Input wanted for new tech book

[essellar]

... the most difficult part initially was actually getting everything setup...
... there doesnt seem to be a single definitive resource out there that gives you a start in getting your website to a live environment.

Deployment is rarely given much coverage because, well, it's one of the hard parts, even for professionals. Obviously, the problem is a much simpler one for a small site that's going to be living on a single server, but it's really easy to build a site or an application that gets the "Works on My Machine" sticker on the box and requires a nearly-complete rewrite to move to a web host. Part of the book will be covering how to remove unnecessary machine dependencies altogether and make the site/app easily portable, deployable and configurable. (I assume that "host-hopping" is pretty commonplace.) Covered, but still earns a book.

By far the most common question asked here is "Why was my site suspended", obviously this is no great loss for a free hosting account but often many novice webmasters appear blissfuly ignorant that many of the same rules apply to paid hosting wherever they go such as (no Warez, file hosting, phishing etc) and paying for hosting does not give them immunity.

Then there's the legal can of worms, whilst 'Hobby' sites are granted a certain amount of leeway those clearly running a business website have to abide by certain rules such as image useage and postal contact information to name but a few I've lost count the number of clients with a business who have asked me to remove watermarks from images they found on the web

Oh, you bet there's going to be some IP coverage. Have you ever seen a painting you've done on the cover of a magazine you've never heard of at the local news agent's? Or received support emails in thoroughly broken English for an internal application you've written for an American client that says, in essence, "I've managed to jump over the license check in the binary, but it doesn't seem to work well with the version of XXX we're using here -- do you support XXX 13.01 in your latest version? And I seem to be having problems with <insert non-Latin-alphabet language>." I have. Both counts. You could say I'm a little sensitive about that issue.

(Especially the latter incident -- it's pretty easy to fake copyright ownership in an unknown work, but it takes a large pair of brassies to ask for support for a stolen app. That's sort of the level of disregard for the law that I've come to expect from a lot of cultures, including the more radical element of the FOSS culture. I'll mention phishing and warez, but I don't expect people to change their attitudes.)

Covering the general topic of reading and abiding by the host's ToS and AUP, though, is a good idea and won't add much -- except that it will be difficult to fit those large red letters on the page. Maybe a pull-out poster? You'll find out when you get the book. As with Anna, I don't think you'll need it, but you might find it something worth pointing other people to (if it's good enough, and that's something you'll have to decide for yourself).

 

[callumacrae]

How about a section on how to get support if something goes wrong, or what to do if your site goes down? (eg don't go straight onto the forums screaming MY SITE IS DOWN, check to see whether it is just your site or the entire server).

If I can write a section on something for you, I'd be more than happy to (or just steal whatever you want from lynxphp.com (but it's all old and rubbish)). I'd also be happy to proof read the book when it is done, and I'll buy a few copies / make a donation / something when I have some money.

 

[theone48]

Those are really great organizational suggestions from intpsych - you sure know the book you're looking for! Hmm... I wonder if I too might earn a copy adding to those wonderful suggestions, as I too badly need a copy. Um on second thought, perhaps not. You need money too and if you give everyone a free copy, I'd say you'd make a popular, but poor businessman, lol. So here are my suggestions for free: (well, if ever you become a millionaire, just be sure to send me 1/999,900ths of it, ha ha).

