Installing PHP 5.3.5, PHP 5.3.6, PHP 5.3.7 or PHP 5.3.8 on Windows

Which PHP Version do I install on Windows? PHP 5.3.5, PHP 5.3.6, PHP 5.3.7 or PHP 5.3.8?

So you have decided to install PHP into a windows operating system with Apache because it is the best http web server around. The bigger the number the better it should be right?

Not so.

And luckily for you, we have created an easy how to install php for windows walk through guide for you. But before you jump ahead, first ask yourself if you are installing Apache downloaded from the apache website. If so, then make sure you use the PHP 5.3.5 guide when you arrive at the PHP install guide destination.

If you are using (or are willing to use) the apache version compiled at Apache Lounge, then use PHP 5.3.8 or PHP 5.3.6. The newer version is the most up to date version.

PHP 5.3.7 is buggy which is why PHP 5.3.8 was released so soon after it.

Although the install guide says it is for PHP 5.3.6, it actually points to the PHP 5.3.8 version (or the 5.3.6 version if you prefer) and will guide you through the install process and help you to troubleshoot any issues you may encounter.

Should I install PHP 5.4
Only install PHP 5.4 if you understand that it is still in Beta. That means that this version is still in testing mode and may change before an official production version becomes available for general public release.

If you are setting up a test computer for your online website. It is best to install the same version that you have on your website. How to find this out is also covered in the guide link above.

-fin

Website update

It has been said before that the websiteadministrator.com.au website was started as a test site to discover just how effective the last ten years of my part time studies of SEO bear out against the scores of "seo specialists" that are around today.

So i hand coded an old school html website with a little help from dreamweaver, ultraedit, htmltidy and a few other bits from here and there.

I use alexa as a benchmark site and statcounter for collating statistics.

I stopped pushing the seo optimization on that website a few months ago when it ranked under 250,000. The momentum still carried it to under 200,000 where it has been hanging for a few months now. It should start to back away soon until i get i get the time to be serious with it and push the site higher again in earnest.

So, what have I learned that I am willing to share with you?

What I found is that inbound links and pagerank are not high priority (though the inbound links total have now jumped in the last couple of months). Nor is the "look" of the website too important.

Content is just as important as you may have thought.

Also, there are a lot of people who claim to be expert at seo but they mostly talk about improving ad placement, how to make your ads more effective or how to buy cheaper ad placement. Well, this all can and does help drive in more hits whether you are a top 100,000 site or not. But for those of you that want higher page ranking in the first place should look at the seo course I have made available for you online.

If you don't know how to do it, hire me, I am cheaper than you might think. You can also ask me to evaluate your website too.

I will not guarantee that I can place you into the top 200,000. But for 99% of you, I will be able to get your website to freely attract many more hits.

Well, that's about all the rambling I will do for now. I hadn't posted in a little while and there is plans for some interesting stuff to soon start to appear. So stay tuned.

The fb_xd_Fragment and the FaceBook Like button

The fb_xd_Fragment
This is bit of code can appear sometimes in facebook's link back to your site from the facebook like button. However, it's not you, it's them that are creating the extra work for you.

Some sites recommend you correct this in google, bing and yahoo webmaster tools etc. Probably the smarter thing to do is to first ensure you use correctly the canonical  link rel tag. View our How to use the link rel canonical tag.

If you are using apache, you might want to include some code to get around any blank page issue. The following code and the above link are also on our web page that discusses the fb_xd_Fragment

This is the apache code we recommend at this time:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine ON
#Facebook Redirect For Added String
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} .*fb_xd_fragment.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.websiteadministrator.com.au/$1? [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

This either drops enough of the offending code or removes it completely from the browser link (use your own www address). So this seems to do the job but should probably be modified a little further. Feel free to add your work-arounds to this post.

Follow up on the above fb_xd_fragment note:
The above code seems to have correctly resolved the issue i was facing on my host. To follow the error, i was using statcounter's landing page url. The landing page is now correct in my reports. No reference to the fb_xd_fragment is reported in the landing page data anymore, just the correct url.

Zombie Cookies - Back from the Cookie Hall of the Slain cookies

Cookie Valhalla seems to have developed a glitch in it's Matrix. Dead cookies are coming back as undead zombie cookies. No, it is not a cookie with similar or new information you are looking at, it is the exact same cookie you deleted that is back to stalk you from the same place it left off in it's previous life.

We have penned an article on this exact manifestation in our two page introduction to the LSO Cookie article. The Lso is a flash cookie that can stalk you for years and years without you ever knowing it. You have to be online and visit adobe's website to set the preferences for how it interacts with you. And Microsoft has now developed their own version of this type of cookie and use it in their Silverlight software (The Microsoft version of Flash). Visit our link above for more data.

And today I thought i might expand the subject with some facts that were gathered by some people kicking around some study campuses around Berkley in the summer of 2009 and who threw together an interesting pilot study on the subject of cookies in general [click on of the four buttons to download the 2mb .pdf file].

Now, we all take what we want from a study. But here is some of the data:
Inspecting cookies set from a list of the top 100 websites, it was found that 54 of these laid 157 LSOs which resulted in a total of 281 flash cookies. And during that same course of study, 98 of these sites set a total of 3,602 HTTP cookies.

The study went on to find that some of the LSO cookies and HTTP cookies had the exact same identifiers stored in variables which of course means you can match the exact same visiting computer. They also found that some of these cookies re-spawned after deletion. Read the study your self for more data.

But what does this tell you? It can only mean that cookie cutting is essential to an excellent seo result. No?

Adwords and using phone numbers in adsense ads

Some Adwords ads are starting to appear that use phone numbers directly in the ad which is displayed in the adsense ad.

