NYCPHP Meetup

[David Krings]

Veronika wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm very new at this and am following at TechnicalLead tutorial; have 
> installed mysql, apache and php, have set up a data test folder, a 
> my.ini file (for mysql), an htm test file...
> Can I assume if the apache server is running that I should not change 
> the httpd.conf file? that there is something else wrong?
> Kind of frustrated that I'm following the tutorial and that the last 10 
> seconds of video one has stalled me with an error message:

While it is laudable to dive in and start creating your ini files on your own 
and using the individual packages, it might just be a bit too tricky for the 
beginner. That depends on which skills you are focusing, if you want to get 
experienced in administrating Apache and MySQL then there is no way around 
what you are doing now. If - and I assume that to be the case - you want to 
learn about PHP I'd sidestep the nitty gritty configuration and setup of 
Apache and MySQL and go with one of the already configured packages. I can 
highly recommend the XAMPP from Apachefriends.org. It never failed me and I 
even used it for production servers (they say not to do that, but I never had 
any issues). And it just works. You install it, type localhost in the address 
field of a browser on your system and you will see the main page coming up. It 
comes with PHPMyAdmin installed and the demo pages show some nice stuff, butr 
I usually rename the htdocs folder and create a new htdocs folder, in which I 
put my own files.
For MySQL I use the GUI tools from the mysql.com website. I find that they now 
work quite well and are a refreshingly helpful and fast set of tools after 
working during the week with garbage like MSSQL Management Studio. There are 
other and somewhat better MySQL administration clients, but the MySQL tools 
work fine and are easy to use.

David