SomeoneKnows's soup

RT @PatDollard: If the law is no longer required to pass a law, why are you e...

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:06:54 GMT

RT @PatDollard: If the law is no longer required to pass a law, why are you expecting elections?

RT @PPPRS: yeah this is the new twitter for powerwheels cause @jkantarek tota...

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:39:56 GMT

RT @PPPRS: yeah this is the new twitter for powerwheels cause @jkantarek totally forgot the login info for last years. Shameeeeee

RT @PPPRS: Check out last year's photos, courtesy of Anne Petersen http://www...

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:39:49 GMT

RT @PPPRS: Check out last year's photos, courtesy of Anne Petersen http://www.flickr.com/photos/opacity/sets/72157621925907155/

RT @PPPRS: website is up, if you somehow haven't heard of that yet www.powerr...

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:39:31 GMT

RT @PPPRS: website is up, if you somehow haven't heard of that yet www.powerracingseries.com

RT @jeriellsworth: I just can't get enough of NASA Plans Mission to Meet Cute...

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:56:38 GMT

RT @jeriellsworth: I just can't get enough of NASA Plans Mission to Meet Cute Girl.

Happy PI day. 3.14

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:21:44 GMT

Happy PI day. 3.14

RT @DiscoveryCenter: March 14 is almost here--a day to celebrate 3.14! Join ...

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:47:27 GMT

RT @DiscoveryCenter: March 14 is almost here--a day to celebrate 3.14! Join us for a our fourth annual Pi Day--a celebration of... http ...

RT @fbz: want to help at-home manufacturing? are you a CAD god? help the skdb...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:26:02 GMT

RT @fbz: want to help at-home manufacturing? are you a CAD god? help the skdb http://designfiles.org/dokuwiki/skdb hplusmagazine.com/...

Check out KC FIRST Robotics Competition start tomorrow Like Rock Concert, Spo...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:51:32 GMT

Check out KC FIRST Robotics Competition start tomorrow Like Rock Concert, Sport Event & NASCAR all in one! http://kctechcal.com/events/231

RT @make: Is the TechShop model in trouble? http://cot.ag/aN32KN jb

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:41:09 GMT

RT @make: Is the TechShop model in trouble? http://cot.ag/aN32KN jb

Digging out source code for a CAD application I wrote in MicroStation MDL six...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:37:39 GMT

Digging out source code for a CAD application I wrote in MicroStation MDL six years ago.

RT @martina_r: this just isnt right foodbeast.com/...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:12:23 GMT

RT @martina_r: this just isnt right foodbeast.com/...

Notes from last night's KC Drupal Users Group meeting - someoneknows.wordpres...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:05:43 GMT

Notes from last night's KC Drupal Users Group meeting - someoneknows.wordpress.com/... #drupal

KC Drupal User Group 2010.02.23

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:04:00 GMT

2010.02.23 – Notes from KC Drupal Users Group

Last night marked a restart of the Kansas City Drupal Users Group with about twenty people in attendance. We were treated to pizza and about two hours of Drupal topic discussions. iLLin did a great job of presenting his use of Views, Templates, and Tables. I came away from the meeting with a list of items to research further.

Image Resize Filter
Image Insert Module
Boost and APC Modules
Rsync
Subclipse plugin for Eclipse Editor
Using WebEnabled for quick web site development collaboration.
NodeReference Module
OpenAtrium – Intranet in a box
Features Module
t() function
l() function
Drush
Subversion
SCP replacement for FTP
Node Reference

Afterward, I started Googling several topics and passing comments mentioned at the meeting. What follows are links to documents that look useful.

Features Module

Often, the project module descriptions provide pertinent information but lack some useful information about how a particular module becomes useful. A web site that looks promising for information about the use of Drupal Modules is the abbridged descriptions from Affinity Bridge’s Feature Module Abridged.

Other useful Features resources:

DPCI – A look at the Drupal Features module.
Drupal Features Module – Feature module download.
Drupal project module – managing a collection of Drupal entities to satisfy a certain use-case.
DevelopmentSeed.org – Making and Using Features in Drupal
Drupal Modules – Drupal module review for Features.