- Much of our learning curve is visual. Add illustrations where possible to give reader a visual perspective of what you're describing. Graphics also add in book popularity.
- At the end of each chapter, place a redundant review list of important topics mentioned in the chapter.
- Provide a section towards the end with actual working program/script examples that people can refer to and try for themselves. It gives the feeling of an added incentive for the reader and can increase sales.
- A section on Flash and Java computing would be helpful, as I notice an ever-increasing emergence of applications and sites using these.
- Since it is a book about originality, stress the value of it and try to convey a framework in the chapters so readers are able to realize it in their own vision. By framework, I mean start the book with the most basic subject, then proceed from there, so readers can 'build' in their mind's eye.
- The challenge of self-book publishing is publicity. I've heard of alot of authors complain about this one. They don't want to do it because it feels self-serving. But no publicity = no sales. I say, have no fear of publicity. Show your smiling face anywhere and everywhere you can along with links to your book. My experience in the industry proves time and again, authors who take a proactive approach and provide readers with a face to back their book, achieve greater sales than authors who choose to remain obscure. It's all due to the 'consumer confidence factor'. Why does Pepsi put Britney Spears in their commercials? Because it gives their product an image. Provide your book with a positive image and you will increase likelyhood of sales. Which brings me to...
- Your title. Anything that even implies 'hard' in it is definately a turn off. People want things easy, not hard. Even if the content is hard, give the outward impression that what you'll be talking about is actually easy. Hey, I didn't invent deceptive marketing practices, but the fact is they are around because they work. The title is what represents your book, an integral part of its image. A positive title might be: Building your site the happy way or Building Your Site: The savvy guide to web-building, or similar (those are but examples). Think about it. Savvy, happy = positive image.

Hope these tips help. Good luck and let us know when you publish!

 

[callumacrae]

A section on Flash and Java computing would be helpful,

I believe that essellar shares my views on Flash - it is a dying technology! HTML5 ftw!

 

[essellar]

It's not all old rubbish, Callum -- where do you think I got my .htaccess chapter? (I kid, I kid -- it hasn't been "stolen" as such, but it could have been.) Thanks for the offer of help -- I'll probably take you up on the proofreading. If it's any good when it finally pops out of the toaster, tell people about it. I figure that there are seven billion people in this world, and if everybody except the dozen or so people who get a free copy buys the thing for a buck or so, I ought to be able to afford a really, really nice laptop (and a rotating team of scantily-clad laptop porters).

I've got a bit on troubleshooting already -- and after spending some time pasting the same answer in the support forum when Starka had the SAN issue, I realised that maybe some people didn't read the titles of the other eleventy-seven identical issues first. Then there's Down for Everyone or Just Me? to see if it's just your own ISP blocking you.

---------- Post added at 06:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:17 PM ----------

- A section on Flash and Java computing would be helpful, as I notice an ever-increasing emergence of applications and sites using these.

As Callum suggested, I'm rather anti-Flash. I run a Flash blocker in my browser so I'm not as annoyed by unnecessary noise and moving bits as I would be otherwise. It's a decent-enough platform for games, but it's the wrong technology for just about everything else. And it's not available on Apple mobile devices (iPhone, iPad). Java in the browser has been dead for years. I haven't allowed Java to run since Firefox was still called Phoenix. There are much better ways of doing things.

- Your title. Anything that even implies 'hard' in it is definately a turn off. People want things easy, not hard.

Um... no. Among the hottest tech titles these days is Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way, and there are a number of similarly-named books that are selling very well indeed. It's not a "red flag", it's a welcome antidote to the "For Dummies" world, a way to indicate that you're not being sold an oversimplified, content-free bowl of pablum that leaves you knowing no more than you knew before.

And no, I won't be packing the book with cut-and-paste code, except for the security stuff that nobody can afford to get wrong. The learning can't be done without some sample code, but there won't be any "crapware" in it anywhere.

Trust me -- this will be the sort of book you can sit down with and build the site you want step by step. I start at a point in the process even earlier than you're imagining, long before you type a single character of code. By the time the book is done, so is your site -- and it doesn't matter whether that's a blog, a forum, a Facebook clone, a Q&A site like the Stack Exchange platform, a photo gallery, or what have you. And you will have learned enough along the way to know what you haven't learned yet, so finding and using more will be easy.

I've spent a significant part of my life teaching and mentoring. I know what I'm doing. And why do you think you're not getting a copy?

 

[theone48]

Thanks essellar, they were as I said just some thoughts for you to consider. I mentioned flash because it seems more than ever, there are these places that offer websites and templates in Flash, which to me is somehow annoying because anytime I encounter a flash website, I have to wait extra for the site to load because of the animations. They may look good but it's a pain to load. I thought maybe you knew some more about Flash you would like to share.

The title all depends on the reader. No matter which you take, some will like it, some will not; and sometimes it won't have anything to do with the title at all. As they say in this business, you can't please everyone, you can only do the best you can. (If you think writing is hard, try catering to the popular writing crowd. Maybe someday I'll write a book on the kick-em-when-they're-down side of lit. industry. Your book will probably be prettier than mine.)

You have my support too. If you tell me when it's published I'll give you a shout in my new review series scheduled to hit the waves online later this year. That's if everything goes to plan. One thing I've learned in life is nothing is certain until it's been done. Meantime, it's back to work for me, going to dig at these keys until I finish the short story I'm into. Got several more drafts to go. Links will be on my site when up. Good Night.

 

[callumacrae]

I, too, disagree with you - I like the name. I would prefer "Website" instead of "Site", but that's probably just me being picky.

Also, how about a short chapter (or section, w/e) about releasing and licensing code? It's not entirely related to the book, but certainly applies in some circumstances.

 

[essellar]

"Website" it is -- we certainly don't want people buying the book thinking it'll get them straight with the council zoning people, do we? We'll see about the licensing -- it's already starting to look like a "boxed set" if I can't edit it down gracefully, and I don't want to be issuing facsicles of Volume 4A twenty-odd years after Volumes 1-3 are available as a set (like some computer writers I know of -- not that I'm anywhere near his league, but the books may be comparable in weight).

 

[callumacrae]

Licensing could probably be condensed into under a page

Off-topic: I just read my article about licensing on lynxphp, it's one of the terrible ones >_<

 

[CoolFinalFan]

When do you think the book wll be ready & I'll take a copy when it's done please. Maybe even have a digital copy of the book too. Just a thought!
Thanks!

 

[theone48]

lol essellar. "Website": Good idea.

 

[callumacrae]

Bump - any update on this?

 

[essellar]

It's crawling along, Callum, but a little more slowly than I'd like. It's a little too easy for me to be overwhelmed by things with the Parkinson's thing having its way with my working memory, so once the project hit a sort of "critical mass", it really slowed down. Or, rather, sped up in the wrong way -- there's a lot of duplication, and things are a little out of order at the moment. I know what the problems are and more-or-less where they are, but I've had to get some help fixing them.

Editing is in progress, but it's slow going. I've got some not-unintelligent n00bz going through the current draft to see if it makes any sense to them, and how the content might be rearranged to be of more help. Since they're pretty much the target audience, a lot is going to depend on their feedback.

Oh, and thanks for asking.

"Of all the things I've lost in life, I miss my mind the most."

 

[callumacrae]

I didn't know about the Parkinson's thing; sorry to hear that.

If you need anyone to write a chapter, I'd be more than happy to

 

[essellar]

I think you did already -- I had to source my rewrite rules from somewhere, didn't I? (That, by the way, was a great article, and very much the sort of thing this book is trying to do. It's not a complete reference, but it's enough to get somebody who's actually interested out of neutral and into gear, and it gives the whys as much emphasis as the whats.)

 

[pedroaam9615]

I didn't know about the Parkinson's thing; sorry to hear that.

If you need anyone to write a chapter, I'd be more than happy to

I subscrive to what you've shaid. HF!

 

[admin.1]

When you do talk about setting up the site in localhost, could you please try and include the nginx server and not the usual *amp ? Thanks in advance.

 

[callumacrae]

When you do talk about setting up the site in localhost, could you please try and include the nginx server and not the usual *amp ? Thanks in advance.

Apache, when misconfigured, can use a lot of memory. By default, it is configured for large servers - so it will use a lot of memory, but will be able to handle a lot of users. If you configure it properly, it's fine.