dragonimp

the joys of Web development

2011-07-20T18:15:35Z

I spent much of yesterday and the day before fighting with my computer. See, when I upgraded to OS 10.6, it apparently wiped out all the settings I had in place to let PHP and MySQL work. Okay, not a big deal, I just have to set things up again, right? Well, PHP wasn't a problem, it was just a matter of finding the right settings document and changing a few lines. SQL on the other hand...

First, Apple is no help. When they came out with OS 10 they made a big deal about it being developer friendly, you can get right into the code, etc. etc. Not untrue, but THEY don't tell you how to set any of it up. I don't even want to mess around with the computer's code, all I want to do is build Web pages using MySQL. The OS has the database capabilities, but it's switched off by default and they don't give you ANY help with switching it on.

Anyway, Googling turns up a number of pages with instructions and walk-throughs, and they all seem simple enough. Except that they all have something like this:

Download the MySQL package for Mac OS X.5 (32 or 64 bits depending on your machine)

Install everything in the package in this order: mysql, the startup item, the preference pane.

Start MySQL in the preference pane.

First off, there's at least two dozen items in the package, not three. But okay, I'll find those three and install them first. But no matter which piece I try to install, I get an error. I found another set of instructions that has you use Terminal (Unix commands), and those work up to the point where - you guessed it - I try to install the SQL package. Then I get a "unknown command" error. The SQL package has a text file with instructions to install using Terminal, but those also give me an "unknown command" error.

Clearly I'm missing something.

lynda.com has a video tutorial on setting up MySQL on a Mac, and they're usually pretty good. At least with a video, I should be able to see what it's supposed to look like and where things are supposed to go. Hopefully. I don't want to spend too much more time on this but I want things to work.

Goddamit Apple, this shouldn't be this hard.

Edit: Should've gone to lynda.com in the first place. It's working now, but it seems to have wiped out all the test databases I'd had. Great.

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overdue post

2010-10-20T19:10:21Z

Yeah, so, I obviously didn't get to this when I thought I would c_c. So yeah, weekend! Part of it was spent getting a new phone, obviously. To be honest, I didn't want a smart phone so much as a newer PDA, as my Palm Tungsten is 6-7 years old and starting to fail. But since solo PDAs don't exist anymore, it was either get an ipod touch - which I'm not really keen on - or a smart phone. So far I really like the Pre Plus. There's a couple things that my old Palm did that it doesn't quite, but nothing major. My only complaints right now are that I wish it had an audiobook player and a document editor. Both may or may not be in the works, but I haven't found apps for them yet.

The other big thing was a trip to Fries, which - for me - turned out to be a bust. The connection between my computer and the external drive I use as a backup failed several weeks ago, and since the problem seemed to be either with the drive or the cable, I figured the cheapest thing to do would be to replace the cable. No good; the computer still can't detect it. I don't have the money for a new external drive at the moment, so that's sorta dead in the water.

The other goal was to get a new mouse. The Gyration Air Mouse I've been using for the past 5 years has started to die, and I figured I had better get a new one before it goes out completely. The one I have was the lower-end model of the time, so I got the current lower-end model, figuring it would be a newer version. Well - no. Yeah, it's a gyro mouse, but that's about the end of the similarities. It's much lighter, which itself wouldn't be a problem, but the weight is balanced funny, it's also smaller, so I end up holding it up in my fingers instead of against my palm. Those two things make the gestures awkward and make me constantly feel like I'm going to drop it. I was also tensing my hand, which kinda defeats the purpose. Also, instead of a rechargeable battery, it uses 2 triple-As. Since this would be my primary mouse, I'd end up going through a lot of batteries.

The upshot of all that is, I need to drive back down to Fries - a 40-minute drive - and exchange it. Gyration has another model that's a)bigger and b)rechargeable that should work much better.

Other than that, I've been spending my time trying to get a bunch of last-minute things done before the con - not all of which have to do with the con. BUT - Sunday evening my mom was kind enough to help me with the costume I've been working on for the past *mumblemumble*. It meant I missed FAP, but under the circumstances, I'd say it was justified. Just a few more touches and it should be done! Which means I should actually have a cosplay!

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Computing of the future:

2010-02-03T17:03:59Z

This is fascinating:

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