For now, you can have a look at my presentation on the same topic. I had presented it at Barcamp Bangalore 7, and PHPCamp Pune. It was recommended by Dan Peterson, Google, on the Shindig developer’s mailing list.

For those who don’t have an idea what I am talking about; I have been (officially) working on OpenSocial for quite sometime. OpenSocial is a specification developed by giants like Google, MySpace, Ning, etc. to provide a common platform (API) for social app developers. Shindig, an Apache incubator project, is what can help your site become OpenSocial compliant.

By the way, I am referring to the Six degrees of Separation in the initial slides.

• The Web is Broken
• An insight into Sun’s *crazy* strategy.
• Apache-MySQLPHP Installation & Configuration Tutorial for Beginners :)
• Google Lost Me!
• Apache Headache: “no listening sockets available”

Update 2: I see a fairly good traffic coming here searching for the same problem. So, in case you are in a hurry, this is mostly a summary to inform you that in all probability, YOU HAVE SOME SERVICE RUNNING ON PORT 80. Check out using TCPView (if you are on windows). Hope that helps.

I am currently working on an official XSS (Cross Site Scripting) presentation. I needed some screenshots of alert boxes and defaced site. So I installed Apache, configured it to work with PHP. (If you need help in installing and configuring MySQL, Apache and PHP, look here).

But this was day before yesterday. Yesterday, I needed to make a quick manipulation to the script, but… Apache won’t start. The error I was getting (using eventvwr) was:

>>> (OS 10048)Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. : make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80 .

It’s pretty apparent that some other jerk was sitting and listening at port 80. Yesterday, however, was too hectic to discover the rat. Today, I ran TCPView (thanks to Shruthi for suggesting) to discover that inetinfo.exe was the ra**al. TCPView is one of the nicest tools created by the guys at SysInternals, which was later acquired by Microsoft. Rats!

Anyways, the fun part was stopping the service. I couldn’t kill it. Neither using TCPView, nor Task Manager. It would again span back to life

So, finally I opened services.msc to stop the IIS server and change the automatic start mode to manual mode. Heck! I should have disabled… or even better, deleted the scoundrel.

So, if you have the same problem, you are in all probability in office right now and hence may not be aware what services are running. Use TCPView to discover all those unnecessary network services. It’s a great tool. Further, you might also want to switch some stupid services from automatic start mode to manual (or disable ). Use Services.msc.

• Apache-MySQLPHP Installation & Configuration Tutorial for Beginners :)
• M$ WindowsXP just got a newer version of Update with new Components!
• AdSense exploited by malware (Trojan.Qhost.WU)
• Yahoo! gone Insane!
• Download PHP tidy extension for Mac OS X

The Past

Most of the people know James Gosling as the father of Java. Only a few know that he was also the lead engineer of Gosmacs (gmacs or Gosling Emacs) and NeWS. Now, I won’t be talking about Gosmacs (which according to some people is/was the reason of some conflict between RMS and Gosling. Phew!)
However, NeWS (Network extensible Window System) is of a little concern, mostly because it was arguably superior to X Window System… and because it FAILED. The most important reason for its failure (and X Window’s success) is that Sun kept it proprietary.
Later on when Sun developed Java, some people, especially the genius Eric Schmidt (then CTO-Sun, now CEO-Google), were aware that keeping Java within enclosed fences will lead to similar devastating results. Not to mention that *7 (for which Java was developed) had already failed and Java was still in search of a viable market.

So what did he do?
He focused on making it as open as possible and tried building a *Java Community*. (Google SoC, IMHO, is also a “win-the-community-and-you-win-everything-else” approach. But then that’s a different topic altogether. )

Where were we?
Yeah! So he focused on building a Java Community.
Apart from organizing developer conferences like JavaOne, Sun also encouraged user groups (JUGs), which reached over a number of 400 in year 2000 itself. In fact they went a step further with JCP (Java Community Process) to make the development of Java *as open as possible*.
The reality behind all this community building scene was the fact that the direct control remained with Sun (well mostly).

Everything, however, was running smooth; for Sun as well as the Java developers.

“I envy you. But such a thing is not meant to last.”

— Persephone, Matrix Reloaded

I guess the above statement is valid for every aspect of human existence.
In early 2004, Jonathan Schwartz, referenced Eric Steven Raymond’s “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” and compared JCP to the “Bazaar”, stating that development of Linux was more like a “Cathedral”. I would not expand on it but this was enough to infuriate ESR

ESR wrote an open letter addressed to Scott McNealy, CEO-Sun, with a subject line “Let Java Go”. He accused Sun on several fronts (for which I’d pursue you to read the letter) and appealed to Open Source Java. A few weeks later RMS wrote an essay on Java Trap and appealed the developers to contribute and use open source projects like GCJ/Gnu Classpath etc. Several other appeals/open letters were published (Apache’s Geir Magnusson Jr., IBM, etc.)

A series of events followed before Sun announced that it will be open sourcing Java. There main concern was Microsoft forking Java and hence, destroying its cross platform compatibility (which shows that they really were clueless on how Open source model works/ can work).
They had no other option than to Open Source the *giant*, and they did it.