Drupal t() function

Drupal API t() – Documentation on t(), translatable text function
likemind Web Services – Drupal localization and the t() function
Drupal Coder – Never us t function in a global context
Performance impact with t function – Scaling locale (or, the t() function)

Drupal l() Function

Drupal API l() – Documentation on l(), the Drupal link function

Drush

CivicActions Empowered – Drush 2.0 released – Screencast

Subversion

Leveraging Drupal – Getting your site done right
Practical Subversion – Manage your code with ease using the Subversion version control system.

SCP vs. FTP

OpenSSH – SSH Connectivity Tools
Rimu Hosting – SCP an FTP Alternative

Node Reference

Node Reference Variables

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Mathematterfly Genesis on Thing-A-Day thing-a-day.com/... - @thingaday #th...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:27:20 GMT

Mathematterfly Genesis on Thing-A-Day thing-a-day.com/... - @thingaday #thingaday

Mathematterfly Genesis

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:04:39 GMT

I like illustrations, particularly pen and ink with watercolor wash. Today for Thing-A-Day I wanted to create a faux plate one might find in a book illustrating various species.

Mathematterfly Genesis

The inspiration for this piece came from a book I bought a few months ago titled: “Computers and the Imagination, visual adventures beyond the edge“. This book focuses on some of the beauty in mathematical equations. This butterfly is a computer generated shape of a butterfly using the equation listed under DNA Sequence.

Butterfly equation

This piece meets a few objectives I set for today. Instead of using watercolor crayons with the pieces last week, I bought some tubes of watercolor paint. I wanted to experiment with mixing and blending colors. It is harder than it looks. I feel these came out too muddy looking. It is going to take much more practice to get to a point where I would like to be in this medium. Another goal was to use the LaTeX formatting I installed last night. I was able to format the equation used in this piece. I also wanted to create a program using the equation to create this image. I used the Processing language to generate the image.


/*------------------------->>>
Mathmaterflys - (c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Inspired by the book "Computers and the Imagination, visual adventures
 beyond the edge" by Clifford A. Pickover Chapter 3 Butterfly Curves
<<<-------------------------*/

int winX = 1024;
int winY = 768;
int halfWinX;
int halfWinY;

void setup()
{
 size(winX, winY);
 halfWinX = winX/2;
 halfWinY = winY/2;
 noLoop();
 background(255);
}

void draw()
{
 float pi_100 = 100 * PI;
 float prevXX = 0;
 float prevYY = 0;
 stroke(0);

 for(float theta=0; theta<pi_100; theta += 0.010)
 {
 float r = exp(cos(theta)) - 2*cos(4*theta) + pow(sin(theta/12),5);
 float x = r * cos(theta);
 float y = r * sin(theta);
 float xx = (x * 90) + halfWinX;
 float yy = (y * 90) + halfWinY;
 if(theta > 0)
 line(prevXX, prevYY, xx, yy);
 prevXX = xx;
 prevYY = yy;
 print("theta: " + theta + ", cos(theta): " + cos(theta) + ", exp(cos(theta)): " + exp(cos(theta)) + ", x: " + xx + ", y: " + yy + " ");
 }
}

The piece uses a combination of tools. Processing to program the image. KSnapshot was used to grab the Processing image. Gimp was used to crop and adjust the image. OpenOffice was used to create the document and placeholder for the image. This combination was printed onto watercolor paper and received a watercolor wash.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

My Thing-A-Day project, Drifting Into the Language of Mathematics thing-a-day...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:46:14 GMT

My Thing-A-Day project, Drifting Into the Language of Mathematics thing-a-day.com/...

Preserving formatted Arduino and Processing source code in HTML someoneknows....

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:20:36 GMT

Preserving formatted Arduino and Processing source code in HTML someoneknows.wordpress.com/...

Preserving Formatted Source Code in HTML

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:09:47 GMT

I’m switching some of my WordPress blog content over to other web sites and reorganizing them into logical book type formats. One nice thing about the WordPress blog is the plugin that helps to format my C source code for Arduino programs and Processing.

I’ve tried copying and pasting the Arduino code into an OpenOffice document but the source code’s color formatting gets lost. I haven’t found a way of using the Arduino and Processing environments to save the source code with the formatting intact.

I started looking into ways of capturing the displays and saving them in Rich Text Format (RTF) documents then possibly writing a program to create the proper HTML formatting. Luckily I didn’t have to go that far. I have three different Integrated Development Environments (IDE) loaded on my computer in addition to the Arduino and Processing language IDEs. Since switching to Ubuntu from Windows a couple of months ago I’m experimenting with several new programming tools at the same time.

