Setting up PHP & MySQL on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

(Updated 1st May 2010) With OS X 10.6, Apple ships PHP 5.3 with PEAR, GD and PDO_MYSQL out of the box. Also, everything is now 64bit. This means that the entire effort required to get a working PHP dev environment for my work is now much easier. /usr/local Ensure that the following directories exist: sudo mkdir /usr/local/include sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin sudo mkdir /usr/local/lib sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/man/man1 MySQL Download the 64bit DMG version of MySQL… continue reading.

Posted on 5 October 2009 in PHP

Changing OS X Terminal colours when ssh'ing into a server

I recently discovered that iTerm has bookmarks so you can set up a bookmark to ssh into a server and change the colours of the window. This makes it easy to remember which terminal window is for which server. Thinking about it, I wondered if you could change the colours of the standard OS X Terminal via AppleScript. Inpired by Red Sweater's Random Color Terminal post, I wrote some code to automatically change the Terminal… continue reading.

Posted on 2 October 2009 in Computing

A new blog from someone new to PHP

I met Chris when he was temping for a client of mine doing data entry into an e-commerce system we were writing. Recently he contacted me to let me know that he has now started learning PHP and is starting to develop a career in web development with PHP. I was quite impressed that he had even managed to land himself some freelance work and had a client happy enough to pay him! He asked… continue reading.

Posted on 13 September 2009 in Around the web

Tutorial Q&A PDF

Chris Kirk has kindly provided a Q&A PDF which summarises a number of problems that have been raised and answered in the comments on the tutorial page. If you are having problems, download it and see if it helps. Thanks Chris!

Posted on 1 September 2009 in Zend Framework 1

Three years of my Zend Framework Tutorial

Three years ago today, I published my first Getting Started with Zend Framework tutorial. This was the announcement. Back then, Zend Framework was at version 0.1.5 and a considerably smaller download than now :) Three years later and I haven't lost my enthusiasm for Zend Framework as you can tell since the latest version of the tutorial supports ZF 1.8 and 1.9 and uses the new features like Zend_Application and the command line Zend_Tool scripts.… continue reading.

Posted on 16 August 2009 in Me

My tutorial is compatible with Zend Framework 1.9

I've just updated my tutorial to version 1.6.3 after checking that it is still compatible with version 1.9 of Zend Framework. The only changes I had to make were: ZF 1.9 comes with its own BaseUrl view helper, so there's no need to write our own. ZF 1.9.0's command line tool doesn't work on Windows. I've created patches on issues ZF-7464 and ZF-7465. I'm sure this will be sorted with 1.9.1 though. ZF 1.9 looks… continue reading.

Posted on 5 August 2009 in Zend Framework 1

DNS Transfer

Just a heads up, I am currently transferring the registrar for akrabat.com, so there may be an interruption of service here if I mess up :)

Posted on 3 August 2009 in Me

The watch Linux command line tool

I'm sure everyone else already knows about watch, but it's new to me. This little utility executes a program repeatedly at a set interval and displays its output. I've been using it with mysqladmin's processlist command like this: watch -n 1 /usr/bin/mysqladmin -uroot -pMYPASSWORD processlist Note that this does put your password on display at the top of the command window whilst watch is running. If you don't want that, you could write a little… continue reading.

Posted on 24 July 2009 in Development, Software

Bootstrapping modules in ZF 1.8 and up

I've started to play with modules in a Zend Framework 1.8 application as the new autoloader means that all your model directories no long have to be on the include_path for autoloading to work. What I'm specifically interested in is being able to instantiate a model that is within a module from within another module. Setting it all up isn't that hard, but I couldn't find a concise description, so these are my notes on… continue reading.

Posted on 8 July 2009 in Zend Framework 1

I'm speaking at ZenCon 2009!

I'm speaking at ZendCon 2009 this year! I'm doing a tutorial session called Zend Framework Certification Bootcamp where I'll be highlighting key sections of Zend Framework that you'll need to know in order to pass the the ZFCE exam. I'm also presenting a standard session, Getting a website out of the door (aka Managing a website project) which will be a non-code talk about the realities of project management in a small web development company… continue reading.

Posted on 1 July 2009 in Conferences