DOWNLOADING OPEN SOURCE TUTORIALS

FAQs

1. QUESTION: Whom do I contact for support?

ANSWER: There is no technical support available for SJSU Library Tutorials. Commercial support for Apache, PHP, and MySQL is, however, available from a number of third parties.

2. QUESTION: What sort of personnel and skills are needed for our Library to download and adapt SJSU tutorials?

ANSWER: In the way of personnel, you will need a web developer, a graphic designer (if you want graphics), and a content creator for creation and maintenance of content. Skills necessary for each position are as follows:

Web Developer with experience in using:

• HTML & PHP – for writing static and dynamic web pages
• Javascript – use to validate registration forms & quizzes to ensure all appropriate fields will be completed by the student; generates pop ups which inform students to complete the required fields
• CSS – used to create a “common look” for each tutorial (i.e. one style for one tutorial)
• SQL– SQL is structured query language used in MySQL, ORACLE, and other databases
• Apache Server – use this server to store the files to deploy applications
• MySQL

Graphics Designer with experience in using:

• Macromedia Flash – to create animations
• Macromedia Dreamweaver (or any html editor) – to do web page design
• Adobe Photoshop CS – to create & edit images
• Adobe ImageReady (preferred) – to assist in creating images for web page design
• Adobe Illustrator - to create & edit images
• HTML (preferred) – to help communicate with web designers
• ActionScript (preferred) – to provide better student user interactivity within Flash (like pressing a navigation button, rather than just viewing animation)
• Tablet (drawing) - to create digital artwork (e.g. Graphire’s Wacom tablet) (preferred)

Content Creator with:

• Familiarity with relevant Information Literacy Standards
• Ability to write and create quizzes

3. QUESTION: What is the minimum of software or applications needed to download SJSU tutorials?

ANSWER: PHP, ApacheServer, MySQL

4. QUESTION: Can I use another web server instead of Apache?

ANSWER: There is no limitation of using specific web server in order to use the code of our tutorials, but as we are not providing technical support, you may have to configure that web server by yourself.

5. QUESTION: OK, so how does Apache compare to other servers?

ANSWER: For an independent assessment, see Web Compare. Apache has been shown to be substantially faster, more stable, and more feature-full than many other web servers. Although certain commercial servers have claimed to surpass Apache's speed (it has not been demonstrated that any of these "benchmarks" are a good way of measuring WWW server speed at any rate), we feel that it is better to have a mostly-fast free server than an extremely fast server that costs thousands of dollars. Apache is run on sites that get millions of hits per day, and they have experienced no performance difficulties.

6. QUESTION: Is there any more information available on Apache, PHP, or MySQL?

ANSWER: Indeed there is. See the main Apache web site. There is also a regular electronic publication called Apache Week available. Links to relevant Apache Week articles are included below where appropriate. There are also some Apache-specific books available. See the main php web site. See the MySQL web site.

7. QUESTION: We now have the pages up & the back-end database is recording data. I've been poking around in the subfolders looking for reports or admin or query pages which would enable us to get aggregate data out of the database, but do not find one.

ANSWER: They are not available. You will need to create your own queries based on your own needs.

8. QUESTION: Do you strictly use the schedule.js file to generate your schedules or do you have another way of populating the Class specific data?

ANSWER: It is unnecessary to use the schedule.js file. It is used to load class schedule. You can load class schedules using database tables.

9. QUESTION: I don't quite follow the multiple Course delineations, 100W, MUSE, & Other in the "Your Course" section of registration.php?

ANSWER: I’m not exactly sure I understand this question, but I’ll assume you’re wondering why we have professors’ names, and course names and course section #s in this file. The reason is that at SJSU most students who take our tutorials do so because they are assigned this tutorial by a professor for whose class they have enrolled. So, in order for us to send a specific professor only those scores for his 30 or so students (rather than the thousands of students who take our tutorials every semester), we must gather enough data to sort students by professor, course # and section number.

10. QUESTION: Where can I get Apache?

ANSWER:

To download Apache visit http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

To download PHP visit http://www.php.net/downloads.php

To download MySQL visit http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.1.html

Apache

• http://www.apache.org/
• http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/misc/FAQ.html#what2do (Apache FAQs)
• http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/windows.html
• http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/apache.shtml
• http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=28485&seqNum=7&rl=1
• http://www.ricocheting.com/server/apache.html
• http://www.ricocheting.com/server/apache.html

PHP

• http://www.php.net/
• http://us2.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.manual.php
• http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2000/12/14/php_admin.html
• http://www.computing.net/programming/wwwboard/forum/11579.html (PHP on Xp Home)

MySQL

• http://www.mysql.com/
• http://www.ricocheting.com/server/mysql.html
• http://www.analysisandsolutions.com/code/mybasic.htm
• http://www.devside.net/web/server/windows/mysql
• http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/white-papers/tco.php