I have for several years wanted to set up a server environment on my computer.

I was very hesitant to do so. I figured it would be intensive if not frustrating. I was right.

If you are going to have a static web site that just consists of html or htm pages, you can create and view your site from your computer anyways, before you upload.

But if you are going to have server-side includes (SSI), cgi, perl scripts, php (not remembering what any of those stand for right this moment, basically anything that runs on the server) but you know, stuff that creates dynamic content, you need to test that it works. And you can’t do that without uploading it your server. Or having a server on your computer.

So I have always taken the easy way out and just uploaded everything to my website, putting it online. Then testing. After all, I am usually the only one looking at it. Really. Depressing.

Until Web2.0 That’s what they call it. Twitter, WordPress blogs, API’s and the whole schmeal (my editor says that’s not a word). New word now.

So my site gets noticed a little bit now, just a little. Thanks to this little Plugin when I click “publish” maybe one of my 100 or so followers will click and come over here (yeah, only around 100, I haven’t jumped into one of those automated “create a bunch of Twitter followers” deals yet, just can’t make that leap).

But there is my Feedburner account that has a couple of subscribers, plus Automated blog posts (that just jumped in there, I swear, so I am taking full advantage) and my Google Alerts for JEDsWEB is emailing me every day now.

But the real reason I finally decided to install a server environment on my computer: I am working on a project that will involve several wordpress sites, and I wanted to learn more about themes.

I went to learn The Basics of WordPress Theme Design, which says The only other quick thing we need to do is install WordPress locally

Go there to see me insert foot-in-mouth. So I have learned that I should use WAMP if I have Windows, or MAMP if I’m on a Mac.

Well I am a literal learner, if there is such a thing. This tekky stuff is not natural for me, the only way I can get it done is step-by-step. If my knowledge is assumed (see the comments) just shoot me now, I can’t get there. Not today.

So I googled for a tutorial. Here is the one that worked for me: Free WAMP Guides which provides step-by step instructions, with pictures for almost every step. Just for me!

There are several tutorials there. In addition to installing WAMP I recommend the database, password protection, backup and of course WordPress installation tutorials.

The author is also a moderator on this WAMP Forum where I got a considerable amount of help.

I now have a working installation of my server on my machine. Not before I uninstalled and re-installed a couple of times. And restoring a backup one time (that backup tutorial kicked in). NOTE HERE; I found a very nice free backup / restore program.

One stumbling block for me was that WAMP requires port 80 on your machine. According to what I found, Skype, if you have it installed, will have to be configured to use another port.

And the other major port 80 culprit is Microsoft IIS, and has to be removed from Control Panel > Add/Remove > Add/Remove Windows Components.

Okay, but wow! When I got to the remove step, it looks like this IIS has everything to do with my pc using the internet, email, ftp. So I’ve gotta cut off my computer from Web2.0 etc. to test my site offline?

As it turns out, no. After assurrances from the WAMP forum referenced above, I went ahead and removed Microsoft IIS. And roughly ten days later I still have no clue whatsoever what IIS was doing. Everything seems fine. Microsoft fluff, I guess.

Here is a video offering a different solution, maybe it will work for you:

If this seems like a never-ending story, believe me it felt that way. And I really wanted to get on with developing, enough installing so I can develop.

Of course, one thing leads to another. My local wordpress install is up and running and I wanted to try this seo plugin, which requires Zend Ioncube Loader.

I already know that my (production server (serving my site to the internet) has the ioncube loader, as it is used on my hosting site to take orders.

Back to my tutorials site: Setup Zend Optimizer and IonCube Loader on WAMP. I made a couple of mistakes here; First I did not download the Zend install from the tutorials site, second, I tried just the ioncube loader install. So I went through the process again. I still had one thing not completely correct, went through a third time.

Results:

1. I do now have a working local server
2. My plugin requiring ioncube works
3. I cannot configure WAMP to use my production server’s version of mysql
4. The zend tester (downloaded with ioncube) is rendering 2 lines instead of 3
5. Yet everything is working on my local server

So if any of you tech types have actually read this far down, please post suggestions, thank you, thank you. At this point with it working locally I expect the next hump will be moving a finished site to online.

I have posted both my problems to the forum, it seems they are stumped.

In conclusion, if you are on the fence over what seem to be a complicated task, just do it. And then stick to it. (that’s my story…).
Then use the sense of accomplishment to tackle the next hurdle.

Because it’s all just one piece of the puzzle…now where is that project?

This is meat and potatoes. Someone pass the gravy?

Note

• WAMP stands for Windows, Apache, Mysql, PHP.
  You can find guides at http://guides.jlbn.net/ to install Perl/cgi and ASP.net on your (WAMP)local server. Or Google XXAMP or EasyPHP and see if they install your program onto a local server.
• The guides referenced here also include a tutorial to serve up your site from your machine. I would exercise great caution. You pay your host to have server admins that will provide much, much greater protection from hackers, unless, that is, you are a server admin by trade. So I wouldn’t go there (besides, most ISP’s will shut you down if you get any amount of traffic, you are only paying them to connect your machine to the internet, not the other way around).
  

  ---

  Related:
  Set up a Windows test server using XAMPP from what I see, XXAMP includes perl (cgi)

There are several videos on You Tube including different applications besides WordPress, and the above cautioned serving a site from your own machine.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Web 2.0, Web sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.