JACKED Manager Knows What's Up
posted by pope on August 11, 2008 at 12:13 pm
People keep asking me, why does my blog run on some totally unheard of platform that is apparently lacking in features, has no social networking capabilities whatsoever, and also seems to be old and unsupported, called JACKED Manager? There's a very simple answer. JACKED is mine. I made it from scratch. Now, maybe that qualifies it to be the content manager of choice for me and all my projects, but realistically, that is a pretty terrible reason for anyone else to be using JACKED on their own, in the face of alternatives like WordPress and Drupal, projects which are unbelievably feature-rich and have ravenous and deep user and developer communities.
And this also makes me a bad salesman. I'm sitting on my hand-coded CMS explaining to the world its faults and why other products in direct competition with my own are better choices for prospective users. So I'll turn it around a little. Why, despite all I've just said, should someone use JACKED Manager? Because JACKED has a very deep and uncompromising set of beliefs.
JACKED is not running for president, no matter how much this might sound like a pitch for a candidate. JACKED is based on three things: php, MySQL, and the belief that everyone should be able to make and maintain their own websites, without being an expert web developer. Oh, and the first major release will include some actual JavaScript too.
From the first time the people behind the ARPANET realized what they were actually beginning, they intended it to be open. The web grew out of that experiment to become the dominant, global force that it is today, on those open ideals. Today, open brings the idea of the Open Source Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, and, of course, the champion of such ideals, Richard Stallman. That is, you think of these things unless you aren't a Computer Scientist. In which case, open software typically brings to mind, a free version of Office or e-hippies.
Either way, open means something more, that often gets forgotten. Open means accessible to everyone. And the web today is terrible at meeting that definition. We're making progress lately in terms of making the web content accessible for everyone, but we're all still skipping over a key point. Creating content on the web is NOT accessible at all. How can I say that, while I'm sitting here, churning out content into the Big Truck (internet) all day long, every day? I've spent countless hours of my own time, learning markup languages, server and client scripting languages, techniques for coding, concepts behind their use and how they work, and so much more, just to get to the point where I can create websites whenever and about whatever I want. Someone like my 61 year-old dad, has spent no time learning web programming, wouldn't even know where to start to make a simple, static about me page.
The learning curve for creating your own web content is so obscene that most people can barely change their MySpace layouts, and even then they turn to pre-made templates created by CSS/HTML "experts". That doesn't exactly turn a lot of people on to the prospect of making their own website.
For example, let's take updating your content manager installation when a new version is released. One site running JACKED 1.0, and one site running WordPress 2.5.1. To upgrade to WordPress version 2.6, you are directed to download a .zip from their website, then extract its contents into the proper folder on your webserver, while preserving certain configuration files, and make sure your database will be compatible (if it's not, you'll have to fix that, too). To upgrade to JACKED 1.x, or 2.x, or x.x, simply log into your JACKED admin home, open the Updater by clicking the appropriate link, and let it do its job. Assuming you don't even know how to put files on a webserver, which upgrade method would you prefer? When upgrading a modern system of any kind, that system knows exactly what it is, where its parts are, how they work, and what's inside them. Why should the user have to? Let it take care of its own dirty work.
Now, obviously there are some shortcomings to this thought process, such as initial installation. At this point there is no realistic simple installation process that doesn't involve having to set up a MySQL database with proper users and permissions, and things of that nature. Yet. But that is just initially. Once JACKED is installed and working on your server, there should never again be any need to get your hands dirty with webserver settings and databases and all that technical crap.
Making the web truly open and accessible to everyone in the world is a goal that no one software package could ever achieve, but it's a start. JACKED sets the bar higher. And if more of us would shoot for that kind of goal, then we really can start to change the web forever.
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tags: JACKED, projects, personal, Open Web, all tags
2 comments: view | leave one
posted by Dan on August 15, 2008 at 3:05 am
Sometimes I'm Busy
posted by pope on August 1, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I'll admit it. I forgot all about this and my new commitment to regular updates. But there has been a lot of news. So I'll take this opportunity to catch everyone up, and my Dark Knight "review" will be a different new post.
Let's start at the beginning. My job, still great as ever, pays me excessively well, and as such, I have realized one of my goals of the past two years. I am the proud owner of a new, black MacBook. Apparently these will be the final generation of the MacBook that we all know and love now, to be replaced by a new iteration of Apple's standard notebook. I've seen the rumors and supposedly "leaked" photos of what's coming up for the MacBook, and apparently Steve is bringing the styles of his laptop lines together more closely. From what I've heard, the new MacBook will be much more similar in design to its pro and air siblings, with a titanium case and AIR-style keyboard. To be honest, I don't like the sound of that one bit. I love the current black MacBook design. I think it's absurdly stylish and sexy, for a computer. Although I don't suppose they would be Apple anymore if they didn't radically change the design to set up the new generation of copycats.
