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)”

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.

Continue reading “Another Upgrade, Another Fixing session – Upgrade Development Environment – Yosemite edition”

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”

Sending mail from PHP with Mountain Lion

Mountain Lion killed – or rather: disabled – sendmail by default. Big deal? well, if you need to send mail from PHP in your local development environment, you’ll need to perform these few steps to get it working again.

Continue reading “Sending mail from PHP with Mountain Lion”

(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!)

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

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.

Continue reading “The “Ultimate” Guide to a Development Webserver on OSX”

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 :)

Continue reading “MemCache – In-memory-caching in PHP”

Use BIND (named) to create a multi-VirtualHost configuration – no more VirtualHostX

[Deprecated: for OSX 10.9 and up, please use rba.sh.]

It has been a while since I posted my guides for setting up a local development environment and how to add SSL to this set-up. This setup, among other things, required the use of a hostname-to-ip-management type of software. My choice was VirtualHostX.

Recent events have brought a new temporary colleague to our workforce and he brought in some fresh blood – so to speak (post in Dutch).

Today I have successfully eliminated the need for VirtualHostX – at least, in my development environment.

Continue reading “Use BIND (named) to create a multi-VirtualHost configuration – no more VirtualHostX”

SSL (HTTPS) on your Development WebServer

It took me a while and finally found a working, but a bit ugly, solution. Not to bore you with the details, here are the step by step instruction on how to get HTTPS working on your development web server. Please note, this is not a good setup for live web servers, you will have to take security into account if you use this on a publicly available web server. Continue reading “SSL (HTTPS) on your Development WebServer”

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