If you pull up a command prompt and try to use mklink, you’ll see something like this:

D:\Web>mklink /D nnnnn.com\content templates\bluemoon
You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.

Or PHP will throw this back at you:

Debug Warning: /includes/templates.inc.php line 78 - symlink() [function.symlink]: Cannot create symlink, error code(1314)


To fix this:

1. Bring up your run box, type “secpol.msc” and click OK.
2. Navigate under the Security Settings \ Local Policies \ User Rights Assignment folder.
3. Find “Create symbolic links” and add the Users group to it.

I think you need to restart your computer or something after doing this.

yum install \
  libicu-devel.x86_64 \
  libxml2-devel.x86_64 \
  mysql-devel.x86_64 \
  libpng-devel.x86_64 \
  libjpeg-devel.x86_64 \
  curl-devel.x86_64 \
  bzip2-devel.x86_64 \
  gettext-devel.x86_64 \
  gmp-devel.x86_64 \
  pcre-devel.x86_64 \
  freetype-devel.x86_64 \
  gd-devel.x86_64 \
  aspell-devel.x86_64

NOTE: You can copy that entire block and paste it, the backslash (\) will carry the command over to the next line automatically.

Next, make the folders for the configs and binaries.

mkdir /usr/local/php53 /etc/php53 /etc/php53.d


Begin, by downloading and extracting the latest snapshot. Don’t use the file name I have below, get it fresh from snaps.php.net.

cd ~
wget http://us2.php.net/get/php-5.3.0.tar.bz2/from/us.php.net/mirror
tar xjf php-5.3.0.tar.bz2
cd php-5.3.0.tar.bz2

# gz: tar xzf php-5.3.0.tar.gz
# bz2: tar xfj php-5.3.0.tar.bz2
# zip: tar xfZ php-5.3.0.zip

Now, set up all of your configuration options. You may want to adjust these. To see what they mean, type: ./configure --help

./configure \
  --prefix=/usr/local/php53 \
  --with-libdir=lib64 \
  --with-config-file-path=/etc/php53 \
  --with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php53.d \
  --with-bz2 \
  --with-curl \
  --with-exec-dir=/usr/bin \
  --with-freetype-dir=/usr \
  --with-png-dir=/usr \
  --enable-gd-native-ttf \
  --without-gdbm \
  --with-gettext \
  --with-gmp \
  --with-iconv \
  --with-jpeg-dir=/usr \
  --with-openssl \
  --with-png-dir=/usr \
  --with-pspell \
  --with-libexpat-dir=/usr \
  --with-pcre-regex=/usr \
  --with-zlib \
  --with-layout=GNU \
  --enable-exif \
  --enable-ftp \
  --enable-magic-quotes \
  --enable-sockets \
  --enable-sysvsem \
  --enable-sysvshm \
  --enable-sysvmsg \
  --enable-wddx \
  --with-kerberos \
  --enable-ucd-snmp-hack \
  --enable-shmop \
  --enable-calendar \
  --with-mysql=mysqlnd \
  --with-mysqli=mysqlnd \
  --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd \
  --with-mysql-sock=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock \
  --with-libxml-dir=/usr \
  --without-mysql \
  --with-gd=/usr


Finally, compile and install!

gmake
gmake install


Lastly, you’ll likely want to use it in Apache… Here is how I set up my domain to use PHP 5.3:

<VirtualHost 74.208.46.111:80>
  ServerName php53.mainelan.com:80
  ServerAlias www.php53.mainelan.com
  UseCanonicalName On
  ServerAdmin "webmaster@mainelan.net"
  DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/php53.mainelan.com/httpdocs

  . . .


My CentOS 5 64-bit server is a VPS from 1&1.

Final notes before we get started. I did a “yum update” to bring my system to the latest everything. And no, installing libxml2 or icu via yum won’t help you. You can skip the gmake test, it is 7180 individual tests that can take a LOT of time on slower servers. CentOS is based on RedHat, so this will likely work with it as well.


