Installing just XAMPP and getting it to run with the Control Panel was easy. All my headaches started when I tried to get my vhosts installed and working. The problem I ran into getting XAMPP to run on my MacBook Pro were the following:

1. XAMPP for Mac is different from XAMPP for Windows
2. Max OS X comes with a Version of Apache Installed
   
3. Mac OS X has additional permissions that are different from Linux

XAMPP for Mac != XAMPP for Windows

My first mistake was that I assumed that XAMPP for Mac is the same as XAMPP for Windows. After digging into it, the file structure and config files are pretty different. The php.ini file is different, and all the binary files are in /xampp/xamppfiles/bin/. On windows the binary files are in their own folders. It took me awhile to figure out where everything was at. This led me into my next problem:

Mac OS X comes with a Version of Apache Installed

When I was trying to debug why stuff wasn’t working, I opened up the terminal and started running commands. There is just one problem, OS X already has a version of Apache installed. So when I cd’d into the bin directory, I would execute this command:

apachectrl -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS

There was just one problem, it was executing the apachectl that was installed by Mac OS X, not the one for XAMPP. So it all my debugging with the config files, etc. wasn’t working. I was going insane. Finally I figured out what was going on and I had to execute this command instead:

./apachectl -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS

It started behaving like I expected! This lead my to my third hang up.

Mac OS X has additional permissions that are different from Linux

This threw me for a loop to. I don’t understand exactly why this was happening, but I kept gettinga  Permission Denied when trying to view the vhost I was trying to setup. The way I used to do it on Windows is I have a partition for all of my development files. I would have a folder at the root of that drive called SVN_Repositories that holds all the SVN Repositories I use for work. So on my MacBook Pro at / I did the same, I had my SVN_Repositories folder. So my vhost would point to a directory like with a name something like this: “/SVN_Repositories/ExampleRepo/trunk/httpdocs/”

So my linux side clicked in and thought “Hrm, it looks like there is something wrong with the permissions. Let me change the folder permissions to 777 just to test.” So I did that and it still didn’t work. This it made me think it still was a vhost configuration issue. So I spent hours testing all sorts of stuff and just getting more frustrating. Then I read somewhere that XAMPP can have problems with OS X’s unique permissions on addition to the FreeBSD stuff it does. It said to host the vhost content in either the Applications folder or Users folder. So I moved my SVN_Repositories folder to my Users folder so it was like this: “/Users/username/SVN_Repositories/ExampleRepo/trunk/httpdocs/”

It finally worked! So the lessons I learned were:

• Put your vhost content in the Users folder.
• If you try things from the terminal, make sure you do ./apachectl so you execute the correct binary file.
• Most of your config files are in the /Applications/xampp/etc/ folder.

As always, hopefully this helps someone. Feel free to leave any questions or comments.

Related posts:

1. PHP Video Tutorial – Getting Started – Installing XAMPP
2. Page.FindControl() Returning Null Issues and Solutions Within Another Control
3. Local LAMP Developement & User Content

The thing that bums me out the most about yesterday’s MacBook announcements is Apple’s move to all-glossy displays. I’ll make no bones about it – I loathe glossy displays – especially on a notebook computer.

Apple will spin it that blacks look darker and colors are more saturated, blah, blah, blah. It’s a load of garbage. How are we expected to read the screen when the glare is practically blinding? (Don’t even get me started on fingerprints).

I remember when I was talking with my boss about the order for my new MacBook Pro. When he asked about my screen, I repeated several times “not-glossy, never, ever glossy.” We triple checked the order at the end that I had the matted screen. I’m glad that I got my MacBook Pro when I did, because I cannot stand a glossy finish. The only purpose for a glossy finish is shine.

Why shine? Because it looks cool from the outside-in. The demos looks really nice. I love the new approach they’re taking. My only beef is the lack of option. Offer glossy and matte. I’m all about choice. But this decision to only offer glossy is a blatant example of “Apple knows best” and their priority is style, not functionality. Those laptops look “sexy”, but blinding.