I loaded up some sample source code into the Code::Blocks IDE. Formatting based on the source code language shows up in the display. I tried the Save As feature but didn’t see alternate document formats listed. Then I noticed the Export feature. Under the menu item File->Export setting there are four options including HTML, RDF, ODT, and PDF. My goal was to produce the souce code in an HTML document anyway so I chose that option and it worked nicely.

After that I tried Eclipse. I didn’t find an export option and the Save As just used the standard dialog function to save the file with a different name. Eclipse is a great editor to work with and I hope to find a way to make this work.

The third IDE I’m getting to know is NetBeans. NetBeans didn’t offer an Export function but it does provide a File->Print to HTML feature that works nicely too. I found a plugin for NetBeans on the Processing web site. I am going to try the NetBeans Processing Template plugin to see how it works.

There seems to be some good articles about using Processing with Eclipse. I hope I can find an already developed function to create HTML from the formatted display. Also, I’m hoping the NetBeans plugin helps by including more formatting and keyword recognition to more closely match the Processing IDE display.

Anyway, I seem to have found an off the shelf way of adding line numbers to the source code display. The color coded formatting is being preserved and white space is not being smashed when converting into the HTML format.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

I created my first attempt with watercolor drawings today for my @ThingADay p...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:20:26 GMT

I created my first attempt with watercolor drawings today for my @ThingADay project. Let me know what you think. someoneknows.wordpress.com/...

My First Attempt with Watercolor

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:00:37 GMT

For my February 9 Thing-A-Day, I decided to create a watercolor drawing.

One of the things on my list of ideas for Thing-A-Day projects was to do a pen and ink drawing with a watercolor wash. Actually, its been on my list for much longer. The watercolor paper I used was from a package I bought about five years ago with the same idea of trying to learn to create watercolor drawings. I finally opened that package today.

It’s almost like that package of paper has been a barrier keeping me from giving it a try. Mocking me on days when I notice it setting on the shelf. I need to work on that whole right brain, left brain thing to combine more of the creative side with the analytical side.

Pen and Ink with watercolor

This project started with a photograph I took several years ago of the pickup. It is a 1946 Chevy half ton pickup. It is an old farm truck my grandfather had.

Photo of 1947 Chevy pickup.

The Process

From photo to watercolor took place with the assistance of Gimp and Photoshop (I’m trying to find my way around in each). I used the programs to edit out the background, enlarge the image, use the edge detection filter, and flatten the range of colors to black and white. I printed out the manipulated image and used vellum tracing paper to ink over the lines.

Composite from Photo to Watercolor.

After I had the pen and ink drawing, I placed a sheet of watercolor paper in the printer. From there I used my Staedtler watercolor crayons to add color. For the highlights I layered lighter colors like yellow and orange then touches of red. For shadows I used red, and two increasingly darker shades of brown.

Pen and Ink Tracing.

One great thing about Thing-A-Day comes from inspiration to try new things. I’m excited about the way this turned out and I don’t think that package of paper will be as intimidating in the future.

I have access to several books about Photoshop with a lot of great information to help learn the mechanical techniques of operating the program. For me, one book stands out for inspiration more than the others, it’s “Creative Thinking in Photoshop“. It focuses on creating art from a collection of hand drawn media plus manipulation within Photoshop.

I have some web sites that I’m beginning to work on and hope to incorporate some hand drawn artwork into the themes they will use. This exercise has given me a good place to start.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Silicone Mold for Tripod, Part 1.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:13:56 GMT

The pattern for a tripod replacement part.

This was posted as my thing-a-day project for February 8.

Yesterday I made a replacement part for a tripod I bought at a garage sale. The Sculpey clay part probably would work but I can make a stronger part if I cast it in a urethane plastic. I will be making a two part mold to cast the new piece. Today I’m creating the first part of my silicone mold.

Alumilite Casting Kit Materials

I’m starting by cleaning up the surface of the pattern. It would be great if the top surface and bottom surface are parallel to each other. Since the tripod has an adjustment for tilt, I’m more concerned with keeping the top and bottom surface flat. I’m using sandpaper to prepare these surfaces.

Flattening the surfaces.

