PlanetZac :: TechnologiesHow it Works
The PlanetZac web site started its life as a way for me to learn many Internet-related technologies. Since then, it has grown into a nice little personal site; establishing my corner of the world wide web. If you're a geek like me, this page may be of interest as it details all of what's going on behind the scenes.
Hardware
Currently, PlanetZac is hosted on a dual Intel PIII 733MHz system. The machine has 512MB of EDO memory. This machine is located in one of the NOCs of my previous employer which provides my machine with a rather nice DS3 backbone.
Operating System
As far as geeky operating systems go, this one is outstanding. PlanetZac is powered by FreeBSD. This operating system has proven itself time and time again through speed, flexibility, and most of all, reliability. Right now, the OS is 5.3 Release.
Software
PlanetZac is served by the Apache web server. As with all of my critical software, this is a custom build of the renowned web server. Along with all of the built-in features of the server, I have integrated the PHP interpreter to aid in all dynamic content and presentation abstraction.
Additionally, many resources are supported through the use of a MySQL database server. MySQL is known most of all for its speed, but I've found my homemade builds of the server to be so reliable I've never had to do any kind of post-install maintenence for the two years it's been in operation.
The glue that binds all of these technologies together and presents the page you see right now is a system of dynamic content management programs developed by myself. Mostly written in PHP, this system integrates both flat-file content with database-originating information and multimedia. The biggest advantage is keeping all content completely ignorant of layout or display-specific information.
Because this site started out as an educational endeavor, I have continued to push my knowledge of web publishing with the latest iteration of this site's design. I no longer use the confusing HTML principles of layout, but have now completely migrated to using XHTML for all content organization and display and have coupled that with extensive CSS formatting.
My Browser Spiel
All web designers seem to have their favorite browsers and their own arguments for why all other browsers are worthless. Well, my arguments are fairly simple. Basically, most modern browsers are getting it right. Compare today's 6th generation browsers with all of the 4th generation products. If the improvements we're seeing at this rate are any indication, web designers should have very little to worry about in the coming years.
But, if you want my opinion about what browsers seem to work the best, I have had nothing but good luck with the Mozilla Firefox browser for both Windows and Unix/Linux. My biggest reasons are that it's small, very fast (even without a preloader), and seems to conform to the intent of the web standards much better than any commercial browser. There are some features that it shares with its big brother (Mozilla) that make web development easier. I've recommended the browser to many people who are tired of all the pop-ups on the web and they've loved it.
This is not to say that I detest all other browsers. On a Windows machine or Mac, you can still see me using Internet Explorer. On my Unix desktops (FreeBSD) I use Konquerer regularly alongside Firefox.
I do have issues with Netscape and Opera, but it's mostly personal preference more so than any operational issue. Ever since NS6 came out, I've lost all hope in the Netscape project and Opera drives me nuts when I'm trying to develop web sites.
The fact that the most commonly available browser (IE/Win) is rendering pages very similar to a completely open source project (Mozilla Firefox) makes me plenty happy with the two platforms