I haven’t had a chance to handle one myself, but when I get my hands on one I’ll let you know. If you want to see a video about the new MacBook Pro, check out this video.

Related posts:

1. I’m a PC – Take That Apple
2. Apple Needs to Stop Being Misleading – Viruses & Malware
3. Blog WordPress Theme Experiment – Grunge Style

Give me a break. Windows can come bundled with everything Mac does. The only real program I’ve been impressed with has been Apple’s Mail.app. Other then that, there isn’t anything super fantastic about their other programs. iTunes is terrible as it keeps crashing my iPhone and Laptop. Here is another one that it super misleading:

Okay… this one made me kinda upset. Yes, currently Apple’s Laptops might be out-selling other companies laptops. Thats comparing Apple individually to Compaq, HP, Sony, etc. However, if you counted the number of Apple OS X based laptops to Windows based laptops, windows would win. Lets not forget the reasons they sight? iSight? Almost any new Laptop comes with a built in web cam. Leopard? I know tons of people who don’t like it because its a different experience using it. Microsoft Office? I absolutely loath, let me repeat, loath Microsoft Office 2007 on the Mac. The interface is so much more complex and doesn’t benefit from the Windows Office’s face lift it got this last version. Bottom line, Apple confuses the viewer into being mislead by their statements.

I think Microsoft’s approach is much better than their original approach to their campaign. They’re calling Apple out saying their stereotyping Microsoft. I want to see if Apple produces another “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ad after these new ads.

Related posts:

1. Apple Needs to Stop Being Misleading – Viruses & Malware
2. iPhone SDK 2.1 – Another NDA
3. Mac Keyboard Quirks – Making Mac more like Windows

We had to be on-line and on the browser to view our Google Calendars. Lot of the time when we needed to see our calendar we were with family or friends without computer access. Also, when I work I have twenty or so browser windows open, and it can be difficult to find my calendar in the mix. I also am biased towards desktop client applications when I’m using them every hour of the day. So I set out on my quest to find a way to sync across all the different mediums I use. Now that I think I’ve found my solution, I thought I would share my findings with the rest of the world.

When I tried to decide how to sync my calendars, I started with several goals:

1. Google as my “main” hub for hosting the calendars.
2. No “hosting” services on my end – I didn’t want to have to have a server or something on one of my PCs required to be on all the time for this system to work.
3. Over the air syncing for the iPhone – I don’t want to have to plug in my phone to my PC to “update” my calendar.
4. No hassle, “it just works” mentality.

Here is a diagram of how I’m syncing:

Here is how I set it up:

1) Google is the “center” for my calendar – I’m using google as the main hub for my calendars. It is a great source for hosting my calendars because I know they are always up to date, they have great apis for developers to use to implement with, and you can access them anywhere.

2) Calgoo on Windows – Since I don’t use Outlook for numerous reasons (mainly because it is a slow pig), I was flexible for my window client. I settled on using Calgoo because it was free, the interface is great, and it just works.

3) iCal and BusySync on Mac – I like the iCal interface for using a calendar, and BusySync allows for bi-directional syncing. It happens automatically without any manual intervention.

4) NuevaSync to iPhone – This is the best syncing system for the iPhone and Google (that I’ve found). It doesn’t require any third party software on your iPhone, it uses an exchange account to sync between Google and your iPhone. Best of all, it is over the air, so it work greats. I’ve set my iphone’s fetch to ever 15 for email and calendar.

How do I like it?

I love it. It gives me easy access on my phone, my work PC, my laptop mac, and anywhere with a browser. Depending on your sync frequency, it can take as little as 15 mins for a new entry to get sent across to my other devices. My wife can add something to our calendar and it will show up on my phone.

Let me know if anyone has any questions on how I set this up, but each of the websites explain pretty well how to do it.

