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DON’T HAND EDIT YOUR MAMP PHP.INI FILE!!!!

Oh, the agony.

I spent the better part of a day trying to get Xdebug working on my MAMP site on my Mac. I read here, here and here… all you have to do is to “edit your php.ini file” and bada-boom! you are off to the races.

No, no and no. The problem was that it kinda works, then it doesn’t, then nothing does, then things work but xdebug doesn’t.

Over the years, I have realized that when things start to get real hard, I’m doing something wrong, terribly wrong. Some where in some place, I’ve made the simplest of errors, creating a cacophony of bugs so bad, I’ve got to look down to see up.

I use MAMP, I also use MAMP PRO. Some scorn, I don’t because it seems to save me time. It would have this time, if I had RTFM’d. No, I didn’t. Instead I read what everybody else said “edit your php.ini file by hand”. WRONG!

Instead, use MAMP PRO’s  File-Edit Template command. It was RIGHT THERE!!

Thank you, Drupal. You saved my sanity. As for the rest, the rest of your information was pretty good, all except for…

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HTML5 and CSS3

I’m interested in what HTML5/CSS3 are bringing to the Web. A simple thing like using CSS to drop shadow an image is  quite nice. Beats having to use Photoshop…

Based on the drop shadow alone, I thought it would be good to begin using these two new web standards, So I changed my photography site Stills from one using a Lightroom HTML template to one of my own implemented with HTML5 and CSS3.

For now it is quite rudimentary, it shows photos in a classic gallery style with little changes from a conventional HTML/CSS 2.1 site. As I have more time, I will use tools like Modernizer to help ensure viewers have a good experience regardless of browser.

I’ll also incorporate the database approach I used for my film site. Currently, I have a “hand-crafted” site which requires a new html page for every new photo. After a few photos, the overhead gets to be quite a pain.

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Better Stuff

A couple of plugs for stuff I use:

Eizo ColorEdge CG243W – Great new monitor that is accurate, a nice size and a joy to use. As I stated earlier, it inspired me to get back into photography. I like it, I like it a lot.

colormunki – in order to properly use the Eizo or any high end color monitor, one must calibrate it. It seems the best way to do this is to use Eizo’s software and a calibrator such as the colormunki. I’m a bit miffed in the x-rite, the supplier of the munki, has yet to release software for Snow Leopard. Turns out that Eizo’s software, Color Navigator, works great with the munki. I like the device, it is easy to use and clearly well-designed. And when xrite releases the new software, I’ll also be able to use the device to calibrate my printer. nice. (AND!!, buy by 12/31 and get $50 rebate)

colormall.com – very, very helpful and competitive pricing. I wanted to find someone, online or bricks and mortar that could help me find the right monitor for my needs. I called Colormall and spoke with John at some length as to several types of monitors. John was very honest as to why they no longer carried Canon, why they carried Eizo and LaCie and what monitor would make sense. He went the extra distance to confirm the newly released CG243W was what I needed and wanted. Very professional, very helpful and highly recommended.

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Added Stills

I recently changed monitors from a Viewsonic 2025 that had a DVI issue (apparently this is a common thing for Viewsonic… nice) to a BEAUTIFUL Eizo ColorEdge CG243W.

WOW!

Better color, larger screen, deeper blacks, crisper text, everything is just fantastic and a joy to use.

With this new view, I was inspired to go back to my photographs and create a Web gallery of my favorites. This has been a tremendous amount of fun!

I start out in iPhoto to find the photo I like then I use Lightroom to edit the photo. Lightroom’s workflow is just great. You start at the top and work your way down the side of its Develop menu. Easy to understand and use. Love it!

That’s all for now… gotta get back in the darkroom Lightroom.

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Yes, you can…(retain data on a split OS X Mirror RAID)

My Leopard installation used a OS X RAID 0 implementation to keep my system safe and sound. I mirrored two 1 TB drives then used them for my startup volume.  When I switched to Snow Leopard, I needed an extra drive to ensure I had sufficient backups prior to installation (I always clean install when I upgrade operating systems.)

I thought the easiest thing to do would be to “split” the RAID 0 drives up with both containing a complete backup of my Leopard installation. But I also thought it sounded too easy and while purchasing Snow Leopard at the Apple store, I casually asked “can you split a mirrored RAID and retain the data?”

“No” was the response by two of Apple’s finest.

Still it seemed worth it to try it. Particularly when Disk Utility actually states (something to the effect) “when deleting a RAID configuration, you’ll end up with two drives containing identical data”. WOW! That is exactly what I want, where do I click?

Clicking on “Delete”, I waited and voila!  A message informing me that the “Operation can’t be performed because the RAID configuration can’t be unmounted.”

“Mmmmmm. That should be easy to fix, perhaps Finder is still “using” the drive.” Close all windows, try again.

“nope.”

Eject RAID?

“Nope”

Reboot? “Nope”

Use diskutil instead of Disk Utility? “Nope”

Finally, what if  I booted in SAFE Mode? Ejected the drive, then deleted?

Bands played in the street, everyone rejoiced, the skies cleared and the sun shone brightly! “It worked!”

So here’s the deal. To split a Mirrored RAID 0 configuration into two identical drives:

  • Boot in Safe Mode
  • Eject the RAID volume
  • Delete the RAID configuration in Disk Utility

Now back to installing Snow Leopard…