Filed under ruby

Ruby: wxRuby error (msvcrt-ruby18.dll is missing)

This is just a quick informational post, made in the hopes that one day someone else will not have to wade through seven pages of Google search to find an obscure blog answer to: The Program can’t start because msvcrt-ruby18.dll is missing.

What is happening is you have probably typed:gem install wxrubylike I did. In that funny way that Ruby/Rails likes to punish you every day, this has now been silently updated to:gem install wxruby-ruby19Remember to uninstall the old gem first. In true Ruby/Rails fashion this is not made obvious, but has now been updated somewhere in the wiki for wxRuby. In my opinion wxRuby should be defaulted for 1.9 and a separate gem should be made for older versions. Even better – have a little look and see which Ruby is running and install the right version automatically. This would save thousands of man hours and make the world a better place. I would do it, but do not yet know the inner workings of Ruby. I am dedicated, however, to one day help updating wxRuby.

Here is a picture of the error, I hope you found it quickly instead of the hell I went through:

missing picture saying it can't find msvcrt-ruby18.dll

No Comments on Apr 26th 2012

Filed under databases,linux,php,programming,webhosting

New Stack! PostgreSQL 9.1, Nginx, PHP, APC, Suhosin.

It’s been ages since I last wrote – I was ill again for some months and unable to update the site. I am now back to posting more often.

One of the big changes has been my decision to switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL. I will come back to the installation of this later, but suffice it to say it was not an easy ride given that I am running a compiled version of PHP.

 

There were several reasons:

  • PostgreSQL 9.1 (beta) supports Master/Slave replication and streaming natively with fallover. This is simply fantastic news for anyone running a high availability platform.
  • It is more future-proof especially in terms of scalability. I have read horror stories of production projects getting bigger then having to move to PostgreSQL etc.
  • I don’t trust Oracle to do right by MySQL. I already fear for Netbeans.
  • All the other normal reasons for PostgreSQL vs. MySQL
As I am using Nginx/Suhosin/PHP compiled (using Vlad’s guide) this also meant recompiling PHP to include the pgsql module. I did this by compiling PostgreSQL first, then adding –with pgsql to the PHP compile options. In both cases I would strongly recommend doing what I didn’t do first time, and reading installation instructions for both in their respective documentation.
You will also need to setup PostgreSQL with the recommended username of postgres. I didn’t the first time and it just led to more problems. PgAdmin III is a good windows interface to manage the database remotely, though it isn’t for the feint hearted, especially if you use SSH to connect to your server. So, my overall setup is:
  • Ubunti 10.04 LTS
  • Nginx 1.04
  • PHP 5.3.5 with PHP-FPM, APC & Suhosin
  • PostgreSQL 9.1 Beta
I am still wrestling with the database design, mostly due to foreign key issues and getting a design that normalises. But, I am going ahead with some site coding in order to learn more about PostgreSQL with PHP.
If anyone has a similar setup I would love to hear how it works so I can compare.
EDIT: My script is deprecated as I am now working in Ruby. See Vlad’s site for further information.

3 Comments on Jul 6th 2011

Filed under Uncategorized

Database design & when to finalise (+Coffee!)

Many-to-many?? Oh noes!Any perfectionists out there? Paralysed revisionists? Or just plain indecisive? Well if you are any of these then don’t try database design! I think I’m a little bit of all three because I have just spent weeks trying to nail down my database design.

The difficulty is that once The Project ™ goes live, if there is an underlying fault in the logic, or missing bit of logic, this means changes to the database. If it’s not designed properly then it could mean major re-writes. So I have been plodding away trying to make the thing modular, open-ended and future-proof.

But, at some stage I have to finalise and I have set myself next week as a deadline for this. When it’s done I will post a diagram of what it looks like, minus a few labels so as I don’t give too much away! I think this must be as much an art form as a science, but I think it’s pretty much done and dusted.

In other news, I found out at last that my joint problems are due to something called “Fibromyalgia” The last couple of months has been about learning to adjust to a different regime as well as databases and the project! I don’t think it counts as good therapy, but I have started drinking coffee again to help with the fatigue, and discovered and amazing device… an Aeropress coffee maker! Go look it up on Amazon – it’s the best cup of coffee you will ever have!

No Comments on Dec 3rd 2010

Filed under Uncategorized

Degree finished!

It's all over!

I finally finished my dissertation this week! I had to finish my degree part-time due to working and the last couple of bits seem to have dragged on for centuries. For some reason, my writing only flows when I’m under pressure, I don’t know why, and coming close to the deadline I just found the words somehow. I still can’t believe it’s all over – huge weight off my mind (waking and sleeping)!

I can now finally relax and put all my time into The Project ™ ;) Expect lots of new stuff on php and general web application development as I get the back end for this working.

Company mugs etc on the way. It’s over! Wahey!

UPDATE: For anyone interested, I got a 2.1!

2 Comments on Aug 27th 2010

Filed under games

Braid

Do you remember the first computer game that had you absolutely hooked? Well that’s what I think you will feel again if you play this game :) Braid is a production from an independant developer called Jonathan Blow.

Whether you are someone who never plays games, hates games, or a full-time gamer, I promise you will fall in love with this! The visuals are uniquely beatiful and the music… wow! Gameplay is something that just has to be experienced. If you like puzzles and want something to challenge, entertain and inspire you.. buy Braid – you will not be dissappointed.

