Author name: Trav

Microsoft Windows, Tech Tips, Web Development/Programming

What to do if XAMPP for Windows won’t load anything under localhost

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I’ve used XAMPP for Windows on my laptop as a testing server for over a year with no problems. Today, though, I started the Apache and MySQL services as I have many times in the past only to find that both localhost and 127.0.0.1 did not work in my browser. Here’s some of the things I tried that did no good and some notable facts:

  1. I tried localhost:80 and 127.0.0.1:80 with no effect
  2. I disabled the Windows firewall. No dice.
  3. I uninstalled the Apache service. No change.
  4. I uninstalled/reinstalled XAMPP multiple times with multiple versions. No change.
  5. When I would put localhost in the browser, I did not receive a "Page cannot be found" error. Instead, the status bar would indicate "Waiting for localhost." I waited more than ten minutes to see if anything would happen at one point. Nothing did: The screen remained white.
  6. It didn’t matter what browser I used. IE, Firefox, and Opera all sat there and waited while nothing happened.
  7. I have made no system changes since the last time I ran XAMPP except for the regular barrage of Windows Updates.

While I don’t know exactly what broke my XAMPP installation, I can almost guarantee that a Windows Update killed it. I know Microsoft can’t keep every program under the sun from breaking with its updates, it could do a better job of telling you exactly what each update does without having to dig through 500 lines of the KB articles. Anyway…

I managed to fix the problem, as per this article posted in the Apache Friends forums. In the C:\program files\xampp\apache\bin\httpd.conf file, I added the following line:

Win32DisableAcceptEx

From the best I can tell, this has something to do with Apache’s interaction with Windows’ WinSock 2 API. I’d say some security update managed to fix a problem in WinSock but break Apache. It makes me feel really stupid that I don’t know exactly what caused the problem or exactly how the solution actually fixed it. I’m just glad everything is working now. I can actually get to work on the project I needed the server for in the first place.

Personal Updates

The Best Desktop Wallpapers on the Internet

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One of my favorite places on the Internet is Digital Blasphemy.com. This site is by far the place to get desktop wallpaper. I’ve been a fan for about 4 years and with each update, I am more and more impressed with Ryan Bliss’ work. He is an amazing digital artist.

One of the coolest things to do is go look at the 2001 work and compare it to the current offerings. With every new version of software (Truespace 3D, Lightwave, etc), Ryan manages to push the envelope and get the most out of new features. This goes to show you that a true artist can get the most out of his tools.

Digital Blasphemy has free section, but I would recommend that anyone pay $20 and sign up for a 1 year subscription. The paid wallpapers are well worth it, especially if you spend as much time on the computer as I do.

Personal Updates

Superman Ice Cream is so hard

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One of the simple pleasures in life goes all the way back to my youth: Superman Ice Cream. We bought a gallon a little over a month ago at Save-a-Lot and I’ve been slowly chipping away at it. This evening, I decided I needed a bowl but I was having a horrible time trying to scoop it out. Thanks, Becca, for lending a hand. If the world was about to end, as long as I had you to scoop my Superman Ice Cream, everything will be ok. I love you babe.

Personal Updates

My Little Wife

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Today has been awful. Program Assessment is looming around the corner and it’s always very stressful because no matter how hard I try, I can never seem to do the thing well enough to satisfy the people who call the shots.  Because of this Program Assessment stress, I have been less than cheery today. I want to thank my pretty little wife for putting up with me and being supportive as always.

I love you Becca. Always and forever my love you will be.

Linux, Tech Tips, Ubuntu

Finally, easily enable WPA in Ubuntu 6.06

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The following was taken from http://www.debianadmin.com/enable-wpa-wireless-access-point-in-ubuntu-linux.html Normally, I would never repost content from some else’s site, but I’m afraid that it may disappear at some point. So, I’ll post it here. Again, I DID NOT author this content, but I’m puting it here for archival purposes just in case it disappears.

Procedure to enable WPA Wireless in Ubuntu

To update the source list run the following command

sudo apt-get

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Comment out everything other than “lo” entries in that file and save the file

Create a file called /etc/default/wpasupplicant, add entry ENABLED=0 and save the file

sudo touch /etc/default/wpasupplicant

Reboot your system or use the following command

sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart

Once you login back in to your machine you need to left-click the network manager icon in Gnome and select your wireless network It should prompts for password, type, etc and It will ask you to choose a password for your new “keyring”.

After enterring all the details my wireless network was connected and working fine you can see in the follwoing screen

Again, special thanks to the folks at DebianAdmin.com for providing us with this elegant solution.

