Tag Archive for 'Web Application Architecture'

Make sure to use a Social Engine for your Social Anything Project

Published on February 10, 2009 in Social Media. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

A social engine is a platform that manages user profiles, privacy, social graphing, and enables us to run social applications on it. It also provides a software development framework and API to those who wish to develop social applications, games, and social engine enhancers. When you think about it, a Social Engine is a lot like a web based secondary operating system! You get OSX, Linux, Windows and then you can install and run applications on them. They also provide application development APIs, manage user accounts, permissions, and much more.

I’ve seen companies who try imitating the features of a social network ( user profiles, social graph, … ) using Drupal, Wordpress but the end result though mimicking a social network’s behaviour is not a platform which can run social applications. They are also solutions carved out of granite that look shiny and nice at the beginning, but they turn into nightmares to maintain, because the idea of having a well supported infrastructure was not considered from the beginning.

Naive clients who think building a social network is yet another web design project totally fall for that, and wonder why they end up with clunky websites that look nice, but don’t operate as they should, and they are impossible to upgrade as the market trend changes.

So please don’t shoehorn a CMS into a social networking project. Understand what a social engine is, and make sure your Social Anything project is going to be developed using one.

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Social Graphing Models used in the Social Networks

Published on January 19, 2009 in Rastin Mehr and Social Media. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Showboat Swingers

Modern social networking applications use a Social Engine at the heart. Older Social Networking websites such as MySpace.com may not have such a clean cut architecture, however the core of the system sort of behaves more or less as a Social Engine does.

A Social Engine is in charge of managing people profiles, search, privacy, messaging, notification, requests, and most important of all Social Graphing.

Social Graphing is just a fancy technical name for the relationship among the people  described as “Friends” or “Contacts”, in other words it is the “Network” in Social Network. It is the reason that people join such a websites so they can be perpetually in touch with each other and stay informed about each other’s activities.

Currently there are two models of social graph implementations in the existing social networking websites:

  1. The Lead, Follow, Mutual Model used in the more modern systems (Twitter and Digg) due to its more flexible and generic nature.
  2. The Enforced Mutual Friend model which is more stiff and specific. It was used in the earlier social networking websites and some of today’s websites such as Facebook are still stuck with it.

We are about to explain these models, and please keep in mind the best social graphing model is that one that is Most Flexible and Most Generic in the same time.

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Congratulations Johan Janssens

Published on October 27, 2008 in Joomla!, Open Source and content management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Johan Janssens

Congratulations Johan Janssens for being the most valued person in both Joomla and Mambo project.

“His work on Joomla! is excellent.”

“Johan is responsible for the development of the Joomla! Framework., he lead the Joomla! project to become the succesfull project it is today.”

“Johan is the man behind the amazing architecture design of the only PHP based CMS with a solid development framework.”

Packt Publishing has announced the names  of most valued people in different open source content management system projects. These names have been put forward by the core development and community members of these projects. Johan has been the former Lead Architect and Project Manager in the Joomla Core development team.

Johan Janssens

Johan Janssens

Currently Johan Janssens is the Managing Director and Lead Architect in Joomlatools. He and his team are responsible for amazing projects such as Nooku an amazing content translation solution and also he has done great framework contributions to our ongoing project the Anahita Social Engine framework.

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Open Source developers aren’t free or cheap either

Published on June 10, 2008 in Joomla!, Open Source, Rastin Mehr and Tips. 14 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Joomla! CMS WordpressDrupal CMS

Just heard from a friend that a client looking for a “Joomla Expert” hung up on them after hearing their rates. Apparently some people still think that just because they can go and download a free copy of Joomla, Drupal, or Wordpress that means any service provided in that domain should be cheap or free as well.

Reality is that Free in open source mostly refers to freedom to read and change the code to make it suit your project goals.

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Half A Million Windows Server Powered Sites Hit With SQL Injection

Published on April 28, 2008 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Here is the article on the Wired Magazine:

Massive Attack: Half A Million Microsoft-Powered Sites Hit With SQL Injection

A new SQL injection attack aimed at Microsoft IIS web servers has hit some 500,000 websites, including the United Nations, UK Government sites and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. While the attack is not necessarily Microsoft’s fault, it is unique to the company’s IIS server.

This is also including the department of homeland security!

Of course this method of attack could happen to any insecure web application whether it is using Windows or other platforms, but I think the Hackers are sending a message here:

That many web application developers who use proprietary platforms such as Microsoft SQL Database or servers aren’t doing a good job building secure systems! Could it be because in the proprietary world, developer’s don’t get to read other developers’ code in order to enhance their level of knowledge and skills and instead rely mostly on the training they receive from certificate programs and the school system?

Or could it be that in the proprietary world the source code of an application never gets to be reviewed by the community of developers, otherwise the security bugs would have been shallowed given all the eyeballs that are scanning the code over and over again?

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