No Mod Required

Dear Internet, anyone out there have any experience with lightweight web servers that they’d like to share?

We’re (meaning Cramah!) looking to set up an asset server to serve static assets like css, javascript, images, flash (destined for progressive downloads) and mp3s. We want to offload that kind of stuff from app servers as a general architecture approach going forward (my obsession with performance is spreading ) Since it’s (at some level) my baby and is something I’m generally interested in, I’ve taken a little time and starting looking into what the set-up should entail. I’ve done a little bit of research and it looks like the names I already know are the names that people are using:

• lighttpd
• nginx
• LiteSpeed

Based on what I knew when I started, what I’ve read since, and a recommendation from a co-worker, lighttpd seems to be the way to go. Thing is, I don’t want to jump into anything before asking you, the Internet, if there’s anything I should know about it (or the other two) before heading down that path.

So… anyone out there using this stuff and feel like sharing an anecdote or two? Is there some other candidate I’m missing?

All comments are welcome

What will follow tonight is a flurry, and I do mean flurry, of blog posts on topics ranging from lightweight web servers to the Giro d’Italia, the first cycling Grand Tour of the year. It will be cathartic for me and hopefully interesting for the lot of you.

For those of you keeping track, this blogfest will be fueled by Allegrini’s Pallazo della Torre, one of my favorite wines from the Veneto region in Italy and the soundtrack will be provided Swedish pop star Robyn.

Want to join in the fun? Crack open an appropriate bottle and then check out the record via the newfangled Amazon Clips Widget (whilst hitting on the blog’s home page to see the new stuff bubble up to the top .)

I’ve got just the thing for you:

All Time Record Comic Book Sales

This is just a big-ass image post, featuring a few artists who caught my eye at this weekend’s SoWa Art Walk. All art is © the artist and is used here to just give you a taste of the styles and subjects involved. For the full deal, make sure to click the links and check out their respective web sites (and maybe buy something while you’re at it.)

Jack O’Hearn

www. JackOHearn.com

Amy Ross

Amy Ross

Heather McGrath

. Heather McGrath .

Stacey Cushner

Stacey Cushner

Timothy Craig

Timothy Craig Art

Thomas Andrew

THOMAS ANDREW

Judith Solomon

: j u d i t h s o l o m o n :

For real! I ran through all of the primordial webmonkey tutorials* when I was starting out building sites (10-11 years ago now!) and if the newly relaunched site is half as helpful it will be a great boon to the community. Great info and a friendly, funny attitude made it the place for me to learn about the web thing back in the last century. Honestly, I owe a lot to the usefulness of those early tutorials. Looking back on it I realize that Webmonkey, coupled with the community that sprang up around Dreamweaver at the time**, was a great forge upon which to build up my web chops.

We’re Back! Webmonkey Relaunches, Rejoins Wired

The original web developer’s resource has returned. Webmonkey has been completely redesigned, and we’re ready to rock once more. Also, our entire content library is now hosted on a wiki, so every tutorial, reference page and code example is open for editing. Come on in and show us what you’ve got!

Webmonkey: the Web Developers Resource

*Some still exist: like Thau’s JavaScript Tutorial, which is over ten years old now.

**I’ve been a Dreamweaver user since Version 1.2.

I saw this incredible piece from Barely Political, which features the dialog from the other side of the camera.

“You remind me of Lenny, from Mice and Men, because I think I should take you outside and shoot you before someone else has to kill you for being so stupid”

“You’re like a baboon, but less clever”

Cloverfield

A SPOILER FILLED REVIEW FOLLOWS.

I figured I’d make that warning since so much about this movie was secretive and I’m sure there are people, like me, who still only have a vague notion about this film (”hand held?” “A monster movie?”)

Anyway… Hell yeah. Not only did I enjoy this movie as a fine piece of popcorn cinema, and I did, one of my long-time (and recurring) wishes in the action/horror movie gamut was finally granted in this JJ Abrams produced monster flick.

EVERYONE DIES.

Sweet.

It’s true, all the douchey characters that populate the Manhattan of Cloverfield are dead when the final credits roll and I, for one, thought it was a stroke of genius.

Actually, thinking back, one character does manage to survive. Was it because she was the least douchey? I’d like to think so.

Beyond the body count, Cloverfield is a fun monster movie in the Toho vein. Sure, the techniques and look are a little edgier, “updated for the Youtube generation” or something, but the story mechanics and track of the action are straight out of Gojira.

That’s an easy path to my heart.

Google Doctype, as introduced by Mark Pilgrim:

The open web is the web built on open standards: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and more. The open web is a beautiful soup of barely compatible clients and servers. It comprises billions of pages, millions of users, and thousands of browser-based applications. You can access the open web with open source and proprietary browsers, on open source and proprietary operating systems, on open source and proprietary hardware.

Google has built its business here, on the open web, and we want to help you build here too. To that end, we are happy to announce the formation of an encyclopedia for web developers, by web developers: Google Doctype.

Google Code Blog: Introducing Google Doctype

Personally, I’m excited by this development (both practically and philosophically) and will likely contribute wherever it makes sense for me to lend a hand. Looking at it quickly some of the HOWTO information is already very useful (the web security information especially) and it will only improve with time as more and more dedicated people get involved with the project.

The Children of Húrin I’d read versions of this story before (it appears in different forms in several different places) so the overall story didn’t offer much in the way of surprsies, but it was still nice to read this “new,” expanded telling of the tale. It’s closer in style to The Silmarillion so anyone going in expecting to see all the “earthly” stuff that permeates the Lord of the Rings books (for a great example think of think Merry and Pippin in “Flotsam and Jetsam”) are going to be disappointed. If books like the The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales were your kind of thing, then by all means pick up the The Children of Húrin as it will undoubtedly please you as much as it did me.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.