1. Get MAMP up and running, no special setup is needed here.
2. Download Zend Framework and place it wherever you’d like. I actually retrieved my copy via SVN so that I can easily upgrade it later. To do this open up terminal and follow these commands:

   cd /Applications/MAMP/
   mkdir svn
   cd svn
   mkdir zendframework
   cd zendframework
   svn checkout http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/trunk
   

3. Now open your php.ini file located under /Applications/MAMP/conf/php5/php.ini
4. Search for include_path (around line 411 on mine) and add the location of your zend framework:

   include_path = ".:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php:/Applications/MAMP/svn/zendframework/trunk/library"

   Make sure to include the library directory otherwise you’ll get a blank page in Zend Framework

5. Zend Framework also comes with a shell script that will help you with RAD (Rapid Application Deployment), you can create a shortcut to Zend Tools in terminal by adding an alias to your profile under /etc/profile (thanks DS for pointing this out) and make sure to restart terminal after you’ve done so:

   alias zf=/Applications/MAMP/svn/zendframework/trunk/bin/zf.sh

6. Test if the Zend Tool is installed correctly by showing the version:

   zf show version

7. Finally navigate to the directory you’d like to create your first project in:

   cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/

   and with Zend Tool creating a project is simple:

   zf create project test

What is Zen Coding?

From a general perspective Zen Coding is simply the practice of making lightweight and reusable code to allow for peaceful coding and debugging (that’s my definition anyways). There has been a movement in the front-end development community towards finding new ways to use CSS with semantic markup in order to produce the desired layouts and styles. Now Sergey Chikuyonok has taken that to a whole new level. He’s reversed the idea of Zen Coding using HTML markup to generate CSS Selectors and allowed us to create our markup from using CSS Selectors. This might seem confusing, so lets look at some code:

Plain and simply put, the Zen Coding plugin (supported on multiple text editors) translates code like this:

div#header>ul.nav>li*5

into this:

<div id="header">
	<ul class="nav">
		<li></li>
		<li></li>
		<li></li>
		<li></li>
		<li></li>
	</ul>
</div>

.. and yet, this is still nothing folks! Dive in deeper over at Smashing Mag

Download the YUI Compression AppleScript

The AppleScript Source:

on run
	tell application "Finder"
		set this_item to choose file with prompt "Choose CSS or JS file:"
		set dir to the selection as alias
	end tell
	set mypath to posix_path(this_item)
	set dirpath to posix_path(dir)
 
	runCompression(mypath, dirpath)
end run
 
on posix_path(mac_path)
	set mac_path to (mac_path as text)
	set root to (offset of ":" in mac_path)
	set rootdisk to (characters 1 thru (root - 1) of mac_path)
	tell application "Finder"
		if (disk (rootdisk as string) is the startup disk) then
			set unixpath to "/" & (characters (root + 1) thru end of mac_path)
		else
			set unixpath to "/Volumes:" & mac_path
		end if
	end tell
	set chars to every character of unixpath
	repeat with i from 2 to length of chars
		if item i of chars as text is equal to "/" then
			set item i of chars to ":"
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to ":" then
			set item i of chars to "/"
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to "'" then
			set item i of chars to "\\'"
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to "\"" then
			set item i of chars to "\\" & "\""
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to "*" then
			set item i of chars to "\\*"
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to "?" then
			set item i of chars to "\\?"
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to " " then
			set item i of chars to "\\ "
		else if item i of chars as text is equal to "\\" then
			set item i of chars to "\\\\"
		end if
	end repeat
	return every item of chars as string
end posix_path
 
on runCompression(mypath, dirpath)
	tell application "Terminal"
		do shell script "java -jar " & dirpath & "yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar " & mypath & " -o " & mypath & ".min.js"
	end tell
end runCompression

If you like this YUI Compression AppleScript please do share that with me, as praise is my sole motivation for producing scripts for others. I’ve only skimmed the surface of applescript, but with so few scripts out there that meet the needs that I have, I’m sure I could quickly make some other web developer tools for Mac as well.

So blog this if you like it and support it, and give some credit to the maker of this video, svdomer09.

