Who Made That Website?
December 17, 2009, 10:53 am - By: Chad Halvorson
We're officially launching our latest web application, whomadethatwebsite.com (WMTW). The concept is simple, find out who made a website. The idea is for web designers and developers to create a profile and list all the websites they've played a role in creating. Oh, and it's totally free!
How often does a new client choose a web designer or agency because they like a website they created? WMTW gets clients in touch with the creator of their favorite websites. WMTW is a simple and free way for designers and developers to take credit for their work.
The intent of WMTW is not to be a central hub for finding web designers, but rather a portal for search engines, such as Google, to index everybody's profile of websites. This should attract visitors coming from search engines who seek out phrases related to "who made greatwebsite.com".
Initially all listings will be entirely free, however, we plan to roll out a "Featured" option for designers and developers to get their listings showcased on the homepage along with a thumbnail. For now, however, we plan to feature websites randomly until the demand for featured listings increases.
So go check it out. Create an account and start taking credit for your work!
http://www.whomadethatwebsite.com
Switching To TextMate
December 11, 2009, 12:11 pm - By: Wil Chow
Last month, I made the switch from Dreamweaver to TextMate as my primary text editor. I have been using Dreamweaver for years mainly because it is the editor that comes with the Adobe suite. The problem with Dreamweaver is that it is so packed with features it can be slow at times. TextMate on the other hand is light and fast. This is not to say it lacks features. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Among them are snippet support, code collapsing, auto-pairing brackets and characters. That is just scratching the surface. If you are a shortcut ninja, you will love TextMate. There are shortcuts for everything. Rapid development is what TextMate is all about.
Backing up Lots of Data Remotely
December 10, 2009, 1:54 pm - By: Chad Halvorson
Recently we started backing up a few of our workstations using BackBlaze. So far it works great; it consistently backs up all our project files to a nice, cozy off-site location.
Our company file server is another story. We produce a lot of video programs, website designs, code, graphics, animations, etc. So our storage needs are huge. With our file server being Linux, finding an off-site backup service that didn't break the bank was virtually impossible.
At this point we have roughly 3TB of data on our file server. We needed a way to get this data backed up to a safe location in an automated, daily fashion.
Weighing all our options we chose to build a second Linux file server and run it at a different location. After that it was fairly straight forward. We used "rsync", a free Linux based remote file copying tool.
Configuration took some thought. We chose to sync all files 3GB or less to the remote server. That would cover all project files and assets, however, most rendered and finalized videos would be left out. We were OK with that since all final renders and videos are backed up to disc and/or tape any way.
The initial backup took the longest. We closely monitored progress over the course of about 5 days. Yup, it only took 5 days to backup just under 3TB over a 10Mbit upload connection.
So far the results have been great. The servers sync every night, updating modified files, backing up new files and removing deleted files. The whole process now only takes 30 -60 minutes each day depending on how much data we transferred that day.
The upfront cost comes with the purchase of the second server. Ongoing costs are negligible; —additional storage when needed, broadband internet connections at each location, etc.