Sjoerd Maessen blog

Making sure a server is up-to-date is essential for security and performance reasons. If you have a server installed with DirectAdmin there really is no reason to wait any longer with the upgrade. Updating PHP, PHPMyAdmin, MySQL and other packages is done trough the “custombuild” script and it’s quite easy.

First make sure your OS is up to date, how to perform this update depends on your OS. In my case I’m running a CentOS server.
yum update
Make sure you double check which packages will be updated.

The next step is updating DirectAdmin
cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild

Let’s see if there are updates available
./build update

Which versions are we going to install?
./build versions

Perform the update, be patient, this can take a while.
./build versions

After the update make sure to check any feedback and recommendations of the CustomBuild script. It does perform some security checks to see if software is running as the correct user etc.

If you want to install a different PHP version, for example upgrade PHP 5.x to 7.x you can easily do this by changing the DirectAdmin config file. Make sure to first check the compatibility of PHP extensions you may need in your applications.
vi options.conf
Now hit “i” and change the values, after you are done press escape and enter “:wq” to save and exit VI. You can now run the update process to upgrade PHP.

Needless to say you should make sure backups are in place before performing any upgrade.

I passed the PHP 5.3 ZCE exam
Today I passed the exam to become a PHP 5.3 ZCE. Like everyone else I had to sign the non-disclosure contract so I can’t go into detail about the questions that were asked, I can however tell my impressions of the exam and how prepared for it.

Differences with the previous exam
The first thing I noticed when I bought the PHP 5.3 exam voucher was that there was no option to order a bundle of preparation tests. There was however a free study guide. The new study guide can not be compared with the previous php|architect’s Zend PHP 5 Certification Study Guide. Were the new free study guide gives a quick overview (including some example questions) of each topic in the exam the original study guide starts with basics of PHP and really covers each topic thorough, except for the new PHP 5.3 features. Read the rest of this entry »

Although PHP GD library handles basic image operations quite good, you have probably run into the limitations of GD library as well, it is often slow, memory intensive and a bit complicated to use for advanced image effects. ImageMagick however is a very good alternative. It is an opensource software suite licensed under a BSD style license from IM itself. ImageMagick provides in all functionality that can be accomplished with the GD library but even goes a step further with support for more advanced image edit techniques. An example of such a technique is the recently added “liquid scaling” feature, this is a content aware scaling option. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is a short comprehensive description of getting Git up and running in just a few minutes. I personally use OSX as a development machine and so the installation part of Git will cover an installation on OSX. If you like to install Git on another platform please take a look at the Git installation documentation. There are a lot of other ways to install Git, but the one described below seems to bring the least hassle on OSX.
Read the rest of this entry »

Until the last PHP conference I attended (the PHP benelux conference 2010) I used an normal Windows XP installation with a Zend Server CE installation on it at home, and yeah it worked. At the office we already used versioning, bug tracking and some other Joel points. I could see the advantages clearly, even if I was developing on my own at home but I just couldn’t find time and motivation to start converting my home server to something more serious. That is until I attended a track on the Joel test of lornajane. (Slides are available here). I thought it would be a nice idea to keep my Windows installation on the server during this adventure to pass the Joel test. Read the rest of this entry »