Kazaa and Limewire are DEAD

It’s amazing to me how many people are still using the old method (pure) Peer to Peer (P2P) which connects a user directly to other users to download software, music, movies, and other media. Peer-to-peer applications such as limewire, kazaa, morpheus, ares, and others, were popular through the late 80′s and early 00′s. Many people still recognize and remember these popular names of programs and when they decide they want to download a song, they often go looking for what they know. But using these legacy programs could cost you.. a lot. I’m sure everyone reading this post has heard of the Music Industry’s attack on downloading and P2P as it’s been all over the news for the last few years. These media industries are finding and suing individuals for downloading media illegally and the easiest way for them to execute these seek-and-destroy lawsuits is to use a rapid spread environment like legacy P2P applications (to classify legacy, I’m referring to 1st-3rd generation P2P). Let me give you a hypothetical which is the most common model for these seek-and-destroy lawsuits to use:

You hear a song on the radio that you really want. It’s a very popular song and you know you’ve seen it all over the net, but haven’t been able to find a site to download it from for free. You know that you could probably download it the way your friends have been doing it for years.. let’s think.. well, you don’t know much about how they download, but you know they use a program called limewire. Or maybe you even used limewire a few years ago, but stopped for whatever reason for a time.

So you google and find a copy of limewire to download and install. You run it and search for the song. Minutes later your song appears to be downloaded and working just fine. It’s shows a full 3 minutes or so, and even the file size seems to be a normal mp3 size. Let’s pretend you even go one step further to be safe and run a virus scan, and the file appears to be okay. So you open it up in your music player, and nothing plays, it’s just blank. You mess around with it for a bit, and then give up and delete it, thinking it must just be a dud.

Stop the hypothetical. What you just did was download a trojan, a file that appears harmless but opens a “back door” on your computer allowing someone to enter in silently. Many media industries now have the right to compromise your computer and then scan and find just how many files are illegally downloaded on their. They gave them this right by downloading and opening that music file. You knew it wasn’t legal, but you did it anyway. That’s all the justification that empowers them to come at you and sue you for all the music you own illegally. This has happened to a large number of legacy P2P users and is still happening in the present. It’s no joke, and it’s something to be worried about.

But there’s hope.. say hello to Torrents

Bram Cohen invented a technology called BitTorrent in 2001 which allowed for P2P to become a safe place again. BitTorrent is a P2P file-sharing protocol used to distribute large amounts of data in smaller segments and is one of the most common protocols for file transfer. By some estimates BitTorrent accounts for almost 50% of all traffic on the entire Internet [source]. On top of that, isoHunt estimates the total amount of content/media is currently more than 1.2 petabytes. Those numbers are frightening to some and encouraging to others, take it as you will.

How BitTorrent works

Torrents start first with a seed. The initial distributor of the file(s) acts as the first seed. Each peer who downloads the seed also uploads them in segments to other peers, which allows for a highly efficient transferring across many users. Picture torrents as a puzzle, a minimum of one completed puzzle or seed is needed to begin spreading the pieces among thousands of users/peers and the addition of more seeds increases the likelihood of a successful connection exponentially. This meaning that if out of 3 peers you are PERSON A and you need PIECE 3, if PERSON B doesn’t have it, you check another peer. Once you find one, such as PERSON C, you can then retrieve that piece from that peer. Once all the pieces are retrieved, your application completes the puzzle and you have a final result of the file you were trying to attain. Relative to standard Internet hosting, this provides a significant reduction in the original distributor’s hardware and bandwidth resource costs as well as provides redundancy against system problems and reduces dependence on the original distributor. From a legal standpoint this has advantages as well, because rather than downloading song.mp3 which is clearly a music file, you are instead simply downloading segments of data, which can be argued in court on whether those segments make song.mp3 or are simply random bits of data that could make anything. I’m sure this would make sense why it would be harder for the media to inject their Trojan Files as well.

So am I safe using torrents?

While torrents aren’t completely safe from the media, they are even less safe from viruses. Don’t misunderstand me in that statement, however, because torrents are still quite a bit safer than the legacy methods of P2P. The original seeder can still inject a virus or trojan into whatever file they’re sharing, so it’s best to read comments or information about the tracker/seed and see what others are saying. Generally if it’s had a few downloads, it will also have a few comments and peers are your best defense. Overall torrents are the 4 generation of P2P file sharing, and are much safer than old methods.

