Prerequisites

• Must have SSH access to the server you are deploying to.
• Must have Ruby and RubyGems installed on your machine (not required for deployment server)’

Installing Capistrano

sudo gem install capistrano

Setup your project to use Capistrano

cd path/to/your/app
capify .

This will create a few files for you. It will create a Capfile in the root of your project. It will also create a directory named config (if it doesn’t exist already) and place a file named deploy.rb in the config folder. That’s where you will add/change any application-specific settings for your deployment recipe.

Here are the required settings (just replace with your app-specific variables):

Customize Capistrano for symfony

Now, to get capistrano to play nice with symfony, we have to override some of the built-in functions. You’ll want to add this to your deploy.rb file:

Now, you can start the deployment process! To get your server setup with the file structure that Capistrano expects, you can run

cap deploy:setup

This command will create the following folder structure on your server:

|-- deploy_to_path
  |-- current (symlink)
  |-- releases
    |-- 20100512131539
    |-- 20100509150741
    |-- 20100509145325
  |-- shared
    |-- cached-copy
    |-- log
    |-- pids
    |-- system

The folders in the releases directory will be the actual deployed code, timestamped. The pids folder in the shared directory is only used for Rails applications, so you can ignore it completely. Capistrano symlinks your log directory from your app to the log directory in the shared folder so that it doesn’t get erased when you deploy a new version of your code.

This is an important step! Before you deploy the application for the first time, it’s really a good idea to scp your databases.yml file up to your server so you can set the proper credentials for your production server and keep it out of your repository. Make sure you put the databases.yml file into the shared/system directory, because we already have a task that will symlink it when each new code version is deployed.

Now, to deploy your application for the first time, you can run:

cap deploy:cold

This will deploy your application, create the db, models, forms, filters, and run all of your migrations.

Now, whenever you need to deploy a new version of your code, you can just run:

cap deploy

If you need to deploy and run your migrations you can call:

cap deploy:migrations

We’ve also added a custom task to run your test suite on the production server. You can invoke this by calling:

cap deploy:testall

This will deploy the application, rebuild the test database, then run all of the tests.

If you want to see all of the Capistrano tasks available, you can run:

cap -T

We’ve been using this setup for a little while now, and it’s saved us a ton of time when we need to push changes for a site to the production server.

Digital Nashville asked me to speak on the subject at their next Education Series. You can see the invite on Facebook (here) or on the actual Digital Nashville site (here). I’ll go through a variety of scenarios where Open Source technologies provide a wonderful solution - ranging from work-related to fun!

It didn’t always get it 100% right, but even if it didn’t, it was still a convenient shortcut and it would get a majority of the info right. It was also amazingly good at picking “events” out of e-mail — either casual e-mail from a person or automated/invite type messages.

Then one day, it disappeared. Poof. Gone. Has anyone else noticed this? Does it still exist for anyone else out there? Is it unique to traditional gmail versus google apps?

Google, please bring this back, or I swear on the Golden Kraut I’ll have my revenge!

Part of the problem came from the search terms I started with.  I thought this would be called a ’site grabber’ - and many paid utilities thought the same :)  I then switched to Website Clone, but to no avail.  Finally, I that download.com called these utilities “Offline Browsers”.  Doing a quick search for Offline Browser struck gold!

I found an open-source utility called HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com/) that does exactly what I needed.  Website saved!

Powered by ScribeFire.

It is a very popular (and affordable) email management solution for help desks & sales teams. It is a bit complex, so you’ll want to take a moment to review the features and consider ways to synthesize it for your business. It appears that everything is managed through email and you have certain email addresses that customers and prospects use (or that it recognizes).

There is workflow, tagging, team resolution, and an integrated knowledge base. Instead of typing an article into the knowledge base, simply answering a client’s problem would give you the ability to ‘Tag’ and file that email into the Knowledge base.

If you’re looking for a Helpdesk+KnowledgeBase combo, this could be a real winner since it integrates tightly with email.

