Child of the Machine

I’ve had my hosting with Dreamhost now for a little over a and have been very happy with!!! I was previously using Site Ground but converted for the following reasons:

• Dreamhost allows you to host unlimited domains, databases, email etc under your account
• Dreamhost allows complete control of your DNS (so you can point a domain/sub domain to your home test/dev server)
• Dreamhost has shell access – YES REALLY!! Mind you you won’t need it with how much you can do through their web interface…
• Dreamhost has Subversion (SVN) so you can setup source code repositories to manage all your source code…

I’d highly suggest them to anyone looking for a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) new hosting provider! I’ve also arranged a promotion code that will get you $50 off… To put that in perspective that is nearly half of a years worth of hosting which is currently $119… It’s not valid if you sign up for less than a year though…

Sign up now using the promo code GIVEME50OFF when signing up…

Or if you’re not convinced, check out their features first, they sell themselves..

Over the years we all build up our own collections of tools which help us be more productive little soldiers. We realise a need for something to help us to achieve an end goal, or a lot of the time just ask ourselves “surely there is a faster and easier way of doing this”.

The list of software below would easily be worth a significant amount of money considering the hours I’ve spent doing the research and comparisons. I only wish more people would publish such a comprehensive list, so I encourage you to comment and share other products or links to your own lists!

Virtualising desktops/servers:

• VMware Server or VMware Player – Free products allowing you to create either virtual servers or desktops which runs on top of an existing operating system. So you don’t need extra hard ware to trial a new operating system, or to have a dedicated development environment, or perhaps just a used for testing applications without tainting your base system.
• VMware Converter – Creates a Virtual machine from a physical (P2V – Physical to Virtual) one, which is useful if you have an old server you want to decommission, but want to retain a copy of it ‘just in case’.
• Parallels Workstation – Achieves basically the same virtualised environment as the VMware products however it’s not as popular. I started using this a couple of years ago because at the time VMware’s product weren’t supporting Vista as a base OS, while this product ran very smoothly on it!

Web application infrastructure:

• XAMPP for Windows – One of many packaged WAMP stacks (Windows Apache MySQL PHP) available. This can be easily installed on to a USB key and taken around with you which is what I do. A single executable is run off the USB to load your Web server and Database server. It also comes packaged with a lot of other little useful packages such as phpMyAdmin (a web based MySQL server interface).
• Zend Server – Zends replacement for  Zend Core which was a stable and well supported WAMP stack, and my preferred for enterprise depolyments. My one grievence with Zend Core was that it doesn’t include MS SQL support which has apparently been addressed in Zend Server.

Managing source code:

• Subversion (SVN) – An open source revision control system and source code repository. If you’re not using one you should be (regardless of the size of your projects) it makes life so much easier in tracking changes to your code over time. When I started using this I was running up my own virtual server with SVN setup, these days my web hosting is with Dream Host who offer unlimited subversion repositories.
• TortoiseSVN – Subversion doesn’t have a GUI it’s all command line… So TortoiseSVN is my preferred client interface in to my subversion repositories. It integrates in to windows explorer so you see lots of extra options when you right click.
• WebSVN – A web-based (PHP) reviewing interfaced in to your subversion repositories and the code they contain. Something that might become a little more useful down the track once you’re more familiar with Subversion and want even more readily available access to see your code. If you’re setting this up I’ve already produced some instructions for Dream Host and Ubuntu.

Tracking issues:

• JIRA – An  issue/bug tracking product which is ideal for large development projects with numerous developers. It has highly flexiable workflows and triggers and can store nearly any conceivable data template. I’ve used it with large open source projects like Zend Frameworks issue tracking system and have even implemented in one goverment agency as a Change Management System managing RFCs/CRs. It’s expensive but they have a personal edition for up to 3 users.

