets more complicated.

The websites of cloud providers like Joyent also show how a good UI will make it easier to work with Node. the instrumentation is much better than that offered by the basic download, and it’s probably going to get better as the company invests more into making its SmartMachines a platform that sustains enterprises.

We’re sure some serious folks will complain that all of this work is just re-implementing many of the features that Ruby and Java programmers already take for granted. They’re right. the Node ecosystem still needs plenty of work before it can begin to compete with the traditional standard bearers that keep the serious sites running. although much of this new work has some of the polish that serious software should carry, the entire ecosystem still has the feeling of a really, really good project for science class.

If you’re a serious developer with a boss who demands real promises of performance, you can wait a year or two before tuning in again. It’s still not worth your time. But if you’re interested in experimenting and watching the tools evolve, you’ll find plenty of interesting software to fill an afternoon or three. There’s even enough to drive a simple Web service or database front end if you want to give it a real try.

This article, “Node.js tools: Server-side JavaScript comes of age,” originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest news in programming and open source at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Read more about application development in InfoWorld’s Application Development Channel.

Article Sources: Node.js tools: Server-side JavaScript comes of age