Out with the old, in with the new — Switching from built-in software to one awesome piece of engineering: Local (by Flywheel)

A multitude of recent developments have aided me to make a choice. Some of them are

  • Apple going for thinner, lighter instead of stronger performance, and
  • Microsoft integrating Bash into Windows 10 with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

While the new Macbook Pro is quite a feet of engineering, it is hardly Pro”. Surely intel graphics are enough for typing letters and calculating spreadsheets, it’s not Pro. A 16GB memory limit (which with the compression tech used is like 24GB for any other OS) is great for battery life, but it’s not “Pro”. The keyboard is ultra thin and has good tactile feedback, but the keys need a firm press, and travel almost nothing. Great for thinning the device, but again, not “Pro”. For the same amount of money you can buy a portable powerhouse like the Asus ROG G752vy (seen in my post about this). This one has other issues, but at least it has got awesome graphics (nVidia 980), max 64 GB RAM and a “normal” laptop keyboard.

(Yeah, I know, I KNOW, I don’t need ‘awesome graphics’ for web development, but I like to game also, and to be honest; my favorite IDE – phpStorm – DOES prefer a sturdy GPU. Don’t know why, but it runs so much better on a discrete GPU than it does on intel Graphics)

Reasons to stay with macOS are rapidly diminishing, and reasons to start using Windows again are gaining support. Since the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Windows offers Bash and all goodness that comes with Ubuntu linux, right at your fingertips. Well, not ALL goodness, but most of it.

Continue reading “Out with the old, in with the new — Switching from built-in software to one awesome piece of engineering: Local (by Flywheel)”

Hey Siri, what do I need to do to get my development environment working again after upgrading to macOS Sierra?

Hello, macOS Sierra!

macOS… that name… so… long… ago…

It has been, what?, 11 years? 12? … System 9, that was the last OS to be called macOS. The name change does not change anything regarding the update cycle, although on one of my macs, the upgrade went horrifically bad! I ended up rebooting in Recovery mode and installing macOS from there.

For getting the development enviroment back up, not much to be done!

Apache could not find the default server certificates in

/private/etc/apache2/server.crt
so after correcting those paths in
/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
and restarting Apache, all’s well!

Shell commandsudo nano /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
Shell commandsudo apachectl restart

As always; feel free to comment or ask questions :)

Bye Bye Yosemite – Hello El Capitan! — another post-upgrade fixing session

In the series “How to fix your development environment after an upgrade” ( referring to this and this post ) I present you;

“Fix your development environment after upgrade to El Capitan”

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Another Upgrade, Another Fixing session – Upgrade Development Environment – Yosemite edition

While Redmond is starting their photocopiers (the age old story of how Microsoft keeps copying instead of innovating), we Mac users start our updates. OSX 10.10 Yosemite brings Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.5 to our playground, but not everyone is happy with that. Also, not all software survives the upgrade. Here is what I had to do to fix my development environment.

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Restore Apache2 service after removal of Server.app

After experimenting with Apples Server.App and removing it (for not really needing it) the built-in Apache was no longer functioning and all I could get out of it was; “Websites are turned off. An administrator can turn them on using the Server application.”

The fix is simple, but finding where to fix, …

Webservices Turned Off

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Repair OSX WebDevelopment server after OSX Upgrade

After upgrading OSX to version 10.9 I find myself investigating why my development server no longer works. After 4 upgrades I now have a clear list of things to check and how to fix.

If you have not yet upgraded OSX, take the time to back-up your /etc/php.ini and /etc/apache2/httpd.conf. Also; OSX 10.9 Mavericks will upgrade PHP to PHP 5.4, so if you have projects incompatible with 5.4; a) don’t upgrade OSX, b) start upgrading your code or c) use a different AMP-stack.

Also; if you depend on your computer for your income, don’t rush into this!

The TODO list:

  • Backup your system
  • Upgrade OSX
  • Upgrade Xcode and run it at least once, installing the commandline tools
  • Reboot your system
  • Follow the checklist :)

The checklist (things to check and maybe fix):

  • Apache
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • PEAR/PECL/other

Continue reading “Repair OSX WebDevelopment server after OSX Upgrade”

(Semi-)Automatically rebuild Apache VHOST configuration (Handy Shell Scripts – part III – rba.sh)

Now that we have a Development Webserver, we may have a local DNS server running to use a local TLD on the localhost and we have SSL added to our setup, we have discarded VirtualHostX , there is one thing that needs manual labor; and we hate that! (don’t we?). Maintaining the Apache2 Virtual-Host Configuration file and – in case of a DNS-less setup – the hosts file. Now, we do this automated! (Read on!)

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Development WebServer on OSX Lion – HomeBrew/MariaDB/PECL

Apache2 is already installed on any Mac and most setups (like MAMP or MacPorts) just ignore the built in Apache and install their own version. Shame. You wouldn’t ignore your own car just and get another one to pull a trailer while your own car can do the job perfectly.

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The “Ultimate” Guide to a Development Webserver on OSX

Hi all. It’s been a while since I posted something interesting, sorry ’bout that. For now I can make setting up a new web server, or upgrading it after an OSX upgrade, a bit easier. A colleague of mine tried it and ran into some problems concerning the different steps to take, so this post should help you get it done with more ease.

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MemCache – In-memory-caching in PHP

When building API-like applications in PHP, one issue will always remain; a high load will eventually slow down everything. To prevent over-loading, anyone will come to the conclusion a cache is needed. The most access calls should be served without recalculating anything to free up CPU-time.

Caching can be done on Disk, in a database (indirectly also Disk-caching), or directly in memory.

To setup MemCache and use this memory-caching-system, read on :)

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