I set up my new Comcast Xfinity internet service today using the self-install kit. After walking through the necessary questions, it then forced me to download and install their crap-ware onto my Mac before it would register the flow as “completed”. Being given no choice, I begrudgingly ran the installer. Afterwards, I ended up with extra Comcast/Xfinity bookmarks in multiple browsers (Firefox & Safari), and the homepages for both browsers were set to an Xfinity portal page.

Fixing the homepage in Safari was easy — you just change it how you always change it. Unfortunately, fixing Firefox’s homepage was trickier. The installer disabled my ability to change my homepage back to whatever I wanted it to be. BAD COMCAST! BAD!

I did some Googling around, but nobody seemed to know WTF was going on or how to fix it. I ended up dropping into Terminal and running cd /; grep -ri comcast . in order to find the solution. Here it is: they add a custom user.js file to your Firefox profile which overrides certain settings from the about:config panel (including the browser homepage). Ass-hats! This is how I fixed it:

Fixing the issue

1. In your address bar, go to about:support.
   
2. Click the button that says “Show In Finder” (Mac) or “Open Containing Folder” (Windows). This should show you your profile folder.
   
3. Go inside of that folder, and look for a file called user.js. Delete it.
   
4. Go into the preferences, and reset your homepage.
5. Restart Firefox, and your preferred homepage should be back.

Update (2011-11-09):

When I originally posted this, it was after I had hunted across the Comcast FAQ, forums and Google as a whole to try to find a solution. Nothing was written about this issue when I came up with my workaround.

After I posted the solution to this problem and it caught the attention of some bloggers (Brian Krebs from Krebs on Security and Tim Cushing of Techdirt), Comcast wrote up the same set of instructions (although with a less anti-Comcast tone) and added them to the Comcast FAQ. While they didn’t directly rip me off, they didn’t even give me a hat tip for bringing the solution to light.

Stay classy, Comcast.

Back in 2005, I took a job with Stryker Endoscopy as a member of their Internal User Experience team, where our focus was on Usability and User-Centered Design (UCD). (I take no responsibility for how bad their public website is!) I gained some invaluable insight into the usability process and the principles behind UCD that I’ve carried with me over the years as I’ve migrated from UX and Front-End Development toward building Software Development Kits (SDKs) for infrastructure services. The most valuable of these is this:

You can have all of the greatest functionality in the world. But if nobody can use it, what’s the point?

I’m tempted to launch into a tirade against the stunning ignorance of software engineers who think we UX people “make it look pretty.” A Photoshop mockup does not a user experience make. Those same woefully uneducated people don’t understand how much science is involved in producing high-quality user interfaces — nor do they understand that if a person can’t figure out how to use the software, it’s not a problem with the person… it’s a problem with the software. As I’ve shifted toward producing developer-facing software, I’ve always maintained the notion that “developers are people too.” The administration and developer tools of some web applications are a crime against humanity. Of course, that’s what happens when you make the mistake of thinking that corporate stakeholders are your customers instead of Real Human Beings™. [I'm starting to rant. Let me switch gears.]

I ♥ Quality

I believe that documentation is equally — if not more — important as the code itself. It’s a critical part of the user (i.e., developer) experience right up there with API design and SDK design. When I was building CloudFusion (the pre-cursor to the AWS SDK for PHP), I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a high-quality documentation tool that delivered what I believed my users deserved. After searching for a good tool over the course of 2-3 years, I finally broke down and wrote my own tool that produced the kind of high-quality documentation that my users deserve. (That project is called “Vanity”, and is currently incubating).

Making It Better

With the release of the AWS SDK for PHP 1.2.4, we really tried to raise the bar for our documentation. Here are some of the features that we now provide:

• Rewrote the in-file documentation blocks to use the more common and better supported PHPDoc format instead of the NaturalDocs format we used previously.
• Complete API reference documentation for all methods and classes.
• One or more usage examples for nearly every single method.
• Usage examples are generated from real PHPT tests, ensuring that the sample code actually works.
• A breakdown of all complex parameters so that you can see what all of the possible options are.
• The API reference documentation is available in HTML, raw XML, raw JSON and Serialized PHP formats.
• Offline documentation can be downloaded as .zip, .gz and .bz2 archives.
• Intelligent search along with a class browser.
• View the source code of any method in the SDK.
• The file that a given method is defined in.
• Links out to the GitHub repository.
• Complete inheritance chains and interface conformity.
• Methods that are related to the one you’re looking at.
• Links out to PHP.net, where appropriate.
• Instant feedback, as in the ability to point out an error or some other issue directly on a page itself, instead of needing to hunt for a feedback link somewhere else in the site.
• The ability to link directly to a search query.

