Installing WordPress 2.9.2 on Windows Server 2003 using Microsoft's Web Platform Installer

• March 12, 2010
• James Skemp

I recently had need to install and test WordPress for some possible work. While I was tempted to go the Linux route, shortly after the OS was setup I decided to skip that and stick with Windows. Since Microsoft has released a platform that supposedly makes it easy to install Web-related applications, I decided to give it a try to determine just how simple it was. What follows is an overview of the setup process to install WordPress 2.

Read More

Ubuntu Quickie: MySQL and PostgreSQL passwords

• June 23, 2007
• James Skemp

Another Ubuntu Quickie, this time on the default passwords for MySQL and PostgreSQL. MySQL mysql -u root UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = OLD_PASSWORD('***password***') WHERE User = 'root'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; \q PostgreSQL sudo -u postgres psql template1 ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD '***password***'; \q

Read More

Ubuntu Quickie: Installing MySQL and PostgreSQL

• June 21, 2007
• James Skemp

For SQL on Ubuntu Linux, I decided it was easiest to just use the repositories to just install MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Read More

The major failing of Akismet ...

• February 25, 2007
• James Skemp

The major failing of the Akismet plug-in is that you can't determine which IPs, if any, are spamming your site the most.

Akismet needs to have the ability to group by IP, as well as show counts for each IP.

Read More

PHP Forum Software Showdown Part 6: phpBB

• November 25, 2006
• James Skemp

It's that time again. This time, we'll be looking at phpBB. “phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable Open Source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ. Based on the powerful PHP server language and your choice of MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers, phpBB is the ideal free community solution for all web sites.” Lot's of features, so let's get to it.

Read More

PHP Forum Software Showdown Part 5: PunBB

• November 24, 2006
• James Skemp

Almost there. This time, we'll be looking at PunBB. First, I did donate to PunBB development some time ago. At the time, I liked PunBB, and received some great support. It's been sometime since that time, so I don't know how things stand.

Anywho, “PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages.”

In this article, we'll be installing PunBB version 1.2.14, which is the latest version, as of October 15, 2006.

Read More

PHP Forum Software Showdown Part 4: MyBB

• November 22, 2006
• James Skemp

This time, we'll be looking at MyBB. “MyBB is a powerful, efficient and free forum package developed in PHP and MySQL. MyBB has been designed with the end users in mind, you and your subscribers. Full control over your discussion system is presented right at the tip of your fingers, from multiple styles and themes to the ultimate customisation of your forums using the template system.”

In this article, we'll be installing MyBB version 1.2.1, which is the latest version, as of September 27, 2006.

Read More

PHP Forum Software Showdown Part 3: Simple Machines

• November 21, 2006
• James Skemp

Curiously, in late-September 2006, Simple Machines Forum turned three (it had been three years since 1.0 beta 1). That's curious because the current stable version of Simple Machines is 1.0.9, and there's a 1.1 RC3 out as well (as of late-October 2006).

In this article, we'll be installing Simple Machines version 1.0.9, so we can compare it to the other PHP forums that we've installed, or will be installing.

Read More

PHP Forum Software Showdown Part 2: Vanilla

• November 20, 2006
• James Skemp

While the Vanilla forum's are fairly unknown, it's been around for a little over a year. “Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web.” The version we'll be installing, 1.0.1, was released in late-August 2006.

Read More

PHP Forum Software Showdown Part 1: bbPress

• November 19, 2006
• James Skemp

A relative new-comer, bbPress “is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress”. The first public version, 0.72, was released in mid-October 2006, and the version we'll be installing, 0.73, was released a couple of weeks later. Downloading bbPress is fairly easy, since there's only two options – one for the installer in .zip, and one in .tar.gz.

Read More