Related posts:

1. Mac Keyboard Quirks – Making Mac more like Windows
2. Alright, an iPhone App that is definitly going te cause horror stories: Friend Book
3. iPhone 3G – My Personal Perspective

I don’t have time to describe every little detail as to why Apple is absolutely retarded about prohibiting developers from collaborating with each other. We endured it while the iPhone 2.0 wasn’t out, but if Apple can’t trust anyone, they are in the wrong business. Maybe one day I’ll rant some more, but until I want to waste some time on complaining about Apple, I think I’ll just let everyone else do it to. I just wanted to throw in my two cents that I’m frustrated with Apple.

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First, Yahoo Music users can transfer their account to Rhapsody. I believe this also transfers their purchased music. Now, if your account has lapsed, I don’t know exactly how it works. I still think there are lots of Yahoo Music users will get the short end of the deal, and some lose all their purchased music. I know there are worse things in the world, but here are my thought on DRM.They

Digital Rights Management – Good Intentions, Horrible Execution

DRM at heart really has good intentions. It just wants to make sure that people listen to music that they are have bought or subscribed to. In a perfect world, DRM could help the user. If I bought a song, and that song could follow me across all computers, all devices, and I would never lose it. If my computer blew up, I could buy a new one and “hey! There is my song!” My mp3 player, my phone, my laptop, my computer, and anything else all that could play the song. I could burn it to a CD when ever I wanted, and I could use it all this way 100% legally.

But whose rights are being managed? They are not the user’s rights. The scenario above is when the user’s rights are being managed. DRM in its current state doesn’t manage the user’s rights, but the publishers rights. This isn’t a bad thing in theory if both publishers and users rights are managed. But whose rights are being managed? The publisher’s right solely.

DRM in its current state has this philosophy: If there is any possible way that any user could might share a song with someone else who doesn’t own the rights to listen. Unfortunately, this philosophy leads to buying music with DRM into an extremely restricted environment. What would it take to make DRM work?

1) One Universal DRM System – For my music to work everywhere, there only has to be one. I doubt this will ever happen. If there are more than one system, they have to work together seamlessly. This in my opinion is an impossible dream. Why can there only be one? For all Computers, Devices, etc. to work with DRM music, there should only be one system. When there is more, it undoubtably will happen that one device will only support one and not two. Our classic example now is Apple’s technology vs. Windows Based (WMA’s) systems. iPods and iPhone can play apple’s music. Zunes, Sansas, etc can play protected WMAs. There is no way to switch the two. It just doesn’t work.

2) Easier for the User – The reason why all DRM systems have been so locked down is the mentality of “don’t trust the user!” Isn’t that the whole reason why we have DRM? I believe DRM would work a great deal better if it made life easier for a user. I’ll give an example where this indeed has happened with DRM later in this blog post.

3) Don’t Punish the User – Currently, if you slightly fall out of a DRM’s system or model, you lose your music. It is frustrating for users and my biggest fear of buying DRM music is I’ll somehow lose the license, crash my computer, etc. and I will have to re-buy the song. Once 6-7 years ago a hotel maid threw away my plane ticket on accident. It was with Southwest and when I got to the airport I had my driver’s license to prove it was me. I told them my last name of “Carmony” and she asked me if I was Justin and I said yes. They then told me without the ticket I had to buy another one. I was infuriated! They knew it was me. They knew I had bought a ticket. But because of some maid I had to re-buy my ticket. I get the same feeling with DRM. Why can’t I re-download music I purchased? You know I bought it. You know I signed in just fine. So force me to re-buy what I already should own? Just because my computer blew up, or was stolen, or any other number of reasons I would imagine DRM would protect me in this case, not hurt me.

When Digital Rights Management is Good

I think the current DRM model is mostly good for one scenario: music subscriptions. I loved my Yahoo Music account and now my Rhapsody. I love the fact that I can pay a subscription to listen to millions of songs. The key in understanding why I pay money to subscribe is one simple reason: it is more convenient than other illegal alternatives. I used to download music illegally when I was younger. The good old Napster days when it took 30 minutes to download one song over dial-up. Now a person can download an entire discography of a band in under 30 minutes.

