Imagine installing a new, untested WordPress plugin directly inside your hosted, live web server, just to find out that it screw the whole blog? Imagine another situation – switching to a new WordPress theme just to find out that it doesn’t work nicely with your favorite WordPress plugins? There is a way to solve all of this problem – by doing all of the above in a test environment, accomplished by having a nice WordPress setup mimicking your live server, inside your own local PC .

Steps to Install WordPress on a Local Apache Web server

1- Make sure you have installed Apache web server with PHP and MySQL support. If you have not yet done so, you can follow my Windows guides regarding Apache and PHP Installation. Rest assured that my guides passed the basic requirements needed to run WordPress (PHP 4.2 or greater + MySQL 4.0 or greater).

2- Download the latest WordPress zip package from here.

3- Start your Apache and MySQL service. Make sure you can access your locally setup homepage.

4- You need to create a MySQL database for WordPress. In this guide, I use PhpMyAdmin (find out how to install PhpMyAdmin). Login to your PhpMyAdmin (or any software that you use) and create a MySQL database with a name of your choice (I choose “wp”).

5- Make sure your “wp” database was successfully created. Example:

7- Extract the downloaded WordPress zip package to your Apache root directory. If you follow my guide, the path is C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs\ . This will create a “wordpress” folder inside the “htdocs” directory.

8- (optional) You can rename the “wordpress” folder to anything. Some people changed it to “wp” or “blog” so their blog address will be “http://<hostname>/blog” or “http://<hostname>/wp” instead of http://<hostname>/wordpress .

9- Open your WordPress folder (wordpress / wp / blog ), copy wp-config-sample.php to a new file called wp-config.php. I changed mine to “blog”.

10- Edit wp-config.php with any text editor e.g. Notepad. Change the things that I have marked out in bold. Don’t forget to save the file afterwards.

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘your-wordpress-database-name‘); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root‘); // Your MySQL admin username used to manage the database above
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘root-user-password‘); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

11- Fire-up your web browser. Type in your web server name plus your WordPress setup path (http://<your-webserver-name/blog/wp-admin/install.php), for example:

http://www.syahid.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

Remember! “blog” can be “wordpress” or “wp” depending on what you put on step 8. Default is “wordpress”.

12- If the previous step was successful, you will be shown a WordPress initial start page. Click “First Step“.

13- Insert your Weblog title and your email account. Don’t worry, both are changeable after setup. Click the big, bold “Continue to Second Step” button.

14- You will be given an initial password to access your blog account. Copy it somewhere safe. You will need it later. Click the “wp-login” link to access your WordPress login page.

15- Enter “admin” as Username and the “password given to you before” as Password. Obviously, click the “Login” button afterwards.

16- You had successfully installed WordPress if you get a page similar to the picture shown below.

17- You can view your initial blog with the not-so-wonderful default theme by clicking on the “View Site” link.

18- Don’t forget to change your password! To do so, click “Users” –> “Authors and Users”. Then select “admin” by ticking the box under “ID” and click the “Edit” button.

19- Enter the new password of your choice TWICE and click “Update User“. Test your password by logging out of WordPress and log in again with the new password.

You have successfully installed and run WordPress on Apache web server locally! Now you can mimic your live WordPress site by installing a similar WordPress theme, plugins and more. The next time a wonderful themes or plugins seems relevant to your blog, safely test it on your local WordPress server before applying it live on the Internet. Better be safe than sorry!

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I asked:

Are PHP and Ruby developers ever the same animal?
Most of my clients are developing massive scale eCommerce or communication networks and only want PHP.
Where does Ruby come in – for lighter weight, rapid web development?
Does a PHP developer have deeper – or just different – coding ability?

Geo answered:

Val,

There are actually 3 points here.

• Ruby
• Rails
• PHP

The issue that happens with rails is that most people introduced to Ruby have been introduced via Rails.
Rails is a framework that utilizes Ruby as language of implementation.

