Introduction
Astroblahhh Desktop, or ABDesktop for short, is a software package which, similar to software packages like WordPress or Drupal, is run with web server software, database software, and PHP. Astroblahhh Desktop can be accessed and used via any typical web browser.
However, unlike WordPress or Drupal, Astroblahhh Desktop is designed for private use on your own computer while disconnected from the internet, rather than for use on a regular online web server.
Astroblahhh Desktop contains three organizers - one for files, one for URLs, and one for ideas (or any random text scraps).
Warnings
Since I am an amateur programmer who barely knows what I'm doing, I recommend not trusting this software. Please don't use it for anything really important or which has to definitely be private, safe, and secure.
- Astroblahhh Desktop very likely has major security problems - so, it's safest to use it while disconnected from the internet.
(Or, if you can figure out how to make your web server software and database software block all outside connections, and you're really sure that's really working, then, maybe that would be OK.)
- Another major problem is that, if you create a really large database in Astroblahhh Desktop, and then use PhpMyAdmin or something to add and/or remove indexes from that database, you might literally, physically overheat and melt your hard drive.
That happened to me when I was experimenting with a file database with around 255,000 records. I added/removed about x indexes and then got a scary warning from my hard drive temperature software that my hard drive was at 69° Celsius. :-O
So, it's best not to make your databases too colossal. I like to keep my databases down to less than about 80,000 records.
Fortunately, in the course of ordinary use of Astroblahhh Desktop, I haven't run into such dramatic problems as that, since I guess most searches tend not to be as hard on your hard drive as building indexes. But, I recommend being cautious just in case.
- Perhaps the most dangerous features of Astroblahhh Desktop are the file organizer's file moving features. They are shut off by default.
I'm guessing they are quite likely to fail to work on platforms other than the two I actually use Astroblahhh Desktop on - Windows XP and the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux. (Other, less dangerous file organizer features are also probably unlikely to work properly on other platforms).
So, if you're using a very different platform than those two, or even just a slightly different platform, it's quite probable that Astroblahhh Desktop will have to be modified to function properly on your platform.
Even if you have one or both of the same platforms I do - if you plan on using the file moving features at all, you should first test them on unimportant files you can afford to lose.
Astroblahhh Desktop might also have other serious problems that I'm not yet aware of.
Platforms ABDesktop Works On
Astroblahhh Desktop can definitely run in Windows XP and the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux, and could possibly at least partially work on other platforms (like MacOS, other Linuxes, etc.) too, though it might need to be modified to work properly on them.
There are only two set-ups that I've extensively used Astroblahhh Desktop with.
| OS | Web Server Software Package | Web Server Software | Database Software |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows XP (Service Pack 2) | XAMPP | Apache | MySQL |
| The Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux, run from a live DVD+RW | LHMP | Hiawatha | MariaDB, a variant of MySQL which is very compatible with MySQL |
If you have a different set-up, or even if you don't, you should be very cautious about using Astroblahhh Desktop.
It might run on any platform which has PHP, some MySQL-compatible database software, and some web server software like Apache or Hiawatha - but as for whether it will work properly, that's uncertain, since it hasn't been tested on a wide variety of platforms.
Astroblahhh Desktop might partially work if uploaded to a typical online web server, but I strongly discourage you from doing that at all, because since Astroblahhh Desktop probably has security problems, and it's not designed to be used on the web or by more than one person.