DRM makes sense for subscription services. It makes good sense to protect “borrowed” music. People would be able to steal music insanely easy without protecting that music. Besides, they are renting it, not purchasing it. DRM has enabled a new business model that couldn’t exist without it. The only issue is that I can’t use subscription music on any device. Once again, the problem of not having a universal system.

When Digital Rights Management is Bad

Purchasing Music. That sums it up right there. While subscribing to music works well because you can re-download it when needed, buying music with DRM is a huge hassle. It makes it such a big hassle that it is a lot easier to download music illegally than buy it legally. Any current DRM system ties users to specific computers, devices, and rules. If those rules are broken, the music won’t work, and even lost forever. However, instead of coming up with more lenient DRM systems, companies have been doing the sane thing: throwing it out the window.

Amazon, Rhapsody, and many others are allowing people to buy MP3s on their site. This allows people to legally buy their music and do whatever they want with it. It is the same as buying a CD. No worries about what devices it will work on, or if you can burn it to a CD. If you lose it, its your own fault and you can’t blame anyone but yourself.

Once again, if DRM made my life better, I would love to have DRM. However, when DRM is such a restrictive technology, it only hurts honest paying customers and doesn’t stop illegal users. It would be different if acquiring illegal is was hard. But many times it is so much easier to get it illegally on the internet than legally. Once again, I can never say this enough times, if DRM made the consumer’s life better, it would be welcomed with open arms. But since it is such a pain in the butt, we all hate it.

I look forward to the day where either the DRM towel is thrown in and it is only used for subscription based technologies. Or I’ll even look forward to the day when DRM helps my life by just working exactly how I would have want to work. But until then, I will never buy music if I’m bound down by it.

Related posts:

1. Yahoo vs. Rhapsody – Why Yahoo Lost
2. Why Are Some Open Source Advocates Hypocrites?
3. iPhone SDK release on March 6th?

Today, and almost every day, I’ll read an article about a proprietary computer company (Microsoft, Apple, etc) and “open source” technologies and communities. Every time I read them I see a large percentage of “user participants” in comments, responses, etc. that make me cringe.

Today’s example was ZDNet’s article “Open source should support Apple over Psystar“. I thought it was a great, simple article:

I have been wracking my brain all day for an angle on this Apple-Psystar story (great work by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes) and I can’t come up with one.

Save this. Open source should be supporting Apple here.

The writer goes on to basically say that the Open Source world relies on users respecting the licenses and agreements made by the people who download their software. Apple has a EULA and Psystar is basically breaking that agreement. She admits that Apple’s EULA is nasty and removes any rights for a user, but that user by choice bought an Apple product.

However, what kind of comments show up?

If you accept Apple EULA you give your soul to the devil (and all your possession must be Apple approved, you cannot use the software to its full potential: like on a REAL computer, you surrender all freedom and you are sucked down into the whorst artificial monopoly ever witness by mankind)

However their kernel choice is an open source kernel, and if this is the part that is being modified then the issue is moot.

Apple doesn’t support Open Source. Where’s my version of iTunes for Linux? Glad to see they were able to take KHTML and make Safari out of it. Where’s the love in return?

There isn’t any. Recompiling iTunes for another *nix kernel would be trivial. It’s missing because they don’t think the open source community matters to them.

I say let ‘em swing in the wind.

hell no open source should not support apple over psystar. i have download the os 10.5 patch myself along with a copy of os 10.5. why would i pay apple 2400 dollars for a computer that is not as fast as the one i am using, that i built for less than 1500 dollars(including xp). as far as the eula is concerned it means nothing to me. i signature is not their. as i have stated before once i buy a piece of software i will do whatever i want with it.