The silicone mold making materials are expensive and I don’t want to waste them by making this part of the mold any larger than necessary. I found a thin cardboard box that held soft drink cans to form the box. I’ve placed the pattern in the center then rolled out some more Sculpey clay. This time I’m not worried about curing the clay. I’m using the new clay to form a ring outside the pattern part. I intend for this ring to be used as a way of fitting the two part mold together with the proper orientation. I’m not being very careful at laying this out in a perfect square because I’m counting on the irregularities to orient the correct position when we create the second part of the mold later.

Positioning the pattern in the box.

I intended to tape the sides of the box together but the tape had a hiding place of its own, a rubber band came to the rescue. I folded the box sides up to be held in place by the rubber band instead. With my container built, its now time to start mixing the silicone mold compound.

Measuring the materials.

With the mixture ready, its time to pour the goop over the pattern.

Beginning the pour.

Filling the container so each side is covered by at least a quarter inch of material.

Finishing The Pour.

All that’s left now is the cleanup and waiting for the silicone to cure. The instructions suggest letting it cure for 24 hours. Until tomorrow – for the second part of my two part mold.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

I'm scheduled to teach a workshop "Introduction to Creating a Blog Journal" a...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:32:18 GMT

I'm scheduled to teach a workshop "Introduction to Creating a Blog Journal" at MCCKC Blue River starting this Thurs. mcckc.edu/...

My project today was creating a pattern to replace a missing tripod part on @...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:03:58 GMT

My project today was creating a pattern to replace a missing tripod part on @thingaday thing-a-day.com/... details at someoneknows.wordpress.com/...

Thing-A-Day Feb. 7

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:15:00 GMT

Making a Replacement Tripod Part

This was posted as my thing-a-day project for February 7.

In January our Make:KC group focused on mold making and casting parts. This is a project I wanted to create but was left over from last month.

Sometime last year I bought a nice tripod at a garage sale. The tripod was missing the piece that attaches a camera and the tripod together. For my Thing-A-Day project I wanted to make a pattern for a replacement part. My project today is making this pattern.

Garage sale tripod missing attachment part.

The missing part was designed to be wedged between an angled portion of the front bracket and a rotating latch which also has a specific angle to pinch the part into place. To make this part I’m going to use some Sculpey polymer modeling clay. This clay can be formed into the shape required then baked in an oven to retain its shape.

Kneading Sculpey Clay

After kneading the clay it’s time to begin rolling out the clay to the precise thickness of about four popsicle sticks.

Rolling clay to thickness needed.

Instead of filling the tripod solid with the clay, I need to leave a void so an attachment bolt has room plus enough width to tighten the bolt with my fingers. The wall widths seem to work if they are one popsicle stick wide.

Wall widths measuring one Ppopsicle stick wide.

The next step is to begin pushing the wall pieces into place. Squeezing them into place forming the angled latching pieces.. After placing the wall parts around the perimeter another wider piece is formed to cap off the top.

Forming the part and capping off the top.

The trick is being able to pull the part back out without deforming the clay. Before placing the clay into the tripod I places a thin sheet of cardboard into the hole. The part pulled back out without much trouble.

Underside of pattern.

After the clay is formed it’s time to bake the part. The oven was set at 275 degrees F. and left for about 20 minutes. After removing the part it is solid and can be handled without fear of deforming it.

Baking the polymer clay part.

The cured part is test fitted back in the tripod. It is a little tight fit but does pop into place.

Test fitting the pattern part.

The new Sculpey clay part could be drilled and fitted with a bolt to attach my camera. The cured clay part is durable and could work to save the day if I didn’t have any other options and needed the part to get the job done. I don’t want just a quick fix, I want a workable replacement part. By using this piece as a pattern I can create a molded part with more durable materials. Next project is to create a mold that can be used to cast a new part.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Thing-A-Day Feb 6

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:39:47 GMT

Memories of Grandpa’s Truck.

Manipulated photo using Gimp

This image was scanned from an old snapshot of my grandfather’s 1946 Chevy pickup truck. I have editied the photo using the Gimp program. Instead of using Photoshop this time which requires rebooting my computer into Windows Vista, I decided to try learning some new techniques in Gimp after some friend’s encouragement.

The picture was separated into different layers. It used a white background image. The original photograph on a separate layer. The area outside of the truck’s fender was selected and removed. Another layer was created using a copy of the truck image and converted to a grey scale. Each layer above the background was layer was assigned an opacity value around 50%. The colored layer was adjusted using the edge detect sobel filter.

