Editing Scripts.

If you are into scripting, all you need is a text editor. The editor I used was Notetab a best of breed fast tabbed text editor. I then start using Komodo at about version 3. I still use  Komodo for any scripting I have to do. 

Client Applications

 I built a few HTA applications. With HTA could instantiate any COM object and pretty well do anything. Connect to databases to extract data.. convert data to xml. All MS office had COM objects and with a bit of complicated nutting out you could do a lot.  One organistion had rather big mailing list. The job was to send email to those who prefered email and mail to those did'nt want email. Each email/mail was personalised...  This was done with a HTA application, and instantiating and several COM objects, the MSXML parser for the contact data which was in an xml file, Outlook for emailing and Word template for postal mail and label addresses.

Now with the move to the otherside, I use Komodo, and use this to build client applications using XULrunner.

Editing XML

Of late have been using the Oxygen XML editor.  The editor can connect to databases. I use it to connect to eXist. With Oxygen you can also import data from other sources.

Server OS

I starting playing with websites a while ago. I started with  2day .com - home of managed microsoft hosting It was a bit expensive, and the guy running it was a bit of a double a so I moved to http://www.webhost4life.com/   I was with them for a while.. until.

Then the webhost4Life(sic) decided a  migration was in order Everything got messed up.. I'm not alone and someones seeking the viabilty  of class action against the company. Bye bye MS OS 

NT4, XP Pro, and W2K all came with iis as an option install. So it was pretty easy to set up a server on localhost and have a play. I started playing with static pages and learnt a bit of Javascript.  So it was natural. when I first started buiding web applications,I became a dab hand at instantiating COM Objects in ASP Pages via javascript.  Most of the MSXML documentation had Jacascript examples so once I got to gips with COM I never really bothered to learn VBscript. The MSXML parser, was pretty good piece of engineeering. You could load xml in memory in an ASP application  scope and pop out data pretty fast.  I leant XML XSLT, XPATH, the DOM on the server and locally.I used to play with httpRequest object  before it had the name AJAX. I thought XHTML was great, you could push xhtml DOM fragment to the server via httpRequest object via javascript, and with javascript on the server load the sent fragment as stream object..to change the static xhtml page.  So I had pages served statically but changed dynamically via some ajax scripting.

MS moved on to .NET, C# and SOAP  is the answer what is the question. etc , I suppose I became an old fashioned, untyped scripty guy.  That was OK I'd built up my skillset using W3C tech.   I started moving to exploring other options. I played with eXist an xml database  and Nginx as reverse proxy server. So when WebHost4 life stuffed up my application in their migration, I had an out and moved I purchased a copyLeft cd of opensolaris and set up with a host in America. For some reason nginx keeps falling over about once a week and ocassionally eXsit fell over also. Opensolaris after the aqusition of SUN by Oracle the OpenSolaris brand was put to sleep by sun so no future there. So its time to move on again.

This time it's with a local host ' sitehost ' on a small XEN VPS slice with a Ubuntu Server. Again I've install ngnix and eXist, and so we will see how it goes..

Operating System

For years I used MS operating systems. I started with Wisndows NT4. on a Pentium Pro in a dual processor configuration. The beast sits under my house, most probably making a good mouse house. I moved from W2K to XP, then brought a laptop with Vista on it. Vista was slow as a hedgehog, doing basic operations like file tranfers.. and then Windows Media Player crapped out and ya know you can not uninstall windows media playe r for some reason which defies logic. So I brought a 30 gig ssd and installed Ubuntu and now my old hard drive sits in my draw, gathering dust just in case I need it for something... It's been sitting there fo a while now.

Site Rebirth

I've had this domain for a while now so I thought I would do something with it. Have move hosting to  local supplier of NZ-located servers. http://www.sitehost.co.nz

The plan is a low cost VPS with only 384 of ram so I will see how we go. They provide about 5 gig of storage.  My USA hosts which provided virtually unlimited storage in a simular set up but on solaris VPS servers.  I'll play with this and we wil see...

For a start I will document my setup..