How to install Apache, PHP, MySql on windows7

Hello to everybody again! After long time (spent among other things to migrate/create some web sites as www.zambellipackaging.info using wordpress.org on GoDaddy hosted space) I come back to this matter that I touched in a post last year. This time I’m running windows7 on a MSI U200 netbook of which I’m quite happy. On downloading Apache installation files I found myself asked to verify the integrity of the files using PGP od MD5 methods. Within a reasonable time I couldn’t find a way to understand how to achieve it by PGP while by MD5 it was easier especially by using FastSum that has a graphic interface instead of running in the command line as other more esoteric but troublesome MD5 programs.

I have had some problems installing Apache2.2, a command line dos style opened two times with unnumbered error messages related to the socket 80 to which the program could not connect. Following the instruction of the book Beginning PHP6, Apache, MySQL 6 Web Development I tried to edit the file \Apache2.2\conf changing default port 80 into 8080 but windows7 didn’t let me save the edited file with same name. I have then removed the installation double-clicking on the .exe installation file again prompting the installation wizard to ask me whether I wanted to reapair or remove the existing installation. After removing the previous installationI have re-launched the .exe installtion file but this time not double-clicking on it but from the command line -opened right-clicking the mouse and choosing “open with administrator rights”- by the “msiexec -i xxxxxApache2.2xxx.msi” command.

This time I’ve been asked to accept a windows registry change by my Avast antivirus and after that the installation went through well!

Coming to PHP as prompted by the article How to install PHP on Windows I have downloaded the VC6 build (since I have installed the standard Apache.org web server) of PHP in the thread safe version since I’m going to use PHP as an Apache module.

Now another small issue, PHP site gives a Sha1 verification number, not a MD5. FastSum that I have happily used for MD5 verification seems not to work with Sha1 and I have had to look for another checksum verification program with a graphic interface that I have eventually found with MD5&Sha-1 Checksum Utility 1.1 that is awfully simple and works great!

The process of installing PHP involves changing php.ini.development or php.ini.production into php.ini (I have chosen development by the way) and to configure Apache to work with PHP takes a few changes, well described in How to install PHP on Windows; all this editing/renaming in windows7 hits the particular safety procedures of this operating system. To be able to rename the files in PHP and Apache folders you have 1)to take ownership of the folders and 2)re-assign permissions on such folders. All the procedure is rather well explained in the article How to take ownership & grant permissions to access files & folders in Win7.

I have now Apache2.2 and PHP installed and working on Windows7. For now is all, Installing MySql to come in a while.

How to add music to a flash video with Pinnacle12

I have got a flash videoclip that was ok but wanted to add music before publishing it on the company video channel on YouTube.  I had not the master file from the camera but only the edited flash .flv file. I tried to load the flash file into Pinnacle12 for adding the music but it doesn’t accept .flv files as input so googling [a lot] around I found an interesting article Flash Video Editing Made Simple where I got the link to RichFLV Video Editor that appears to be a free AdobeAir plug-in that installs automatically AdobeAir also. Within RichFLV I should have been able to edit my .flv file importing an mp3 music file and merging them together, but I hadn’t handy any mp3 file suitable for the job, since I always use the free music files available inside Pinnacle12.

Actually I could have probably been able to create an audio mp3 file by Pinnacle (more or less as the music background of an “ampty “video file) and import it into RichFLV, but I didn’t think of it and so I started looking for a different solution to my problem.

Inside the same Flash Video Editing Made Simple web page I found the link to download Super Video Converter and started a few trials to convert my .flv file into a format accepted as input by Pinnacle12 (avi, mpg, mov). I got error converting .flv into .mov or .mpg while Super worked fine converting .flv into .avi. Nonetheless I got stuck because Pinnacle12 could play the resulting .avi file in the preview window but not load in the editing (album) area.

Long story short I managed to have a .avi file that Pinnacle12 was able to load and edit with following setting for Super:

Super Video Converter setting

Then I have been able to add music inside Pinnacle12 and create a .flv file as output

How to install PHP and Apache

A few days ago I crossed a book with a fascinating title “Beginning PHP6, Apache, MySQL 6 Web Development” edited by wrox  about creating dynamic web sites and I couldn’t refrain from buying it.