It’s this last feature that I’ve come to talk about today — the ability to easily search the docs from tools you already use.

Searching the AWS SDK for PHP documentation from Google Chrome

For this, we need to tell Chrome to use the following pattern when searching the API reference.

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSDKforPHP/latest/?q=%s

1. Open the Google Chrome preferences panel.

   

2. In the Search section, click Manage Search Engines…. This will show the Search Engines panel.

   

3. In the Other search engines section, fill out the fields as shown below. The URL in the last field is the one I posted above.

   

4. Open a new tab. Typing “aws[space]” will trigger the AWS SDK for PHP search. Search for whichever keywords you’d like. At the time of this writing, classes, methods, properties and constants are supported.

   

5. This will open the SDK API reference documentation. Your search terms will be pre-filled in the search field on the left. You can navigate through the documentation from there!

   

Searching the AWS SDK for PHP documentation from Mozilla Firefox

This process is very similar to Google Chrome. For this, we need to tell Firefox to use the following pattern when searching the API reference.

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSDKforPHP/latest/?q=%s

1. Open the Firefox Bookmarks Manager by choosing Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks from the menubar. Once that’s open, click the gear icon and create a new bookmark.

   

2. Firefox will present a New Bookmark dialog.

   

3. Fill out the fields as shown below. The URL in the Location field is the one I posted above. Firefox calls this a Keyword Search.

   

4. Open a new tab. Typing “aws[space]” will trigger the AWS SDK for PHP search. Search for whichever keywords you’d like. At the time of this writing, classes, methods, properties and constants are supported.

   

5. This will open the SDK API reference documentation. Your search terms will be pre-filled in the search field on the left. You can navigate through the documentation from there!

   

Searching the AWS SDK for PHP documentation from Alfred

This approach is my personal favorite, but is specific to Alfred, an app launcher for Mac OS X. For this, we need to tell Alfred to use the following pattern when searching the API reference.

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSDKforPHP/latest/?q={query}

Alternatively, you can use the following URL to accomplish what we’re going to do here:

alfredapp://customsearch/AWS%20SDK%20for%20PHP/aws/utf8/url=http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSDKforPHP/latest/?q={query}

1. Open the Alfred preferences, and choose Custom Searches from the sidebar. Once there, click the plus symbol at the bottom to add a new custom search.

   

2. Fill out the fields as shown below. The URL in the Search URL field is the one I posted above. Click Add when you’re done.

   

3. Close the preferences, and bring up Alfred! Typing “aws[space]” will trigger the AWS SDK for PHP search. Search for whichever keywords you’d like. At the time of this writing, classes, methods, properties and constants are supported.

   

The End

I hope that this tutorial helps make your use of the AWS SDK for PHP even easier! Are there some other cool uses for the SDK docs that I might not be aware of? Let me know in the comments!

I make all of my own ringtones from music that I already own. There are a few steps involved here, but overall, the process is pretty straightforward.

Getting Started

1. The first thing you’ll need to do is find a song that you want to convert into a ringtone.

   iPhone ringtones can only be 30 seconds long, so if you find something you like that’s 30 seconds or shorter, skip directly to step 9. Otherwise, I’ll walk you through the process of editing down a longer song into a 30-second ringtone.

   

2. Once you’ve selected the song you want to use, right-click (or control-click if you have a one-button mouse), and choose the option that will allow you to see the file itself. On Mac OS X, this is Show in Finder. On Windows, this is Show in Explorer.

   

3. Once the window opens containing the song, make a copy of it somewhere — preferably your desktop.

   

4. Open the file using the latest version of QuickTime 7, which is QuickTime 7.6.6 for Mac OS X or QuickTime 7.6.9 for Windows.

   

   Note: If you’re running Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard”, it’s possible that you have the newer QuickTime X installed, but not the older QuickTime 7. Unfortunately, because QuickTime X was completely re-written from scratch, its player does not yet editing and exporting in other formats. If you’re not sure whether or not you have QuickTime 7 installed, you can use Spotlight to search for quicktime 7.

   

5. Using the small arrows at the bottom of the timeline, decide which 30 seconds of the song you want to use for your ringtone.

   

6. From the menubar, choose Edit > Trim to Selection.

   

   This will shorten the length of the entire song to just the 30 second clip you created.

   

7. From the menubar, choose File > Export.

   

   When the dialog box comes up, choose where you want to save the file to (I would recommend your Desktop), and change the Export selection at the bottom to Sound to Wave. Choose Save.

