I am very passionate about this feature of Morfik software, but sometimes I wonder if other people can see the benefits too.
The reason I appreciate this feature more than others is that for a long time I used to deploy and update Morfik applications manually. At that stage, we did not have the auto-deployment feature—and it was a real pain. It’s not that Morfik web applications (XApps) were particularly hard to deploy, but this was a general problem when deploying web applications—especially when they needed to use a back-end database.
Nowadays, the deployment process has become so trivial using Morfik software that all the Morfik team deploy their XApps directly from the environment they work in (Morfik IDE) without any knowledge of the back-end or even which files and resources the project needs. They don’t even ask a question about this anymore!
Filed under Deployment and xApp Hosting, Technical by on Mar 11th, 2010. 6 Comments. 
This is the second part of the preview of Internationalization Support, and today we are going to take a look at database localization.
Localizing database-driven content is not an easy task, and there is not much choice when it comes to approaches that can be taken. Consider the simple Blog application which uses a very basic table with only two fields: PostDate and Content.
Let’s quickly go through the existing methods of localizing that table:
Filed under Technical by on Mar 2nd, 2010. 3 Comments.
In my last blog we went through commissioning and connecting to a Linux virtual machine on the Amazon cloud. Today we’ll look at running a Morfik XApp as an Apache module on that system.
After commissioning the server we used Putty for Windows to connect to the server and we got to the point where we made a secure connection to the server and logged in as the root user.
Since we are going to deploy the XApps as an Apache module we need to make sure an Apache 2 web server is installed and running on the system.
To install the Apache web server we use the “yum” command. Yum is an automatic updater and package installer/uninstaller for systems using rpm packages.
Filed under Technical by on Feb 16th, 2010. 2 Comments.
“They don’t call it the World Wide Web for nothing. A single click can take you to a site on another continent and a business can attract customers from hundreds of countries.” Jakob Nielsen
In this blog we are going to have a look at the practical aspects of implementing multiple language support on the website you have developed with Morfik. We will preview some of the new features currently in development which are designed to make the process of localization easier.
When looking at different ways of adding support for Internationalization and Localization to Morfik, there were a number of major factors we took into consideration:
Filed under Technical by on Feb 10th, 2010. 7 Comments.
In the first part of this blog I will take you through the steps involved in setting up and connecting to a virtual machine on Amazon cloud computing services. In the second part I will detail the exact steps involved in installing a Morfik XApp as a native Apache 2 module under Linux.
You might well ask why someone from Morfik would talk about a cloud hosting platform like Amazon. The best thing about cloud computing is the ability to use all the resources you need in a very simple way and pay only for the resources being used. Just like electricity in your home, you flick the switch and you have light, or turn it off when you don’t need it. Power is at your fingertips and you choose when you access the power.
Filed under Technical by on Feb 3rd, 2010. 2 Comments.
Those of you who have been with Morfik for a while may remember times when the Morfik site would go down and we would get the bad news from you guys. Thankfully those days are long gone and I can’t recall the last time a user had to contact us about a site outage.
Of course there are a number of reasons for this. Yes, Morfik software is now more mature and stable, and the auto-deployment process reduces the pain of maintenance and updates, but the main reason is that we are using a simple yet effective monitoring service which informs us immediately of any problem with our site or service. I receive a call within minutes on my cell phone!
Monitoring can be implemented at a few levels: the server level, Hosting Service Provider level and independent monitoring service level. To me the last one is the key. (And by the way I have no affiliation with any of the monitoring service providers).
If you set up your own monitoring server it is possible that your server fails long before you know it. Moreover, setting up your server to send SMS messages or make a Voice Call is not a trivial task.
Filed under Technical by on Jan 26th, 2010. Comment.
As we all know maintaining a website and its related server infrastructure is a daunting task! Most of us think of it as some kind of pain that is unavoidable – a pain that has to be endured for things to work properly. While this is largely true, I feel there are a number of things that we can do to reduce or even eliminate this pain.
In my blogs I will try to help you manage this pain by simply talking about our experiences in this field. I will share with you what we have learnt running and supporting Morfik and its related partners’ websites and their server infrastructure.
Filed under Technical by on Jan 19th, 2010. 2 Comments.
In search of the ultimate navigation system for Morfik web applications we have come to the realization that just mimicking desktop-like menus on the web is not going to work. The use of desktop-like menus on the web has largely been criticized for its lack of usability, accessibility and scalability. Despite the criticism, desktop-like menus have been high on the list of most requested features for a long time. However, I feel there are merits to the criticism leveled against them that need addressing in order for a successful adaptation of these menus on the Web.
Filed under Technical by on Jan 14th, 2010. 8 Comments.
After a long development cycle and a series of maintenance releases, Morfik 2 has reached a level of stability and strength that has allowed us to look beyond the horizon ahead and consider new possibilities.
In line with our goal to have a greater level of engagement with the wider developer community in 2010 we have decided to use Morfik’s blog site (rather than our existing technical support forums) for communicating our ideas and plans for the product and its future development. Using this site, Morfik’s key developers will blog about the upcoming features and significant architectural changes that are necessary to support their implementation. From time to time we might preview new features through screenshots or live demos and invite you to comment and provide feedback to ensure we’re heading in the right direction. This should also make our blogs more interesting to read!
Filed under Technical by on Jan 8th, 2010. 3 Comments.
