3 Tutorials to Check Out This Weekend: Crisis Edition

 

The situation in Egypt has colored much of our coverage today, so it's only fitting that we send you into the weekend with some relevant tutorials: an introduction to Ushahidi for developers, tips for optimizing CouchDB and how to create a Tor relay.

Ushahidi 101

Intro to Ushahidi for DevelopersPopout

View more presentations from Ushahidi.

Ushahidi is a non-profit organization that develops open source technology for disaster response. We've covered how its been used to visualize floods in Queensland, for example.
Above is a brief introduction to its technology for developers.
Disclosure: ReadWriteWeb contributor Pete Warden recently joined parent organization SwiftRiver as we reported here.

CouchDB Optmization

CouchDB is great for building Web applications that need to function when Internet connectivity is sporadic. CouchDB sponsor company CouchOne has a case study on how aid workers in Africa are using it to manage health data.
Mu Labs recently published a tutorial called "Notes and tips on optimizing CouchDB performance" for developers who want to squeeze as much performance as possible out of CouchDB.

Tor

As we reported earlier there's been a spike of Tor usage in Egypt the during the past couple days as the government there has severely restricted Internet access. Many on Twitter are calling for users to host more Tor relays. Here's how to configure one.