You can easily install the mcrypt extension to PHP5 on Mac OS X Server. Here’s how:
Add mcrypt to Mac OS X (Snow Leopard 10.6, Lion 10.7, Mountain Lion 10.8)
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Category Archives: Technology
Install memcache and APC on Mac OS X Server (snow leopard 10.6, Lion 10.7, Mountain Lion 10.8)
Looking to speed up your SocialEngine, Drupal, or other PHP/MySQL web site? The combination of APC and Memcache can really speed up sites based on these platforms. If you’re an admin of a server running Mac OS X Server (10.6), here’s how to install APC and memcache on Mac OS X server:
Download and install MacPorts from http://macports.org.
Install and run Maya 2009 on Snow Leopard
Did you upgrade to Maya 2010 because you found that you couldn’t install Maya 2009 on Snow Leopard 10.6? Are you finding that Maya 2010 on Snow Leopard is flakey, giving you lots of rainbow beach balls? No worries. Ian Herzog over on MacLearning.org has the answer, and it’s simple as tweaking the Maya 2009 installer to work on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Check it out.
From the “What Are They Thinking” files: Bing on Google?
Why does Microsoft feel compelled to sponsor the link at the top of competitor Google’s search page for the term “Bing”, when the first organic search result (and 8 of the first ten) is bing.com?
HD streaming on Roku fails
Recently my Roku, attached to a new Airport Extreme 802.11n Dual Band II router, started having problems streaming HD content from both Netflix and Amazon video. It also had intermittent quality problems with SD content as well. In the past, it performed flawlessly.
Network tests (ranging from the obligatory Speed Test to ping and traceroute) seemed to work. Hard wiring the Roku to my router didn’t make a difference, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t my router.
But then, amidst my disgust, I remembered something I changed not so long ago… I changed my DNS on the router from InsightBB to Google’s new public DNS. I did a traceroute to Netflix’ content distribution host (traceroute cdn.netflix.com) and lo and behold, I saw that my requests were being routed from Cincinnati to Atlanta to Washington. Oy! (see output below)
traceroute cdn.netflix.com traceroute: Warning: cdn.netflix.com has multiple addresses; using 208.111.168.7 traceroute to netflix.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.168.7), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets 1 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 1.243 ms 0.850 ms 0.715 ms 2 74-136-176-1.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.136.176.1) 10.292 ms 7.530 ms 16.441 ms 3 74-128-22-49.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.22.49) 14.362 ms 6.205 ms 11.816 ms 4 74-128-19-33.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.19.33) 9.586 ms 28.300 ms 40.123 ms 5 74.128.9.233 (74.128.9.233) 14.796 ms 15.419 ms 14.436 ms 6 te-9-2.car1.atlanta2.level3.net (4.71.252.37) 30.392 ms 32.277 ms 32.545 ms 7 ae-72-52.ebr2.atlanta2.level3.net (4.68.103.61) 26.019 ms 23.410 ms 47.447 ms 8 ae-63-60.ebr3.atlanta2.level3.net (4.69.138.4) 37.086 ms 23.687 ms 35.168 ms 9 ae-2.ebr1.washington1.level3.net (4.69.132.86) 41.345 ms 53.264 ms 48.131 ms 10 ae-81-81.csw3.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.138) 38.460 ms 41.296 ms 55.540 ms 11 ae-41-89.car1.washington3.level3.net (4.68.17.135) 43.551 ms 47.695 ms 45.433 ms 12 te3-4-10g.ar2.dca3.gblx.net (64.212.107.61) 39.097 ms 39.573 ms 38.241 ms 13 limelight.tengigabitethernet6-2.ar2.dc3.gblx.net (64.215.26.126) 39.358 ms 42.771 ms 97.640 ms 14 tge9-3.fr3.lga.llnw.net (69.28.171.158) 44.475 ms 44.565 ms 46.384 ms 15 tge1-2.fr4.ord.llnw.net (69.28.171.193) 49.194 ms 50.696 ms 51.392 ms 16 cdn-208-111-168-7.ord.llnw.net (208.111.168.7) 48.165 ms 47.922 ms 45.886 ms 17 * * *
So, I decided to change my DNS to OpenDNS instead (it’s great…try it out! Great set of features). Voila! Now my requests to Netflix’s content delivery network are routed directly to Chicago!
