For some time now, I have been picking away at the idea of connecting the Mailman mailing list server to Xaraya. If I could get Xaraya to read Mailman data, including the list of members and the archive of posts, I could provide a powerful (and free) listserv to Xaraya members by automatically adding them to a mailing list in Mailman that is associated with membership in a specific group in Xaraya (ostensibly the default Users group, but any group could ostensibly be used for various purposes). Furthermore, I could automatically establish user accounts in Xaraya for all listserv members in Mailman, run via CRON to keep a Xaraya group and a Mailman list in sync together.

However, it's been an uphill battle getting at Mailman from anything but the command line... until now!

After listening to some of the other podcasts that are out there, I decided that the time has come for me to give it a try.

I recently downloaded Audacity, which offers voice-activated recording features and accepts the line-in that is currently carrying the mic from an old over-the-ear gaming headset I had sitting around. I have to increase the Gain quite a bit to hear myself after recording through such a low-end mic, but it gets the job done.

In order to run a podcast, however, you need more than just a few mp3's.

In about two hours, I worked out a way to run podcasts from Xaraya using only Xarpages, a new articles pubtype and a couple of templates. Continue reading to see the actual templates and get started setting up your own podcast using Xaraya!

What does it mean to get "Slashdotted"?

If you have been online for a decent amount of time, you probably know about the news site for geeks called Slashdot.

From this, you may surmise that getting "Slashdotted" involves getting your site linked to in an article on Slashdot, resulting in a significant increase in your site traffic.

You would be correct. Very correct.

You may also surmise that this increase in traffic results in a corresponding increase in sales/leads/etc.

After spending a great deal of time helping lock down file access for restricted areas of the Cobb County site, we began experiencing issues with pages that required login before accessing, even though the user was already shown as logged in. Troubleshooting narrowed down the problem to users of MS Office. It seems that MS Office doesn't carry cookies with it's links, according to this article by Lars Pind.

The workaround described by Lars Pind worked out rather well for us. I established a new webroot file to catch failed authentication attempts for the file system and redirect them back to the file system a second time to attempt getting the file, since the browser will carry the cookie that MS Office fails to pick up.

Due to the sensitive nature of the code in question, I cannot post snippets, but you should easily be able to discern your own workaround based on the above-linked article.

I get asked why I use the Xaraya platform, from time to time.

Other CMS systems are Open Source, use PHP and mySQL, and support a modular architecture; why not use one of them?

Xaraya isn't a CMS system. Users of Xaraya employ it in a variety of different ways, but if you have to describe it to someone, it is usually just easier to call it a "CMS" instead of trying to explain that it sorta makes whatever web stuff that you happen to be in need of.

It is a bit like asking what a LEGO is, or why you would use LEGOs to build something instead of carving it out of wood or simply buying a finished model of whatever you need.

Everyone remembers the hype surrounding Ruby-on-Rails over the past few years, I'm sure. Working with Xaraya is a bit like working on Ruby-on-Rails... except you don't have to stop using PHP, which is easier to host and has a longer track record, not to mention the fact that it's what everyone is (finally) using for the web.

Over the years, various people have scoffed at my aspirations of political involvement. Astrologically, I am a Leo, and I fulfill that stereotype quite well, if I do say so. Leo's are typically attributed with leadership skills and a strong inclination to use them. I am no exception. I was a supervisor almost as soon as I was hired on in many of the jobs that I have held over the years. Let's say that I just... have a tendency to take over.

As of this month, I am now officially a member of the Xaraya PMC (Project Management Committee), the body responsible for maintaining and supporting the Xaraya platform and it's developer communitee. Together with Marty Vance and Chris Powis, we will be responsible for ensuring that Xaraya continues to be the most viable web platform available.

Xaraya is free and Open Source software (FOSS) licensed under the GPL. 

Stay tuned for details about the Xaraya PMC and what it will be doing to start building the community. Not all of the developers have to work on the code; some of them have to work on the bigger picture.

It is my privilege and pleasure to serve alongside my fellow committee members. I look forward to posting here about my many successes with inspiring other leadership within the Xaraya community. This incredible tool is available to give web developers what they will find missing in any other FOSS platform on the market today. Welcome home and thank you for voting!

A while back, I posted about how I was using Ping.fm to cross-publish my articles from Xaraya to my various social networking profiles.

I had been experimenting with direct use of the various API's made available by Facebook/MySpace/etc., but it was becoming a long and arduous process.

Then I discovered Ping.fm and have been using it ever since.

However, I was not able to publish the code snippets that I used to accomplish this for you, my readers... until now.

While developing the PokerEnlightenment site, I was exposed to an issue with using the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor to insert Flash when using IE. Apparently, IE likes to rip up OBJECT/EMBED/PARAM tag contents and restructure in funny ways. After some googling, I came across a post by Spocke, the main developer of TinyMCE. As specified in his post, I added the media plugin to TinyMCE in the advanced config and IE suddenly started to behave itself.

After spending several weeks getting familiar with the various API systems available for interacting with social networking sites, I was starting to get tired of the disparate arrangements provided and the spotty feature fulfillment. I succeeded in setting up a micro/status blog that cross-posts status updates to both Twitter and Facebook.

Remote publishing to Twitter took an hour or two to get working correctly by using CURL to interface with it.

Remote publishing to Facebook took about two weeks, but that was mostly due to my persistence in wanting to publish status/micro blogs instead of normal ones.

Remote publishing to MySpace was looking like it would take until the MySpace developers got their API working correctly. However, in the process of trying to figure this one out, I stumbled on Ping.fm.

Ping.fm is, essentially the uber-cross-poster that I have been looking for. Setting it up took less time than setting up a direct Twitter cross-poster. Now I don't have to keep hunting down API's and libraries for using them to cross-post anymore; I just add them to my profile on Ping.fm when they become available.

If you have ever wished that your client had a sense of humor, you should try working for a comedian. I've spent a good portion of this year creating a website for Aaron Karo, a published comedian, called Ruminations.

Phrases like "please tell me you are joking" take on a whole new meaning in this context. When you are working on a funny website for a funny client, it is difficult to lose your sense of humor. I have often wondered what it would be like to hang out with a real comedian, because it would be like being privvy to jokes before they become part of an act. You know: the impromptu funny remarks that are the hallmark of any time spent around people who have a penchant for being entertaining.

During the course of the project, I had the distinct privilege of attending one of Karo's live performances here, in Austin. Afterwards, like an overgrown kid being sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I got to attend the afterparty...

Hanging out with Aaron Karo fulfilled my expectations and proved to be a tremendously enjoyable experience. RTFA for more details.