Category / Technology

6

Launching XAMPP at OSX startup

A few days ago I posted about my experiences setting up XAMPP on OSX. Here’s another little XAMPP tip…

By default XAMPP won’t start the Apache and MySQL services at system startup, so every time you reboot your computer you’ll need to restart them. Wouldn’t it be nice if those services started automatically? One way of doing that is to create a Launch Daemon that runs at system startup and have it start XAMPP for us.

Fire up Terminal, and run the following command:

cd /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo nano apachefriends.xampp.apache.start.plist

Enter your OSX password when prompted, then in nano paste the following into your new plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EnableTransactions</key>
<true/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>apachefriends.xampp.apache.start</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/xampp</string>
<string>startapache</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
<string>/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles</string>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<false/>
<key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save the file and exit nano (control+o, return, control+x).

Now run the following terminal command:

sudo nano apachefriends.xampp.mysql.start.plist

And into this new file paste:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EnableTransactions</key>
<true/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>apachefriends.xampp.mysql.start</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/xampp</string>
<string>startmysql</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
<string>/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles</string>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<false/>
<key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save the file and exit nano (control+o, return, control+x).

When you restart your computer the XAMPP Apache and MySQL services should start automatically. You can check this by launching XAMPP Control and checking that Apache and MySQL have green lights displayed next to them.

A note about security

If you’re concerned about the security of your system while running XAMPP, the safest approach is not to run Apache or MySQL at all, in which case you might not want to have those services running while you’re not using them. However, I’m fairly certain that unless you intentionally open up port 80 in your hardware/software firewall your XAMPP server should be invisible outside your local network.

Credit

A hat tip to ‘cwd’, who posted this solution on Superuser. I tried a couple of other approaches before I stumbled upon this one which actually works.

53

Configuring VirtualHosts in XAMPP on Mac

A few weeks back I rejoined the “Cult of Mac” when I replaced my old Asus notebook with a MacBook Pro, and since then I’ve been busy settling into my new OS X workflow. I do all my development locally, so one of the first applications I installed was XAMPP, a cross platform Apache/MySQL/PHP stack. While I know that MAMP is very popular on Mac, I have been using XAMPP for many years so I thought I’d stick with what I know.

Installing XAMPP was a snap, but when I came to create my own Apache VirtualHosts things started getting fiddly. Here are the steps I followed to get everything running smoothly.

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13

Sunset: A syntax highlighting theme for phpDesigner

My weapon of choice for code editing is the excellent program phpDesigner, but every so often I like to test drive a different editor to see what I might be missing out on. Recently I spent some time playing with Notepad++, and one feature that jumped out at me was the ability to choose from a large number of pre-installed syntax highlighting themes.

When I switched back to phpDesigner, the default blue-on-white color scheme seemed a tad boring, so I decided it was time to pimp my IDE! Unfortunately user created themes for phpDesigner are thin on the ground, which left me no option but to make my own.

PHP example:

Sunset theme for phpDesigner - PHP code

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7

Subversion for web development: Part 3

In the “>second parts of this series you learned what version control is, and how to put a place a website under version control using Subversion. In this final article I will talk about configuring a local Apache webserver to integrate smoothly with your development working copy, and how to deploy a version controlled website to a live webserver.

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4

Subversion for web development: Part 1

In this three part series of articles I will explain my approach to using Subversion, the open-source version control software, for web development.

For a long time I steered clear of version control, dismissing it as too complex, or something that was only useful for large development teams. I took Subversion for a test drive, but didn’t really “get it”, and decided version control wasn’t for me.

I changed my tune earlier this year when I was employed to work on a project that was already under version control. I had no choice but to get up to speed with Subversion, and once I got the hang of it I was excited to discover that version control streamlined my entire workflow. I now use Subversion for all of my web projects and consider it an integral part of my development process.

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1

Font Squirrel’s @font-face kit generator

If you want to create your own @font-face kits, you absolutely must check out Font Squirrel’s new @font-face generator tool. All you have to do is upload a TrueType or OpenType format font, and the generator spits out a zip file containing:

  • The original typeface for Safari and Firefox 3.5
  • A WOFF font for Firefox 3.6+
  • An SVG font for Opera, Chrome, and iPhone
  • An EOT font for Internet Explorer
  • A sample HTML page
  • A sample CSS stylesheet

The generator also features options to reduce file size by subsetting the font, cleanup font outlines, and auto-hint glyphs to improve rendering.

Font Squirrel Generator

Sweet!

2

My run-in with the Great Firewall of China

Recently I was developing a website for a client whose primary export market is in China. Needless to say I was a little alarmed when my client’s representatives in China reported that they couldn’t access their new site.

My client has reps in both Shanghai and Beijing, neither of who could see the website, so I knew it wasn’t a localized issue. My immediate suspicion was that the infamous “Great Firewall of China” was to blame. Thankfully I was able to take a few simple steps to diagnose the problem and get the site up and running.

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0

Opera Mini 4 simulator

In a head-to-head battle with the Apple iPhone, Opera recently announced the beta version of their Opera Mini 4 browser. For those not familiar with Opera Mini, it is a very popular free web browser for mobile devices, and works with any modern mobile phone. To help woo consumers Opera are offering a web-based simulator, which replicates exactly the functionality of the mobile browser.

Opera Mini 4 simulator

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7

Choosing a web host

Web designers love to talk about our craft, but one topic we seldom touch on is web hosting. Perhaps that’s because hosting belongs to the realm of networking and hardware, whereas web design is a discipline primarily concerned with software and scripting. Be that as it may, web hosting can have a big impact on the success of a design: a site’s markup, CSS and images might be optimized for lightning fast loading speeds, but it will make little difference if the web server is lagging.

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