Sean Delaney

Designed for professional web developers and programmers, MAMP allows you to install Apache Web Server, PHP and MySQL with a few clicks under Mac OS X!

It comes in two versions: Pro or free edition. If you use the free version of MAMP this is how you set up name based virtual hosts:

Step 1) Make an entry in the hosts file. In /private/etc/hosts add a line for each virtual host like:

# # Host Database # # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface # when the system is booting. Do not change this entry. # 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost2 localhost3 255.255.255.255 broadcasthost ::1 localhost

You can edit the host file with pico:

1. Open the terminal
2. Type: sudo pico /etc/hosts
3. Type your password
4. Edit the hosts file like above
5. press Control-O and then Return to save the changes
6. press Control-X to exit pico

Step 2) Make 2 new directories in /Applications/MAMP eg. “htdocs2″ and “htdocs3″

Step 3) Edit the httpd.conf file which is located at /MAMP/Applications/conf/apache/httpd.conf

You can do this with any text editor you like.

Step 4) Change the end of the httpd.conf file like this:

# # Use name-based virtual hosting. # NameVirtualHost *

#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
# The first VirtualHost section is used for requests without a known
# server name.
#

DocumentRoot “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs”
ServerName localhost

DocumentRoot “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs2″
ServerName localhost2

DocumentRoot “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs3″
ServerName localhost3

Step 5) Restart MAMP and thats it, your Done!

You can access the hosts now with:

http://localhost/
http://localhost2/
http://localhost3/

“Status updates on sites such as Facebook, Yammer, Twitter and Friendfeed are a new form of communication”

I have to agree with this statement from the BBC Technology website.  I’ve noticed that i’m in more contact with my fellow freelancers, designers, developers and programmers et al through social networking websites than by email.  I’ve even had new clients contact me through Twitter instead of my contact page on seandelaney.co.uk.

Social Networking sites have become the “real time” communication protocol.

I’ve just read a post where Microsoft are claiming that the new version of their web browser, Internet Explorer 8 expected to be released next week is faster than Mozilla’s Firefox 3.05 and Google’s Chrome 1.0 web browsers!

Microsoft have even produced a report and supporting video that claim IE8 is three times as fast as Firefox when it comes to loading webpages and one third quicker than Chrome.  In my opinion I think this is nonsense as ive been beta testing IE8 since it was first released as beta and ive found it can take up to 10 secs to load a tab running localhost web applications that i’m building.

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