The Present

The past unarguably affects, if not defines, the present. Sun’s experience since the NFS days to (forced) Open Sourcing Java days taught/reminded them of their most important lesson.
The Community is fruitful!
Build a community and everything else will follow, sooner or later.

So here they are.
Open sourcing EVERYTHING.
Building Community, and making it mutually encashable. It’s obviously not so profitable for them today, but the future holds immense potential.

The way they have been endorsing and promoting stuff is simply adorable. Even NetBeans has its own *arena*.
Not to mention the, so called, developer conferences organized all over the world in a distributed fashion to reach the most number of developers. I, however, have several concerns regarding them. You may read some of them at Amit’s blog. I hope Sun listens to the plea of developers and improves the quality of these summits.

Another amazing strategy, IMHO, is the blogs that Sun employees post regularly. I have subscribed some of them and it’s really amazing to see that how important role these blogs are playing in binding people. They often link each other’s (Sun Employees, of course) blogs. You can have a look at the Sun-Blogging homepage to get a feel of the number of hits the folks out there are getting. Now even if I read only one of these, I’d get to know about latest developments. I am not sure whether it’s a part of their strategy, but it’s definitely working as a powerful advertising medium.
Yup! I know that employees of other firms write blogs too and probably get bigger number of hits, but I haven’t seen anyone of them making so much of a difference on an organizational level. (Please correct me if I am wrong)

The Future

I am no Nostradamus and I cannot predict future.
All I can say is the future is (mostly) Free & Open. IBM (previously referred Satan) secured its place (with a Halo on head) by contributing to the Apache httpd project and winning the FOSS community. Now it’s Sun’s turn and they are playing pretty well.
Yes, their revenue might be a concern today; but I don’t really see a reason why there future shouldn’t be bright.

• Java vulnerable to remote compromise
• Dreams… and (huh!) Reality.
• Bill Gates wins me!
• A Phish floating in Google Survey!
• M$ WindowsXP just got a newer version of Update with new Components!

In case you have any other queries, feel free to drop a note in the comments. I’ll try to answer.

This article is a very “narrow” tutorial aimed for complete beginners and dummies, who want to start off coding with AMP (Apache-MySQL-PHP) but do not want to read manual for installing and configuring them.
This write up is very specifically targeted and applies for Windows platform.

Note: To get the real and complete understanding, spend some time with the manuals. They are the best source of information.

Installing and Configuring PHP5 with Apache

1. Select the most appropriate mirror for you from the following: http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/httpd/binaries/win32/ (for Apache), and http://www.php.net/downloads.php for PHP.
2. Download apache_1.3.x-win32-x86-no_src.exe and PHP 5.1.2 zip package (names PHP-5.x-win32).
   • DO NOT use Apache 2.x with PHP.

    

   • If you use PHP 4.x, make proper changes in the some of the steps given below.

Note:

1. Install Apache by simply clicking on the exe file. The default path is C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache.
2. Unzip the PHP file to C:\PHP.
3. Add C:\PHP to system path.
4. Backup and rename php.ini.dist to php.ini.
5. Copy php5ts.dll and php.ini to %systemroot%.
6. Copy php5apache.dll to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache.
7. Open cmd (command prompt) and run net stop apache (to obviously stop the server).
8. Backup httpd.conf, located in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache\conf, and then open it in an editor to add the following lines:
   • LoadModule php5_module php5apache.dll
   • AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
   • AddModule mod_php5.c [If you face any problems, remove this line and check again]
     
9. Net start Apache.
10. To check if all everything is in place, write the following code in a notepad and save it as “phpinfo.php” (with inverted quotes).

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

1. Place the file in your DocumentRoot directory. The default path is C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache/htdocs.
2. Start your Mozilla Firefox browser (it’s not mandatory, just a recommendation ), and type http://localhost/phpinfo.php.
3. If everything’s fine, we’ll see something like this:

Installing MySQL:

1. We can find it in three shapes and sizes , The Complete Package, The Essentials Package and The Noinstall Archive. We’d go for the complete package named mysql-[version]-win32.
2. The installation part is click next type.
3. At the end of the installation, click to configure and choose the options as per your choice or as given below:
   • Detailed Configuration>Next
   • Developer Machine>Next
   • Multifunctional Database>Next
   • >Next
   • Manual Settings (choose 5)>Next
   • Enable TCP/IP (leave default port as 3306)>Next
   • Add to both, windows services and ssytem path>Next
   • Choose root password>Next
   • Execute.

Configuring MySQL & PHP:

1. Open php.ini, located in %systemroot%, in and editor and uncomment the following line by removing the semicolon at the beginning of the line:
2. extension=php_mysql.dll
3. Copy php_mysql.dll and libmysql.dll from C:\PHP\ext to C:\PHP.
4. To verify the configuration and administer MySQL, one may use phpmyadmin, found at http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php. However, do make sure not to publish it along with the site .
5. That’s it. Happy Coding (. For anymore queries, either leave your comments or refer to the manuals.

• Apache Headache: “no listening sockets available”
• AdSense exploited by malware (Trojan.Qhost.WU)
• Download PHP tidy extension for Mac OS X
• Grabbing Video from Youtube.
• [How To] Implementing Shindig.