Now Ruby vs PHP. Not that one is better than the other, but PHP has a much more extensive library of extensions and modules, and it’s object oriented model has been implemented over time. Ruby on the other hand has been designed from the ground up as an object oriented language, and definitely has a very modern well thought out syntax. Ruby’s community and as well as libraries are growing, but it is no where near the number of PHP’s. As a language Ruby is slower than PHP, but this is a bottleneck that can be worked around. The real issue is with Rails and its tightly coupled architecture.

Rails, like I said is a framework – a contract on how an applications architecture’s base will be implemented. 9 times out of 10 Rubiest think framework first ( Rails ) vs Language first; THEY WERE INTRODUCED TO RUBY VIA RAILS. 9.9 times out of 10 perl,php, and python people think language first. The success of Rails has brought about an implementation of it MVC structure to perl, php, and python which has enabled perl,php, and python use to ADOPT BEST PRACTICES via Frameworks like symfony,zend,cakephp, django, joomla framework ( not the cms ). Now because Rails is such a “turn keyish” type of framework, issues start to occur when sites start to grow, and what happens is that because so much was done for you at the framework level, meaning “Oh, look in Rails you don’t have to worry about X, it is handled automatically”, that when issues start to occur you are not familiar thoroughly with the architecture ( internals of RAILS) that is becomes extra work to handle high loads. Some, bottle necks in Rails are, ( RAILS FANBOYS, notice how I said SOME):

• Application startup and bootstrapping
• Active record and database implementation layer
• Caching without having the application bootstrap

These issues are also in CakePHP which is the closest implementation of Rails in PHP, they even copied the mistakes! Symfony, Zend, and Joomla Framework are much more loosely coupled, with Zend coming out as the loosest. To deal with very high traffic, TWITTER had to start scrapping away RAILS in certain parts and start developing with scala and even c++. Many Rails fanboys started crying when this happened.

In all, there are very competent Ruby programmers out there that aren’t tied to Rails, but nowhere near the amount of PHP.

Geo

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Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving says that he’s not interested in the vacant Yahoo CEO job, but is instead focused on a big pipeline of mobile products and beating Nielsen at its own game.

In an interview with Mashable, the charismatic Yahoo executive claims he’s not vying to replace Carol Bartz, who was unceremoniously bounced from the company in September.

“No. I’m a great product guy,” Irving emphatically responded when asked whether he’d make a good CEO for Yahoo. “Even if I did make a good CEO for any company, I’m a product guy first and foremost.”

Irving admits that the turmoil with Yahoo’s leadership has made it tough to recruit talent, though he says new recruits are convinced once they meet with the team and see the products they’re working on. “When your CEO exits your company in a quick fashion, people notice,” he says. “People read what they read.”

However, Irving claims the turmoil hasn’t affected the company’s product pipeline. He says Yahoo can’t prevent what the media is saying and what his friends are reading, but his team is still working on “incredibly cool stuff.” Yahoo released four products Wednesday, including Livestand, a social newsstand app for the iPad that competes with Flipboard.

“We all know what we’re trying to build here,” Irving said. “Not just for Yahoo, but for the web. We’re steadfast in that, and everyone in the product organization knows that.”

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IntoNow and the Yahoo Vision

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Irving showed excitement about IntoNow for iPad, another product that Yahoo released Wednesday. The app can “listen” to a TV show and figure out what show and episode the clip comes from, but it now comes with tweets and information related to the show. This makes it an ideal TV-watching companion. “It allows you to have a personal experience for television when your’e in a shared environment,” Irving stated.

Perhaps the most important thing about the app, however, is its ability to track user behavior as they watch. Irving says Yahoo knows if someone is “in front of the TV or at the fridge” based on their behavior with the app. Activity on the app can reveal whether somebody is interested in an on-screen character or presenter, or has tuned out and is doing something else.

Irving even made a bold claim about how much information Yahoo can gather through the app: “We will know more about what’s happening on TV than Nielsen,” he said.

This information opens up a huge opportunity for brands. Irving explained the app may know somebody is watching a Coke commercial during a TV show. “Couldn’t you advertise Pepsi?” Irving said. He believes the app provides a better place to advertise, since viewers’ attention moves away from the TV and towards the tablet during commercial breaks. In fact, Pepsi and IntoNow have already partnered on one promotion; users that tagged a Pepsi MAX commercial received a free soda.

