OS X Snow Leopard Server Event

This last week I attended the Snow Leopard Server Tour event in Seattle and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was much more then improved performance and new apps.

Among Apple’s new updates the server version includes the same 64-bit support, with a pile of new features. The coolest one I found was the Podcast Producer 2 - this new feature includes Podcast Composer. It allows you to create workflows for automating completion and publishing for podcasts, with additional ease to do the job in just a few minutes. 

The Client Management, another new features includes an iPhone configuration utility for easy access to creating secure services, and administrators harbor NetRestore to rebuild via networks, through custom or standard measures. 

iCal Server 2, includes push notification, wireless calendar/iPhone connection, web-based calendaring, and an updated CalDAV, allowing to connect through email. 

Wiki Server 2,  has iPhone support Mail Server which now much faster, it also provides push email, vacation messages  and improvements to mail server clustering. 

The Mobile Access Server, has a new feature  which allows users to get secure, encrypted access to the server and network, nearly hassle-free.  

And finally Web Server has been updated for live video streaming. They announced a new configuration of Mac mini designed specifically to be a server. The new $999 Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server is a fantastic product for workgroups, small businesses, and even schools to use. It's nice that Apple has finally realized that it had a great server under its nose this whole time?

CODA - Your next website editor

If you have to edit your website much and your getting tried of the Adobe products, there's a program I've been using that maybe your answer, I’m sure many of you are already using Coda, and are well aware of this amazing application. But for those who aren't you need to take a look at Coda, a brilliant web development tool from Panic software.

Coda pins each ‘site’ that you have to a wall, and updates the thumbnail according to what your site currently looks like. It’s really useful, as you can quickly identify your site. Adding sites is also animated—much before Core Animation came along in Leopard in fact. There are bookmark-lets that contain the server information, they also remember which documents you last had open!

Coda’s core UI is split into Sites at the top level, and ‘Edit’ current site (with FTP listing in the sidebar), Web ‘Preview’, and a CSS editor taking up the meat of ‘editing’. Switching between the three editing tabs is by means of a shortcut Cmd+2/3/4. Once you get the hang of it, you don’t even have to think about it.

The code editor is very adequate. Proper code is highlighting (with the option for themes), block editing, error correction. It uses GREP based find/replace. You can web preview, with DOM inspector as well as Safari inspector.

Rendering the site in Webkit, you get the current rendering of your site either on the web, or locally. Coda’s web preview can edit the web preview by pulling down the code, to see how changes reflect live on your page. Coda also comes with its own inspector, allowing you to gauge the hierarchy of the page, useful for editing. You can even change the url of the website midway, open the page in another browser, and check for any syntax errors within the console.

This is definitely something to take a serious look at, I think it's pretty cool I use it everyday. http://www.panic.com/coda/