Website Technical Information

Host Computer

This site is hosted on a surplus Packard-Bell 233 MHz computer with 32 MB of RAM.

Operating System and Support Programs

This server runs Linux (Redhat distribution) as its operating system.
The web server is Apache.
Dynamic web content is generated using PHP and Mason.
Database services are provided by MySQL.
Database administration is performed using phpMyAdmin.
Image manipulations are done with Gimp.
Data manipulations are done primarily with Perl.

Total cost of server software: US$0.00

Database Architecture

The database of information about the collections is maintained offline in a Filemaker database, primarily on Macintoshes (commercial software, approximate cost: US$250.00). Filemaker provides an excellent user interface for creating and maintaining simple databases.

Within the Filemaker database, scripts export data tables to comma-separated-value text files. Using an access-protected web form, those files are uploaded to this server, where a Perl program does some character-set tidying, then regenerates the MySQL databases from the input files.

This decoupled design works well for occasionally-updated small databases. It lets the database be maintained using a flexible, easily-changed interface in Filemaker. Because Filemaker is not being used as a networked database server, the workstation-based "Filemaker Pro" can be used, rather than the much more expensive "Filemaker Server" product. Another good feature is that the primary data are maintained on a non-server machine, protected from Internet security issues.

Code supporting this capability is available on this server.

Web Page Authoring

Web pages on the site are primarily drafted and maintained using the emacs text editor. Occasional small changes are made using the vi editor.

Image Mapping

The image map page uses Javascript to swap images of the central text bar as the mouse moves over the maps. The text image bars and the marked-up maps are generated on-the-fly from the database of site information. Once generated, the images are cached until a change in the database invalidates a particular image, at which time it is regenerated.

The mapping and image regeneration are all managed through a set of web pages written in the Mason web services language.

All content on this website (including text, photographs, and any other original work), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.