How does IntoNow and Livestand fit into Yahoo’s overall strategy and future? We’ve heard Yahoo say over and over that it considers itself the premiere digital media company. Irving fleshed out that description by saying today’s web is good at relevance, but isn’t good at “providing real meaning” to the things we watch and interact with.

“The vision and mission of the company,” Irving said, “is bringing personal meaning to the web.”

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 Often, I get asked by my clients what’s CMS tool? Which one is a good one?

What’s difference between WordPress and Joomla or Drupal. I decided to present a little educational writeup by Written by Tim Stiffler-Dean on this. Hope you all enjoy

You can feel free to contact me on development on any of these platforms. SearchReadySeo is your one stop shop for Web Design, SEO, CMS Systems, ecommerce websites, Social Media Marketing and a lot more..

WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal

It was only time that kept bloggers around the world from writing their comparisons of the three major Content Management Systems (WordPress, Joomla and Drupal) – and that time is finally up. People everywhere are breaking out their laptops and logging into their blogs to share what they believe are reasons for choosing this software or that…. and yet most of them seemed to have missed the important reasons why someone might choose one CMS over another.

So I’m taking it upon myself to spread some much needed understanding of the three systems and hopefully help you decide which one is best for you.

Background, History and Experience

Since a majority of people are discussing WordPress, Joomla and Drupal as the three best Content Management Systems, I’m going to stick to them. Luckily, I’ve had experience using each extensively, and know the ins and outs of actually using the systems. To put this quite simply, I will not be giving you many statistics based on research… I’m giving you information from first-hand experience.

Only within the last year has WordPress actually begun to step up as a true CMS. However the other two, Drupal and Joomla, have seemingly always been fighting for that top spot in the community. Both are open source, and both are widely developed with thousands of members in their community helping to develop and extend the possibilities of use for each. While WordPress is considered the underdog in the CMS war, it is most definitely the king of blogging software (something that Joomla and Drupal struggle to do efficiently).

However, even where each has its flaws and each has its strengths (which I will explain below) you can build any kind of website with either one. I have built blogs with Joomla and I have built shopping cart websites with WordPress. It just depends on what you need it to do, your familiarity with the system, and how long you have to work on that program. In fact, that is something that is misunderstood by many people – if you don’t like using Drupal, that doesn’t make it less valuable, it just makes it less useful to you!

But I digress, let us continue with a look at WordPress:

WordPress is just for blogging…. or is it?

WordPress is an excellent system to use when creating a website that lets you quickly get your thoughts out on the web, but while it is often used as a blog, it can be configured to work in many other interesting ways as well. One particular client of mine recently needed a website that would allow him and his employees to have an internal website for sharing notes, documenting tasks and writing about what was going on. Since WordPress is easy to use and some of them were already familiar with it, it was an obvious solution. Install WordPress on a server that they could access quickly and easily from anywhere with an internet connection, and let them get to business rather than have to learn about a whole different system.

It is key to know that WordPress is extremely easy to use and setup. I have used it several times with clients that are brand new to the internet and having a website, yet they can pick this system up and use it quicker than the other two. Since WP is already developed to work as a blog, though, it can be setup to do so without any hesitation. Comments are already built into the system, as well as pinging services, multiple blogger profiles, trackbacks and more. Most of the time nothing needs to be done to those systems either, because they already work the way that the user would want them to.

WordPress, however, is not to be used for everything. I have had little success (its there, just not much) using WordPress as a shopping cart for certain clients. The very reason that WordPress was created was to keep people from wanting to customize it to do things that are much more advanced. It is supposed to be used a certain way without modification – because any modification that you give to it may very well cause it to break. You will find many users of WP complaining that it is not developer friendly – and rightfully so, because there will be countless times in your journey to that great website that an upgrade released by the WP developers causes your entire site to simply disappear, or for those modifications that you made previously to no longer even exist.