I feel good about it, where do I go now

There are many torrent applications out there as well as many torrent search engines. I’m going to provide my bias opinions in my recommendations, but here is a non-bias torrent software listing.

Vuze

Vuze (formerly know as “azureus”) is a cross-platform torrent application that installs if JAVA is enabled. It may be slightly slower than other applications for initial load times and memory used, but for the average user, it’s well worth it for a better interface and built in search functionality that will most likely eliminate your need to search anywhere else.

uTorrent

Known as both “u-torrent” and “micro torrent”, this is the most popular torrent tool today. uTorrent is lightweight and fast, however is limited to Windows. While many prefer uTorrent, I find it to be a little less than Vuze.

BitComet

This application used to be my favorite, and it’s still up there, but it’s just doesn’t stand-up to how lightweight and simplistic uTorrent is.

Torrent Search Engines

If you’re having trouble finding a torrent, you can always manually look in different torrent search engines. Here are the best ones according to about.com:

• Special Mention: SpiralFrog – while not directly a torrent site, spiralfrog offers membership-only free and legal music downloads using a very special license-renewal concept
• Gpirate – is getting rave reviews from several About.com readers
• Mininova – is the successor to Supernova, one of the original big torrent databases of the Web
• Torrent-finder – several readers from the central USA submitted this site recently. This site is gaining a bigger readership every day
• Demonoid – is now back online! They have established themselves outside of the USA this spring 2008, and have resumed torrent operations. Demonoid is still a private community, and members are held liable for any leeching that their invited friends do in this community. If you are lucky enough to get a Demonoid membership, invite your friends carefully, lest you lose your own membership.
• Isohunt – in a shocking turn of the tables this September, the Isohunt webmaster is counter-suing the Canadian music industry. He is claiming that previous copyright violation suits against him were unfounded, and that he is entitled to have his legal expenses recovered.
• The Pirate Bay – by readership size, is the most popular torrent search site today. Pirate Bay also has an immense database of 600,000+ torrents, the single largest database available on the web.
• Bitsoup – is a growing favorite amongst P2P downloaders. As the trend towards private torrent sharing continues, you will need to signup and join as a member to participate in the Bitsoup swarm.
• Torrentscan – is a search engine that searches other torrent search engines

Some more reading

• View the full list of top 35 Torrent Search Engines on About.com
• Complete Comparison of BitTorrent Clients
• Complete Comparison of all P2P Software

So installing OS X on a laptop isn’t anything new, and most are finding the rewards well worth the time and effort it takes to install. This is my second successful install on a dell (with the previous being a Dell m1330) and has been far easier.

My hardware is as follows:

• 1.6 GHz with 1G RAM
• Broadcom 440x ethernet
• Intel 3945 a/b/g Wireless
• Intel 965 Express Graphics
• Sigmatel Audio 95xx Audio

I’m going to keep this brief and to the point, but if anyone has any questions, feel free to post them here and I’ll answer as best as I can, or check out this thread with a step by step guide.

First, get the iAtkos v4i dvd. I installed with just the vanilla kernel (9.4.0) and ethernet (broadcom 440x) installed on installation. Once installed I had to boot with -x (safemode) flag to get video to work on internal monitor. I then deleted the AppleIntelGMAX3100.kext from system/library/extensions which allowed me to boot without safe mode. .

I then downloaded the DellPackage and installed the audio for Sigmatel 9205 (works with Dell Vostro 1700 also), the video for Intel 950, AppleSMBIOS for Macbook (this is key for stuff like Creative Suite and other programs to install and behave properly) and then the Media Keys Enabler.

So now everything is working on my Dell Vostro 1500 except internal wireless, which could be a while before that’s working. That’s all i really have to report for now. I hope that it helps someone, feel free to hit me up and tell me your struggles and successes or if this post helped you (if i get a decent amount of feedback I may start helping others and investing more time into building/supporting Hackintosh and the osx86 project.