Lets say you finish the site, upload the files from your WAMP folder www, and export you database and put it on your live database and all is fine. Then the client wants a new page or some changes done. So you download all the files to your www folder but instead of logging into your hosting and exporting the live database and importing it to your localhost you want to just connect to it from your www folder on your compute. So that’s -

local files ….. connecting to live database ….. previewing changes at localhost/sitename

So you can make changes to your site without editing the live sites files, just in-case you mess it up and people are looking.

One error i always get when doing this is -

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: mysqlnd cannot connect to MySQL 4.1+ using the old insecure authentication. Please use an administration tool to reset your password with the command SET PASSWORD = PASSWORD(‘your_existing_password’). This will store a new, and more secure, hash value in mysql.user. If this user is used in other scripts executed by PHP 5.2 or earlier you might need to remove the old-passwords flag from your my.cnf file

Now I sat for about four hours trying to change this so called old style password but it just didn’t work. I think it might be a live server issue rather than something I can change on my localhost. So the easiest solution I could find was to add a password to my localhost and downgrade my WAMP php and Apache versions.

On thing to note is that your WAMP must be installed in the C:\ drive or somewhere where there is no spaces in the path name. C:\Program Files\ wont work.

If you go to localhost phpmyadmin and do an sql statement.

UPDATE mysql.user SET password=password(“newpassword”) WHERE user=”root”;
Flush Privileges;

Now go to C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.4.9\config.inc and in this file find the line below and add in your new password. Mine was the word password (easy to remember)

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = ‘password‘;

Save.

Left click on your WAMP logo in the task bar, go to php, version, get more…

Do the same for Apache.

Php version 5.2.11 and Apache version 2.0.63 are compatible and run together for me. If they aren’t listed on WAMP’s extensions you can go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/wampserver/files/WampServer%202%20-%20Extensions/

Download them. Stop and exit WAMP. Double click the dowloaded  installers and run them both. When WAMP starts up again, go to php, versions, and click 5.2.11, and the same with Apache choosing 2.0.63.

You might need to Stop All Services and Start them again but the WAMP logo should go green and you will be able to connect to a remote database without having to set up a local database or change any configuration files.

So a friend of mine text me and says, “you want to go see Avenue Q”, and my reply was, “I’ve never heard of them”. After a bit of googling I find its a show not a band, lol, and has puppets in it. The best way to describe it is an adult version of the Muppets.

So I went to see it yesterday at the Play House in Edinburgh, which is an amazing venue, never been there before, and it was fantastic. Not really one to take the whole family to but it was so funny and the cast were brilliant singers. There are some really good sounds in it and if you have a moment you should YouTube them because they are hilarious. Really recommend seeing it if you get the chance.

A cool website for laying out quotes -www.wordle.net

Here are the results.

Ok i’ll go into a little more detail. With WebOS the interface is what it should be….. user friendly! Every application is opened in its own little window. When you want to close an application you get rid of that window (flick it off the screen).

With Android each application opens and then you close it, but wait oh its not closed and others are mysteriously running. WTF. So you download Advanced Task Killer app, very hand, and this shows that a whole bunch of app’s are running when you can’t see them in a window or didn’t open them. Annoying.

I’ll admit my Galaxy S2 is much faster than my Palm Pre ever was, the battery kicks its ass (once i figured out how to stop all the social apps syncing all the time and downloaded Advanced Task Killer), the camera is amazing and the app store is huge. But my Palm linked everything. My Facebook to my calendar and contacts, Flixster to my calendar, my emails to my calendar so that I knew exactly what I was doing that day. It was really simple to connect things and control syncing. The way an interface should be.

If someone actually put WebOS on a fast phone with a decent camera, and then convinced a UK service provider to sell it i’d buy it every time.

The room was divided into areas, Xbox, Playstation etc and then the huge games had there own stalls. The first place we went was MW3, and after queuing for about an hour and a half (which wasn’t bad!) we got into play it. I say we, I stood and watched, but it was still pretty cool. Once that game was played we just wondered about the rest of the afternoon and had some fun.

Overall my favourite game was the new F1. Mainly because you got to sit in a racing chair with pedals to play it, but the graphics were amazing. A close second was the new Mario Kart for the DS. Really good fun.