   

8. Once you’ve saved the 30-second clip as a .wav file, drag it into iTunes.

   

9. From the menubar, choose Advanced > Create AAC Version.

   

10. You should now have the original .wav version, and a new .m4a version. (If you’re interested in learning about why AAC files have an .m4a file extension, read the Audio Codecs section of Dive Into HTML5.)

    Right-click (or control-click if you have a one-button mouse) on the new file, and choose the option that will allow you to see the file itself. On Mac OS X, this is Show in Finder. On Windows, this is Show in Explorer.

    

11. Select the .m4a file, and change its file extension to .m4r instead.

    

    Mac OS X will ask you if you’re sure you want to change the file extension to .m4r. Choose Use .m4r.

    

12. Back in iTunes, you can delete the .wav and .m4a files from your library. You won’t need them anymore.

    

13. Drag the new .m4r ringtone we created into iTunes. Unless you removed it in your Preference, you should see an option for Ringtones in the sidebar.

    

14. If you haven’t done it already, connect your iPhone to iTunes. Select your iPhone in the sidebar, then choose Ringtones from the bar along the top. From there, you can either sync all ringtones, or selected ringtones. If you prefer to do the latter, make sure that the checkbox next to your new ringtone is checked.

    

15. Sync your iPhone. Once it completes, pick up your iPhone and launch the Settings app. Next, go to the Sounds option. From there, you can change your various sound settings.

    

Prerequisites

• Install MacPorts

Also, make sure that your MacPorts install is completely up-to-date with:

sudo port -d selfupdate

Installation

Now, I’ve never used MacPorts to install PHP or Apache before, so I’m starting with a clean slate. If you’ve already installed PHP or Apache with MacPorts, your steps may be different. As always, your mileage may vary. For me, I develop several open-source projects, so I need things that others may not. Adjust these steps as necessary.

1. Using “Web Sharing” in your Sharing Preferences should be turned off. Currently this points to the (old) Apple Apache installation, although we’ll change that later.
2. From Terminal, install PHP 5.3 + Apache, and some other stuff. This will likely take quite a while. I’m installing SQLite, MySQL, and PostgreSQL because of my work on CacheCore, so you may or may not need those. mysqlnd is the new PHP Native Driver for MySQL and is supposed to be better, so we’ll use that. We also need to enable non-default settings for cURL.

   sudo port install curl +ssl+ipv6+ares+idn+gss+openldap+sftp_scp \
   php5 +apache2+fastcgi+pear

   You can see all available options by running port variants php5

3. The new Apache configuration file is stored at /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf while the old one was at /etc/apache2/conf/httpd.conf. Take a moment to copy over any settings you’ll want to maintain into the new Apache installation.
4. You’ll also want to include your extra settings. Toward the bottom of your httpd.conf file, add the following line:

   # All settings
   Include conf/extra/*.conf

5. If you don’t have an SSL certificate, rename your SSL configuration:

   cd /opt/local/apache2;
   sudo mv conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf-disabled

6. You’ll also want to enable PHP in Apache:

   sudo mv conf/extras-conf/mod_php.conf conf/extra/mod_php.conf

7. The new PHP configuration file is stored at /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini while the old one was at /etc/php.ini. Take a moment to copy over any settings you’ll want to maintain into the new PHP installation.
8. You’ll need to tell Apache to enable PHP support. Open your new httpd.conf file, find where the extensions are loaded (with LoadModule), and add this to the end of the line:

   LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so

9. Restart Apache. If you were using apachectl before, it still points to the old Apache, so we’ll want to point specifically to the new one.

   sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart

At this point, PHP 5.3 with Apache 2.2 and the new mysqlnd extension are all installed.

Extra stuff

1. I generally prefer to have lots more stuff installed locally so that I can worry more about developing and less about installing. Because of this, I also install a few other things.

   sudo port install memcached \
       php5-apc \
       php5-curl \
       php5-gd \
       php5-http \
       php5-iconv \
       php5-imagick \
       php5-mbstring \
       php5-memcache \
       php5-mysql \
       php5-openssl \
       php5-postgresql \
       php5-sockets \
       php5-sqlite \
       php5-tidy \
       php5-xdebug

2. Restart Apache with:

   sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart

Replacing older versions

Now, we want to continue using our command-line PHP scripts and the “Web Sharing” checkbox in the Sharing Preference Pane, so let’s make sure that those are all pointing to the new locations instead. We’ll be backing up and redirecting php, apachectl, and httpd.

