Andre Molnar 2.0 - Professional

Is there nothing Drupal can't do

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:22:54 -0800

The more I work with Drupal - and the more Drupal matures - the more I think "there isn't anything I couldn't write with Drupal to get a job done."

Now granted, Drupal isn't meant to be used for everything - but I sure could see using it for a whole lot more than its being used for now.

Drupal has been compared to lego. But I think Drupal is more like living organic chemistry - where simple building blocks interact to create things that are greater than the sum of their parts.

The code is alive. Improvements from release to release spawn more contributions. More contributions spawn newer ideas. Newer ideas result in greater improvements.

And Drupal is literally evolving. Each distribution of Drupal evolves to more effectively exist in an ever expanding number of niches. Two different Drupal implementations may obviously be related, but could be vastly different because they solve different problems in different ways.

Its all very exciting stuff.

andre

Openxchange update

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 23:04:00 -0800

I haven't written much lately as I've been busy at work and blogging has taken a back seat.

But, I thought I would update the world on my openxchange experiences. Long story short, I got it all to work with the help of a coworker.

I like the app a lot. It does everything a groupware product should do. The only thing lacking is documentation. Thankfully, its not to hard to figure out.

Here are my pointers for someone installing openxchange on a freeBSD 6x box:

DO NOT install newer versions of any of the component applications that make up openxchange. When the install guide says version x.x.x DO NOT think a newer version will play nicely. It will NOT.

Thats all. If you follow the instructions to a tee - it will work as advertised.

I can't wait until its time to upgrade ;-)

andre

Open-xchange kicking my ass

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 01:03:36 -0800

Okay,

So I'm trying to install open-xchange. I'm more or less a freeBSD newb, but I can follow instructions and type commands. So, I figured this couldn't be too hard.

Well - the install has gone pretty smooth, but I am having a hell of a time with some pre-flight configuration.

Most of the problems deal with OpenLDAP. Every time I went to configure things, I was getting a whole whack of errors tossed back in my face. Well it turns out I should RTFM. I was attempting to use a newer version of OpenLDAP with Open-xchange - and trust me - when the instructions say use 2.3.4 - you better goddamn well use that version or you'll spin your wheels for hours.

So - after I figured that out I got a little further - but not much. Now I keep getting a fucking invalid DN message everytime I try to add a user to the directory. I swear everything is configured correctly - but its just not working.

Andyway - i've wasted many an hour working on this. I hope its all worth it in the end.

Toronto Drupal User's Group

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 20:21:58 -0800

The other night I attended the first ever meeting of the Toronto Drupal User's Group at the Linux Caffe.

I would say that for a first meeting it was a success. While there was a little confusion over the date and time of the event, several people showed up and we got to the business of deciding what the group was going to be all about and what format we would like the meetings to use.

We decided:

The group will meet monthly - likely the 3rd tuesday each month
There will be beer at all meetings
There will be short individual introductions to start meetings off
There will be some sort of professional development presentations made (Demo of some cool Drupal feature, or exciting Drupal site - or related Drupal coolness)
There will be free form networking / mingling after that

Lack of Posting

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:21:51 -0700

Boy, I've just not been keeping up with my blog.

It occurs to me that some people I know check my blog just to know what is going on in my life.

Professional:
Well - a while back I started a steady paying gig with another company. Like Be Circle they work primarily with not for profits and, in fact, are a non profit themselves. They also happen to be a Drupal shop - so the fit is nice and I'm glad to join their team.

Programming:
I've been playing around with Zend Studio Enterprise and must say that I am very impressed. Having a debugging session with code on a server is very handy. And all the integrated tools/features are nice too.... CVS - FTP - SQL etc. Its a bit sluggish on my desktop machine - since that machine doesn't meet the min requirements (800mhz+) - but it works beautifully on my laptop.

Play:
I've been halloweening with my girlfriend for the past couple of weeks. She's done most of the work, but I signed on for a couple of projects including a "neon" sign I made using EL wire.

Welcome to the wireless world

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 21:20:18 -0700

Man - has it really been forever since I've posted anything? Yup. It has.

Its been a somewhat busy summer of work and play and its kept me away from my blog.

So what's new?

I now have a laptop. A pretty sweet machine too. Intel mobile device with a gig of ram - a kickass 15.4 widescreen display at 1600x1000 - every immaginable device connection and of course wireless connectivity...

Which of course inspired me to finally put the wireless router i purchased for "free" (after rebate) into use. So I finally have a wireless network at home - Saa-weet!

What have I been working on?

I've been developing a Druapl theme for a client.
I've been training others in the use of Drupal.
I've been working on a couple of programming jobs.
I've been building a poker site.
I've been building a simple google maps application to show the locations of all Toronto shootings of the summer.

What have I been playing with?

My laptop of course.
My work projects... its great that I consider work to be play.

Its that time again

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 18:47:30 -0700

Yup, its that time again.

No - not my period. (men don't actually get those).

Its the time of the month when I bitch about how stupid internet explorer is and how hopeless it is to design anything using stylesheets if IE is just not going to follow the rules.

Let me rephrase that. Its never hopeless to design using stylesheets - but it is hopeless to expect IE to render them correctly - especially not in 'strict' mode.

Thats all.

But... apparently there is an IE7beta coming out this summer. They had better hurry up. Its already august. Still, one of the microsoft bloggers has said "standards compliance is not as important as backwards compatibility." In other words - we'd rather try and render poorly authored websites so they look nearly fine - rather than render perfectly authored websites the way they should be.

So - here it is my monthy fuck you IE.

FUCK YOU IE

andre