Dionysopoulos.me Logo
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Contact Me
  1. You are here:  
  2. Home

Custom Apache and PHP server on macOS, the definitive 2019 edition

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 20 December 2018
  • how-to
  • developers
  • PHP
  • macOS
  • server
17 thoughts on “Custom Apache and PHP server on macOS, the definitive 2019 edition”

A tutorial on running a local Apache, MySQL, multiple PHP versions server on macOS Mojave using HomeBrew, updated for 2019. Bonus points: you can change the PHP version using the site's .htaccess like you would on most live hosts.

Read more ...

Custom PHP versions in MAMP PRO (macOS)

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 08 December 2018
  • PHP
  • macOS
4 thoughts on “Custom PHP versions in MAMP PRO (macOS)”

Compile your own PHP version from source and install it on MAMP PRO on macOS. It's possible -- despite what MAMP's developers want you to believe.

Read more ...

Improve PHP performance on Windows

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 30 August 2018
  • how-to
  • PHP
  • Windows
5 thoughts on “Improve PHP performance on Windows”

Developing PHP applications which support a variety of servers and environments requires me to occasionally develop on Windows. The first thing someone notice when switching from Linux or macOS to a Windows machine for PHP development is that it's so darned slow. Even on the exact same machine, Linux is a good 2x to 5x faster than Windows. Most of the sluggishness observer, however, is down to configuration and can be mitigated. This article explains some of the tricks I used to make PHP faster on my Windows development machines.

Read more ...

Kubuntu on the Surface Book

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 14 July 2018
  • Linux
  • Ubuntu
  • Surface Book
8 thoughts on “Kubuntu on the Surface Book”

I've had a Surface Book with an i7 processor since November 2016. I liked the idea of a laptop with detachable tablet, the touchscreen and that it comes with a pressure sensitive pen. It makes for a neat, if slightly expensive, machine. It has a fatal flaw though: Windows 10. I tried to like Windows, I really did, but it's just so. darned. slow. File access is inexcusably slow, especially for a device equipped with lightning fast NVMe storage. In real world usage it proved 4 to 10 times slower than Linux running on the same machine... off a USB 3 attached SSD. This relegated the Surface Book to a role of a secondary machine for me, while my primary was a cheap i5 laptop with inexpensive m2 SATA3 SSD storage (and yes, there is a huge maximum performance difference to the NVMe storage, not to mention the processor speed).

To cut a long story short, I wanted to unleash the true potential of the Surface Book using Kubuntu Linux. The end  goal is having a dual boot Windows and Linux laptop with the Linux side sporting encrypted storage (because of GDPR requirements) and working keyboard, touchpad, WiFi, card reader and touch screen at the very least. I'm glad to say, mission accomplished! I'm writing this article using Kubuntu on my Surface Book. Now, this is a comprehensive How To of what I did. I am writing this mainly for me to remember all the small details and in hope I can help some of you out there. Most, if not all, of what I am writing here also applies to Surface Pro 2 and above, Surface Book 2 (2018) and Surface Laptop.

Read more ...

Safer backups with write-only Amazon S3 credentials

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 04 December 2017
  • how-to
  • Amazon
  • backup
  • S3
  • Glacier
No thoughts on “Safer backups with write-only Amazon S3 credentials”

We can all agree that taking backups is important. We also agree that backups on the same medium as the backed up content are as good as no backup at all. This has led a lot of us to store our backups to the cloud, predominantly on cheap Amazon S3 storage. But how can we make sure that should the content server be compromised our backups will not be abused or deleted?

Read more ...

Forge your own SSL certificates for local development

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 08 June 2017
  • how-to
  • developers
  • Windows
  • SSL
5 thoughts on “Forge your own SSL certificates for local development”

A while back I had written two blog posts about setting up an Apache, MySQL and multiple, simultaneous PHP versions environment for macOS -or Linux, same concept- and for Windows. In the meantime HTTPS has been promoted to a near necessity and so being able to build and test a site on HTTPS is very desirable. Well, as it turns out, it’s perfectly possible too!

Read more ...

Secure your Amazon CloudFront CDN using Let's Encrypt SSL certificates

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 17 January 2017
  • how-to
  • hosting
  • AWS
  • SSL
12 thoughts on “Secure your Amazon CloudFront CDN using Let's Encrypt SSL certificates”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a wealth of services for site owners. A service I particularly enjoy is the inexpensive CloudFront CDN which lets me deliver static content, like downloads and update information for my software, very fast to people across the world. What became apparent is that while it was fast and cheap, it wasn't the most secure solution. Anyone could forge the update response and mislead my users to downloading a modified package full of malware. The solution was to use an SSL certificate with the CDN, ensuring the integrity of the downloads and update information. For this purpose I used Let's Encrypt™ which allows you to create properly singed SSL certificates for free. The process is non-obvious so I'm documenting this for you.

Read more ...

Making a portable full installation of Ubuntu on a USB HDD

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 08 January 2017
  • how-to
  • Linux
  • Ubuntu
193 thoughts on “Making a portable full installation of Ubuntu on a USB HDD”

I regularly have the need to try things out on Linux. Sometimes a virtual machine won't cut it for me typically due to memory, disk and performance limitations. Moreover, a decent, up-to-date, bootable Linux environment is a great backup in case all of my other computers are broken, infected or stolen. That entails having the Linux installation on an external, USB-attached hard disk drive which can boot with relative ease on any UEFI-enabled PC (driver compatibility notwithstanding). Moreover, all the preparatory work has to be performed using a single-boot Windows computer without ending up having a dual boot system. It sounds tough. It is tough, but I'm writing this from my portable Ubuntu Linux installation running off a USB-attached SSD!

Read more ...

Add the SSH2 extension to PHP 7.0 on MAMP

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 29 May 2016
  • how-to
  • PHP
  • macOS
One thought on “Add the SSH2 extension to PHP 7.0 on MAMP”

If you want to use SSH or SFTP with PHP you need the SSH2 extension. Unfortunately MAMP doesn't come with it out of the box. Last year I had written about how to add the SSH2 extension to MAMP, on PHP 5.6. In the meantime two major changes ocurred which pretty much nullified the process: OS X El Capitan was released requiring new prerequisites to be installed and PHP 7 was included which requires an entirely new approach to installing SSH2 (it's no longer as simple as using pecl). In this article we'll discuss the process required to get the SSH2 extension installed on PHP7 in MAMP.

Read more ...

Using the Apple Magic Keyboard / Trackpad as wired devices

Details
Written by: Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Published: 16 April 2016
  • Apple
No thoughts on “Using the Apple Magic Keyboard / Trackpad as wired devices”

Has your Mac's Bluetooth stopped responding or got stuck in the Off position? Do you have work to do and cannot afford a reboot?

Read more ...

Page 2 of 11

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10

Social Media

You can follow me and interact with me on social media.

Login

  • Forgot your password?
  • Forgot your username?
  • Create an account

Tags

Joomla! how-to opinion developers PHP Linux security review macOS Windows Mandriva book
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms of Service

Copyright ©2007-2021 Nikolaos Dionysopoulos. All legal rights reserved.