Category: Mac OS X

MAMP Pro

Posted by Radoslav Bogdanovic - 2010/05/07 - Mac OS X
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I have earlier tried to use the free MAMP and found it to be useful but it had some drawbacks such as not being able to

  • Start servers on system startup
  • Easy configuration

The solution to all of this is obviously to use MAMP Pro who have all of these features but it also costs $59 to register.  Perhaps not that much but nevertheless still too much for me. Also the fact that there is a pro alternative made me feel that I was missing something and it was not that obvious how to tune everything in the free version of MAMP. I have used XAMPP instead as it just felt easier to tune and it was available for free. Anyway some days ago MacUpdate Promo had an offer for registering MAMP Pro for 51% off the regular price and now I felt that the price was more for my pocket  and I  registered MAMP Pro. I must admit that I really never had tested MAMP PRO earlier as I always was opting for the free standard version.

To my surprise everything just worked perfectly. I could not complain on anything. I could even get the postfix working. I am really a happy user of MAMP Pro. The only problem that I did have was with the postfix setup and that was due to the fact that my ISP at home blocked port 25. After some unsuccessful searches on the internet I managed to solve the problem by myself. The solution was to add the new port number 26 separated by a colon (:) to Host. In my case it was just to add :26 at the end of the Host in the postfix “Smart Host” configuration.

MAMP PRO-smarthosts.png

My Mac Mini (Intel mid 2006)

Posted by Radoslav Bogdanovic - 2010/03/30 - Linux, Mac OS X
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I have been thinking about what to do with my Mac Mini (Intel mid 2006 version). I have been using it more as a file server as I have 2 external USB drives connected. The internal HD is just 80GB and feels a bit too small to use for anything useful. I really like the Mac Mini as it is always powered on and completely silent. Actually an ideal candidate for a small home server. The processor is a dual core 1.66GHz.

Late back in 2006 I did a memory upgrade to the 2GB maximum for the device and remembered how difficult it was to open the case. At that time there were no 2.5 inch SATA HD drives with more storage space than 160GB so I did not bother to change the HD at the same time as I did the memory upgrade.

Anyway last week I finally decided that it was time to replace the 80GB HD with a 500GB. After 1 or 2 hours I managed to change the HD and got all pieces back together. I then did a install of latest Mac OSX e.g. Snow Leopard and the Mac Mini was up and running again.

Next step is to install VMware Fusion 3.0 as my intention is to install Ubuntu Server 9.10 and also an experimental Windows Server 2008 with Active Directory. Even if one can install MAMP or XAMPP directly in OSX to get LAMP server functionality then Ubuntu is much easier to install and get working with all LAMP features.