WordPress Pros

• Simple to use – No need for modifications
• Excellent for blogging or sharing thoughts in a sequential manner
• Even the most elderly of users can get the hang of it quickly

WordPress Cons

• Not developer friendly
• The community seems to like to complain
• Upgrades bring more bugs than fixes sometimes

Drupal is to developers as candy is to children

If you’re the type of person who would rather hand-code the content of your pages than use a WYSIWYG Editor, or if you enjoy tweaking the code that makes up the framework of a website, then Drupal is probably for you. This advanced content management system more closely resembles a developer platform than a traditional CMS. Its not to say that only developers can use the system though, but to say that they will feel more at home here than in the other two. Interestingly, being more developer friendly does not automatically make it more user friendly – in fact the developer has to work hard to make it that way if they need the end-product to do so.

There are dozens of more tags and functions that can be used to develop in Drupal than in WordPress or even Joomla. Every single node has its own set of commands and tags that can be placed elsewhere to manipulate the function of the site, and this makes for a very intense experience (whether or not you know what you’re doing). For those that are not so developer-minded, this can be the trial of their lives, but for people who live in code – well, they can literally get lost developing some very cool websites.

Now, these websites can act and function in some pretty neat ways, but Drupal also has the problem that it just doesn’t always look that great. I have seen very few websites built in Drupal that look and feel as good as they function. You can especially see this in the theme directory on the Drupal.org website, where there are dozens of these themes built to prove the exact point I just made. It’s a shame really, because with all of the development advancements the software has, it would almost be perfect with a stronger usability and design interface.

Drupal Pros

• Extremely developer friendly. If I loved code more I would almost always pick this system.
• Strong community to help discern the dozens (hundreds) of functions and tags available.
• Can be used to create some really awesome websites that can outperform a majority of other sites out there.

Drupal Cons

• Not very designer and user-friendly. It’s hard for someone with little code knowledge to make the leaps required to do the very cool things that Drupal is becoming known for.
• Theming of Drupal has been a huge case of fail (until recently). Probably because it has been developers, not designers, that are making the themes.
• Getting a Drupal website published could cost you more time, and thus more money, than WordPress or Joomla.

Joomla – Let’s build websites together with Joomla!

If WordPress is more for end-users and Drupal is more for developers, then Joomla! must be more for designers, right? If that’s the conclusion that you came to then you’re on the right track, but I would venture to say that Joomla! is actually a mix of all of those things. The name Joomla, in fact, means ‘all together’ in Swahili (Urdu), and it seems they’ve been living up to their name in the way that this powerful CMS works.

Designers will choose Joomla because of the amazing capabilities that its engine has in making websites look fantastic. Newcomers to Joomla (and website management) will love the fact that it is very easy to use and even customize as more and more developers create tools that are easier to understand. Developers, likewise, will choose the system because of its large capacity for development and customization. The new MVC framework was built just so that anyone with the knowledge could override the core of the CMS without actually modifying the original code.

Still, it’s far from perfect. It’s still not as flexible as Drupal is with its code. While there are many ways to override what the default code does, there are some parts of the system that just can’t be pushed and stressed as hard as Drupal can be. Also, while Drupal can be used to run multiple websites with one backend and database, Joomla lacks the ability to create multi-sites. It is just powerful enough to be useful, but not enough to do anything.

In a side-by-side comparison with WordPress, Joomla still has some way to go with being user friendly. In each case where I’ve had people use both systems to manage a website, those that lacked good knowledge of the internet or how their website even worked always chose WordPress over Joomla. It is simple enough that it can be taught to practically anyone, but not enough that anyone would want to learn it.

Joomla Pros

• Friendly for all types of users – Designers, Developers and Administrators
• Huge community is awesome for assisting with creation of websites
• Has been rapidly growing and improving itself for the past three years

Joomla Cons

• Still not user-friendly enough for everyone to understand
• Not quite as powerful as Drupal, and can be a bit confusing for some to jump into
• Recently rebuilt the entire system from ground-up, and so there are still many out there sticking to the old versions (1.0.x)

In Conclusion

There is not just one system available for us to build our websites with, and so we should never limit ourselves to just one either. With so many different uses and ideas and opportunities that can be found in each, why should we anyone try so hard to make those CMS’s that they dislike seem worst than their own. I remember at an event two years ago that both a Joomla and Drupal team went to, and the members of the teams actually swapped shirts – with the Drupal team wearing Joomla shirts and vice-versa.

