Jon B is werkin on his POD (Plan Of theDay)

Many thanks to Gil Joy who turned a napkin into a great keepsake…

There are a few different reasons for Pache not starting on Windows 7.  the primary culprits are usually Skype or IIS – which usually can be detected through examining the running processes.  HTTP.SYS is the kernel of IIS 6 and 7. Notice its a .sys file. that means its a DRIVER, not an executable or DLL.  Its actually a stream/pipe, much like on Unix – you stick stuff in, and it comes out on the other end, and it runs in the core (as a driver). So Microsoft uses this to ‘empower’ MS services, usually web-based Remote Management.  This will be seen as the System process (PID 4) sitting on Port 80.

Here is a well written description of how to disable that particular issue.

http://www.cameroncooke.com/2009/01/25/windows-7-uses-port-80-and-makes-it-impossible-to-install-apache-solution/

Now I just have to thank him for that

Once it’s out – there is no ‘sticking-it-back-in’. Boy, talk about moral quandaries and the horns of a dilemma. A sonnet/soliloquy for that moment.

Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of the copy-lefters

Or to take take arms against a sea of troubles

And by saying “its fucking mine”, end them? To {die) To {sleep}

No more, and by a {sleep} to say we end

The copy-lefting and the lost opportunities

That Open code is heir to. ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To be paid, to be recompensed;

To be recompensed, and the taxman paid. Ay, there’s the rub.

For in that recompensed bliss, what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off that coder’s hat,

Must give us pause: there”s the respect

That makes calamity of unbridled greed;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. – Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember’d.—

– Will prolly said it better –

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Ay that’s the rub…

My friend Altrea @ Apache Friends has posted an update on the Zend Framework question that is often asked on the Apache Friends Forum:

http://www.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=47963#p183717

Additionally, he posted this Zend resource page that explains a lot of the issues involved:

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/requirements.introduction.html#requirements.extensions

Note that this is the framework — not all the other Zend Tools — that is being discussed.

Maybe we will have a run at this on Linux #2

Good Luck

I have done some not-that-scientific, but never-the-less compelling testing. It appears you can get a 30-40% improvement in load times at least on WordPress 3.2 using the eAccelerator that is bundled into the latest XAMMP Apache suites I’m going to write up a complete article/FAQ on it within a few days. I’ll also cover what byte-code caching is, how it works, and the differences between byte-code caching and  PHP encoding (such as Zend Guard and Zend Optimizer).

stay cool fools..

I have several motivations actually.

For one thing, the PC that hosted my last Linux workstation has shuffled off its non-mortal coil. I can’t really complain, it was a very aged Intel mobo that had given great service, but nearly a decade of service is asking a LOT!  It died from a heat-sink solder failure on the motherboard, so, in theory at least, it is still salvageable.

Another was a new framework project that is in completely untested water. I have found that when operating in uncharted waters, the best method is to give credit to the reasoning of those who went before you. In this case, that means a local Linux environment that I can also use as a server.

Finally, up to to this point, I have always gone the route of a traditional Linux stack (LAMP). That usually means Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP or Perl, all installed by way of a base Linux  flavor*  (in my case OpenSuse or Fedora usually) and selecting an ‘installation option’ (usually web server or development environment) — that puts a majority of the pieces in place for you) and then manually adding the remaining pieces and the tools for the project you have in mind.  However, I was quite curious on two new matters. First, all the NEW Linux desktops — like Evolution and Unity — what would they be like??? And second, would installing XAMMP on a Linux workstation setup be an easy and truly workable solution for a developer in new territory???

As you can see from the footnote, I’m composing this on one of those options – A Fedora 15/Evolution/Gnome workstation.  So far, the trip has been full of surprises; its my first real experience with an SE Linux installation – (What – NO ROOT LOGIN???) and lots of “Now HOW do I do that???” as, along with the new desktop, there’s a whole host of new tools and a totally different desktop paradigm at work. Once I have things sorted out and my project underway, I’ll probably test out switching Desktops midstream, maybe a look at KDE Plasma (My last station was a KDE).

I also see I’ll need some typography re-thinking, as The Excruciatingly Correct Guide’s Header now overruns on this browser and has placed the ‘(ECG)’ right over my Page Navigation. grrrr.

*wow my Linux distribution’s Firefox dictionary wants to change flavor to flavour – (I see its set to English-Zimbabwe and that issue is now resolved — flavour is now red-lined).

[warn] (OS 64)The specified network name is no longer available.  : winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed.

I think I may have grokked this one out (at least in my case).  I think its Apache receiving a NetBIOS ARP message, effectively a ‘the network has changed’ advice.  Its followed often by a semaphore signal

[warn] (OS 121)The semaphore timeout period has expired.  : winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed.

I have not seen this to cause problems BUT I don’t really know that either.

There is a fix – add this Apache directive to the httpd.conf (main server configuration file).  It should probably go after the MPM invocation

<IfModule !mpm_winnt_module>

</IfModule>

Win32DisableAcceptEx

These two additional directives can be turned off to attempt resolution.  They are probably present in your httpd.conf and can be enabled by uncommenting the lines. I would read the descriptions of what these directives do in the Apache docs

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/core.html

EnableMMAP off
EnableSendfile off

As I think its a NetBIOS resolution issue,  I only used the Win32DisableAcceptEx, I’m now going to test for a week.

On the XAMMP and Yabb forums, at least once or twice every week, I will have a desperate user wondering if their data is gone, or how to recover their password (as all the data is trapped behind the password).

It might be a development project for school or business, their personal website, or a favorite CMS, forum or blog they have poured their heart into 9or maybe all the above) – AND it MIGHT be ALL GONE!

Over the next week, I’ll explain why you probably need TWO types of backup and give you personally tested and proven ways to get on the plan, how to automate them, plus all the do’s and dont’s

I’ll cover filesystems (very tricky), XAMPP, WordPress, MySQL and YaBB – explaining all the little stuff that can go wrong, and how to block all those bad outcomes!

At the end, you will have a reliable, understandable set of backups — and you will likely sleep better.

The specific Issue is that when XAMPP is installed, although a my.ini file is placed in the XAMPP\mysql\bin folder, no my.cnf file is created in the xampp\mysql\data folder.

It appears this omission makes no difference for day-to-day functionality of MySQL.  However, if you need to change the root password, or use than MySQL Monitor, you may encounter errors where my SQL tries to default to the *nix standards for location of the user files. I discovered this checking an FAQ/solution based on my SQL documentation for changing the root password on Windows and/or using the XAMPP resetroot.bat file located in the xampp\mysql folder.  

This problem can be solved by copying the ‘my.ini’ file to the mysql\data folder and naming it ‘my.cnf’.

~tada~

read the bug comments carefully.

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=50394
PHP is both very easy to code (so many functions and extensions) and incredibly complex to manange – same reason. Many popular extension packages (like gizmos from Zend) and popular debuggers won’t work with each other for very vague reasons.

Its often for this reason – every extension you find has to be for major version (say 5.2) AND the same compiler as your Apache – if you use PHP as an Apache Module (which is the usual case). This is a particulalrly big problem on Windows – where extensions are DLL’s (dynamic link libraries)., and there is no C Compiler provided with the OS to compile source code with.  In fact, there are two different compilers needed to produce a full set of binaries for Windows.

Read about Compilers and binaries more here on PHP.ORG

You could search the Apache Friends Forum for references to VC6 to get the picture. Result – massive confusion…

Umm – Good Luck folksies