Wanted: Brave Souls with an Interest in Advanced Web Publishing

Are you interested in creating a website which features significant interactivity and the persistent storage of data? Up to now, this has not been possible at Xavier because we didn't have aserver which supported scripting and databsing. But the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and the Information Technology Center are pleased to announce a new era in Web publishing at the University.

The Center now has a server running the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server. Special thanks to ITC for supplying the server and setting it up. Installed on this new machine are MySQL (a relational database management system) and PHP (an HTML-embedded scripting language with built-in functions for database connectivity). Incidentally, this is all open-source software. You can take a look at the new server, on campus only, at http://cat.xula.edu/.

Simply put, this server will allow the Center to assist faculty interested in advanced Web publishing by hosting sites that feature interactivity and databases. We're hoping to announce a formal request for proposals at some time in the future. But you don't have to wait for that!

Creating and using Web databases isn't exactly easy; then again, it's not rocket science either. So we're looking for a few brave souls who have some familiarity with scripting and databases or are motivated to learn by doing. Let us know if you're interested; we'll set you up with an account. If need be, we can point you to some truly excellent resources for learning about PHP and MySQL. You don't have to submit a formal proposal, and you don't even have to have a clear goal in mind. If you just want to play around and experiment, that's fine.

Just send an e-mail to cat@xula.edu and say "I want an account."

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