SearchReadySEO is a full service internet marketing company located in San Francisco Bay Area. We offer a broad range of internet marketing including: PPC Management, Link Building, Social Networking, Blogs, Custom Content Writing, Video Marketing, Website Design.

SearchReadySEO has the most progressive technologies available to optimize campaigns efficiently, but it takes much more than just technology. SearchReadySEO has a team of in house engineers/programmers, who take the time to monitor, and work on each campaign. What separates us from others, is we put the necessary time into each campaign, to ensure maximum results.

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 What’s Zen Cart?

Zen Cart™ is an open source e-commerce application written in PHP and using Mysql database. For more information on the project, features, etc. Zen Cart™ was orginally based on osCommerce code from June 2003 and has undergone rapid development since that time. It has released three major point releases, and over a dozen minor point releases. The current release is 1.3.8.

What’s osCommerce?

Zen Cart Features:

• Works on the popular combination of PHP and MySQL technologies.
• Secure – no one but your administrative personnel can access your customer/catalog data.
• Easy to install – our helpful installation program guides you easily through the setup process.
• User frontend is validated to XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
• Advanced template system using stylesheets and images.
• Any PHP coding changes can be protected during upgrades by using the built-in override protection system.
• Built in WYSIWYG page editor for modifying non-database pages.
• Advertising banners – show information about your business colleagues and track banner link activity. Banners can open in new windows so that customers never really leave your site.
• Meta tags keywords and descriptions can be controlled at the per-product level, all from the administrative interface.
• Developers toolkit helps quickly locate a setting or text string to be customized.
• Shipping options – multiple carriers are supported, including hold for pickup, free delivery in an area, and most major couriers and postal services.
• Customer access control – you can set up your shop to only allow customers access to pricing or pricing but not buying until after being authorized by an administrator. You can restrict them from browsing at all too, if desired.
• Automatic detection of search engine spiders.
• Intelligent generation of metatags content for search engines.

osCommerce Features:

• All features enabled by default for a complete out-of-the-box solution
• Object oriented backend (3.0)
• Completely multilingual with English, German, and Spanish provided by default
• Compatible with all PHP 4 versions
• Administration area secured with a username and password defined during installation
• Contact customers directly via email or newsletters
• Easily backup and restore the database
• Print invoices and packaging lists from the order screen
• Statistics for products and customers
• All orders stored in the database for fast and efficient retrieval
• Customers can view their order history and order statuses
• Customers can maintain their accounts
• Dynamic product attributes relationship
• HTML based product descriptions
• Automated display of specials
• Control if out of stock products can still be shown and are available for purchase
• Customers can subscribe to products to receive related emails/newsletters
• Flexible tax implementation on a state and country basis
• Set different tax rates for different products
• Charge tax on shipping on a per shipping service basis
• Weight, price, and destination based shipping modules
• Real-time quotes available (UPS, USPS, FedEx, ..)
• Free shipping based on amount and destination

In addition to this,

there is also wordpress e-commerce plug-in which has limited set of features which might be applicable for small business owner.

You can read more about that here

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The fastest commercial train in the world is now fully armed and operational, covering the line between LA
and San Francisco. OK, I lied. Actually, that’s what I wanted to write. Sadly for us, it’s in China.

Some may ask, Why can we not do this in US? Let me explain,
Western Europe is 1.3 million square miles

The US is 3.7 million square miles (or 3.2 without Alaska).

Given our overall population density, there is no way to install a nationwide high speed rail system that will be able to compete with air travel.

If I’m going to take a train, it needs to get me to my destination more efficiently than air. Either significantly cheaper (but takes as long or longer), or similar cost/time but less hassle (security checks, etc).