Personal Updates

Switching Hosts

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So far, switching hosts hasn’t been too bad. Transferring stuff around has took awhile, but it hasn’t been near as taxing as I thought. If you find a broken link shoot me an email with Broken Link as the subject.

Update: I updated the DNS stuff last night before I went to bed, and bingo, the new server is live.

Personal Updates

Just Words, but So Much More

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For the first time ever today, I actually listed to the words of the Rascal Flatts song Bless the Broken Road. I didn’t write these words, but they say almost everything I feel about Beck.

Bless the Broken Road
Rascal Flatts

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn’t see how every sign pointed straight to you
Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I spent just passing through
I’d like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You’ve been there you understand
It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

Now I’m just rolling home
Into my lover’s arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you.

I love you Beck, for forever and a day.

Personal Updates

Mitch Hedberg is dead

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Mitch Hedberg is dead. He passed away on March 29, 2005. At the time I posted this, I had no idea he was dead. I was curious why I hadn’t heard any new material from him in awhile, so I visited his website. I was honestly sad when I read the news. He was really a funny guy and I absolutely loved his sense of humor. Most of his jokes were common sense that I never looked at so commonly until he pointed it out. Thanks for the laughs, man. Your odd brand of wisdom will be surely missed.

Personal Updates

Code Wrestling

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If you’re a regular visitor, you probably noticed that the front page now has a nifty little sidebar so you can see my five most recent tech tips. The whole exercise has been an effort of futility because I still have to fight with Firefox and IE 6 to get stuff to render right! I suppose I get frustrated because I don’t actively develop pages as much as I once did and I have just forgotten about how defensive you must be as far as making a change to the code, checking the renders in all browsers, making a change to the code, checking the renders in all browsers, ad infinitum.

I somehow lack the patience for this tedium now. Oddly enough, PHP tedium is fine: I’m actually getting to the point where doing a basic CSS/HTML design is annoying. The worst part is that I have an insane need to change my page every six months or so, which means I will always have to juggle the CSS/HTML render cycle. Talk about a Catch 22: Do I drive myself mad with the boredom of a current design or do I drive myself mad by writing new code? What to do…what to do…

The one thing I do know is that I really like my sidebar and that all is well in Travis land at the moment. Good night!

Tech Tips

Definition of the Swap File (or Virtual Memory)

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Computers have a limited amount of physical RAM, which can only be increased by adding more memory chips to the motherboard. Luckily for us, engineers figured out a long time ago that we can use some space on our hard disks as if it were RAM.

If you’re using a Windows operating system, the space on the hard disk set aside to act like memory is called Virtual Memory. The use of the term Virtual Memory makes sense because the extra RAM isn’t actually there (hence, the virtual part). All other operating systems refer to the disk space as the swap file. The use of the term swap file also makes sense because data is swapped from one place to another: Data that isn’t currently being used is moved from the physcial RAM to the hard disk, and data on the hard disk that the processor needs is moved into RAM. For once in computing, both terms apply.

Just as the names for the swap file differ depending on what OS you use, so does the implementation. By default, Windows systems put a single file named pagefile.sys on the Windows installation root drive. The big disadvantage of this is that the pagefile.sys file can get very fragmented and since it’s on the same drive as the rest of Windows, it is very difficult to effectively defrag. On a Unix/Linux system, the swap file is a whole separate partition that is dedicated to the swap file. The swap file partition gets fragmented much less because it isn’t competing with disk space with the rest of the Operating System. Because of this separation, the Unix/Linux method is much more efficient.

Moving the Swap File on a Windows System

Fortunately, on a Windows system, you can make sure the pagefile.sys file lives on its own partiton just like a Unix system, even though Microsoft went through great lengths to hide the option to do so. In order for this to work, you must create a partition when you install Windows (or use a partitioning resizing program like Disk Commander). Once you have a separate partition, do the following:

  • Right-click on My Computer and choose Properties…
  • Click on the Advanced tab
  • Click the Settings button under the  Performance section of the dialog box
  •  Click on the Advanced tab on the resulting box
  • Click the Change button under the Virtual Memory section.
  • Click on the existing drive that has your pagefile on it. You’ll know which drive this is because it will have a paging file size listed next to it. Chances are, it will be C:
  • Choose the No Paging File radio button then click the Set button.
  • Now, click on the drive (partition) you wish to move your pagefile to.
  • Choose the System managed size radio button, then click the Set button
  • Click OK until you are prompted to reboot
  • Upon rebooting, your pagefile will be moved to the new drive (partition)

Note: If you put the pagefile.sys on a separate hard disk, you will notice a huge performance boost in applications like Photoshop that use a lot of Virtual Memory.

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