I was hoping to get an image with an artistic sketch type appearance. I was looking for something with a faded and fuzzy look to represent a faded memory from the past.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Heading out to the monthly Make:KC Show and Tell session tonight at the HMS B...

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:34:53 GMT

Heading out to the monthly Make:KC Show and Tell session tonight at the HMS Beagle. www.makekc.org

RT Photoshoped Logo - Day 1+ http://post.ly/LrI4

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:54:39 GMT

RT Photoshoped Logo - Day 1+ http://post.ly/LrI4

Thing-A-Day1+

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:16:16 GMT

My Thing-A-Day projects got off to a rocky start by missing the midnight deadline for my first project. I’ve been wanting to learn more about Photoshop, plus I’m wanting to get some promotional materials put together for our Make:KC group. So, for my first project I chose to create a logo using some advanced Photoshop type effects.

Thing-a-day logo project.

It didn’t quite turn out the way I imagined but I did learn new Photoshop features while working on this project. I was working from the Photoshop Type Effects Visual Encyclopedia book using their Soft Plastic technique. There are a number of great looking typography styles to choose from in the book.

Photoshop is capable of much more than my normal usage, mostly croping photos, adjusting the image slightly, creating a few montage images, and using a few filters. For this project I ended up learning about using the Alpha Channel.

Alpha Channel

I don’t know why I haven’t used the alpha channel before. I kind of remember reading something a few years ago about how difficult it was to use these channels. That may still be true but I found that using the alpha channel as a way of saving a particular selection set within your image was easy and is great.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

RT @fluffyemily: - Happy birthday @robotbrighton :-) --- Congratulations!!!

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:07:47 GMT

RT @fluffyemily: - Happy birthday @robotbrighton :-) --- Congratulations!!!

Scientific Programming Study Group

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:53:19 GMT

Notes from Jan 21 and 27, 2010 Scientific Programming Study Group

Jim Emery is a member of Kansas City’s STEM2 society. He has started a Scientific Programming Study Group recently at the CCCKC hackerspace. STEM2 is a group that promotes Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The topic is based on his document titled “Scientific Calculating, Programming and Writing” which can be found at the Stem2 web site.

Using Python

Jim chose the Python language for these sessions. It is a powerful language with many features that make scientific computing easier.

Finding documentation on Python:

Python Documentation – Get the official documentation from Python.org.
Dive into Python – You can download a free copy of this book or purchase a printed copy.
Thinking in Python – You can get this and other books from Bruce Eckel’s web site.
A Byte of Python – This is a good introductory text for Python.

Getting Started in Linux

Since I’m using Ubuntu Linux, Python is already installed. To work through Jim’s examples I need to create the following new directories in my home folder “/vthompson“.

/bin
/tmp
/src

The next step is to open a command window and adjust the $PATH variable so any programs placed in the /bin folder can be found. First, keyin the command echo $PATH to see how this environment variable is already defined.

PATH Environment Variable

From the picture above, we see the /bin directory shows up in in several places. Surprisingly, the directory I just created in my home directory already shows up. How did this happen? The answer can be found in the hidden shell script also found in my home directory, vthompson/.profile. It contains the following code segment that automatically places a home directory’s /bin path as the first one in the PATH list.

# set PATH so it includes user’s private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH=”$HOME/bin:$PATH”
fi

A good place to find more information is the Ubuntu Documentation page on Environment Variables. Also, for more information about shell scripts check out the Beginners Bash Scripting page. Another helpful document if you’re just starting to work with the command line is this CategoryCommandLine document.

Purpose of the /bin Directory

Linux is designed as a multi user operating system. While your desktop or laptop computer may not be used by other people logging into different accounts, using the home directory’s /bin folder prevents our special programs from interfering with someone else’s computer usage habits.

Now, its time to populate the /bin directory with files from the STEM2 software listing. The files we need are linux.zip and py.zip. Download and unzip the contents into /bin.

Trying a Sample Program

From Jim’s book, Chapter 6 on Graphing and Programmable Calculators, I’m trying the square root sample. I’ve created a /src directory to place my program source code into. Here is the sample program written using the gedit editor:

Squareroot Source Code

And the resulting screen shot of the program:

Squareroot Example Python Program

Other Python Notes:

Python Numeric and Scientific Programs – More programs using Python

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Just signed up for a Posterous account at http://someoneknows.posterous.com/ ...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:42:45 GMT

Just signed up for a Posterous account at http://someoneknows.posterous.com/ - Getting ready for @ThingADay

RT @whereisciao: Great inspiration story from the NyTimes. I love hearing how...

