MainelyDesign.com Blog

PHP Curl not Working on Windows 7 or Windows 8 (PHP 64-bit version only)

Posted on 12/18/2013 at 11:10 am | Viewed 27,662 times | 0 comments

Download the Fixed Curl Version

Short Answer: you need to download and install the corrected version of libCurl for PHP to get it working on 64-bit versions of PHP. 

Download from this link:
http://www.anindya.com/php-5-4-3-and-php-5-3-13-x64-64-bit-for-windows/

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Speeding Up Windows 8 for Web Development (using WAMP)

Posted on 02/25/2013 at 01:33 pm | Viewed 48,774 times | 0 comments

Here is my list of optimizations and changes you can make (and I've had to make) in order to get WAMP (and CakePHP) to run faster on my Windows 8 computer.

Speed Up WAMP Web Development on Windows 8

The short list, in order of importance (stop once you are happy with your localhost web server response time and speed):

• Get the latest version of WAMP.
  Start by downloading the latest wamp.  I used the 64 bit version.  Download WAMP here.
  
  
• Edit your hosts file.
  Make sure it has the proper entries, and most importantly, remove the IPv6 localhost setting.  Your Windows 8 hosts file should look like this:
  
  127.0.0.1          localhost
  #    ::1             localhost
  
  
• Disable IP v6
  A great tutorial can be found here.  My advice is to disable IPv6 BOTH ways- via the network adapter and via the regedit hack.
  
  
• Edit Apahce httpd.conf. 
  These tweaks are supposed to speed up the lstat() system calls when reading files/scanning directories.  They are:
  
  EnableMMAP On
  EnableSendfile On
  
  
• Edit PHP.ini
  Increase the real path cache size.  This helps when you have lots of files involved.
  
  ; Determines the size of the realpath cache to be used by PHP. This value should
  ; be increased on systems where PHP opens many files to reflect the quantity of
  ; the file operations performed.
  ; http://php.net/realpath-cache-size
  realpath_cache_size = 24M
  
  
• CakePHP: make sure debug is off.

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Must Have Tool for Screen Capture: Greenshot

Posted on 02/25/2013 at 12:31 pm | Viewed 13,657 times | 0 comments

I'm attempting to better document some of the tools and utitlites I use on a daily basis to make worklife just a little bit easier.  Something I find myself doing more and more (especially with my new focus on documentation) is taking screen shots.

First, for a primer on capturing your screen and saving it or emailing it to someone, please read this support post.

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Free iPod to iTunes Music Transfer on Windows - iBackuper

Posted on 02/23/2013 at 11:47 am | Viewed 38,595 times | 0 comments

iBackuper is an iPod Access and Transfer Tool for Windows

My review of iBackuper: Excellent, Simple and easy to use.  You can't go wrong when there are only 3 buttons.

I can restore my iTunes Library onto a new Computer using my iPod. Sure thing.

My Windows music library computer finally crashed.  With its demise, all of my music files were safe.  Don't worry I said.  All my music is safely backed up to my iPod.  Common sense, right? Well, to actually import your iPod into iTunes and make your iPod be the actual starting point for the new music library (on the PC), you can't do it in iTunes!  You need software!  Well, most of us need software- if all of your music is in iCloud then you wouldn't be reading this article, anyway.  Right?

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The Funniest Error Message Ever - Thank You Eclipse

Posted on 10/18/2010 at 06:34 pm | Viewed 14,866 times | 0 comments

In a depature from my [normally] on-topic (i.e. dry) posts I had to post this error message up here. It made me laugh! I was working on the fattest CakePHP controller known to man (over 4,000 lines, I know... not skinny) when Eclipse ran into issues.  Eclipse gave a very descriptive error message, stating that it couldn't, well see for yourself:

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Using KDiff3 as Git GUI Merge Tool on Windows XP and Windows 7

Posted on 09/23/2010 at 01:39 pm | Viewed 51,443 times | 0 comments

I've been looking for the silver bullet solution to using KDiff3 as my git mergetool on Windows (using Git GUI).  I've finally got a solution that works in every Windows environment I've tried:

1. Add the KDiff3 directory to your Windows System Path (e.g. C:\Program Files\KDiff3\)
2. Add kdiff3 as your Git mergetool (From Git Bash, run git config --global merge.tool kdiff3)
3. Add kdiff3 complete path to Git Config (From Git Bash, run git config --global meregtool.kdiff3.path "C:/Program Files/KDiff3/kdiff3.exe")
4. Go into Git GUI settings and set the mergetool to kdiff3 (if Git GUI doesn't pick up this setting from git config, which it should)

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CURL on Windows Doesn't Work in PHP 5.2.14 ISAPI

Posted on 09/07/2010 at 08:17 pm | Viewed 13,891 times | 0 comments

Just a quick post to let everyone know what I just found out- the version of CURL (php_curl.dll) that ships with PHP 5.2.14 for Windows ISAPI doesn't work!  That's right- it doesn't work.  I tried the MSI PHP installer package, manual installs, moving dll files into Windows and System32 directories all to no avail.  The culprit: a bad version of php_curl.dll (at least that's my best guess).  The other culprit: using ISAPI, but I don't have time to figure out FastCGI at this point.

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Export to PDF from Microsoft Publisher

Posted on 03/05/2010 at 10:54 am | Viewed 12,372 times | 0 comments

I have a client that sends me newsletters in Microsoft Publisher format.  I wanted to output the newsletter as a PDF, but wanted to keep the text for SEO and so users can copy and paste the text if needed.  Microsoft Publisher doesn't have an export to PDF function, so usually I would just do a File > Print and select Adobe PDF as the printer.  However, this would just be an "image" of the document, not the actual document with selectable text.  This is how you can get a PDF with rendered text out of Microsoft Publisher...

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Weird Git Error After Upgrade: Repository not found. Make sure you include the .git

Posted on 02/02/2010 at 08:18 am | Viewed 16,134 times | 0 comments

This isn't a weird error in that I've never seen it (ususally when I forget to load up Pagaent before attempting Github push/pulls).  It's weird because everything was working perfectly and then I couldn't do anything from remote!  I upgraded msysgit recently and hadn't tried to do any remote commands until yesterday.  And I kept getting the following error in Git Gui:

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Using Git and Plink for SSH on Windows

Posted on 01/25/2010 at 11:11 am | Viewed 39,040 times | 0 comments

Well, I finally had an opportunity to install Git on Windows yet again.  It had been quite a while since my last time installing Git on Windows, so I was a little rusty and couldn't figure out how to get Git to use Plink for SSH.  It's actually quite simple and dependent on a Windows system variable.

Getting Git to use Plink for SSH on Windows

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12 Essential Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

Posted on 12/21/2009 at 05:05 pm | Viewed 12,566 times | 0 comments

I remember about 7 years ago watching my friend use Adobe Illustrator.  He was a communications design major and used his keyboard more than his mouse.  I was blown away when I realized how much time you could save by learning keyboard shortcuts for Adobe's products.  This is my list of the best Adobe Photoshop keyboard shortcuts for web designers.

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Faking Symlinks on Windows 2003

Posted on 09/17/2009 at 04:25 pm | Viewed 17,525 times | 0 comments

My production server is a LAMP server.  I love it.  I have one cental location for my CakePHP application and symlink the folders I need to each individual hosting account.  It's pretty easy to do and very powerful.  I work on another server that is Windows 2003.  Everytime I sit down to do work, I bemoan not having the ability to create symlinks.  Turns out there is a way...

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Invalid Date Value Error in MySQL

Posted on 09/09/2009 at 02:26 pm | Viewed 12,823 times | 0 comments

I ran into an interesting issue with valid dates and MySQL on Windows.  I wrote a CakePHP import function that basically moves MySQL data from one DB to the other.  I never thought that I would see an error related to an invalid date, but I did.

What determines if a date value is invalid (read: warning) or unacceptable (read: error)?

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Manually Installing MySQL on Windows 2003 Server

Posted on 09/02/2009 at 12:02 pm | Viewed 12,127 times | 0 comments

I have been trying to install MySQL on a web server running Windows 2003 for quite a while now.  I was finally successful! Here's how I did it...

Does your server have a hard-coded IP address?

If so, you need to make localhost refer to the manually assigned IP address in your hosts file.  This file is located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc.

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Using Exif in PHP on Windows

Posted on 08/28/2009 at 09:40 am | Viewed 12,800 times | 0 comments

I'm trying to use the exif functions in PHP on my Windows XP computer.  I want to read the meta data that is recorded by my digital camera (exif - exchangeable image file format).  I like the idea of storing that exif data in the database, so it's searchable. I wasn't having any luck with exif_read_data(), but finally found this posting.

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