the Forty-Second Parallel

As part of a major redesign of our web presence at work, I've been testing out Lighttpd for use as our primary web server. I've been hearing lots of good things about it and it seems to pair very nicely with Rails. Since I will also be deploying at least one major Rails app during the redesign and probably more in the future, it seemed prudent to at least give the little guy a look.

So, I downloaded, compiled and installed the latest version without any problems. Using the included sample config file, I was soon up and running and things were looking nice. So then I started looking around for a startup script. I found a couple included with the source for Linux, but nothing for OS X. So, I go to Google - surely someone somewhere has crossed this bridge. But, again, no dice.

The closest I was able to dig up was this nice lighttpd startup script for 10.4 (Tiger) - that'll come in handy when I start to setup and deploy to my production server. But, for now I'm stuck with 10.3. So, I dusted off my shell scripting tools and set to work. The end result is a nice (in my opinion) lighttpd startup script for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther).

I've only tested it on 10.3.9, so I can't guarantee that it'll work on your system. But if you want to try it out, just download and unzip the files to /Library/StartupItems/LightTPDServer (you'll have to create that directory as root from the terminal). Then edit the appropriate lines at the top of /Library/StartupItems/LightTPDServer/LightTPDServer and you should be good to go.

Let me know if you find this useful.

Download: Lighttpd startup script for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)

According to a press release issued today, Opera "announced that it will deliver the World Wide Web to Nintendo DS users in Japan." The press release went to say that the browser:

... will be sold as a DS card. Users simply insert the card into the Wi- Fi enabled Nintendo DS, connect to a network, and begin browsing on two screens.

Given the progress Opera has been making lately with their browser on both the mobile and desktop fronts, this news should get any DS-toting gamer excited. I've been doing the bulk of my gaming on the DS ever since I picked up the Mario Kart pack last Christmas. The prospect of being able to do some quick browsing from the same device is certainly enticing, assuming the price is right.

Of course, the biggest downside from my standpoint is that I just don't see there being that much demand for something like this in the U.S. So, the only means of getting ahold of this gem is via import.

No word on a release date.

[Via 4 color rebellion]

Note: this is not intended to be a full review.

Opera is a browser I've always wanted to like. For various reasons, however, I have never been able to use it as my fulltime browser. And so Firefox has served me faithfully, albeit rather sluggishly at times. Which is why Opera has always been so appealing — regardless of whatever other issues I've ever had with it, it's always been a speed demon.

Whereas Firefox could only be called nimble in relation to Internet Explorer and the old Mozilla suite, Opera truly is a small, lightweight, and nimble browser. The recent release of the second "tecnology preview" of Opera 9 continues this tradition, along with a myriad of improvements and new features.

I've been using it as much as possible for almost a week now and have come away very much impressed. So much so that I think it's almost to the point that I could use it as my main browser — the only thing really holding me back there is the fact that it's still a beta release. Rendering shortcomings and bugs that drove me nuts with past releases seem to have been cleared up for the most part. It still struggles occasionally with AJAX heavy sites; however, it's hard to tell if that's the fault of Opera or of the site itself. I've only come across one site that didn't render perfectly in Opera — and it rendered differently in every browser I tried it in. So, I can hardly hold that one against Opera. And what really got me jumping for joy was the perfect rendering of the entire script.aculo.us suite of effects demos, thanks to the inclusion of support for CSS 3 opacity.

As opposed to prior versions, the default interface is clean and simple but is extremely configurable in any way you like it. It may not support the range of extensions that Firefox does, but Opera already has built in a lot of the things Firefox needs extensions for (i.e. mouse gestures, session saving, etc.). And beyond that, with Opera's new support widgets, it's conceivable that additional functionality could be added to the browser via a widget. Unfortunately, Opera's widgets still feel very much like a beta feature; so, I can only speculate as to what Opera's plans are for their primary usage.

The built-in Opera mail client doesn't appear to have changed much on first glance. I've never really used it all that much, but some users swear by it and claim huge productivity increases in managing their email. At work I use the Mail under Mac OS X (at least until an Exchange server migration forces us Mac users to use Entourage) and at home I use Gmail. So, I can't really give an informed opinion of it right now. Maybe once Opera 9 comes out of beta, I'll put it through its paces.

In any case, Opera 9 TP2 is truly an impressive piece of work — especially for beta software. I am definitely looking forward to the final release. The entire download comes in at 4 MB for the Windows version and 10.7 MB for the Mac. So, give it a shot.