and the fastest web browser is…

Well we all know that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (yes the web browser that comes preinstalled in every copy of Windows) is probably the least secure web browser around, due to the countless well-publicised security issues involving it. But is it really true that IE is the undisputed leader when it comes to browsing speed? Or has Mozilla Firefox claimed the throne?

Read this browser speed comparisons – the conclusions might surprise you!

Plume CMS Part 2: The trial and the themes

Plume CMS has turned out to be precisely what I was looking for because it has a very beautiful and simple interface, a quick and easy way of posting information (almost blog-like…we’ll get back to that in a while), elegant and simple file management system which allows users to upload files into their own subdirectories (only), AND easily create links to those files/images using a point-and-click interface….in other words, just what a harried teacher with little-to-no free time needs! (Does that mean I have a lot of free time so I’m doing all this? Nah, it just means I have had no social social and little sleep these past few days!).

The only problem was, it came bundled with just a single template which makes for a shockingly sparse look.

Luckily, a few posts in the forum later, I discovered that Plume CMS actually shares its scripting and template system with another blogging system by the name of DotClear, which IMO has the most beautiful interface on an open source blogging software at present. Thanks to some helpful pointers s in the Plume forums, I set about adapting several DotClear themes to Plume, and the result is what you can see on this list.

Here’s a demo teacher page I created. Ok will demo it to my HOD tomorrow and write an eSSS now!

Plume CMS Part 1: Multiple user blogs…the road to Plume

When my HOD/IT asked about the possibility of teachers having their own pages in Mambo (the CMS that the school is planning to move the school website too), I was intrigued. So I did some searching at Mambers and came across two component projects by the name of

http://pxsystem.sourceforge.net/

MyHomePage and UHP. Without delving into too many details however, I found the two unsuitable: the former was too unnerving (required installation of several separate parts) and would give teachers too much “power”, while the latter was a ittle too limiting for what I needed.

After a few hours of research and test-driving, I was ready to throw in the towel when I came across mention of a WordPress MU (for Multi-UseR) – yes, a derivative of what this blog is running on. :-p Alas, it is still in its early development stages (not to mention version 1.5 of the usual WordPress is in its final development stages, and will probably have implications on WordPress MU), and its installation was quite iffy for me. So I started going through more mature software that would provide similar functionality. In my “journey”, some of the contenders I came across were

• Nucleus CMS which unfortunately didn’t seem to have the ability to give users distinct and separate pages that only they could write on
• b2evolutionis very nice multi-user blogging system but it’s too troublesome to set it up for different users to have their own distinctive ending URL
• Drupal which was so powerful I had problems installing it and figuring out how to do what I wanted with it

And then, a chance visit to
OpensourceCMS focused my attention on Plume CMS, which among other things, purport to have

• multiple websites management from a single installation
• integrated file management
• multiple authors with different rights and websites
• full UTF-8 for non-alphabet based scripts

Installation was quick and easy, and it has a beautiful interface which you can see here .

I am hooked!

help for iPhoto users

iPhoto has the ability to assign keywords to photos, but even in the latest version 5, it is so tedious that people never get around to using it. Yes, iPhoto 5 makes it easy for one to assign keywords when importing new batches of photos, but what about those already in iPhoto?

Luckily, Keyword Assistant for iPhoto makes this a much less painful process.

MAMP!

A few days ago I wrote about hosting a website from your home but in Singapore, if you have a residential broadband connection, you can’t legally host a website from your computer. Which means that the only reason anyone would want to have all the web serving software installed in their computer would be to “check out” or develop content locally, on the computer, before uploading to the webserver. That being the case, I can understand why most people wouldn’t ever want to go through the hassle of installing PHP, MySQL, Apache, PHPMyadmin etc.

Luckily, there is a quick-and-easy solution for people with little time like you and I.

MAMP stands for Macintosh Apache MySQL and PHPMyadmin. Essentially, all you need to do is download a (rather big) package file, drag the decompressed folder to Applications, double-click the executable and…voila! You have everything set up! No files to edit and no command-line madness to deal with. Doesn’t interfere with any existing PHP etc installation either. No good for actual file serving, but then that’s not what MAMP is for.

I wish I’d found this sooner.

But how about Windows-using folks? The equivalent seems to be EasyPHP. This installation guide should prove useful for those who’d like to try it out.