Programming, testing and documenting:

• Zend Studio – My preferred  PHP Integrated Development Environment (IDE)! It comes in two flavours at the moment the original one which is awesome and the new one based on the Eclipse platform (Zend Studio for Eclipse) which should be even better ( a work in progress). Run with Zend Core/Zend Platform it offers step-through code debugging. Without this you’ll need to setup the largely undocumented Zend Debugger.
• XAMPP – My preferred portable WAMP  (Windows Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack. However the stack comes with a lot more than just that… You’ll also find an FTP server and a heaps of other useful built-ins! I keep one of these on a USB stick for a development environment where ever I go…
• FireBug – Is a Firefox plugin
• FirePHP – Enables you to utilise the FireBug console for information/error messages etc. There messages are passed in the HTTP Header so they don’t actually effect the display of your web application. It’s also supported by the Zend_Log component in Zend Framework
• Notepad++ – A light weight and very popular tool which offers syntax highlighting for every programming language I know, plus many more I don’t know! You’ll also be able to track down a portable version which is handy on a USB for those moment where you need a editor a little more powerful that just plain old Notepad… Also supports plugins for some of those functions it doesn’t perform out of the box (like a file explorer).

Web applications:

• WordPress – By far the most popular blogging software that exists! There would be easily 10′s of millions of blogs out there using this product including this blog you’re reading now. There are also millions of free themes available so to get yourself start you don’t even need to do any coding.. And start thinking it doesn’t quite offer what you’re try the 10′s of millions of free plug-ins available.
• Gallery 2 – An online Gallery with an endless list of features and p
• OS Commerce – One of the more popular open source online store applications. Definitely a great product for what is it and especially considering it is free and there are a lot of themes/plugins available across the Internet. However it’s administration/management interface leaves a little to be desired… I hopeful this is being addressed in version 3 their next major release! Although this has been under development for a number of years now (but it looks like its nearly there).

Web application frameworks/libraries:

• Zend Framework – In my opinion the best PHP Application Development Framework on the market! Well worth a look with an abundance of components to solve most of the heart ache in getting a application quickly of the ground…
• jQuery -  A Javascript framework which provides a lot of useful low level functionality, which is then built on by the 1000′s of community submitted plugins, some of which are effectively self contained solutions e.g. a LightBox equivalent.
• YUI – Standard for Yahoo User Interface and is probably one of the most comprehensive Javascript frameworks I’ve seen. This framework does provide just your low level functional but provides your end solutions like managing data tables or menus.

General productivity:

• Xmarks (previously Foxmarks) – A browser plugin and free web service that supports bookmark syncronisation, allowing you to syncronise your bookmarks across multiple computers. They’ve recently been adding a lot more features I haven’t really paid attention to as well like password syncronisation and site recommendations.
• myVidoop – A secure online password manager that provides browser integration with assisted log in. It is also an openID provider, not that all that many sites are using this. This doesn’t mean I trust them with my bank passwords still, but it does help me manage the millions of forums I have membership with!
• Allway Sync – An automatic file synchronisation tool which is really easy to set and forget. I use this for backing up some directories from my laptop to my NAS periodically in case the laptop dies or is stolen (God forbid, Touch wood etc).. Free provided it doesn’t need to regularly synchronising too many files!
• Gadwin PrintScreen – A ‘printscreen’ / screen capture tool on steriods, and better yet there is a freeware version! The selling point for me is you can configure it so that when it you push Print Screen it open a screen selection tool so you can crop, and that cropped version can be saved to the clipboard as a GIF for example.

Update history:

1. 21 May 2009 – Added Gadwin PrintScreen, Notepad++ and revised Zend Core to Zend Server thanks to some feedback.

As recommend by the Microsoft crew I had enabled automatic updates… Big mistake!

After my laptop installed the batch of updates released on the 9th of January my laptop began endlessly rebooting. It blue screens as soon as is starts to load Vista. To make things even better even safe mode does the same thing.

After a process of trail and error with these update I worked out it was caused by KB943899.

Now obviously this doesn’t affect everyone otherwise they wouldn’t have release it… Or would they? Upon search the Internet I found a number of other reports from users with the same problem… I’ve only noticed DELL owners so far – I own a DELL XPS M1330.

