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FilZip and XAMPP

We're going to look at two free programs in this months column: FILZIP and XAMPP. Both utilities have been around a long while, they've been heavily tested and known to work. They deserve consideration of adding to your “bag of tricks.”

FilZip is a GUI archiving utility for Windows, You may ask why use a separate utility when Windows already recognizes ZIP files? FilZip recognizes and opens multiple compression formats; it even rewrites many compressions back to disk. FilZip is not Open Source but shareware / freeware (the author accepts donations).

If you dabble  in Open Source world you eventually must deal with TAR, GZ and other complex UNIX file compressions. Opening these files on a Windows computer requires a compression utility that handles almost anything.

FilZip has an explorer-like interface where files may be extracted individually or completely. Drag and drop works well. You may also drag files inside a present archive with just a few clicks. Another nice feature is the addition of a context entry on the right click Windows desktop menu for making new archives from existing folders .

FilZip is at version 3.06  It has not been updated in three years but it works well. I recommend it for all Windows systems.

XAMPP

As the left graphic shows, XAMPP installs and configures an Apache Web Server, a MySQL database, PHP programming language and other utilities inside a folder (or directory) of a Windows. Mac or Linux computer. This is impressive and saves hours if not days configuring everything to work together. It also installs and configures FileZilla FTP and Mercury Email utilities to duplicate hosting packages available online.

Together all these programs build a localhost server on your desktop or laptop computer or store it on a memory stick you can transport elsewhere. Access and control your own localhost server with any local browser at http:localhost or http://127.0.0.1

XAMPP for Windows may be downloaded as a ZIP file or as a self extracting installer. I took the easy approach and downloaded the installer version to my desktop, At installation an install folder is suggested but I chose c:\server so I would know exactly where my web was located. A few more clicks and I decided to run Apache, MySQL and FileZilla as Windows services that will start each time Windows starts. Installation takes more time than expected to extract and setup thousands of small files within XAMPP but eventually installation  completes. It leaves a control panel on the desktop (see right) to indicate which services are running and this may be minimized to the tray.

Test XAMPP in your local browser at http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1 It should look like this second graphic with services running (activated). Congratulations, you have successfully built a webserver!

Timeout for an explanation: this localhost webserver has no security. For ease of use passwords are missing from XAMPPP applications and private information stored in localhost is easily displayed across a network.

If you have more than one computer on your local network you can log into localhost by entering the localhost's IP address (you can find this address using IP2).

Remember, most ISPs do not allow us to run local webservers on port 80 unless we upgrade to commercial accounts (even then, it makes economic sense to purchase online access and not support a 24x7 webserver).

My main purpose for using XAMPP localhost is to develop CMS content locally before uploading to an online account. Localhost allows you to work much quicker since its more responsive than the best of Internet latencies and often you skip time-consuming FTP file transfers by transferring files directly.

If you used the path c:\server install, the root of your completed webserver is located at c:\server\htdocs To make life easy I make a shortcut for this directory on my Windows desktop.

Before using MySQL we must setup a local database and user using phpMyAdmin, a GUI used to manage MySQL. These steps are not obvious so read this procedure carefully and consult phpMyAdmin documentation if necessary.

Adding a MySQL database:

On the XAMPP Control Panel click MySQL Admin. You are then logged into MySQL as user root. Now click on Databases and see the first display shown at the right. At the bottom of the page enter the name of the new database, leave collation selected and press Create. A dialog confirms a new database has been created.

Now press Home (the little house icon) on the left panel and see your new database listed below it.

Adding a MySQL database user:

Now you must add an administrative user for this new database. Click “Privileges” and near the bottom of the next screen click “Add a new User,” then click “Go.”

Add these four pieces of information on the third phpMyAdmin display:

• a username
• host (use only localhost)
• enter a password (2 times)

Scroll down, under global privileges select “Check All” and scroll further down and click “Go”.
A dialog confirms the new user was added.

That's about it. I did the following things to prevent problems installing Joomla and you might want to complete them now too:

• rename install.php in the C:\server\htdocs to xinstall.php (so it does not get overwritten when installing Joomla)
• Adjust SQL timeout  (prevents Joomla problems)
  
  • Using Windows Search, locate the file php.ini
  • Double click the file (php.ini to edit) and use notebook's “find” to locate max_execution_time
  • Change this value from 60 to 300
  • Save this file and close

Sorry, this article got longer than I expected but thisis a good stopping point. Next month we'll install the latest Joomla CMS package inside XAMPP and showoff some Joomla features and componeents. Remember our FOSS SIG meets the last Thursday of each month from 1:00 to 3:00 PM in the TBCS Resource Center. We are online 24x7 at http://fosssig.com

 Thanks for reading,  Stew Bottorf

©  2009 TBCS and Stew Bottorf