Clean Urls did not work out of the box for me when I installed Drupal on a fresh install of Debian. These are the easy steps for setting them up.

Enable mod_rewrite:
You need to enable the rewrite module so Apache can do the rewrite. On Debian you can issue the following command to do this.

$ a2enmod rewrite

Git is the new cool kid in town when it comes to source code management. I wanted to install Git on my Mac, but I had heard installing it could be a bit of a pain. I did a bunch of research before I tried an install and it seemed Macports would be the easiest way to get it working.

I have spent a stupid amount of time trying to get MySQL installed/configured/working on my Mac. Since I am coming from Ubuntu, I am used to being able to install an entire LAMPs stack with this one command:

$ sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-xsl php5-gd php-pear libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql

Apparently on a Mac this is a complete PITA.

If you are trying to do this you will need Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (~$79.99 USD). This software allows you to run Windows and Linux on your Mac so you have access to all three operating systems without rebooting. I think this will be an ideal web developing environment, but that is another article all together...

Firefox Mouse Gestures Plugin: Click and drag a mouse button to navigate web pages.

Go to the link above and click on the "Install Now" button in the middle of the page. It will install the plugin, and when it tells you to restart, go ahead, your session will be saved on restart.

If you use Windows or Linux, this is as far as you need to go.

On a Mac, do this to make it work: Tools Menu -> Add-ons -> (In the new window) Mouse Gestures -> Preferences

I have been trying to sit down to write this article for a while, but I never seem to have the time. I had put together some links while researching that were pretty good, so I figured I would publish them anyway so interested people would have somewhere to start from.

Amazon.com, while building a book selling machine, has put together a pretty extensive set of cloud computing services. This article is meant to give you a brief overview of a few of their services and give you a starting point if you are interested in researching this technology.

I think Windows release of Vista is a turning point in the desktop environment landscape. People are going to start looking for alternatives instead of trying to relearn how to use their computer, all the while dealing with the fact that it is slower than it ever was.

With many new types of media available online, the newspaper industry has been loosing traction and are being forced to downsize. Is this just an inevitable chain of events due to the onset of the information age, or do newspapers still hold a valuable market and just need to adjust their thinking? I think that the newspaper industry has a solid product and will continue to have a market, but I feel that their market is changing and they need to reevaluate their approach to the editorial consumer.

I recently attended the Mesh 2007 Conference in Toronto with many notable keynotes and guests. One of the more interesting presentations I attended was 'The Web and Philanthropy'. It was a conversation led by Rob Hyndman with Tom Williams and Austin Hill, two people who are doing a lot to facilitate philanthropy online.

If your company is looking to update your online feature set, but don't have the technical expertise to do it your self, there are a lot of new options that are tailored just for you. The price tag associated with getting a professional looking and feature complete website online has always been a major deterrent. If your company does not have a technical department up for the challenge, it can be difficult to put together a manageable solution that suits your needs and does not cost a fortune.