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:07:51 GMT

RT @whereisciao: Great inspiration story from the NyTimes. I love hearing how other people are creating their own jobs. www.nytimes.com/...

RT @bkmontgomery: Wow. I have to admit, http://www.thesixtyone.com/ is an aw...

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:24:48 GMT

RT @bkmontgomery: Wow. I have to admit, http://www.thesixtyone.com/ is an awesome way to explore music!

RT @adafruit: CHAT IS LIVE NOW! ASK AN ENGINEER! (Broadcasting live at http:/...

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:06:58 GMT

RT @adafruit: CHAT IS LIVE NOW! ASK AN ENGINEER! (Broadcasting live at http://ustre.am/2FH2)

Now You're Talking!!! => RT @digitaljestin: Who's got a CNC mill? #CCCKC h...

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:17:18 GMT

Now You're Talking!!! => RT @digitaljestin: Who's got a CNC mill? #CCCKC has a CNC mill! blog.cowtowncomputercongress.org/...

I overpaid for the book "Calculus referesher for technical men" from Half Pri...

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:24:07 GMT

I overpaid for the book "Calculus referesher for technical men" from Half Price Books (Springfield MO) Paid $4, Original price in 1944: $3

Bought a book yesterday with an interesting title "Calculus refresher for tec...

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:16:20 GMT

RT @bre: OMG, Thingiverse is rocking it today with a dremel powered printable...

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:39:32 GMT

RT @bre: OMG, Thingiverse is rocking it today with a dremel powered printable parametric lathe design! www.thingiverse.com/...

Adventures in Linux Documentation

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:31:27 GMT

In the Linux world, there are multiple paths toward providing a solution. There are various “brands” of Linux distributions (“distros”) that seem to have a little different way of doing things. Likewise, when you download programs written for Linux there are often multiple programs providing similar capabilities (some better than others). Documentation with configuration details can lead in different directions based on who wrote them. Sometimes the Linux world gives you enough rope to hang yourself.

I’ve been setting up a test environment to get web server functionality that I’ll use to create web sites offline as I described in X-AMPP Based Web Sites. Since then I’ve downloaded Drupal 6 from the Drupal download site and prepared to install in my test server environment.

A couple of weeks earlier I set up my first Drupal environment with the online Internet service provider that will be hosting my live web sites. This ISP provides a button to launch the Drupal setup process and everything went smoothly.

The X-AMP configuration created a web hosting area under /opt/lampp/htdocs directory. Since I’m wanting to set up multiple virtual domains I added a “www” folder named htdocs/www under that directory as a placeholder for each virtual domain. For example I have set up htdocs/www/mystudysource.dom for that particular web site. My first instinct was to download and extract Dripal into this domain’s directory. I realized this was wrong and placed the extracted files onto my desktop area instead. Then I created a “drupal6″ folder and proceeded to copy the extracted contents into my mystudysource.dom/drupal6 directory using an ftp program.

XAMPP Control Panel

I started the XAMPP control panel, pushing the Start XAMPP button and was up and running as far as having a web server but I still needed to copy the files into my domain’s area. Since one of the components started is ProFTPD (an ftp server program) I’m able to use a program like Mozilla’s FileZilla to transfer these files. With the drupal files in the mystudygroup.dom/drupal6 directory I’m ready to start configuration.

Setting up Drupal on my development environment didn’t go as smoothly. I got a list of warnings and errors but not the configuration screen I expected. Doing the same thing over and over produced similar results with some slight variations. I suspect I have some kind of mis-configuration causing access errors so, its back to reading the documentation to see what I missed.

Over the last few days I’ve been reading a lot more documentation, both online and from books I already have. It’s interesting how a variety of sources can take you off in different directions. Reading the documentation is similar to looking at an old weathered stone that has many cracks running in different directions. I’ve seen a wide range of documentation from topics that are well formated and easy to follow to the extreme opposite with a pathetic mashup of email comments appearing as a solid block of text characters with no formatting at all. I’m sure one of these documentation fissures will lead me in the right direction.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson