Now, everyone I know who designs web applications or online databases is a big fan of XAMPP and I am no exception. I think it is great. It has taken the old concept of PHPTriad (which was good in its day) and it allows people to download and install a simple bundle of Apache, PHP and MySQL. Fantastic.

For example, using their tool you can install the following on Windows with no effort at all:

Apache HTTPD 2.2.0, MySQL 5.0.18, PHP 5.1.1 + 4.4.1 pl1 + PEAR + Switch, MiniPerl 5.8.7, mod_ssl 2.0.55, Openssl 0.9.8a, PHPMyAdmin 2.7.0 pl1, XAMPP Control Panel 2.1, eAccelerator 0.9.4, Webalizer 2.01-10, Mercury Mail Transport System für Win32 und NetWare Systems v4.01a, FileZilla FTP Server 0.9.10a, SQLite 2.8.15, ADODB 4.65, Zend Optimizer 2.5.10a, XAMPP Security.

Over the last few months, I have been using the server environment XAMPP installs quite regularly and it always has been great. One thing I have never managed is to get the TOMCAT and COCOON addons working though. No idea why. Everytime I have tried it comes up with a complaint that I dont have Java, when I do have java.

Madness.

Anyway, today I decided it was time to do my disk housekeeping and clean out all the old files, uninstall all the useless junk a PC accumulates and so on. Part of this involved uninstalling the XAMPP set up I had and downloading / installing the new version (it now comes with Apache 2.2). I also figured this would be a good time to re-try TOMCAT / COCOON just to see.

Anyway, after getting rid of all my files I went to the XAMPP site and yes there is a new version of the basic package and the Perl add-on, but the rest (python, tomcat and cocoon) have all vanished – the links replaced by “Coming sson!” [sic].

Bah. I checked the file names and the old versions I had (eg 2.3.5 for python) are the same as the ones that are coming soon but no links. (Obviously I am stupid enough to have deleted my old copies BEFORE I checked to see if new ones were available.)

Well, what a load of ********.

Just for info – for the terminally curious – there have been a few minor tweaks made to this blog. Mainly some new plug ins have been installed (Gravatars for example) and the del.icio.us feed set up. All in all nothing major 🙂

If you can think of anything else we should try out, let us know.

This is really just to see how easy or hard it is to make entries over wap (actually gprs but never mind)
while it is actually quite easy, entering long text on this phone will cripple me.
I think blogging is still best done by key board.

Coming soon there will be a peice here on “free will” debating if such a thing actually exists.

Basically, the concept of Free Will is fundamental to most organised religions and plays a big part in the concept of good and evil and the conflict between the two. Despite this, the actual existence of free will is an often debated topic. There are some philosophers who claim we have complete free will and control of our destiny and other who argue the opposite.

Continue reading →

Well, it seems congratulations are in Order for Alex Tew as he had made his goal of selling all the pixel-advertisements he had space for on his home page.

It is good when someone actually makes a sucess of what is basically an excellent, innovative idea. The whole principle of it had that element of simplicity that, when you hear about it, makes you kick yourself for not thinking of it sooner.

Showing that he has some hard core instincts for income generation – Alex Tew appears to have auctioned off the last 1000 pixels on eBay (see http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2006/01/alex_tew_works_.html)

Interestingly enough, it seems like the million dollar home page is down at the moment……. Can people demand a refund for their advertisements?

Just a reminder to every one before the weekend excesses cause some brain damage. Set your video (DVD-recorder etc) timers to keep an eye out for Channel 4 on Monday night when Richard Dawkins continues the documentary about religion being the root of all evil.

In the first episode of this two part documentary he spent a lot of time interviewing what could best be described as raging nutcases. If you were unlucky to have missed this episode there is a chance you can find it electronically for p2p systems like eMule or you can wait for Channel 4 to repeat it.

I would suggest though, that you ensure you dont miss part 2 on Monday 16 January 2006. If you dont live in the UK – unlucky, try p2p 🙂

Technorati Tags: Ricahrd Dawkins

Just in case you are curious, there is a cron job that changes the logo for this site at 1900 hrs and 0700 hours each day (based on the server clock).

Just a general muse now. We have asked the kindly compuskills web design team to set up a google site map to help get this blog noticed by the all mighty, all seeing Google and it got me thinking about how do we get noticed by “blog indexes.” Continue reading →

What rights do people have in western democracies? Are some rights more “Important” than others? Does the provision of one right mean the sacrifice of an other? Is sacrificing one right for another every justified? Can you sacrifice a “right?”

I have no idea what the answers to these questions are, however as I read through the news it seems more and more important to think about it. The UK was awash with news about ID cards last year. Generally speaking this should be abhorrent for a western democracy, however in most debates about the subject the “right to life” and “prevention of crime” were most often bandied about. Is this valid? Does this justify the loss of an assumed freedom.

Continue reading →

At the moment, this blog is using a slightly modified theme downloaded from the main word press site. However it really is far from ideal and there is a very good chance that over the next couple of weeks quite a few modifications will be made!

If you have any suggestions or comments or tips as to what you think looks good, remains accessible and remains valid XHTML please let us know. Continue reading →

Hello, and welcome to the why dont you blog.

This blog will be used to highlight any inaccuracies or discrepancies we find in the news. Feel free to let us know if we miss anything.

It will also serve as a springboard for full articles on the Why Dont You Site – which will be the main place to find our rants, raves and advice.

Thats all for now 🙂