mark.bockenstedt.net » Social Media

How To Install Laconica

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:30:09 +0000

If you’re interested in setting up a Laconica 0.5.0 instance of your own, you can follow the directions I’ve outlined below. I got the general outline from decafbad.com but had to do some modifications of my own to get it running. This how-to requires you to be fairly knowledgeable with web systems and databases. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t bother. This setup is tricky to say the least. To preserve my own sanity, I will not help you get your system going.

Edit: That may be a little harsh. I can offer some limited advice, but I can’t hold your hand through the whole process.

Get the Code

You can grab the latest stable version from laconi.ca. Extract it to the location you want the server to be.

Install Dependent Libraries

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cgi php5-cli php-pear php5-gd php5-mysql

You’ll also want to make sure you have Apache2, PHP, and MySQL installed, otherwise nothing will work. Once you have those, you’ll need to grab some PEAR libraries:

sudo pear channel-update pear.php.net
sudo pear install channel://pear.php.net/Validate-0.8.1
sudo pear install DB_DataObject
sudo pear install Mail
sudo pear install Net_SMTP

Then you’ll need to grab a whole bunch of external libraries. I’ve taken the liberty of creating a tarball containing those libraries, which you can grab here. Extract this file in the root of your Laconica instance.

Database Setup

You’ll need to create a database named laconica to use with this project. Then, you’re also going to need a user that has all access on that table – I used a user named laconica also. Once you’ve got those setup, run the laconica.sql file that’s in the db folder against the laconica database.

Configuration

You’ll need to add the following two lines in config.php right below the first line of code:

define('INSTALLDIR', dirname(__FILE__));
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . INSTALLDIR . '/extlib');

There are a few other lines you’ll want to change in the config.php file also:

$config['site']['name'] = 'Micronica';
$config['site']['server'] = 'laconica.bockenstedt.net';
$config['site']['path'] = ''; # in my case blank because it's its own subdomain
$config['site']['theme'] = 'stoica'; # not the them we're using
$config['site']['email'] = 'mark@bockenstedt.net';
$config['site']['broughtby'] = 'microblink.com';
$config['site']['broughtbyurl'] = 'http://microblink.com/';
$config['db']['database'] = 'mysql://laconica:PASSWORD@localhost/laconica';
$config['db']['ini_laconica'] = $config['db']['schema_location'].'/stoica.ini';

The next step is to change the permissions on the avatar directory:

sudo chown -R www-data avatar
sudo chmod -R ug+rw avatar/

At this point, you should have a functioning laconica instance!

Forge on for the rest of the setup…

Configure .htaccess

If you don’t care about ugly URLs, this step is optional. There’s already an htaccess sample file included; I simply had to rename it to .htaccess and everything was fine. I can’t guarantee yours will be that simple, but it’s worth a shot. I’m really not that good with .htaccess, so you’re kind of on your own here.

If you do try to rewrite the URLs, be sure to tell config.php that you’re doing that with:

$config['site']['fancy'] = true;

Tweak

That should be a pretty inclusive set of directions for getting things going. As stated earlier, tweaks and modifications are up to you. You can check out my installation at laconica.bockenstedt.net to see how it turned out for me. As a reminder, the theme you’ll see there is NOT the Default or Stoica themes that come with the installer, but is a custom theme. Custom themes are actually pretty simple to make provided you know some CSS.

SMS, IM, and posting by e-mail still don’t work for me as I haven’t figured out how to get those systems up. Otherwise, it seems like everything else works (including OpenID).

Again, thanks to @lmorchard for the original directions. Be sure to check out his site decafbad.com.

Ping.fm Goes to Open Beta

Mark — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:30:55 +0000

This is the day many have been waiting for. While Ping.fm‘s beta exclusivity was hardly exclusive (providing you know people), that’s all been wiped clean now. The announcement came this morning on the Ping.fm blog — anyone who wants to can now sign up at Ping.fm, invitation code free.

What does this mean for the service? Obviously, I would expect there to be a rush of new registrations (much like with Jaiku last week). We’ll also be able to see if their servers can handle the load with all the new traffic they’ll be getting. The announcement also hints at personalized public profiles for the service, which would make it a “one-stop shop for all of your social networking management needs.” It also means that it’s gaining popularity. The site currently supports at least 26 social networks, some instant messengers, and some blogs.

I think more people would be happy with Ping.fm if you were able to read social updates through the service instead of just being able to write. The service has always been a one-way service, so I don’t expect to see this anytime soon. If that’s what you’re looking for, try out SocialThing or FriendFeed.

FriendFeed Launches Widgets

Mark — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:30:02 +0000

FriendFeed has launched a number of widgets available for use on other websites. It allows visitors to your site to check out what services you use, how many comments you make, view/subscribe to your feed, etc. This puts the FriendFeed brand out there in the “blogosphere”. What impact will this have on FriendFeed’s popularity and/or success?

Regardless of how successful this campaign is, it’s nice to have something like this to slap on your site so people can connect with you more easily. The advantage the widgets have over RSS is that they’re simply copy and paste embeddable code. There’s generally not much more work to it than that, unless you’re going to customize your widgets.

The widget pictured is the Badge. I took a screenshot instead of actually embedding the code due to some funky rendering with WordPress. There are a number of other widgets, including a Share on FriendFeed link, a Feed Widget that shows your latest updates, and a Status Widget that shows your current status. There’s also a chiclet ( ) that sends users directly to your FriendFeed page. FriendFeed has also published a succinct guide to widget customization.

mark.bockenstedt.net » Social Media

How To Install Laconica

Get the Code

Install Dependent Libraries

Database Setup

Configuration

Configure .htaccess

Tweak

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Ping.fm Goes to Open Beta

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FriendFeed Launches Widgets

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