Cross country rails wouldn’t make any sense what with it having to traverse pretty much every terrain type, and impossibly huge costs, however the infrastructure of the cities/high density population areas is what I was referring to. A rail going down the west coast, down the east coast, across the southern areas would be a vast improvement over airplanes, having rails just to do something like commute from northern california to southern california would be immensely helpful.

So yes, long distance rails would be impractical, but our rail way infrastructure right now is ridiculously terrible, to say otherwise would be illogical.

Rails for Seattle – portland, Seattle – Spokan, Seattle – SF, SF – LA, SF-SD, and more western rails, and hundreds of east coast rails would bring in a lot of revenue. Currently the only thing really holding rails back in some states is a lack of money, however rails would generate money needed, similar to the BART in California.

Developed with Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom, the new train swooshes across the red land at 245mph (394km/h). The service covers 663 miles (1,068 kilometers) at an average of 217mph (350km/h), which means it’s the fastest train in operation in the world according to China’s railways ministry. It’s part of the network of 42 high-speed lines that will be finished by 2012. If you have never tried these amazing trains in Europe or Japan, imagine going from New York to Chicago in just a bit over three hours, no absurd controls, no waits, no taxis needed.

The new Chinese high-speed lines will increase their total network from 53,437 miles to 74,564 miles. That’s still smaller than the US railway system which, but ours only has one single “high-speed” line, bridging the 456 miles that separate Boston from Washington at a whooping 70mph average, totaling seven hours. Don’t take that line, folks. It will liquify your brain.

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Apple iSlate Chatter Obscures Device Significance

Apple’s expected release of a humongous-screened iPod will legitimize the platform for business users. It could, in turn, revive Windows-based tablets and make Webpads the big alt.platform story of 2010.

The Apple tablet is almost here. We hear. Actually, we’re hearing a whole lot lately. With this exhaustive guide to every tablet rumor, we’ve got the clearest picture of the Apple tablet yet.

Uh, What’s It Called?
The iPhone was called the iPhone years before Steve Jobs ever took the stage to announce it. We don’t have the luxury of such clarity here. I would think the name has no more than two syllables, personally.

Is this it?

All the rumor mongering surround Apple’s expected upcoming release of a humongous-screened iPod misses the point. A search of the USPTO database reveals that Apple isn’t even the leader in Webpad patents. Hey, doesn’t anyone remember the Windows-based Tablet frenzy, circa 2002? So the big deal this time is that Apple will legitimize the platform, particularly for business users. Indeed, I believe mobile Webpads could edge out netbooks–and even debuzz smartphones somewhat–and become the big alt.platform story of 2010.

Would definitely agree that Apple is more refiner than inventor. Ironically Apple’s entry into the Tablet PC market will probably help some of the traditional PC makers (Toshiba, Acer, HP, etc..) refine and focus on their products.

Those traditional PC makers never really expanded into the business tablet market properly, and the consumer version i.e. Netbooks were made tentatively as well–perhaps b/c they were afraid of cannibalizing their PC business?

The tablet is basically going to be an iPod Touch with a large HyperDisplay screen: Three 5-megapixel cameras along one of the long edges of the display are going to enable it to track the user’s head position as well as construct an enveloping view (to a degree) of whatever is in front of the slate.

This will enable a totally new kind of “pseudo-3D” experience for games as well as video chats where the head of the person you’re talking to (also on a Magic Slate) will seem to pop out of the display as you move your head or shift your slate. Apps will be able to take advantage of this as well, lending a new and cool kind of experience to all kinds of applications.

It’s going to be introduced as the “Magic Slate” for about $900 on Jan. 29th, for sale starting around April. There will be two versions: One with a 7″ display and UMTS air interface, and one with a 10″ display and WLAN only. This second one will go on sale a bit later. A new distribution and payment model for partially self-renewing content (think mash-up of newspaper/ magazine/sales catalog) for off-line reading will also feature prominently.

I have no private knowledge of any of this, but I think this little theory of mine is consistent with all known facts, rumors, insider quotes and clandestine prototype videos turned up thus far.

lets not forget the form factor for the original “slate”

in this context, if you blur your eyes those could sure look like something else…

Ooooo the plot thickens..

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