Category Archives: Technology

How to Build a Computer Model of God

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Charlie B

Like most people, questions about the existence of God and all things spiritual plague me frequently. I want to believe in such things, especially when it comes to continuity of my consciousness. I don’t like the idea of disappearing when I die. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | 56 Comments

How To Improve Website Performance (With Drupal, PHP, MySQL and Apache)

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Charlie B

Recently, when my new website security scanning startup site launched, I was inundated with traffic – receiving several thousand hits in the space of a few hours. Coupled with several website security scans my site was running, and the load … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | Tagged application performance, drupal, performance tuning, website launch | 13 Comments

Web Programming Best Practices

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Charlie B

Recently, Patrick had a great post on web coding best practices. I wanted to echo some of his points, and enhance it with a few of my own. As products have moved to the web, I think some of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | Tagged drupal, programming, website launch | Leave a comment

WordPress vs. Joomla vs. Drupal – Picking a CMS for your Business

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Charlie B

Last week I wrote about why every business should build their site on a CMS. This week I will help you select which CMS is the right choice for your business website. The three I highlight here are all highly … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | Tagged cms, drupal, joomla, programming, small business, startup, wordpress | 3 Comments

7 Reasons to Use an Open Source CMS For Your Website

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Charlie B

In the past few years, I have built several websites. The first site I built, I programmed from the ground up, using 100% custom code. I created a nifty custom login function, with all sorts of easy to use login features like ajax username verification, instant password resets, and a painless sign up process. I programmed a Digg-like article rating system, community features for friending other users, and numerous other things. Most of these required a fair amount of effort, testing, bug fixing, and securing. Even then, there was more to do. As a result, some useful nice to have features were cut before go-live.

The next site I built for a client, I built on Wordpress. I had a live site demo up and running with custom images, and 90% of the requirements filled in less than 24 hours. The site wasn’t as complicated as the first site I described, but I got instant feedback from the client about what they were looking for, with no custom programing at all. But getting a proof of concept out quickly isn’t the only reason a CMS is almost always the right choice for your website. Here are seven of the most compelling reasons to choose a CMS over a build from the ground up approach.

The Future of Independent Software Development

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Charlie B

I was reading about the new Apple desktop app store earlier today and it got me thinking about longer term trends in the business of software. More and more individual developers, or small groups of developers, are making a living selling niche software online, generally as downloadable desktop software. While this method may be working well at the moment, and will probably never go away entirely (especially when the target niche is highly technical!), I think the longer term trend is towards online only software.

Consider first the disadvantages of selling desktop software: