| Every once in a while ... |
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| Written by Ken Task | |||
| Monday, 07 July 2008 04:17 | |||
Here's the latest "r and r"! Maybe one of these days I'll convince some folks to check it out! Time and time again I hear from ISD's that they desire to run Moodle or Joomla or pick your favorite open source/web 2.0 app on Windows cause that's what they have. How lame is that? Here's why (just two points): 1. an institution of learning NOT desiring to learn anything new (and better IMHO!) just doesn't jive with the "business" of education. If students, teachers, and school administrators have certain expectations in such things as learning the "new math", why shouldn't the technology/network/server department have similar expectations in learning something new? Does the "system" exist to support/protect itself, or does it exist to serve it's users? And, who IS in charge? Besides, is it a proven un-deniable fact that Windows is THE best web platform? Google didn't think so! Neither did Amazon or the New York Stock Exchange! Please point me to the evidence/argument (independent review/evaluation NOT sponsored by one side or the other), as I've NEVER seen it (probably cause it does not exist!!). 2. The typical AMP stack app requires Apache, MySQL, and PHP. None of those are native to Windows and none are "autoupdated" by MS. Yea, if I administered Windows servers running AMP stacks, I'd complain too! Wonder how many ISD's have AMP stack apps running under Apache 2.0.55 still (had security issues many versions ago)? Try this and see: Use the URL to an ISD site known to run Apache on Widnows and at the end of the URL type: /xxx A good Webmaster/server admin should hide what Webserver software they are running upon a errant URL request. Example: http://itls.saisd.net/xxx Hmmmm 2.0.55 and win32! Wonder what some hacker could do to that? Have to look way down this list to see that version considering the highest is 2.0.63: http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/CHANGES_2.0 Stuff like below (taken from above link) suggest there are more problems with running AMP on Windows and this information is about the latest release of 2.0 Apache on Windows (not the 2.2): http://apache.mirrors.timporter.net/httpd/binaries/win32/README.html a clip: "Warning about the Quality of Service driver We suggest disabling the "Quality of Service" (or QoS) network driver from Microsoft if you primarily use the machine as an Apache Server, as Apache does not support the QoS extensions to the WinSock API. Warning about Firewall and similar software Most Firewall programs, Web Spam filters and other TCP/IP driver-based products (including spyware!) do not correctly implement the entire WinSock API. The shortcuts taken by the developers of such products cause Apache to fail. If you insist on leaving such programs installed, and have problems with your Apache installation, consider the suggestion below. Problems Installing or Running Apache 2" My gosh, do you realize how easy it is to update Apache, MySQL or PHP on a Linux server? On CentOS (based on Red Hat Enterprise) here is the command for each: yum -y update httpd* yum -y update mysql* yum -y update php* Even if one messed up the initial install of AMP on a CentOS box, it's easy to recover and get AMP installed: yum -y install httpd* yum -y install mysql* yum -y install php* If anyone out there administers a Windows AMP server, what is your experience in updating/upgrading AMP? Is your process any easier than the yum commands above? IF it's not, then maybe it's time!!!!
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