Here is the problem in a nutshell: Proprietary Companies (Microsoft, IBM, etc) have legally fought Open Source to snuff out competition. Open Source people fought back for their rights and defend them. They declared that open source “is about choice!” Its allowing people to choose different software than the typical proprietary solutions. These open source projects have adopted licenses to prevent people abusing their Intellectual Property. While Open Source people might scream at me for saying that, in essence that is what all of these open source projects are: intellectual property that is owned by the public, instead of by a person or corporation.

So open source advocates scream and yell when people violate the intellectual property of the public. However, when it is the intellectual property of a company, especially someone like Microsoft or Apple, that it doesn’t matter because they are “evil.” Regardless of the hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions of dollars they have invested into their IP, its okay to disregard that due to the fact their “business principles don’t line up with mine.”

It is a double standard that thousands and thousands of Open Source users are taking. It is a total crime for a business to abuse open source licenses, however its okay to for users to abuse business’s licenses. When companies mess with open source, open source users run to the law for protection. Yet when the roles are reversed, open source users say “screw the law” and go with their own ‘moral compass’.

My question to these people are: what about my choice?

I’m willing to pay for my copy of windows. I support Microsoft in their endeavor to make better products. I enjoy programming in .NET because it saves me time. That is my choice. I love my MacBook Pro. I like the quickness and responsiveness I get from it. It is my choice to buy from a company whose value is in their Quality Control.

But hypocritical open source advocates tell me I’m wrong and evil because I’m making the “wrong” choice. I’ve seen a serious trend with open source users that instead of arguing for choice, are arguing what I should choose. Yes! By all means you can choose whatever you want to do. If you want to run only on open source technologies, more power to you. But don’t call me “evil” for being willing to pay for software that makes my life easier.

I support open source. I love what it is doing to the technology industry. However, there are many open source users that I cannot stand. Stand up for choice, but stop being hypocrites when telling me that my choices are wrong, because thats not choice at all.

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2. About
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http://lifehacker.com/398228/friend-book-to-beam-your-iphones-contact-data-with-a-shake

Here is an except about what Friend Book does:

The coolest feature without a doubt is the new “Handshake”: put two iPhones running Friend Book together, shake them up and down, and the personal contact information of the phones’ owners will be beamed through the net to the paired phones. Handshake doesn’t work through a device-to-device connection, but instead passes location data back to Tapulous’ servers – two shaking phones in the same location means it’s time to swap information.

Okay….. is it just me, or is this idea just bad? If I see to people shaking their phones together, I can shake mine too and see if I can’t leach of a few contacts. No to mention “Wii” syndrom where iPhones will be flying out of people’s hands. I’m sorry, but this “feature” seems just crazy to me.

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1. Starting Book Reviews
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3. iPhone 3G – My Personal Perspective

If you haven’t agreed to the iPhone SDK License Agreement and NDA, please ignore this post, or Apple might hunt you down with their lawyers… and what a horrible death that would be.

Problem

I keep getting a build error when trying to subclass the UITableViewCell

Solution

Add the CoreGraphics.framework to your project

Resource

Found my answer at the MacRumors forums.

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Command & Control are switched – this is a major pain, especially when using a KVM to switch between a Windows, Mac, and Linux machine. It is just crazy!

Home & End – They don’t work like they should on every other OS. I’ve never really figured out exactly what they do on Mac, but on Windows they go to the beginning or end of a line.

So here are some simple free fixes to change these behaviors on your Mac:

Fix Command & Control

Fix Home & End

Another issue I’ve had is Alt-Tab doesn’t exists on Mac, its Ctrl-Tab and the functionality isn’t the same. I like Ctrl-Tab, but sometimes I’ve very accustom to my Alt-Tab. I found this program called Witch that enables Alt-Tab, and all sorts of other cool features. It isn’t free, it is shareware, but I haven’t seen any annoying notices to buy it, so we’ll see how it works out.

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1. Lifehacker – Making your Mac sing!
2. OS X and Tabs – Skipping Drop Down Controls
3. Apple Needs to Stop Being Misleading – Viruses & Malware