Koala grey

Are you thinking of setting up your own web server for hosting your site or just play around a little? This is not hard and in this article we are going to install Apache, PHP and MySQL with the open source bundle WAMP.

First off we need to download the Windows package. Do that here.

Once the download is finished, we need to install the package.

When you run the setup, make sure that you check the Autostart option, this can be a nice feature which spares you the time to launch it from the start menu everytime you reboot. Except that, stick to the defaults unless you know what you are doing.

When the installation is completed, head to http://localhost. If you see the WAMP welcome page, everything went successful!

After that we succeeded the installation, we need to configure MySQL in order to make it secure. Click on the PhpMyAdmin link on the Wamp welcome screen or head your browser to http://localhost/phpmyadmin.
Click on the “Privilegies” link on the PhpMyAdmin welcome screen and then edit the privilegies for the user root.

Scroll down to the pane “Change Password” and set a new password for your root account. After we have set a password for the MySQL root account, we need to edit the PhpMyAdmin configuration file. This file can be found (in a default installation) under C:/wamp/apps/phpmyadmin2.*/config.inc.php. Open this file with Notepad or any other text editor and scroll down to the line $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password']      = ”;

Type in the password that you’ve set for the root account, for example:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password']      = ‘thisismysafepassword’;

You are now ready to start playing around with your very own web server.
Stay tuned for an article in how you install and configure your own WordPress weblog.

Software, Web development Apache, MySQL, PHP, Tutorial

While surfing around the internet I found the DigiXmas Submitter tool! This tool might be old, what do I know, but I know for sure that it’s a hell-of-a-thing. What it basically does is that it adds your site to about 1000* web directories, semi-automatic! This is really a time saver! If you haven’t got it, get it at http://www.digixmas.com

* You get 150 sites for free and for 15$ you get about 900 additional web directories.

Software, Web development SEO

Notepad++ is a source code editor that I’ve been using daily for a while. Before that, I used Notepad, so switching to Notepad++ was a giant step for me. I love the syntax highlightning and the great implementation of regular expressions in the search and replace feature. This is very useful when it comes to Web programming.

These are the features I love the most:

• Syntax highlightning
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Mutli-View
• Regular expression search/replace
• Full Drag and drop
• Auto-detection of file status
• Zoom
• Bookmarks
• Macro recording and playback

Check it out at http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net

Software, Web development editor, Web development

Are your internet browsing taking time? Are you tired of getting browser crashes? Try to tune Firefox with Firetune to get some faster browsing!

I think that everyone, who is a frequent Firefox user, have heard about the “about:config” tip to tune Firefox with like 200 setting strings. What if you could to do that with a freeware? Actually, you can with the excellent freeware FireTune.

Firetune allows you to optimize Firefox for your computer, without any installation or uninstallation. Just extract the files and fire it up to start tuning.

Here are a full list of features:

• Speed improvements according to your computer speed
• Improves browsing speed according to your internet connection speed
• Speed improvements for slow, medium and fast computers / connection speeds
• Enables some hidden tweaks of Firefox for even more browsing speed
• Includes a configuration backup and restore function
• Optimizes Firefox memory usage

Download it here!

Internet, Software Firefox, freeware, Mozilla, tuning

The biggest change from 3.1b1 to 3.1b2 is the addition of the feature called “web workers” which gives Firefox the ability to process tasks in
the background. The feature, part of the ,still under development, HTML 5 specification, adds another level of sophistication for programmers writing Web applications and gives multicore processors a better way to allocate processor power.

“We have been hard at work with folks from Apple and Google to complete this feature”, said Ben Turner.

Apple and Google are also building their own browsers and with the browser wars back in full force, those organizations are racing to outdo each other
on features and performance.

Paul Rouget wrote on the Mozilla Add-ons Blog that a Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 will be released in the first week of december. He also said that there
are plans on schedueling a Beta 3 of the Mozilla 3.1.

Internet, Software Ben Turner, Firefox, Mozilla, Paul Rouget

When Steve Sinofsky told everybody at PDC 2008 that Windows Beta 1 would ship sometime early next year, apparently he meant really early.

A recent blog post from Microsoft Architect Evangelist, Bob Familiar, reveals that those attending the MSDN Developers Conference will receive their very own copy of Windows 7 Beta 1. MSDNDC takes place from December 9th 2008 to February 19th 2009 in a number of US states.

Microsoft has been very careful not to make any PR mistakes, so seeing some kind of light being shed by one of Microsoft’s own should mean an actual Beta 1 release on January 13th.

Seeing that next year’s CES takes place from January 8th to 11th, just a few days before the Beta 1 release, we have good reason to believe Windows 7 Beta 1 will be unveiled at the show.

Beta 1 will no doubt cause a stir in the blogosphere on the day of its release. Some people have been quick to criticize the pre-beta, but what we’re seeing so far is only a piece of what Windows 7 really is.

According to me, everything must be better than Vista, which has driven me to nuts more than one time.

Software Microsoft, Steve Sinofsky, Windows

Yesterday, the open-source customizable music player Songbird reached the version 1.0. The Songbird, with its 160′000 users, is powered by Mozilla.

The new version contains enchancements of already existing features such as:

• mashTape
  When you listen to music in Songbird you’ll have the option to see Flickr photos, YouTube videos, last.fm biographies, google news (and more) for the currently playing artist.
• Album artwork
  The album artwork feature now supports drag and drop of images, as well as, toggling between Now Playing and Currently Selected tracks.
  
  
• Add-on management
  A new update mechanism ensures that all upgraded users have an option to install the latest Recommended Add-ons.

Check out all the improvements and get it at www.songbirdnest.com

Software MP3, open-source, Songbird

I let the picture do the talking. Photoshop IS amazing.

Software Photoshop

Internet Explorer has lost over 5 % of it’s market share since the beginning of 2008 according to Hitslink.com.

Meanwhile Internet Explorer continues to lose shares of the market, Mozilla Firefox has for the first time in the history reached 20.0 % of the market.

“Reaching 20 percent worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla.  It’s a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible.  The open web is more vibrant than ever, and the thousands of Mozilla contributors around the world have played a major role in making it that way.”

Says Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly.

I dont know about you guys, but I fell in love with Firefox the first time I tried it. Today, according to me, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox is are not even competing in the same league.

Software Firefox, Internet Explorer, John Lilly, Microsoft, Mozilla