I'm dropping a quick note for myself and other system admindistrator types looking for good info on network monitoring tool. I've been in need of something to help me monitor both local and wide network stuff, so I finally broke down and did a little research. I am currently tired of doing roughly 20 tasks manually to make sure everything's running properly... yeah, stupid waste of my time, that.

So, here's a great place to start, even though it's a bit exhaustive to have such a huge list of stuff... the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center put together this list of Network Monitoring Tools that I figure will just about get everyone to what they need at some point. It's not showing reviews or anything, but it's a great resource. I would rather have had someone saying "get product Z, it's the best," but I'm not always that lucky.

I'm needing to get back to monitoring the servers and services that I mentioned, so I'm grabbing one of these tools in particular to see how the free version works. iReasoning Network's SysUpTime Network Management System is what I'm trying first (though it maybe be massive overkill), if you want to come play alongside me. Beyond that, I'm not sure where I'll go.

This is a quick note for reference... this is a great article about creating CSS for websites: An Overview of Current CSS Layout Techniques.

Really well written and extremely helpful in my quest to get this damn CSS thing figured out. It's something that I get and then don't get, only to get again later, wondering why I didn't get it before. At any rate, go read that sucker if you're interested in learning about CSS. It's a fine introduction.

Additionally, I have to add a link to the CssCreator Page Layout Generator... a fantastic tool to generate the CSS layout code, based on your desired input. Very, very useful.

I need to drop a quick note about a new programming language that looks very promising. The haXe Programming Language aims to combine many different platforms under one language... well, I'm having a hard time paraphrasing, so here's a rip from their intro to haXe:

The Web is evolving quickly, with different technologies needed at different places. For instance, if you want to create a website now you’ll have to handle several languages :

* on the server side : a web language such as PHP, Perl, Ruby or Python.
* on the client side : Flash (ActionScript 1, 2 and now 3) and Javascript / DHTML / AJAX.

The haXe programming language is uniting theses different platforms under one language. It brings features that are making it easy to deal with a dynamic world such as DHTML or Databases, while still bringing you a full-featured type system with a compiler that will detect errors early in the development phase.

Basicly, what haXe can do is :

* create Flash SWF files using Flash APIs for Players 6,7,8 and soon 8.5
* generate Javascript code using Browser DHTML API, so you can create AJAX web applications
* generate Neko sourcecode that can be used on the Server side or in standalone executable

Each of theses platforms have their own API, but they share the same programming language and the same standard library, so if your classes are pure code (using no platform-specific API) then they can be compiled and used everywhere, depending on your needs.

Also, haXe make it easy to interoperate between theses different platforms, by providing common protocol libraries. Please note that it’s still possible to use haXe on only one platform if you want for example keep your current working code.

Run over to their site to read more about what this all means... if you're interested. It could be really cool.

Testing the embedding of a Shockwave game... wish me luck!

Here's a game, hopefully:

(sorry... I removed the game since it had a problem trying to get high scores from a different server. I'll replace it soon with another game that works better on its own. For now, you can play the game (The Idiot Button) on the Pointless Games site from which it lives normally.)

You can ignore this is if you want. I'm just testing some file handling goodies for this system. I will be making a new implementation of the Pointless Games website and I need to be able to provide files for download.

I may just delete this in a few minutes, so now I'm wondering why I'm spending so much time writing out this stuff. I'll stop now.

I'm working on a project that will take some Macromedia Flash apps and bend them as much into being fully "508 compliant" for accessibility. This has been an interesting journy on its own, but here is where I'm starting the research for now... screen readers.

I did a basic Google on the topic, which you can play with on your own. For now, it's lead me to a few costly options as well as one that appears free for the initial trial. Thus, that's where I'm starting for now.

Here's a nice Introduction to Screen Readers that has the first list I'm drawing from. The one that caught my eye (again, due to the "free" part) was this one:
ReadPlease

I'll go give that sucker a try and post comments in this thread if I think more info will help.