Utilizing Open Source Web Apps Painlessly with Sandstorm.

For every great web application installed, there is a sys admin with atleast a dozen headaches. An easy alternative is to pay a monthly fee fora company to take care of those headaches for you. But in response to that, the guys at Sandstorm have said it best:

"For open source software to make sense, the user has to be running their own instance. Software-as-a-Service and open source web apps just don’t make sense together: it’s not really open source if you can’t run modified code, and the high barrier to entry shuts out hobby projects or anything unwilling to be monetized."

Sandstorm really shines when it comes to small-to-medium sized community collaboration tools. Think of it as an incredibly-accessible virtual machine manager for all kinds of apps. Right out of the box you have the ability to spin up Google docs alternatives, productivity & organization tools, and Git server/front-ends. This can all be hosted on a sub-domain of your current web server, or as your own little cloud on a local network.

During this meeting, Dan will demonstrate how to:

• Install & configure Sandstorm on a LAMP server

• Enable Google sign-in authentication for users

• Run application instances (Sandstorm calls them Grains)

• Package your own PHP application to be used as a Sandstorm Grain

All this won't take up too much time. Afterwards we can check out some of the apps & features, and have a couple of beers!

About Dan Kraft

Though Dan's primary residence is the internet, he currently dwells in Wausau, WI. He is employed as a full-stack web developer for Roastar, a company who produces attractive labeling and flexible packaging for companies in niche markets like coffee roasting and cannabis products.

A true master of none, he enjoys creating music, reading books, and playing Dungeons & Dragons. He is passionate about open source software, and hopes his GitHub profile will properly reflect that... someday.

You can find him online at http://frigginglorio.us/ . His band, The Essentials ( http://essentials.rocks/ ), will be releasing an EP shortly.

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