Tag: web hosting

webpad : a web based text editor

So I have WordPress (and in fact Drupal, Joomla, mediawiki, Moodle, damn those Dreamhost 1-click installs) as a way of running my website.

But there are still many pages which are outside of a content management system. Especially simple web app projects (such as ircount and stalisfield) and old html files.

It can be a pain to constantly ftp in to the server, or use ssh. Editing via ssh can be a pain, especially over a dodgy wireless connection, or when you want to close the lid to your macbook.

But trying to find something to fit this need didn’t come up with any results. Many hits were either tinyMCE clones which are WYSIWYG html editors that convert input in to html, do good for coding.

Webpad screenshot
Webpad screenshot

Until I came across Webpad. It not only suited my needs perfectly, but it is well designed and implemented.

After a quick install (more or less simply copying the files), you simply enter a specified username and password, and once authenticated you are presented with a line of icons at the top. Simple select the ‘open’ icon to browse to the file you wish to edit on your web server and you’re away!

It’s simple, yet well written and serves its purpose well. If there was one thing I would I suggest for future development it would be improved file management functionality. You can create directories and delete files from the file open dialog box. But I can’t see a way to delete directories, or move/copy files. Deleting directories is of use, as many web apps (wikis, blogs, cms) require you to upgrade the software, edit a config file, and then delete the install directory, or similar.

Oh, and it’s free!

Check out webpad by Beau Lebens on dentedreality.com.au

Posted on by chriskeene

Welcome back

In August I signed up with Dreamhost.

Until now I have used Freedom2surf’s web hosting service. I originally signed up with them as they seemed a good company (and still do, though now owned by pipex) and were cheap, £25 a year. When I first started using them they transferred my domain to them (it was all a bit new to me so I just presumed this was a required step) and their domain name costs were not cheap (£10). A few years later I wanted email as well (another £25), and the cost started going up. The service was stable, but I was started to need more. They offered just one database, not much when you are playing around with different software, such as Joomla, running WordPress and trying to experiment with your own silly web apps which require a DB, plus the quote for the database was tiny (10mb). Plus their web stats were crappy, and the log files were fiddly (kept for a few days on a secure website, no ftp and wget didn’t seem able to get them which made automating difficult, plus each file would download with the same filename by default).

During the summer I ended up at the GoDaddy website. I had heard bad things about them, but they did seem to offer an awful lot for a very cheap price. But I wouldn’t get that warm cosy feeling having my website hosted by them, so I waited. Dreamhost were recommended but not the cheapest. However after seeing just how much you do get (shell account, cron, etc), and that it would still be cheaper that my current setup, I went for it.

So far impressed, a lot of nice things and a lot of stuff (databases, email addresses, easy to get logs, easy to upgrade WordPress, etc). There does seem to be an awful lot of login requests when using their backend, each service and area seems to have it’s own username and password system, but this isn’t a huge problem. Plus I seemed to join them at a bad time, and there has been some downtime of late.

nostuff.org has been down for the last couple of weeks, and this is just down to me. I tried to transfer the actually domain across, though the move was rejected (I may not have set the new DNS servers up right before putting in the transfer request). I then basically did nothing for a few weeks. I finally got around to it yesterday, the transfer this time went fine and now everything seems good again.

So, hopefully this is still on some of your RSS feeds and you haven’t all deserted me! Welcome back.

Posted on by chriskeene