I love my MacBook. Using OS X 10.5.4 to get anything done, whether I'm working on a site, moving huge quantities of files around on my network, or just browsing the web, is so much easier than using a Windows PC that I can't even remember how I used to get anything done. Everything is as intuitive as if I were just asking myself to do things for me. It knows what I want to do and how to get it done. And let's not forget the fact that everything looks better on a Mac, whether it's actually enhanced by the high-resolution screen or not. Things I design on here look infinitely better than anything I ever designed on my PC, even using the same software and other tools. I don't even know how that's possible.
In other news, the Three Pound Universe is going places. There is a lot of work going into the site getting the basic features ready and running for a somewhat closed alpha test. Initially it will be a small group of people invited solely to find every bug, exploit, and annoying little feature of the site, so that when we open it up for public beta tests, our work might be done already. Keep an eye on the 3lbu Blog for updates and more details about where things are going.
There is another site coming up very soon, with a very simple but powerful idea behind it, thanks again to my brother, Chris. This one already has some major competition, but we're looking to tap into the same obsessive fan base that sites like GroupHug.us develop purely out of their addictive powers to get us a boost over sites with similar ideas to our own. More info on this as it develops, which should be pretty quickly, since I already have most of the code assets together on other sites and it's a matter of putting them together on a server and giving it a pretty shell to live in.
As you can see, life is busy. But I'll be sure to explain just why it is on here more often.
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tags: personal, Endeca, co-op, Apple, MacBook, Three Pound Universe, projects, all tags
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In Depth Review of The Dark Knight
posted by pope on July 18, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I AM VERY TIRED. Midnight showings of almost 3 hour movies and work early in the morning do not go well.
But now I have a new one to add to my list of favorite movies ever. Go see The Dark Knight. Amazing.
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tags: The Dark Knight, movies, reviews, all tags
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Working at Endeca: I Dig It
posted by pope on July 7, 2008 at 4:57 pm
After passing through my first week of co-op fairly well (I'd say), I finally have some idea of what I'm actually doing here at Endeca. I'm in the Applications group of IT, meaning I work on the software that helps people get work done here. In some cases, I'll be working on the wiki used in the company's intranet, and in others I'll even be writing my own scripts or apps that people can use to do whatever it is they do for Endeca. Eventually, at the end of the month, I'll be having the new hire training and learn about the Endeca product, and all of its "knowledge management" powers.
In general, this place is great. The people are ridiculously friendly and helpful, and it seems like everyone loves the job they do, which is not exactly a common thing to find out in the "real world." All the free snacks and drinks don't hurt either. I've made it a personal mission to try every item in the free coffee machine just because I have to know what they taste like.
While I'm still in the "what the hell is going on right now?" stage of my learning process here, I've got a project, small as it is, that I am already working on (something along the lines of automating a very time-consuming and unpleasant task involving 1700 rows of data in Excel), and I'm starting to get somewhere with it. It's not a very tasking project, and shouldn't take very long at all, but it's a great way to get into how work gets done around here and how everything is set up.
All in all, this is a great work environment, and I know that I am going to learn a lot about both working in the professional world and about programming and IT in general. Endeca is a winner.
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tags: personal, Endeca, co-op, Northeastern University, all tags
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Things Are Great
posted by pope on July 2, 2008 at 4:55 pm
It's true. They are. After roughly a week of packing and unpacking basically everything I own repeatedly, I'm moved into my new room in West Village A. Being about twice as big and 150% more air conditioned than my old room in WIllis, (the extra 30% is based on the suspicion that Willis used heat in the summer in some kind of miserable attempt to say "well, we're trying, honest.") my new home is absolutely fantastic. On top of that, starting work at Endeca was nothing less than a great success. It's a really great place, and everyone I met today was absurdly friendly and helpful in getting me started. I haven't actually started a real project yet, other than getting Firefox and Eclipse installed on my workstation, but it looks like it will actually be a lot of fun. In other news, I'm tired. So for now I'm done, but expect more updates regularly. I've got a lot to talk about these days.
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tags: personal, Endeca, co-op, Northeastern University, all tags
3 comments: view | leave one
And the questions about Endeca will be answered in a post coming soon.
posted by pope on July 6, 2008 at 4:05 am
posted by MrBabyMan on July 3, 2008 at 1:25 pm
posted by MrBabyMan on July 3, 2008 at 1:17 pm
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