Xang is an "X" Word

While there are many X rated words out there, and most of you already know what they are, today I'll stick with the effort to educate and lift our intellect above that of the mere crass, brute creatures, by just sticking with an "X" word. Xang of course rhymes with Tang (R) (the breakfast drink suposedly invented for astronauts), and also dang (a deritive of damn, and a close relative of X rated words). If you say all these words together, like this; Xang Tang Dang, it sounds much like a Laotian war lord's name, or perhaps that of an anciant Chinese philosopher or emperor.

If you want to get technical, Xang actually comes from the orient, particularly Laos. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime web site states, "Modern-day Laos has its roots in the ancient Lao kingdom of Lan Xang (literally, "a million elephants"), established in the 14th century under King Fa Ngum. For three hundred years Lan Xang included large parts of present-day Cambodia and Thailand, as well as all of what is now Laos."

But today's blog isn't about Laotian Xang (except for what's already been said and the picture pirated off the United Nations Web site(What are they gonna do? Sanction an embargo against me?)). Anywho, today's post is about the Xang that is part of the Apache Server Project. And to explain that, I have to go back a ways; not as far back as the kingdom of Xang, but back a few years.

Once upon certain time, I had become so frustrated with webbased website building and restrictions, that I decided to put a web server of my own on line, and so I did. For several years I ran my own web site from my home based server over a cable connection. I used the Linux operating system (Mandrake flavor), and the Apache Web Server. Otherwise, I winged it. This worked nicely until the hardware began to get a little age and start to just wear out a couple of years ago.

The sever and web site ran off of an AMD 500 mhz processor home pc, with about 300 or so mb of ram. It did very nicely, thank you very much. The little server hosted a large web site called "C What I 8" that had a variety of features, one of which was the Beneath the Carolina Moon blog.

A couple of years ago, I built a new 3ghz Pentum based PC with a gig of ram to replace the aging AMD box, and began tinkering with an updated version of the Apache Web Server. It just wasn't as much fun as the old days, and I had a life full to do, with little time to dedicate to getting everything I wanted out of the server using wild scripts and other software to access data bases that I would have to build. Eventually, I disconnected the server and put the project on hold. But, I have now discovered that the Apache project has branched and rebranched and developed some really neat tools, one of which is Xang.

The welcome page of the Apache Xang Project states, "Apache Xang lets you quickly build data-driven, cross-platform Web applications that integrate disparate data sources. The Xang architecture cleanly separates data, logic and presentation. It is based on open industry standards such as HTTP, XML, XSL, DOM and ECMAScript (JavaScript)." You can read all about Xang here: The Apache Xang Project .

I'm excited about Xang, because it sounds like a useful tool that will help me build the kind of web site that I have had in mind for quiet some time. I don't think I'm going to host my blog there though. For now, Blogger gets by, and how often do I even post an entry? But its not a project to get to anytime soon. I've already got my hands full here beneath the Carolina moon. I'll have to clear the decks of a few things before I dive into that project.

Another oddball project will be coming to Beneath the Carolina Moon. After the "Z" post, we'll intoduce the Albino HMS Monkey. What is an albino HMS monkey? Stay tuned.

Dread