Freedom Creations

There will come a point where you will want to test your site on another browser that your OS does not support or run an Apache server to install a CMS. For instance, if you are using a Linux based OS or MAC OS and you want to test out your site on Internet Explorer 8.0 (IE8), you are out of luck. In this case you will certainly need a virtual machine to address the missing link. The virtual platform of choice is VirtualBox.

VirtualBox

Virtualbox is owned by Sun Microsystems (which in return is owned by Oracle). VirtualBox is free under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). It works on all three platforms, Windows, MAC OS and Linux. It is pretty much a breeze to install on each platform so I’m not even going to write on how to install it. As of this writing, the latest version is 3.0.4.

Why am I recommending VirtualBox? Here’s why:

1. It installs easy on each platform.
2. I find it to run faster than other virtual systems, like VMWare Server.
3. It offers a lot of features that you would normally have to pay for on other virtual software.
4. It supports USB 2.0.
5. I can port my virtual machines very easily. I haven’t tried this with other virtual software but with VirtualBox it works great. I create my drive on a portable HD and run the virtual OS from there. I can then use the same drive to run the virtual OS from another computer with VirtualBox. It all works seamlessly.

A great tool to have in your Web Development kit.

Update: This ‘how to’ applies for Aptana Studio 1.2.x and below.  With the new version of Aptana Studio 1.5.x you no longer have to go through all those steps (see new post).
In this post I demonstrate how to install Aptana Studio on Ubuntu 9.04. I created a web cast for it. Yes, a webcast and by the way it’s my first one! I used all open source software to create it. We’ll get to that on another post. Down below you’ll find the script and the icon I used. Enjoy!

Here is the script:

Here is the Aptana icon.  The file is an X11 PixMap (.xpm) type:

Aptana Icon

Another great Web Development IDE, however for the Windows platform only, is Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express. Why am I mentioning it? Because it’s FREE. You just have to register here to get a registration number and after that you’re all set.  Here, I must say, bravo Microsoft! Job well done.

If you ask me, what’s the best free replacement of Adobe Dreamweaver on the Windows platform?  My answer is, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express.  If you are a Web Developer starting out, honestly, I don’t see any reason why you would dish out $399 to get Dreamweaver.  Actually, reading this blog, you’ll find out that you never have to purchase any expensive software to do web development.

Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express

Anyways, here are some highlights of Visual Web Developer (VWD).  I encourage you to install it to see all the features of VWD.  It is easy to install.  Just download the setup program and run it.

VWD has a Design, Split and Source View to edit your pages.  These views work very well just like in Dreamweaver.  My favorite feature is the code autocompletion or intellisense (as Microsoft likes to call it).   When you preview (Start Debugging) a page in the browser, VWD creates a virtual instance of a web server using ASP.NET.  This works well especially when you want to preview .aspx pages and you have not setup a website under IIS.   VWD allows you to create websites/web applications directly on IIS, FTP or a local folder.

Although Visual Web Developer is geared more for Web Development such as ASP.NET, it is a great IDE for Web Design as well.  If you are primarily a Windows user and on a budget,  I cannot recommend more other than Visual Web Developer 2008 Express.