traceroute cdn.netflix.com traceroute: Warning: cdn.netflix.com has multiple addresses; using 208.111.168.6 traceroute to netflix.vo.llnwd.net (208.111.168.6), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets 1 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 14.704 ms 1.160 ms 0.603 ms 2 74-136-176-1.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.136.176.1) 12.129 ms 15.592 ms 12.027 ms 3 74-128-22-49.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.22.49) 12.657 ms 8.135 ms 13.160 ms 4 74-128-16-133.dhcp.insightbb.com (74.128.16.133) 20.713 ms 9.090 ms 12.973 ms 5 74.128.8.233 (74.128.8.233) 149.239 ms 226.148 ms 239.229 ms 6 4.71.250.29 (4.71.250.29) 20.493 ms 22.167 ms 21.960 ms 7 vlan51.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.158) 22.478 ms vlan52.ebr2.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.190) 27.008 ms vlan51.ebr1.chicago2.level3.net (4.69.138.158) 22.622 ms 8 ae-5.ebr2.chicago1.level3.net (4.69.140.193) 27.992 ms 27.293 ms 39.074 ms 9 ae-23-56.car3.chicago1.level3.net (4.68.101.167) 32.908 ms 24.086 ms 20.232 ms 10 glbx-level3-te.chicago1.level3.net (4.68.110.194) 22.624 ms 25.286 ms 25.018 ms 11 64.215.29.250 (64.215.29.250) 39.314 ms 26.946 ms 23.569 ms 12 tge7-1.fr3.ord.llnw.net (69.28.172.41) 25.630 ms 29.050 ms 22.004 ms 13 cdn-208-111-168-6.ord.llnw.net (208.111.168.6) 22.039 ms 22.772 ms 23.608 ms 14 * * *
New community for independent musicians
I’m happy to announce to readers of my blog that I’ve just launched a new music community. While branded as a service for Cincinnati musicians, it fundamentally is capable for providing a really rich community for musicians globally. Check it out — it’s free: http://grooveriver.com
Enable AVI, FLV and DivX encoding in Podcast Producer
Excited at the prospect of using Flip Ultra and Flip Mino cameras and uploading the video via Podcast Producer, I was disappointed to discover that both Flip cameras wrap their video in AVI files, and use the 3ivx codec, effectively thwarting my Podcast Producer plans. Videos uploaded via the Podcast Capture utility resulted in audio-only posts to the wiki/blog server.
That highlights one common complaint I’ve made and heard about Podcast Producer — that it demonstrates it’s heritage with a decided bias for Apple-endorsed wrappers and codecs (read: QuickTime).
In my quest to use these fantastic(ly inexpensive-but-handy) Flip video cameras, I recently found out that simply adding a QuickTime plugin to Mac OS X 10.5 server provides the capability to transcode far more file formats and encodings than the stock installation of Podcast Producer allows: AVI, FLV, 3ivx, DivX, MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, Flash Video, Indeo 1 & 2, to name a few!
The solution is drop dead simple (as any Mac OS X endeavor ought to be): Continue reading
Google flagging all search results as “harmful”
Searching for GarageBand ’09 topics this morning, I noticed a pattern — one that’s virtually impossible to notice given Google’s new self-appointed role of protector of digital humanity.
Every link is flagged as “This site may harm your computer” — even trusted pages on the topic, such as pages on Apple.com. Any attempt to visit the resulting links are intercepted by Google, in effect preventing me from visiting the site. Sounds like a good idea, except it isn’t, because Google can’t seem to get it right, and Google isn’t interested in fixing sites that are incorrectly flagged.
Strap-on jet powers human flight
Somehow this article didn’t get posted when I wrote it in May of 2008. Nevertheless, it’s still mighty cool, the whole notion of individual jet-powered human flight. Strap on wings, a turbo fan, and get your flight on!
Add Google Maps iframe & YouTube embed to Apple Wiki Server
Apple’s Teams Wiki Server supports very few HTML tags out of the box, in order to keep things simple. But, like Any Good Unix Ought To, Mac OS X Server gives you the ability to manipulated things, such as adding iframe, embed, param, and object tags to the Wiki/Blog server. Here’s how: Continue reading