HappyTC: Info

Some info for gear-heads and geeks who may be more inclined to look under the hood than simply kick the tires… for everyone else — as long as it works who cares, right?

HappyTC is built using a variety of tools, the majority of which are “F/OSS” (free, open source software) and industry standard — created by a community that amazingly provides all this robust stuff gratis:

• Adobe Flex: all the Flash-y user interface stuff (yes, it runs in the Flash player plugin, which is free)
• PHP: builds the HTML pages, handles requests for data, generates emails, talks to the database
• PEAR: sends emails (also built in PHP)
• MySQL: the database
• phpMyAdmin: manages the database (also built in PHP… could you tell from the name?)
• Apache: the webserver
• Linux: the webserver’s operating system
• WordPress: the blogging package presenting content such as this very page you’re reading
• FamFamFam.com: the pretty little icons gracing the HappyTC team dashboard
• PuTTY: telnet/SSH tool
• WinSCP: FTP tool
• Open Office: word processing, spreadsheets, etc. almost as good as MS Office (compatible with it, and much cheaper!)
• Firefox: web browser
• Thunderbird: email client almost as good as Outlook Express (and much cheaper)

HappyTC runs on a “LAMP” platform (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) hosted on FusedNetwork (not free but good value for the dollar; quality too), and is developed on a “WAMP” platform (Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP)… OK, well Windows isn’t free either. But hey — we still run a pretty tight ship. No Herman Miller Aeron chairs here, no siree.