A Path to Success

NewPath Summer Social 2009 @ Pilot Tavern

1and1 configuration and versions for Linux, Perl, PHP and Python

Are you hosted at 1and1.com? Have you ever wondered what your configuration options are? The version of Linux you are running? Versions of MySQL and Perl, Python or PHP?

There are some handy commands you can use to find out this information:

1. Linux version can be retrieved in an ssh session with the command:

uname -a

2. There are 4 useful files in your ~/logs directory that you can call with the links

http://yourdomainname.com/logs/info.php - For PHP information

http://yourdomainname.com/logs/info.php5 - For PHP5 information

http://yourdomainname.com/logs/info.pl - For Perl information

http://yourdomainname.com/logs/info.py - For Python information

Finally, if you want to know how much HTTP, FTP, WebDAV and Email traffic has been happening on your 1and1 pacakge use this link:

http://yourdomainname.com/logs/traffic.html 

Replace yourdomainname.com with a valid domain you are hosting at 1and1.com, of course.

IdealWare Online Seminars, Google Squared, Oxfam Trailwalker

In the continuing series of "cool event, awesome product, creative fundraiser" NewPath brings you 3 new items to your attention, all to help you make your day more productive and fun.

Cool Events

Idealware hails from Portland, Maine. Laura Quinn, the executive director, has been publishing content online for several years. I found the organization as a result of a search on grant management system reports and reviews. Idealware is a "Gartner for non-profits" -- quite a niche I must say. 

It turns out that Idealware has been publishing excellent, timely online seminars on a variety of topics. The seminars are not free, but they are of high quality and are worth taking a look at. Topics like "building websites with no technical expertise", "online fundraising" and "building constituent CRM systems for non profit organizations" are among the titles that Idealware has archived. Live seminars are held all through the summer.

We've also syndicated the Idealware Blog into the NewPath Linkedin group. Hopefully we'll get a chance to work more with Idealware in the near future.

Awesome Product

Have you played with Google Squared yet? This is a Google Labs product that returns search results in a very unusual way. Instead of a list of search results in the typical Google fashion, Google Square returns a spreadsheet like result. Search for automobiles and you get the popular brands of cars along with a sample picture and other common attributes. You can add columns to the search result and Google Square fills in the missing details as best as it can with content from the Internet. You can also add rows if you want for items Google Squared didn't find and it will dutifully find the other attributes in your square, or just start an empty square and build/save your own. A fascinating way to do comparisons such as roller coasters, romantic movies and parks in Ontario. The really amazing thing is how accurate it is for certain attributes and how brutally bad the Internet is in terms of structure. The fact it can do this on basically highly unstructured data is incredible -- this is what many people call the start of the semantic web, aka Web 3.0.

Also the HP photosmart premium with touchsmart web recently was launched. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Creative Fundraiser

The Oxfam Trailwalker is a 48 hour, 100 km hike across Southern Ontario. A team of 4 raises at least $2500 and has to finish the hike together. It's happening weekend of July 24-26. Could be a really fun event for 4 NewPath'ers -- who's in? Let me know by email soon.

Scott Thomas on The Power of Design for the Obama Campaign

Scott Thomas, Lead Designer for Obama's Campaign talks about what it was like to design Obama's digital campaign on the fly. This video culls the highlights from his presentation and catches up with him afterward to find out more about his theories on simplicity and his plans for working in politics in the future.