Trent’s Blog

Being a curious mind kills a developer with a timeline.  This is half of my everyday battle.  The other half is the financial situation to afford many tools we all love(Photoshop, ColdFusion, Apple).  So we’re stuck with a small budget but need to perform at our best.  This is why I love Open Source software.  My question to other developers is this: What low budget solutions get you through the day creating a website from design to database and everywhere in between?

First off I have to say my current development computer is running Ubuntu and couldn’t be happier with that.  My editors are Komodo Edit and gEdit.  I will use CFeclipse when doing ColdFusion, but thats normally my 8-5 job.  Since I’m not a stand out designer I use strong CSS and fewer images, but Gimp does most of my image work.  I look to possibly buy Fireworks though as soon as I’m able.(I want to learn Photoshop, but I’m more comfortable with Fireworks).  For databases I depend on MySQL, but since they were recently purchased by Sun, I am now exploring Postgres since I’ve always heard great things about them and I’ve been learning Django which also recommends Postgres.

Programming languages is never set in stone.  Although very fluent in ColdFusion, I can’t afford a license, and no Open Source CF solution is up to par just yet so I have been doing most of my work with PHP.  Django looks promising with the exception that a lot of their framework is changing(new forms), and server set up can be a booger.  For javascript I like them all!  jQuery, Mootools, Prototype, etc.. they all have their uses.

So a quick recap:

• Ubuntu
• Komoto Edit/Gedit
• Gimp
• MySQL/Postgres 
• PHP/Django

Again these are my “at home” tools on a limited budget.  What tools get you through the day?

With Sun’s recent purchase of MySQL, is it to one’s best interest to move to one of the other leaders of open source databases? It could be too early to tell. With so many people dependent on MySQL its hard to believe anything will change, after all Java still is a pretty cheap commodity. I have already begun exploring other options, not saying I would abandon them but I’ve always had a good feeling about Postgres, and now might be a time to give it a spin. I’ve also used SQLite recently and that is a nice portable solution for light weight tasks(especially if you will be developing on one server and moving to another server). As of now I am keeping my eyes open but being a curious mind I am always trying new things. Only time will tell!

I rarely use sqlite, but I have to say it is a pretty handy database that in my opinion works very well.  Last time I used it I was on windows, but this go ’round I was using Ubuntu.  I was searching for a nice admin tool and none seemed to suite me as I needed to edit an SQLite 2 file but its always nice to be up to date and administer SQLite 3.  I found none better than to use the same windows program with Wine.  SQLite Administrator seems to me to be a pretty complete tool.  Here’s a screenshot of it running through Wine:

Of course this isn’t as pretty as on Windows, but hey, I’m not going for looks here!  I do realize there are SQLite tools out there like this for Linux,  but there were requirements to compile and install them, and well, I think we’re getting a little too old for requirements with Linux.  Its almost easier to install Windows applications with Wine.  I guess this is the one place proprietary software has a slight advantage…  Any one aware of any other database administration tools out there for Linux/Ubuntu for various databases that exceed the standard tools(other than MySQL Query Browser and PGAdmin)?

Installing Safari on Ubuntu is apparently pretty darn easy.  A quick tutorial on doing so can be found here.  It successfully installed for me on 64-bit as well.

Now we have no reason not to test in every browser.  I’m impressed more and more everyday of what the Open Source world is achieving!

In viewing the latest designs for the new theme proposals for Ubuntu 8.04, I see a lot of designs which I think are headed in the wrong direction if Ubuntu has plans on moving into the mainstream of operating systems.  Many are going towards a dark them, which is good if you’re a hip 20 something year old playing at home, but the fact is the business world holds a large portion of the marketplace, one of which these dark themes just won’t cut it:

What Ubuntu does need is a clean cut, simplistic, light colored theme by default.  My opinion all of the 20 somethings are going to change their theme time they format their pc, but the rest of the world will likely do nothing more than change a background image.  This is why I think Ubuntu will have to drop the overpowering brown and go lighter, perhaps using the brown for more accents.  Here is a theme I think is in the right direction:

Now granite many people say the orange could go, but thats a minor detail as far as I’m concerned, but this them is in the right direction!