# install the stuff you need to compile

Oh yeah, and running along side PHP 5? Toss something like this in a new file: /etc/httpd/conf.d/php6.conf


ScriptAlias /php6-cgi /usr/local/php6/bin/php-cgi
Action application/x-http-php6 /php6-cgi
AddHandler application/x-http-php6 .php6


Now anything .php6 will run php6 as cgi. If you have problems with CGI or MySQL, try nixing SuExec first. If you want to use it, you’ll need to be recompile it with a special folder permission for PHP 6.

If you have the SDK setup and working, skip ahead to step 3.

1. Download the Android SDK Download.
2. Install using the Android SDK Install Guide.
   1. In summary:
   2. Pick a place on your HD and extract the folder.
   3. Go into Control Panel \ System \ [Advanced system settings on Sidebar] \ Advanced tab \ Environment Variables \ System variables \ PATH
   4. Append a semicolon (;) followed by where you extracted it to with the tools folder.
      IE: Path = …;…;C:\android-sdk-1.5\tools
3. In notepad, paste the text below and save it in that tools folder as “installapk.bat”.
   NOTE: Make sure, in the Save As box, that you change the “Save as type” from Text Documents to All Files. That way you don’t get a secret .txt append on there.
4. Double-click any .apk you have lying around.
5. Click “Select a program from a list of install programs”, then OK.
6. Check “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”
7. Click Browse and select the .bat file you created.
8. Click Open and you are done!

Additional tip: If you always install to the emulator, add -e directly after the “adb”. If you always install to your device, add -d after the “adb”.

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Selected: %*
ECHO.
CHOICE /c:CIR /m "Install, Reinstall or Cancel? "

IF errorlevel 3 GOTO reinstall
IF errorlevel 2 GOTO install
GOTO cancel

:install
adb install %*
GOTO done

:reinstall
adb install -r %*
GOTO done

:cancel
EXIT

:done
PAUSE

Fallout 3, started playing, lost my steam when I have to head across the world to some stupid Vault furthest end of unexplorer territory.  Oblivion has horses, as if nobody can get a car working 200 years after a nuclear apocolypse.

Grand Theft Auto 4.  Both on the PC (runs like poop) and the Xbox (no HD tv), I’ve gotten nowhere in single player.  I just need ambition to go back to playing it.  Unfortunately I’ve got too many more important things on my plate than playing games.  Hence why I haven’t touched my new 360 in a month.  The only thing I play is Garry’s Mod, probably because I can develop for it.  I’d love to get into professional game development.  To have artists to actually make something I code pretty would be the difference between abandon project to indie hit.

Waterworld gamemode for Garry’s Mod.  Flood sucked but the premise was delightful, so I made my own from scratch without a sandbox base.  Now that I have made it a bit past Flood, I don’t have ambition to go back an add the perks and bonuses.  I have excuses though, no artist to draw my icons and Garry is ignoring my bug reports (nothing new there).

Contracted web development and automated data entry.  Who knew there would be a high demand for this?  I’ve started two projects and I’m stuck learning everything Drupal.  For such a smart platform it is a bitch to comprehend the reasoning behind form field names.  Good thing people pay me after the work is complete.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec augue. Vestibulum sollicitudin. Nulla facilisi. Nam feugiat porttitor neque. Proin neque libero, tempus sit amet, interdum vitae, lacinia vel, elit. Maecenas dictum, lectus fermentum bibendum vulp.  Sorry NDA.

Electrical engineering… A fantastic hobby but requires a lot of cash to order new toys.  Still need to shell out $80 for a USB AVR programmer because my bloody mobo doesn’t have a parellel header.  Getting good with soldering though.

Upcoming daughter.  While I’m extremely excited and distracted by the prospect of my daughter, I just have no ambition to read books about parenting.  Isn’t that shit supposed to come naturally?Last half year at quarter-century.  While this is my last year at 25 and I’ll be starting the next quarter century of my life in June, I’ve accomplished only one life goal (see above) and absolutely nothing else.

