Apache VirtualHosts on Internal Network (No DNS)

It’s quite common for web engineers to develop applications on either a local machine, or a server running on the local network. In many situations one does not have the luxury of a domain name service to base everything off of, and it becomes a matter of using the IP address or an internal host file.

For example, I have an internal server that we do most of our development on and we’ve typically placed everything in the default htdocs directory. That tends to be a problem if we’re working on a pre-existing application that was designed to work only from the root level.

In the following steps I’ll describe setting up a virtual host and how to trick your computer into simulating the domain service.
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Creating a Remote Git Repository

Here is a quick and dirty guide to create your own remote repository. Access is controlled through standard ssh so it’s as secure as your ssh access is.
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Installing Git on Cent OS 5

It’s pretty straightforward to install Git on a mediatemple DV 3.0 server. If you have later versions of their servers with Yum installed, you may be able to simply install it through yum.

To begin you need to download the latest version and run through the standard extraction and configure/make/make install.

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Storing GMT in MySQL, Timezone Conversion in PHP

At Trellis Development we’re working on several applications which need to frequently convert dates between various time zones.

By default, both PHP and MySQL operate using a single timezone which is identified during installation and is quite often the same as the host server. Both tools allow you to specify a different timezone on the fly, and all following date operations work based off of that locale.

The primary goal is to preserve a base standard time so that we can easily convert between different timezones, without loosing the ability to convert again. Two choices emerged – storing a Unix Time stamp or a date string stored using GMT/UTC time.
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Accepting Proposals for MySquibbles.com

Three years ago Botsko.net launched MySquibbles.com after several months of design and programming work.

Squibbles is a web-based community where adults share their favorite links for their children. Parents, care providers, teachers, and others share website links that their children enjoy and can easily find new links that have been moderated by website administrators and voted on by other users. Users also organize favorite links into lists for up to five children, submit content, vote, view links recommended for them, and more.

The community grew well in the first few months and the site performed very well for the use it was getting. In the following months Squibbles lost the focus it had and was not able to receive any of the proper marketing it deserved. This lack of marketing prevented the community from growing despite a significant interest from early testers, parents, schools, etc.

Botsko.net, LLC is seeking new offers on this web property, which we believe still has great potential. Accepted offers range from equity partnerships to acquisition. We’re looking for someone with access and experience in marketing this type of resource to the proper target audience.

We’re willing to remain involved for technical work if the eventual agreement allows.

Please contact Michael Botsko with any communications regarding MySquibbles.com.