For the past couple years, I’ve used a product called FinalBuilder from VSoft Technologies to automate my build processes.  Since I’ve been building web sites (about the past 5 years or so), one of the biggest hassles is maintaining them.  That is, updating the databases, deploying the web site, automating backups, etc.  I’ve used several products like FinalBuilder (including Cruise Control), and to be honest, none of them come close to the quality of FinalBuilder.

Basically, the way the product works is that you create a “project” file using the FinalBuilder IDE.  That project file has “Actions” in it which do things like “ftp” files to servers, rename files, iterate over sql scripts, parse and update files, checkout from source control, as well as hundreds of other convenient functions.  You then execute that “script” file and all the magic happens.

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