At the moment it seems to be digital download only and I would recommend getting it on Steam, which I use for all my games. You might also want to read Eurogamer for a proper review :)

No Comments on Jul 16th 2010

Filed under linux,php,programming,webhosting

Nginx remote debugging with Xdebug, Netbeans & Zend Framework

It works! After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I finally got this lot to work together and can now debug my Zend Framework project remotely in Netbeans :) Firstly I should say what my setup is: Windows 7 x64 system for development using Netbeans 6.9, the webserver is Nginx running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my Linode. I use SFTP to upload from Netbeans. The steps are as follows:

  1. Enable a port for debugging on the remote machine: UFW enable 9000 (I’m assuming that like me you have ports disabled by default on your remote server and enable what you need).
  2. Enable the same port on local router and map it to the debugging machine.
  3. Next we need to get the results of phpinfo from the server, which is simply a matter of putting a page up with the line phpinfo(). Cut and past this page (not the sourcecode!) to the xdebug wizard which you can find here
  4. This will give you instructions on how to install xdebug on your remote system. Before doing this though you may need to install phpdev in order to have phpize available: apt-get install php5-dev
  5. Edit your php.ini file, which in my case was at /etc/php5/cgi and add the following lines in addition to the line the xdebug wizard asks you to (note, I already have the zend_extension line specific to my server in here, you will want to use what the wizard suggests): picture of the xdebug changes for php.ini
  6. Restart your server or restart php + Nginx. If you just restart nginx it will not reload your php.ini! This took me nearly an hour to realize!
  7. In Netbeans you will need to update the run configuration for your zend framework project. This is an example of what mine looks like: picture of netbeans run configuration

I hope this is useful to someone else running into the same difficulties :) If you are contacting me about this article please be sure to google first for help! I have updated the Netbeans wiki on this, which is an excellent source of information. You might also want to read my post in the forums about getting zf working with Netbeans & xdebug (that was a a nightmare!)

3 Comments on Jul 1st 2010

Filed under Uncategorized

Data @ Amazon AWS

The BeaitchHaving actually worked for Amazon in the past, as a customer service monkey on an email farm, I thought accessing their facilities would be… annoying… fruitless… soul-destroying… less than perfect. I’m disappointed to say that it was actually really really easy. The Project ™ will require off-site data storage and I have to be sure it is accessible whenever I (my customers) want it. After much of my famous reading, I reckon this one is best. All data will be stored off-site, encrypted.

If you are reading this then you may want to take a look at their VPS on demand offerings… on demand by the hour. It’s a bidding system whereby you bid for a kernel to be up and doing your thing for x(hours). If the charge goes a certain amount over your bid then The Server shuts down when your agreed hours are over.

I think this is a great idea, but for “The Project” ™ I just need storage, and AWS S3 is just perfect for that :)

1 Comment on Jun 19th 2010

Filed under vps

42% Server RAM upgrade for free

Well that was a suprise! I’ve only been with the company a few days and they gave us all a 42% RAM upgrade for their 7 year anniversary! The first thing I did was tweak MySql and use that extra RAM :) Very happy with Linode :)

No Comments on Jun 18th 2010

Filed under linux,vps,webhosting

Google Apps

Google Apps IconAfter some messing around with the mail server I decided to move to Google Apps to provide the Mail for the site. There were many reasons for this. The first one was that it will free up my time due to not having to maintain a mail server. Also, the implementation of groups in the domain structure is great and fits in very well organisationally should this thing go commercial and we have staff. For the same reason the integrated, and shareable, calendar, documents and sites system also would save a lot of investment in bespoke systems for collaborating within an organisation. Most of all, it removes load from my servers and with a few CNAME changes puts it all googles way.

I made a few other decisions today. I am placing the customer support ticketing service and other customer facing aspects on another server. For now I am using my domain package with a well known hosting company. Better to have the two independant.

So, I have a fully functional organisational communication and collaboration system, along with a support system that feeds in to that. And it cost me… nothing! Now to get back to the code ;)

No Comments on Jun 18th 2010

Filed under php,programming

Netbeans, Zend Framework & Xdebug

What a nightmare!! Before you read any further I should say that I have managed to get these three things working together, but it wasn’t easy. For those interested in the more technical aspects of this, you can read how, with help, I managed to get this working by reading my post on the netbeans forum and checking the wiki on this subject, which I have updated.

I made the decision to go with Netbeans as an IDE as “The Project” will be a combination of a server based PHP module working from a fast changing database, a client based Java app for monitoring and many J2ME based clients running on mobile phones. Netbeans seems ideal for this and reportedly deals well with all three. Here is a diagram of what I am doing:

Diagram of The Project

Diagram of The Project

Netbeans is perfect for the Java parts of the system, but I wasn’t so sure initially of what to use for the PHP part. After reading some good reports on it as an IDE for PHP, I took the plunge and started working on a test Zend Framework module. It was then that I started running in to problems. Netbeans 6.9 RC2 is obviously a release candidate, but I would have expected them to have ironed out more problems by now. The difficulties were mostly to do with how netbeans interacts with the Zend Framework, specifically in registering as a provider, and it’s use of xdebug. Well I must have spent at least 100 hours on this, but with help we eventually figured everything out. If you are having problems with this I would recommend reading my post in full, and also check out the wiki, which I have updated. Hopefully the next release of Netbeans will make this process a whole lot smoother! I managed to get xdebug/Zend Framework working with both xampp and Zend Server CE, reliably. Don’t forget to set your project’s run parameters! ;)

No Comments on Jun 16th 2010

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