David Lowry

I’ve had huge amounts of pain getting WordPress set up locally over the last few weeks on my old machine and when it struck again with my new development environment it definitely time to write down the required steps to get a great LAMP/Rails setup prepared (for me)!

Leopard has PHP and Apache fairly up to date, and probably MySQL as well, but I decided to get MySQL up to scratch using the Universal Binary along with a few command line instructions available here (guide and links to downloads).

I didn’t use this script myself, and at a year old it may have a few imperfections, but HiveLogic have a fairly well rounded Ruby/Rails install going on.

Finally, Wordpress to go on your LAMP stack will be a lot less painful using this guide for Tech Recipes.

Any suggestions additions or replacements for this list? Drop a comment!

I have six draft posts in the wings waiting to be pushed out, works in progress related to technologies I’ve been working with lately for Contrast.ie

Working on a still-hush-hush project with the lads best known for their rock star company photo and probably this week for their choice of marketing for Exceptional, the bug tracking tool for Rails (and more) at Railsconf in Las Vegas.

Part of the reason there’s been so little going on here is that I’ve been… well… rather busy. Trying to get client work done as well as freelancing with Contrast has been a bit of a struggle and I’ve just spent three days getting my brand new 24″ iMac set up and running… a pain worth the endurance, though I’m fairly certain I now need a bigger desk!

So, some posts about Rails, HAML, Cucumber, and possibly a very very late review of FOWA Dublin which never quite got finished coming up in the next few weeks.

Read the peculiar story of a BBC journalist who unknowingly betrayed the confidence of an island secret 25 years ago.

Things which piqued my interested: the islands use words like “ganzeys” for jumpers/jerseys/pullovers which my mother uses but not many others I’ve ever met; and the fact that during the War the island was officially classified as a ship called “HMS Atlantic Isle.” Which is pretty cool!

Good news.

As of 1st March 2009 the Student Loans Company released some beautiful information:

The new rate for income based student loans is 1.5% from 6 March until further notice. Interest is applied to loans from the date they are paid to you until they are repaid in full.

Dear Mister Government sponsored money lending money company: I apologise for venting that you were a big hypocrite.

Infinity21.net has just launched the first stage of the new website for Dromore-based Audio Visual Solutions Company, “Box 42″.

Andrew “Barney” Ferguson’s company can provide corporate AV solutions, dry hire or installation services. Need to hire a (new) van load of Plasma/LCDs or Wide Angle, Short throw, high lumens projectors? Check it out.

I’ve been working with Rails now for about 2-3 years on and off, for the last two months almost full time working on a project that I’m not talking about yet.
Via the great bunch of fellas at Contrast.ie I came across this article from Smashing Magazine on Rails which provides a great overview on a couple of things which I have picked up along the way and thought WOW that’s useful. They’re all here in one place.

Check out: Smashing Magazine: Ruby on Rails Tips

There’s a nice plug for Contrast’s current-big-thing web app: GetExceptional.

There appears to be something going on with Gmail’s SMTP ports since the issues they had at the start of the week. How does Gmail going down make BBC Lunch time news?
Ref: Blogoscoped forum article
This link solved the problem for me. Some GMail help articles state you should use port 25 or 465. As previously discussed O2/Be broadband in the UK doesn’t let you use Port 25 for anything other than O2 Email. I was using 465 which is Secure SMTP (with SSL). However, GMail now (appears to) require port 587: Message Submission (with TLS).

Peasy.

— update
Experiment with turning off your SSL setting as well!

What a ridiculously stupid error.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/160658

Your wp-config.php file should read:
define('DB_HOST', 'Localhost');
‘Localhost’ not ‘localhost’.

If you’re using apache in Leopard 10.5 and can’t get any of your websites to show, check out http://www.gigoblog.com/2007/11/08/configure-apache-web-sharing-for-user-accounts-in-mac-os-x-105-leopard/ and it’ll step you through the process of re-enabling your webserver access.

Stumbled across this fella on Twitter today, noticed he worked at Slide (who make successful/annoying Facebook Apps). None the less (I joke) he writes a blog at http://www.unethicalblogger.com/ and has recently been writing a series of ‘ProTips’ on using Git Repos for his work colleagues.

I think it might prove useful: http://www.unethicalblogger.com/blog_categories/git will be taking a read in my spare time.