== Sinandra
Sinandra is a very simple blog engine built with Sinatra and a Cassandra backend.

Why another blog engine? 

Sinantra was written in order to learn Cassandra and understand Cassandra's data model.

== Installation

Make sure you install Cassandra. To get started with Cassandra: http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/GettingStarted

You also have to have sinatra installed:

    sudo gem install sinatra
    
== Requirements

The following gems are required and need to be installed:

    sudo gem install actionpack cassandra simple-uuid maruku sanitize

== Cassandra Configuration

A sample Cassandra configuration is included: sample-cassandra-conf.yml.

The important part is the following keyspace:
	
  <Keyspaces>
		<Keyspace Name="sinandra">
			<ColumnFamily CompareWith="BytesType" Name="Authors"/>
			<ColumnFamily CompareWith="UTF8Type" Name="Lists"/>
			<ColumnFamily CompareWith="TimeUUIDType" Name="Archives"/>
			<ColumnFamily CompareWith="BytesType" Name="BlogEntries"/>
			<ColumnFamily CompareWith="TimeUUIDType" Name="TaggedPosts"/>
			<ColumnFamily CompareWith="TimeUUIDType" Name="Comments"
				  CompareSubcolumnsWith="BytesType" ColumnType="Super"/>
		</Keyspace>
	</Keyspaces>	

== Sinandra Configuration

You can configure Sinandra using a file called config.yml. Using this config file, you can set:
* the title of your blog
* The author of the blog (only supports a single author)
* The about paragraph displayed on the right-side column
* the username of the person allowed to post blog entries
* the password of the person allowed to post blog entries

A sample configuration file is included: sample-config.yml.

If you do not include a config.yml file, the following defaults are used:
* blog title = 'a simple blog'
* blog author  = 'Tyrone Badu'
* about paragraph =  'Lorem ipsum...'
* username = 'admin'
* password = 'super'

== Running Sinandra

To run sinandra, simply use: ruby sinandra.rb

Then point your browser to : http://localhost:4567/

== Screencast

You can download a small screencast which runs through the features of sinandra here. Nothing very exciting but it lets you see it in action without downloading/running it:

    http://lucpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/SinandraDemo.avi
    
== Recommended Links on Cassandra

* https://github.com/dambalah/sinandra
* http://blog.evanweaver.com/articles/2009/07/06/up-and-running-with-cassandra/
* http://arin.me/blog/wtf-is-a-supercolumn-cassandra-data-model
* http://www.parleys.com/#id=1866&st=5&sl=1