If you can’t see YouTube, download the low quality abridged (32.8mb) or high quality unabridged (140mb).

It has always been my dream to create devices and program them.  I really never cared what, whether TV remotes, clock radios or smart phones.  I just always wanted the ability to create but I never had the ambition or money to get started.  I used to break apart my radios and other electronics that I’d find lying around.  I never fully understood how they worked but I was determined to learn something from them.  I supposed there was one thing, I learned that four 1.5v batteries powering a single led using tinfoil as a conductor could start a cardboard box on fire.  Like I’d know to use resistors when I was 8 years old.

I came across a website named Sparkfun.  They sell various “goodies” for people that want stuff cheap and in small quantities.  Not to be confused with Digikey, which just supplies components, Sparkfun has layman-termed descriptions, pictures, comments, tutorials and forums.  They also have breakout boards for components too difficult to solder.

After finding a tutorial from Sparkfun named Beginning Embedded Electronics, the dream of starting seemed within reach.  On the second page, it lists the parts I needed, it even added them to my shopping card.  Only delayed by the fact that I forgot to add a breadboard.  With my second order, I nabbed a couple black-light LEDs to play with, neat!

Soldering the Breadboard Power Supply Kit

With my new soldering iron and breadboard power kit, I began my first attempt at soldering.  It seemed to go alright.  I had to reflow some joints and straighten them.  Once it came to testing it, it was a different story.  My multimeter read 3.01V on 3.3V setting and 3.23V on 5V setting.  Not good.  I discovered that the wall wart I purchased wasn’t within the minimum voltage, 5V and the range is 6V to 12v.  Oops.  So with a 6.5V in one hand and my multimeter in the other I tried again.  15mV on 3.3V and 1.1V on 5V.   My first guess, I didn’t solder my joints properly.  Under close examination, that was the case.  My solder didn’t make it all the way though the board in several places.  After reflowing those pads and adding some solder, the final test was very exciting.  Ready?  3.32V and 5.05V!

The First Project

After making a button turn on an LED, it was time to really get my feet wet and touch the breaker box.  Pulling out my ATmega168 (basically a little CPU that runs at 1 or 8MHz by itself, 20MHz with a quartz).  I did Sparkfun’s little “make the LED blink” then “make it blink faster” using the quartz.  Well, installing someone else’s code was boring.  I wanted to interact with my new toy.  How could I make it think?

Since I had a button, three LEDs (well, more LEDs but only three resistors to use them), and elite programming skills, I’d make a little recording program.  Basically, you enter a pattern using the button and it plays it back after.  It can remember up to 128 button pressed and up to 4.99 seconds per event (a press or release).  The whole process took about two hours to debug, after I released that you have to put a resistor on a button’s pin, it went a lot smoother.

That’s my first completely custom circuit!

On day three with my breadboard, I decided to recode it a bit and make the layout a little prettier.  Here is version two:

Code anyone? nark_patternrecorder.zip

When you travel with a group, there is always at least one that makes the traveling part tortuous.  Apart from being blatantly unpleasant, everything went smoothly except for the preselect plane seats.  Miami was fun and relaxing for a night but the “travel” wasn’t effectively over until we hit our stateroom.

Anyway, more tomorrow…

Tags: Cruise, Carnival, Valor

The story is great and the lack of choices fit in nicely near end game but I was really hoping for more.  It is a kill everything you see that reminds me of the likes of Wolfenstein.  The only difference is you have more combative options available.  Playing on medium difficulty, I found the whole game to be insultingly easy.  Hints pretty much move any element from puzzles.

The graphics and the gameplay is a fresh break from everything else but I would really like to see this revolutionary combination of RPG and FPS that was claimed to rival Deus Ex.  Even the second iteration of Deus Ex has this looking like every other FPS out there with a couple new bells and whistles.

Story and combat still make this a great game, I just feel lied to.

Tags: BioShock