Jon Udell writes: “Let's review what's happening in this screen shot. I'm running Mozilla Firebird on my Mac. The application is a structured search of my OSCOM slides. There's no search engine beyond the browser itself, which provides the JavaScript UI, the XPath-based search, and the XSLT-driven results display.”

This is great. It’s a working XPath lab in your browser. At least, if your browser is IE or a recent Mozilla derivative. (Come on, Apple, implement XSLT and the XMLDocument request APIs next in Safari.)

PHP Everywhere: The Ultimate PHP for Windows with Turck MMCache (and FastCGI)

The old problem with running PHP on Windows is that many extensions are not thread safe and can only run safely in CGI mode. Unfortunately CGI is dead slow because the web server creates a new CGI process for each page request.

FastCGI is the solution to this. Instead of creating a new CGI process for each page view, it reuses existing CGI processes. This also improves database scalability because persistent db connections work properly.

...Well there is a lesser known GPL'ed accelerator, Turck MMCache that supports both Windows, Unix and Linux, written by Dmitry Stogov. I tested MMCache and FastCGI against several PHP scripts accessing MySQL, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. I gave the web-server a good pounding with a 60 minute stress test using fiendish scripts that cause PHP in ISAPI mode to crash. MMCache appears to be made of sterner stuff and passed with flying colours. While the test was running, I modified the source code of the test scripts; MMCache auto-detected the changes and recompiled.

[via PHP Everywhere]

We sent my father off yesterday on the first leg of the 2003 Bermuda 1-2 Yacht Race, on his boat, Nimros. There were a few last-minute things to finish, as always. So he ended up leaving the dock a few minutes before the official start, as we hurried over to a vantage point on Newport’s Goat Island to watch it.

Nimros, in front of a boat with sails

Even from far away, Nimros was easy to identify, because it was the only sailboat in the race with no sails. Making sure they could be raised was one of those last-minute things we hadn’t quite finished.

The starting gun went off, and the other boats that had been jockeying for position finally tacked forward across the starting line, while Nimros alone drifted lazily backward, away from Bermuda, and toward the Newport Bridge.

A minute later, the mainsail started to rise. Almost immediately it stopped, with only a small triangle visible, and stayed that way for several minutes. Nimros appeared to be racing with a sail the size of a picnic blanket.

Then even that small concession to the practice of sailing was taken down, and Nimros drifted further away from the starting line over the next few minutes, toward the rocks at the foot of the Rose Island lighthouse.

Fortunately, Nimros avoided a wreck by raising the jib, which proved powerful enough to get the boat over the starting line about ten minutes later, for a total of about half an hour’s delay. Nimros was still easy to identify, because all the other boats had their larger mainsails raised, in addition to having already left.

We left as Nimros disappeared into the mist at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, headed out into the Atlantic, mainsail still down.

My father contacted us later that day to explain that a winch had failed, forcing him to re-thread the main halyard before he could raise the mainsail. So everything is apparently fine again.

It’s my turn on the boat next week, as the crew for the return trip. Wish me luck.

More coverage from the Bermuda 1-2 web site: [2003 Bermuda 1-2 Start From Newport].