As the spam-war has escalated, DNSBLs have become a double-edged sword. They have probably saved SMTP from being utterly inundated with spam to the point that it’s useless. However, blacklists have also been forced to get increasingly aggressive. It’s not uncommon for an organization to find itself blacklisted, even if it didn’t overtly send spam (that it knows of). If your organization becomes the unlucky member of a DNSBL, you’ll find that most (if not all) of your email is rejected by the outside world because you’re now considered a spammer. The worst part is that you may have no idea why you were blacklisted and no idea how to get de-listed!

DNSBLs play a central role in most email protection software. There are many popular blacklists and each has its own personality and aggressiveness factor. One well-known, aggressive DNSBL is SpamCop. This service is considered very aggressive since they make it so easy to report someone as a spammer. While it’s easy to get on the list, SpamCop also makes it easy to get off the list on their website. Other blacklists require substantial proof to add you to their list – but they also require substantial proof to remove you.

Here’s the problem: If everyone is using spam protection with DNSBLs and your organization is reported as a spammer… everyone blocks your email. DNSBLs have become so powerful that they can literally stop all email communications from your organization.

Take heart! There are things you can do to protect yourself from finding yourself on a blacklist. Here are some basic rules that should minimize your chances:

• Do not spam – While this seems obvious, it is the most important advice. Don’t add people to your mailing list just because you picked up their business card… this is spamming. Don’t email blast everyone in your address book with something they don’t necessarily want… this is also spamming.
• Educate your employees – While an organizational policy not to spam is a given, it is equally important that you convey this to your employees. They must understand what spam is and how to interact on the Internet properly. It only takes one person on a mailserver or a domain to get your entire organization blacklisted.
• Use Virus and Spyware protection – Today’s worst viruses no longer destroy your computer. Instead, they operate in the background and send spam on behalf of their creator. This can make your network or server into a participant in a spam/virus botnet. This is probably the number one reason that otherwise innocent parties wind up on a DNSBL. If you wind up on a blacklist, make this the first thing you check.
• Check your mail server – One of the fastest ways to get on an RBL is to have a misconfigured mail server. If your server is not properly configured to only allow your users to send mail, it could be used by a spammer (Such servers are called an open relay, and will be blacklisted instantly).
• Check miscellaneous webservers and/or proxies. Believe it or not, even a misconfigured webserver or web proxy — something unrelated to e-mail itself — can be used to send spam! You can find a list of services that will check your server for open proxies here.
• Use a 3rd party email marketing service – If you’re going to send e-mail to a large amount of recipients at a time, you should outsource your email marketing. Not all e-mail marketing firms are created equally (some are a thin veil for spammers or actually are spammers) — but the good ones take great pains to follow the rules and ensure that the recipients have all opted-in and are voluntary recipients of your mail. They will bear the onus of ensuring your mail gets to its recipients. In addition, because the service is hosted separately, your actual business-operations e-mail will be isolated and protected from being blacklisted as a result of the bulk e-mail.
• Have an expert on call – If you get on a blacklist, talk to your IT professional. Most will know the necessary steps for getting off the list. You can also check OpenRBL to see which blacklist(s) your IP may be on, along with links to information about the listing. Once you identify them, you’ll need to go through their steps to get off.

In summary, finding yourself on a RBL can be devastating for your organization. By following the steps outlined above, you greatly decrease your chances of inadvertently getting blacklisted.

1. Sensitive Data Storage - Examples include financial info, passwords, etc.
2. Email Access - Allowing you to comfortably check your mail from anywhere
3. Synchronization - As storage amounts increase, more data can be backed up
4. Buddies/Contacts - Instant messaging to friends is available anywhere
5. Office & Productivity - Work on docs, spreadsheets, and presentations

First things first, get a USB launcher

The Ativa drive I bought at Office Max for $45 (on special) came with “U3 Technology” for running apps directly from the drive. It was nice, but I ultimately decided to use a replacement from PortableApps. Unfortunately, U3 doesn’t make it obvious how to uninstall and I had to search to find the answer. Once it was uninstalled, I downloaded the PortableApps Standard Suite and followed the installation instructions. This suite killed two birds with one stone - I had an application ‘launcher’ & I had some cool applications. U3 gave me the launcher and then made me individually seek out the cool applications.