I’ve raised a request with DELL as you can’t directly with Microsoft with an OEM license it appears… now we play the waiting game!

I’m running a development server virtual machine on my Vista laptop using Parallels. Trouble is being on a laptop sometimes I’m on the road so a Host only network suits me, but other times I’m at home so I want the guest machine to connect to my home network. Up until now there has been A LOT of screwing around each time I leave and come just change network the network settings…

First of all I tried the obvious Internet Connection Sharing throws some “(null)” error – Google forums to read about it. Bridged networking not that I really understand how this would have helped? this but someone made mention of it… I don’t profess to being a professional at this, BUT the following configuration made my life a dream.

Now I just simply change my the Network in Parallels from “Host only networking” to “Default adapter”..

Router

• IP – 10.0.1.1
• Subnet – 255.255.0.0

Guest

• IP: 10.0.2.10
• Subnet – 255.255.0.0
• Gateway: 10.0.1.1
• DNS: 10.0.1.1

Host

Parrallels Host-Guest NIC:

• IP: 10.0.2.20
• Subnet – 255.255.255.0

Default adapter NIC:

• IP: 10.0.1.20
• Subnet – 255.255.0.0
• Gateway: 10.0.1.1
• DNS: 10.0.1.1

If anyone cares to provide more insight, or has a better solution – would love to here from you! PS. All ip addresses have been changed to protect the innocent ;)

Adding additional Trac and SVN users is relatively simple. With Trac you can do this under Admin when logged in as an administrator thanks to the WebAdmin and AccountManagerPlugins! For adding a new subversion user just use this command:

htpasswd /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd john_smith

This user will then have access to all of your subversion repositories because of the way this server has been setup.

To create a new Trac project follow these steps:

sudo -s -H
trac-admin /var/trac/project initenv
trac-admin /var/trac/project permission add admin TRAC_ADMIN
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/trac/project

Now to setup the new Trac project with the same plugins as the example project. This also uses the same password file. So use unique usernames and users spanning multiple projects will have the same password!

nano /var/trac/project/conf/trac.ini

Add the following to the file:

[components]
trac.web.auth.loginmodule = disabled
webadmin.* = enabled
customfieldadmin.* = enabled
acct_mgr.* = enabled
acct_mgr.web_ui.RegistrationModule = disabled
 
[account-manager]
password_format = htpasswd
password_store = HtPasswdStore
password_file = /var/trac/trac.htpasswd

Then restart Apache!

apache2 -k restart

Now you should be able to point your browser to this addresses to see the new project!

• http://servername/trac/project/

To create a new Subversion repository follow these steps:

mkdir /var/svn/project
mkdir ~/project
mkdir ~/project/branches
mkdir ~/project/tags
mkdir ~/project/trunk
svnadmin create /var/svn/project
svn import ~/project file:///var/svn/project -m "Initial directory import"

After this you’ll see the three directories added.

rm -rf ~/project
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/svn/project
apache2 -k restart

Now you should be able to point your browser to either of these addresses to see the new repository!

• http://servername/svn/project/
• http://servername/websvn/listing.php?repname=project

Particularly if you’re publishing your SVN and Trac over the internet, you should change the defaults passwords for these that were in the VM you downloaded. To change the Subversion password:

htpasswd /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd admin

To change the Trac password (one file is currently used for all trac projects) :

htpasswd /var/trac/trac.htpasswd admin

For security reasons if you’re using any downloaded VM you should not leave the default root password as provided. To change the password:

sudo passwd

You’ll then be asked to enter the original password, then asked twice to enter the new password.

Obviously it’s a bad idea to have a server assigned a different IP address by your DHCP server when it comes up. So here are some basic instructions to set a static IP address on this Ubuntu server.

sudo -s -H
vi /etc/network/interfaces

Then change the following line:

iface eth0 inet dhcp

to:

iface eth0 inet static
     address 192.168.1.100
     netmask 255.255.255.0
     network 192.168.1.0
     broadcast 192.168.1.255
     gateway 192.168.1.254

This is an example only – Obviously you’ll need to work out what to use for each yourself ;)