PHP Books

This blog is focused on Web Development with PHP and MySQL:

Most Popular Books (PHP/MySQL)

Migrating Drupal to New Server

Recently, I migrated Drupal 6.x to a new server. The front page still worked, but all the links were broken. They were all still pointing to the correct place, but for some strange reason, they were not found. The URL stayed the same. I simply updated the DNS to point to the IP address of my new server. This is a major issue. I migrated many sites to this new server and there have been several problems. On a site where I used SOAP, I had to install the SOAP module where as it was already installed on my other server. All my sites used to be on a dedicated server from http://www.joyent.com/, but now they are hosted on my Mac OS X beast. The $125 a month dedicated server did not come close in processing and disc quota to my 240 GB hard drive, core duo, G5 with version 10.5 of OS X. It was kind of a pain setting up MySQL because of all the out of date, incorrect tutorials online. The tutorial that got MySQL working, was the simple install instructions at the MySQL website.

PHP and MySQL with Apache on Mac OS X

The process of installing the *AMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) on Mac OS X is basically like the typical install of LAMP.

First, to start the web server, go to system preferences, turn sharing on, and check the Web Server check box. This enables the /Library/WebServer directory to be open on the web. The web address will be displayed within the system preferences pane for the sharing. The /Library/WebServer/Documents folder will now host the files for your web server. An HTML file can be held here.

To add PHP, go to the http.conf file and uncomment the LoadModule directive for PHP. A default install of PHP is already installed on Mac OS X. Restart Apache and now a PHP file can be place in the /Library/WebServer/Documents folder and it will process as usual.

To add MySQL, the MySQL package for Mac OS X must be downloaded from MySQL for Mac OS X

website. It is necessary to make some configurations for your system to run MySQL. The configuration of MySQL on Mac OS X can be accomplished by following the directions on that website.

PHP

PHP is a scripting language particularly designed for web development. It can be used for some server administration as well. There are many pros and, unfortunately, many cons for using PHP. Some of the pros are that it is free, open-source, easy-to-use, powerful, easy to find code samples, tutorials, and documentation, and many others. Some of the cons are that it is easy to write "bad" code with, it is slow, it is hard to find out what your code is doing internally, and bugs can potentially exist. PHP is widely used and respected amongst the development community. PHP 5 has the power to be object-oriented and PHP 6 is even heading further in that direction. It is easy to set PHP up on a Linux, Mac, or Windows machine. It works seamlessly with Apache, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.

PHP Developer - Boston, MA

Drupal 5.8-dev CMS

Drupaul is a CMS (Content Management System) that is very powerful and easy to use. It can save a lot of time with all the core system and third-party modules. A large Web 2.0 website can be built fairly quickly with Drupal. Some of the cons are that it is a large platform and can be slow if not used properly. Any custom PHP, MySQL, third-party modules/themes can easily turn into an issue for the entire system. The environment for developing modules allows easy and deep integration of the system, but can limit your reach. The system is easy to set-up and build a basic website and it allows much more advanced development. It is overall a great free and open-source system!