With this suite installed, I had the office piece (Open Office Portable) & the Email piece (Thunderbird). I opened Thunderbird and entered in my email server details [Note: I don’t recommend doing this if you have POP3 unless you ‘Leave a copy on the server’. IMAP users - you’re in a good boat with me!)

The PortableApps site also provided free add-on solutions for IM (GAIM) and Music/Video (VLC Media Player)

Next, Sensitive Data Protection

Interestingly enough, neither PortableApps nor U3 provided a good solution for sensitive data. U3 provides an app called Roboforms, but I couldn’t figure it out to save my life. Thanks to a very helpful article from TipMonkies, I learned about KeePass - a little password application for storing sensitive data on your USB drive. Since it doesn’t come with either suite, you have to follow these steps to install:

1. Download the ZIP version (the .exe version will install to your PC)
2. Open your USB drive and create the folder X:\PortableApps\KeePass
3. Unzip the downloaded file and copy/paste the .exe file into the new folder
4. Re-start the PortableApp Launcher and then select KeePass from the menu

Other goodies to consider…

Alas, there are other great apps you can put on your USB drive. Following the same manual steps listed above, I added these applications:

• XnView - Super Image viewer/editor that’s light weight and fast!
• Abstract Spoon’s ToDoList - Simple ToDo List that’s really small
• File Restoration (REST2514.EXE) - Originally created by Brian Kato and now provided by Kelly
• Security (and Encryption) - TrueCrypt wins hands down (Read the FAQ!)

Last, let’s back it all up

I saved this section for last because it actually took me a little while to settle on which back up method I wanted to use. After thinking about it, I want to ‘Synchronize’ my PC with my USB - not use either as a backup. Synchronization and Backup are very different in certain ways. If you want a free back up solution, here is a great page with many options. If you want a synchronization solution, I recommend Allway Sync.

There’s a lot here, but its all pretty simple to download and install. When you’re done, you’ll have a pretty functional USB drive - something you can plug in just about anywhere and start using! Good luck!

So, here’s our setup:

1) Email: This actually works really well. We use IMAP and the Blackberry (through Sprint) has a nice service that allows us to connect to our IMAP server. The Blackberry checks the IMAP Server every 15 minutes and alerts me to the new messages. I set my blackberry up to be the master and it reconciles every 15 minutes. WARNING: This means that my blackberry is actually deleting messages from my IMAP (and to be literal, it is expunging them - so they aren’t even in my trash folder). I chose this option so I don’t have hundreds of emails waiting on me when I get back to the office. Remember, I can’t sync (but that comes later).

2) Local PIM (personal information management): This includes contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes. Simply put, forget about using them. We have two issues that we’re up against. First, we use Thunderbird - so we don’t have a good option for calendar, tasks, and notes. I hope their progress with Sunbird and Lightning continues! The calendar isn’t as hopeless as Tasks/Notes since the Blackberry can sync with iCal formatted calendars. If you use an iCal compatible Calendar, then you can have your events.

As for locally stored contacts, I couldn’t find an easy solution to sync to the Blackberry. The best idea I had was to use Plaxo’s Thunderbird client and access via the web (premium service)

3) Groupware Server: If you are using an OpenSource Groupware product, there are more options available for syncing the blackberry. For basic calendars & tasks, the Blackberry will sync with any iCal formatted calendar. To do this, you will need an application like PocketMac.

