One project I worked on recently required to set up a mongrel cluster on Webfaction. On a typical Rails setup, I have a mongrel cluster running under apache2. I thought it would be easy to set this up on Webfaction, but it wasn’t so straight forward, so I’m going to document it here.

First, the one-click rails app on webfaction assumes you will run one mongrel server per application. However, in order to handle multiple instances with load balancing, we will need to make some changes. The setup is not too complicated, but we need to run our own apache2. But before you install additional software, you should first make sure your app runs on the server with one instance of mongrel. Once you do that, you can follow the instructions below.

(more…)

I’m currently spending a few days in Sanibel Island, FL for the Intelligent User Interfaces conference (IUI09), where I presented a short paper about some of our old projects (OpenCode and E15:Web). The paper was part of a IUI workshop entitled Visual Interfaces to the Social and Semantic Web, with a keynote from MIT alum David Huynh. One point that struck a chord with attendees was the need for increased focus in visual aesthetics and presentation with respect to technical projects involving the semantic web. Having presented OpenCode at a design conference (AIGA) as well as a technical conference (IUI) placed our work in a unique category. Thus far, visual aesthetics is something that appears to be almost nonexistent here at the conference, which is a bit unfortunate as we’ve known about the gap between design and technical innovation for a very long time. A strong feeling of déjà vu has fallen upon me as I have discussions about this subject that, for me, I was having nearly a decade ago.

The issue is that when doing research that involves the web, these researchers need users. To get users, they need to produce something that people might want to use. If they produce something that’s ugly, difficult to use, and overly esoteric, they’re hard pressed to find anyone that gives a sh*t. Without users, they can’t get results. In my opinion, in order for much of this research to move beyond the prototype stage, researchers need to do more than talk about the need for aesthetics. AFAIK, that’s all that’s ever happened.

That’s not to say that everything here has been atrocious, however. I’ve seen a few visualizations that could be welcome additions to data visualization sites like Information Aesthetics and Visual Complexity with a little polish. In general, however, I think that IUI09 lends at least some confirmation to the notion that intelligence and attractiveness are mutually exclusive.

Most of our client work involves Rails development. It seems everybody wants a website that allow them to change the content, anytime, anywhere, whenever they like. But I always tell my clients to think about how often this “change” is going to happen. It’s certainly a waste of money to pay for developing some feature that you don’t end up using.

Even with Rails, having an “admin” backend requires extra design and development time. Also, with Rails and most other web frameworks, it’s not completely trivial to deploy and maintain these sites. For the client, it most likely means they need to ditch their current hosting provider and go with someone who will support Rails. Rails support on an affordable host is a hit or miss. I’m still surprised that Dreamhost still claims that they “support” Rails. In the world of VPS, the deployment is an easy thing, but for most clients, maintaining a VPS is a responsibility they don’t want. Why can’t it just work? I agree.

But this post isn’t about Rails. Instead, it’s about revisiting an oldie and ugly [but still sometimes a goodie] friend, PHP.

(more…)