he environment has three basic elements: the operating system, the text editor and the test environment. The operating system is not really important as long as you're used to it, and this also applies to the text editor. [...] Unfortunately a lot of organisations have rules over rules that stop you from having your perfect environment. [...] How are you supposed to have a PHP test environment under Windows/MaxOS that is similar to your production Linux? The answer is quite simple: virtualisation.

He suggests using VMware to create a virtual environment (or multiple environments) for your development. They can even potentially share a folder on the drive so you can test the same code in multiple environments. He also includes a step-by-step guide that'll have you up and running in no time. Obviously, you'll need a copy of your OS of choice to install from once the VMware instance is all set up.

Among those on the list, included are:

• PHP Edit
• ActiveState Komodo
• EditPlus
• PHPEclipse
• BBEdit

Each of the editors on the list is linked to the php-editors.com review for it, giving you more information than just the version, license, OS, and general rating in Justin's post.]]> Fri, 31 Mar 2006 07:03:45 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4882 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4882 this new post showing how to correct an issue that a PHP/MySQL install has with the OS X version 10.4.

I recently upgraded my mac to OS 10.4. Overall I've been pleased. Recently I decided to fire up PHP and mySQL and ran into some trouble.

Everything was moving along nicely - until I tried to connect to my database from a PHP page. To make a (really) long story short, a bunch of research revealed that since OS 10.4, the PHP install tries to connect to mySQL via the socket: /var/mysql/mysql.sock, but mySQL uses /tmp/mysql.sock. So they won't talk to one another. The trick is to change your php.ini to point to /tmp/mysql.sock.

Included is also a mini-guide to getting PHP working on OS X, and how he solved his problem (where to find the php.ini and change the value it needed).]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2006 07:06:10 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4669 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4669 this latest post on PHPMac.com today, there's a step-by-step guide on how to install Apache 2.2.0 and PHP 5.1.2 together on one of the latest versions of Mac OS X - 10.4.4.

For anyone that has been wishing to switch to Apache 2 on their Mac, this is the time to do it. PHP 5 has also recently been updated to 5.1.2 and this tutorial describes in detail, the best method to both build and install these programmes on your Mac.

Since Apple don't include Apache 2 with OS X yet I have felt it better to keep Apache 2 in its own directory, and to keep PHP for Apache 2, etc. confined the that directory too.

They a quick new post with a solution for those Mac users out there that would like to use the iconv extension with fink.

If you want to get the iconv extension properly running with PHP 5 and fink on OS X, you need the following configure option

--with-iconv=/sw/

and then it should work.

Hope that helps others, too.

And, apparently, it does - given the one comment below it so far that has a positive response... ]]> Fri, 06 Jan 2006 07:23:47 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4501 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4501 Mike Naberezny talks about how he optimized Zend Studio on his Mac OS X installation.

Recently, I purchased a Mac mini and started using it as my home computer. Overall, it is a pretty nice little machine but its 1.42 GHz G4 processor isn't the fastest thing out there. On some larger applications, such as Zend Studio, it is a little sluggish. Fortunately, there are two things that you can do with Zend Studio to get an immediate performance increase.

The first of the two is simply changing an option for the time on code completion. The other, however, it a bit more detailed - it requires you to assign more memory to the application by going through some of the system folders...]]> Wed, 14 Dec 2005 07:31:57 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4400 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4400 PHPMac.com today, they have this new tutorial posted to help you, the OS X (Tiger) user to get Apache 2 and PHP 5.1.1 installed on your system.

For anyone that has been wishing to switch to Apache 2 on their Mac, this is the time to do it. PHP 5 has also recently been updated to 5.1.1 and this tutorial describes in detail, the best method to both build and install these programmes on your Mac.

Since Apple don't include Apache 2 with OS X yet I have felt it better to keep Apache 2 in its own directory, and to keep PHP for Apache 2, etc. confined the that directory too.

As usual, they give you all of the commands and information to get it all unpacked, placed in the right locations, and configured for your setup. There are also a few "frequent issues" down near the end of the tutorial to watch out for during your process...]]> Wed, 30 Nov 2005 07:11:52 -0600