For a more robust solution, the best option is to setup a Groupware solution that is compatible with a SyncML server like funambol. There are many solutions available (and even some services like Zyb). We use eGroupware and it integrates with SyncML. For the Blackberry, SyncBerry [$29.95] provides Over-The-Air (OTA) synchronization with Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks (InfoLog). Once the SyncML server is setup, there are two options for syncing Thunderbird. One is an community supported Mozilla extension of funambol and the other is a ‘beta’ application called TSync. This ensures that the Blackberry & Thunderbird are both sync’d to the corporate groupware package/service.

Note: I’m writing this article as I research these solutions. We haven’t implemented the SyncML server, so I can’t vouch for the success of this piece.

4) Internet Access (Phone): This is my favorite part! First, the 8703e has a beautiful screen and it is very easy to access web pages. For our company, we disabled images & their placeholders to increase load speeds. Since we haven’t implemented SyncML, everyone simply accesses eGroupware via the phone’s web browser. It isn’t pretty, but it’s functional (especially if you make the calendar display in list view).

** BONUS**
This phone actually acts as a wireless Modem on the Sprint Network!!! All of the research I’ve conducted has been through the phone - connected via a USB cable. The 8703e on Sprint’s EDVO network is getting an average of 340kbps - easily enough for basic web usage.

All in all, I think the Blackberry will be a fantastic solution once we have eGroupware+SyncML+SyncBerry+Thunderbird/funambol. In fact, CentreSource will begin providing Nashville clients with installations of the OpenSource combination upon successful implementation.

Until then, it is a great tool for checking IMAP email and accessing the web (via the phone and as a modem).

A great example is BlueMoutain.com - a site that many people go to in hopes of creating a free greeting card. When you get there and choose one, you are greeted with a page that talks of a 1-month free trial! But if you want to see how much it costs after that, good luck. I clicked on various pages (including the FAQ) to see how much it would cost. Nothing… nada… zip. They are luring people into signing up and then they’ll show you the price later. Why would they do this? Because they are Shady (that’s slang for ‘unethical’).

Another Shady provider is Microsoft and their MSN online service. I had their MSN Explorer service (I used it for the MS Money Online Budgeting) and finally decided to cancel it. In my software it has a ‘Help/Settings’ page. Seemed simple enough… I clicked the page, selected ‘Billing Details’ and BOOM - page not found. I tried a few more times and even waited a few days thinking that something was wrong on their end. Still, page not found. This started a hunt that lasted 30 minutes and landed me in the Microsoft Knowledge base before I finally got the number/website to call.

The point is… don’t be a shady website. MSN Explorer and Blue Mountain are causing problems and frustration with their actions - and teaching a crop of young web service developers that their methods are ok. They aren’t…

Time Magazine listed a non-production virtual keyboard from Canesta as one of their best inventions of 2002. Interestingly enough, it appears that Canesta abandoned the idea and decided to focus on electronic image processing.

I did a little more digging and found out that the model displayed in SmartComputing is actually made by a firm in Isreal called VKB Inc. They have a domain, but no web page: http://www.vkb.co.il/. It appears they are selling their product through distributors like ThinkGeek and sites like http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com.

So, what are the cool uses of a Virtual Keyboard? Well, they are great for interfacing with:

• Personal digital assistants
• Cellular telephones
• Space saving computers
• Tablet PCs
• Laptops
• Industrial environments
• Clean rooms
• Sterile and medical environments
• Test Equipment
• Transport (Air, Rail, Automotive)

From various articles, it looks like you can type 70-80 words per minute without any degradation of performance. Most of the devices run off of batteries, connect via bluetooth, and work best indoors with normal or low light.

I found a great write-up from 2003 that describes 4 companies competing to get their virtual keyboards to market. The funny thing is that 3 of the 4 (the 4th being VKB Inc.) didn’t find any luck with their virtual keyboards. And check out Senseboard - it was the winner of Comdex’s Best new technology in 2001… yet, their website seems to be a ghost town. Virtual Devices appears to have the technology, but still no products.

I also found this article that describes some manufacturers in the UK & Hong Kong. Unfortunately, it didn’t list their websites or product info :)

Long story short… one made it! Now we can all have our own Virtual Keyboard for $199