First it teaches you how to install the three programs starting with Apache downloaded from http://www.apache.org. Following the instruction it worked fine then it was the turn of PHP downloaded from http://www.php.net Things didn’t work so I went on to the “Beginning PHP6, Apache, MySQL 6 Web Development” web support were I found many people with the same problem and yet no answer. I have found my way to the answer through one of the posts that linked to this fine article inside sitepoint web site. Here you get the right hint about thread-safe vs. non-thread-safe PHP5.3  installation and moreover you get the link to the other sitepoint article How to install PHP on Windows where it tells how to configure PHP5 editing php.ini and above all how to configure Apache2.2 to load PHP as a module editing Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf

All in all it’s not too different from what said the book but this works and that doesnt!

 

Download video from Youtube using www.savevid.com

Note: the simplest way to download videos from You tube has already been described in this site, see the previous post  “The simplest (?) way to download videos from Youtube: Real Player”. So please first read such post and consider what follows only in case Real Player would’t be available.

By www.savevid.com you can download the Youtube videos (and the videos from many other web sites) in their compressed .flv format. Then you need a .flv file player and you can download one from www.savevid.com itself.  Let’s see how.

As an example we’ll use the video on You tube Zambelli channel www.youtube.com/zambellipackaging titled Twin Lane Bundler Zambelli LFT800/50 with URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAdjuOiaS-A

To download the video onto your PC just follow the tips:

1)browse to www.savevid.com

2)paste in the white field the uniform resource locator (URL) of the video as copied from the video web page address field http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAdjuOiaS-A and press Download

3)you will be shown the screen below where you have to choose among three types of download (flv, mp4, HD); choose HD to get best quality

4)you will be shown the screen below and asked where to save the downloaded file. Just remember where you save it!

5)the download bar will appear and stay a few minutes

6)what you’ve got now is a .flv file saved in your PC’s hard drive; you need a .flv file player to see it and you can download a free one. Browse back to www.savevid.com and in the main page below among the three options Download, Convert and Play click on Play

7)you will be shown the screen below. Click on Get it Free

8)then you are shown the screen below. Click on Download

9)then you are shown the screen below and asked where to save the .exe file that you will run later to install the player. Just remember where you save it!

10)when the downloading is completed browse your PC to where you have saved the .exe file and double click on it. You will get the screen below. Click to proceed with the installation. Don’t worry, it’s safe!

11)you will go through a few screens during the installation, just click to proceed until you get to the screen below where they ask you if you want the Ask toolbar. Un-check the field since it’s just one more annoying search bar with nothing to do with the .flv player, then click next to proceed

12)eventually you have got your .flv file player installed and listed among all your other programs, the program name is Appliant flv player. Launch it

13)the program main screen appears as here  below

14)I suggest to click on Settings on the left low corner and when you are shown the screen below to check the two fields use video smoothing when scaling and mantain framerate in fullscreen mode since the improve quality; then click ok to save.

15)you are done! Just follow the instruction on the flv player screen to open the video that you had downloaded from Youtube at step 4 of this process. I hope you still remember where you have saved it!

The simplest (?) way to download videos from the internet: Real Player

I had been using www.savevid.com for a while to download videos from youtube. But when I wanted to download from a different web site (www.video.mediaset.it) I got denied and so I had to google a little bit before learning in this blog http://parsifal32.blogspot.com/2009/04/come-scaricare-i-video-di-mediaset-dal.html a really simple way: using RealPlayer, just the basic free version. Actually it didn’t work until I realized I had to set my ZoneAlarm free firewall to grant permission to Real to access the trusted zone and the internet. Fixed that I had just to copy the video’s URL and paste it into Real’s URL navigation field an I started watching the video while being asked if I wanted to download it. When I said yes I  got a flash FLV file saved by default into my …/document/video/Realdownload/ . I also needed to edit the video and since my Pinnacle studio doesn’t accept FLV I have used Total Video Converter www.effectmatrix.com/total-video-converter to convert it into an AVI or WMV editable file that by default is saved in C:/programmi/Total video converter/converted/