Last week, Tenon Intersystems retired Power MachTen — its Mac only, POSIX compliant product that combines Unix and Mac OS functionality — and MachTen CodeBuilder. Now they’ve announced a new transition package for Mac Webmasters who haven’t yet moved from the traditional Mac operating system to Mac OS X: iTools 6.1. It and one year of technical support is going for US$299.
iTools (not to be confused with Apple’s iTools) is a Web server that takes advantage of the preemptive multitasking and memory protection of Mac OS X. The iTools Web server suite is an Apache-based Web server package and is a family of tools essential to “serious, commercial content delivery and e-commerce,” Anita Holmgren of Tenon told MacCentral. iASP is a Java implementation of the Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) framework, used for running and building interactive Web sites.
“Using Apple’s bundled Apache as a point of departure and incorporating the latest open source protocol implementations of Apache, DNS, FTP and sendmail, iTools extends the Mac OS X platform with a rich set of network services,” Holmgren added. “Tenon’s iTools includes SSL for secure eCommerce transactions, FastCGI and mod_Perl for top CGI performance, an integrated, state-of-the-art caching proxy server that augments Apache’s built-in proxy services, integrated domain name services, integrated multidomain FTP services, integrated logging, a high-performance Sherlock-savvy search engine.”
Tenon’s iTools Web server package for Mac OS X is an evolution of Tenon’s WebTen for Mac OS, said Holmgren. It’s designed to complement and extend Apache that is included with OS X and to make it easy for Webmasters to set up and support sophisticated network servers.
Also included are support for Java servlets and Java Server Pages with Tomcat, support for Active Server Pages with Halcyon’s iASP, and mod_dav to support the transition from a read-only web to a collaborative, writable Web via WebDAV clients. A growing collection of open source and commercial Web development tools are included and pre-configured to make setting up Web services easy for Webmasters.
According to Holmgren, a partial list includes: PHP, a powerful scripting tool; MySQL, a popular open source database with Web-based administration via phpMyAdmin; OpenBase and FrontBase, two commercial databases; Qilan, a Web application construction environment that provides connectivity to multiple databases and MRTG (Multi-Router Traffic Grapher), for monitoring and graphing network traffic load. Also included is a WEBmail server that turns Mac OS X into a POP3 and IMAP4 mail server and a customizable, anytime, anywhere “Hotmail” style mail client, Holmgren said.
“All of these capabilities are available using Mac OS X ‘client’ 10.1,” Holmgren said. “With Mac OS X Server 10.1, you can also use WebObjects and Applescript CGIs.”
All the software is downloadable from Tenon’s Web site for testing. The company’s policy is to provide protocol software updates and bug fixes for free. Tenon’s technical support is provided for $99 annually. For this “transition promotion,” all Mac Webmasters buying iTools before Nov. 30 will receive one year of technical support at no charge. See the special order form for details.