Now, this is a little sneaky and underhanded because it means the owner of the ad can draw in clients with out having to pay the adsense publisher one red cent for the service of building up his website and doing the work to allow the displaying of the ad.

What can the adsense publisher do about sites that display phone numbers in their ad?

Google gives the adsense publisher a tool to sort them out. It is called the Competitive Ad Filter. You'll find it in your adsense setup page. From there, you simply select the Competitive Ad Filter and add the url of the offending site into this list provided and that will ban them from covertly trying to get advertising on your site for free.

And the best way to do this is to fully block their site by entering the domain name without the www part of the address. for example, you would enter www.example.com/deals as simply example.com

Google aussie does it too for their $75 adwords starter kit freebie, but i let that one slide. But the other two that I found today, let's just say you'll not see those businesses advertise on my websites anymore.

I am sure some might say "But these are display ads!" to which i would say "Prove it". There isn't a way to tell at the moment, and as display ads can be as little as 50 cents per 1,000 views, i don't think the lost revenue will be much missed by most. That might explain why some click ads don't convert. But I am certainly not convinced this is true for many of these that are starting to surface.

That'll learn 'em!

How to remove Php 5.3.x. An un-install Php loop solution.

Have you had an endless loop problem when trying to remove Php 5.3.x from your Windows system? You run the install or un-install program and you are continuously told the software is unable to complete the process (install or un-install)?

There is a solution to this problem which lies in fixing the Windows registry keys. We have updated our Php 5.3.5 and Php 5.3.6 troubleshooting guides to assist those in need of a method to break the endless chain.

Installing Guide for Apache 2.2.19 in Windows

Looking for a guide for installing apache 2.2.19 in Microsoft Windows?

WAS has now published their online apache 2.2.19 walk-through guide to step you through the process. The 2.2.17 guide is now archived but still available through the same above link. This is a great release from the guys over at the foundation and comes with an improved httpd.conf file which is much for friendly for those looking at installing ssl on their servers.

The War of the Roses, a now single man's guide to the subject of separation

Ok, so this entry has little to do with websites or seo, but i'd still like to share this tale.

In 1989, Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito put their creative energies into their third film together, namely "The War of the Roses" movie. Danny DeVito always seems to be able to add that "it" factor to a movie and this one is no exception. (Danny plays "shorty" in Get Shorty which is one of my all time favorite movies to watch).

Anyway, movies can be a great way to impart pearls of wisdom and The War of the Roses has one of the best lines of wisdom you ever did want to hear (for a man separating from a woman). Danny looks, Michael in the eye and advises him just how easy it is to settle things with Kathleen "Give her what ever she wants, when it comes to women, there are no degrees of winning, just degrees of losing!"

Of course a stubborn Michael decides that there are degrees of winning and so we have a movie.

A few years rolled by and I now had a couple of kids in tow and a few spare hours to whittle away and the darnedest thing happened, i discovered a little book with the same name as this movie: "The War or the Roses" by Warren Adler. So I found myself on that winter's evening by the heat of the fire and tearing through the pages of this well written book.

And what do you know, my favorite line wasn't anywhere to be found in there. It was simply the genius addition of the script re-writers. Oh well, it still made for a great read and of course the movie adaption isn't always completely devoted to the original printed source, but both are well worth a little time out to entertain yourself with. And if you enjoyed either, you will enjoy the other.

 

Media-Wiki setup password error

When installing Media-Wiki, a default password for your database is displayed during the initial setup process. If you don't personalize this part of setup, you might encounter:

error: Check username and password

This is MySql waiting for the magic password which will allow mediawiki to access the database.

So, when asked to insert your database password in mediawiki, make sure you use the database password you used when you first installed and setup your MySql.

Why does Php 5.3 need or require Apache VC9?

Pre Php5.3.6

If you are looking to install Php 5.3 with official Apache Http Server 2.2.17 software on a Windows Operating System (XP SP3 or later), you can happily install and use Php version 5.3.5 or earlier. Our install guides cover apache VC6 compatible download and install for Php versions 5.3.3 onwards. You can select the version you wish to install from top or side menu selections. Our 5.3.5 guide carries an updated troubleshooter and other more contemporary data. This includes a discourse on VC6 and VC9 which is further expanded upon in the 5.3.6 guide.

Post Php5.3.5 

The only reason your Php installation would need or require Apache VC9 is if you were determined to install Php 5.3.6 (or a newer version of Php) on a Windows Computer that is serving the web or you plan to use this exact setup to serve your web pages on the internet in the future. The Php-Windows team (for Apache software) is currently using a VC9 Apache compiled resource for their own further development of Php-Apache on Windows software. This is a specific Windows thing and is further covered in our 5.3.6 guide.

What Web Server

So the main question to resolve here is what operating system are you running on your web server? If you have a web host, this information will be detailed in the configuration notes you were given when you signed up for your hosting package. If not, send an email to tech support and ask them what server software configuration you are using to host your website.

My website is run on Unix.. Therefore my server side software is Unix-Apache-Php and suffers from none of the limitations of a Windows-Apache-Php setup.

My work system is MicroSoft. So my website testing software setup is going to remain VC6 simply because this is the only software the Apache Website lists as an approved Windows-Apache download. Would  I ever switch to a MicroSoft as a website server? Never!

What are my options

But some of you might use windows as a website server and so this question might be more dear to you than it is to me. And this raises four potential paths of action for you.

• Do nothing, (use Php 5.3.5 or earlier).
• Change to a Php endorsed VC9 version of Apache software
• Wait for an Apache Software Foundation endorsed VC9 version of software
• Switch to a Unix/Linux or other operating system using the Apache HTTP Server that does not suffer from this ongoing issue.

Of course, in many cases, we can transfer your site and setup a hosting website package for you from as little as $100/yr* on a unix server if you want to look at the last option.