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Getting started with WordPress and MAMP on your Mac
WordPress is among the more popular blog publishing and content management systems available. Some web hosting providers, such as GoDaddy and DreamHost, provide a relatively seamless and integrated WordPress installation process built into their dashboards. However, if you'd like to dip your toes into the WordPress waters and learn what lurks beneath it, but aren't yet ready to make a web hosting commitment (or switch, if your host currently doesn't support it) you can get you feet wet using MAMP.
My Dad, the Switcher: Day Zero
This is the first part of an occasional series about my Dad, who, as a long-time Windows user, decided to switch to the Mac. If you're interested in the whole story, more installments are here. As far as database management and Windows programming is concerned, my dad is what you'd call "hard-core." He's been writing software since the 1960s, starting at Honeywell, then Hewlett Packard, eventually starting his own business. He is an expert with the HP 3000 minicomputer, which, in its day, was heavy computing iron to have lying around. So it came as a bit of a shock when he called last week and said, "I'm ready to buy a Mac." He and I are working on a web development project together using open-source tools. Because his workstation is set up for the Microsoft world of SQL Server and .NET, installing XAMPP was wreaking havoc with his complicated array of security software, including Norton and BitDefender. He wanted to start fresh, and work on a system without having to worry about something randomly disallowing access to port 3306. Understandable.
MAMP Pro due to ship today
If you're in the web application development world, you know what LAMP means; for everyone else, it's Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP, the core technologies of gazillions of websites and the defacto "standard stack" for any database-driven project. While every Mac OS X Server install includes all the AMP components, and you can easily install the missing pieces on a standard OS X configuration, it's always nice when someone goes to the trouble of putting everything together in one handy package.The kind people at living-e (makers of webEdition and timeEdition) have been making that handy package for a while now in the form of MAMP, a free bundle of the AMP tools that runs as a standalone website, separate from the default Apache configuration. MAMP is intended for prototyping and development but isn't powerful enough for production use. Now, living-e raises the ante with MAMP Pro, shipping today (price TBD$49 US). The pro version lets you set up unlimited virtual hosts, with individualized MySQL and PHP "sandbox" configs; you can even choose to run sites on PHP 4 or 5, depending on the target environment. The new setup tool also allows you to register your servers with dynamic DNS providers and set up the postfix email server to test mailer scripts.If you've got several projects cooking and you need more capable prototyping than the built-in Apache server can deliver, MAMP Pro might be a good option. As some readers have pointed out, you can accomplish some of the same tricks by combining the free MAMP with the Headdress sandboxing tool, or with the (still in early beta) XAMPP package; your mileage may vary.