1. Open up your Sharing Preference Pane, and disable Web Sharing
2. Run the following command on the Terminal:

   sudo mv /usr/bin/php /usr/bin/php.bak && sudo ln -s /opt/local/bin/php /usr/bin/php; \
   sudo mv /usr/sbin/apachectl /usr/sbin/apachectl.bak && sudo ln -s /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl /usr/sbin/apachectl; \
   sudo mv /usr/sbin/httpd /usr/sbin/httpd.bak && sudo ln -s /opt/local/apache2/bin/httpd /usr/sbin/httpd; \

3. Re-enable Web Sharing in the preference pane.

Shortcuts

Lastly, I like to set up some shortcuts so that I can access all of my important localhost stuff from one place. I’ll create a new directory called www-config and then I’ll place symlinks into it for quick access to Apache and PHP configuration files.

sudo mkdir /www-config && \
cd /www-config && \
sudo ln -s /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl /www-config/apachectl && \
sudo ln -s /opt/local/apache2/conf/ /www-config/httpd-conf && \
sudo ln -s /opt/local/apache2/logs/ /www-config/logs && \
sudo ln -s /opt/local/var/db/php5/ /www-config/php-ini && \
sudo ln -s /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini /www-config/php.ini

Update: Microsoft’s images are broken, and don’t work on anything except VirtualPC now. Mac and Linux users are out of luck for the time being. More information on the subject can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/archive/2009/09/09/running-the-ie-vpc-s-on-other-vpc-hosts.aspx.

If you’ve not yet read the related post, “Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMWare Fusion on Mac OS X,” you should. This is a follow up on how to take those virtual machines (which we’ve already done a lot of work on), and convert them for use VirtualBox.

Prerequisites

• You need to have access to a Mac OS X machine.
• A broadband connection would be quite helpful.
• A USB flash drive (or some other way to copy files to the VM before you have network access enabled).

VMWare Fusion uses the .vmdk disk format for its virtual drives. VirtualBox uses the .vdi format. Although VirtualBox can use the existing .vmdk images, you get better performance if you convert them to .vdi.

Downloading and Preparing stuff

1. Download and install VirtualBox. It should live in the /Applications directory.
2. Download and install Q (a Mac version of Qemu). It should live in the /Applications directory.
3. Download and decompress an IE6, IE7, or IE8 VMWare Fusion image that I’ve posted previously. If you need ALL of them, you can save yourself the bandwidth by downloading the IE6 image, making a copy of the file, and upgrading that copy to IE7 or IE8.

Extracting the disk image

1. When you decompress the VMWare Fusion image, you should end up with a folder containing 3 files: Two text files, and a .vmware file.
2. Right-click (or command-click) the .vmware file and choose “Show package contents.” This will open up a new window.
3. Find the .vmdk file and drag it some place that’s easy to find. In this tutorial, we’ll use the desktop.

Converting the VMWare image to a VirtualBox image (Optional)

This step is optional. VirtualBox can read the VMWare Fusion disk image format if you’re short on time. However, you get better performance if you convert to the native VirtualBox format.

1. Fire up Terminal.app. It lives inside your /Applications/Utilities directory.
2. Move to your desktop directory:

   cd ~/Desktop

3. We’ll convert the .vmdk file into a raw hard drive file, then convert that raw file into the native .vdi format:

   /Applications/Q.app/Contents/MacOS/qemu-img convert -O raw IE6-XP.vmdk IE6-XP.raw && /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxManage convertdd IE6-XP.raw IE6-XP.vdi && rm IE6-XP.raw

4. Wait. Depending on your computer, this will probably take 20-45 minutes.
5. Once it’s done, you can delete the IE6-XP.vmdk file.

Configuring the VM

1. Move the new .vdi file to wherever you’ll want your virtual machines to live.
2. Launch VirtualBox. You’ll be presented with the “Welcome to VirtualBox” dialog.
3. Click “New.” A “Create new virtual machine” dialog box will pop up. Click “Next.”
4. Name your virtual machine. I named mine “IE6-XP.”
5. Operating system is “Microsoft Windows.” Version is “Windows XP.” Click “Next.”
6. Determine the amount of RAM you want to allow the virtual machine to use. I have 4 GB of RAM, so I allow 512 MB. Adjust as necessary, but I wouldn’t go below 192 MB. Click “Next.”
7. Here, you select the disk image to use. Choose “Use existing hard disk.” There is a pull-down menu that says “<no media>”. Click the icon to the right of it.
8. The “Virtual Media Manager” dialog should pop up. Click “Add.”
9. Find where you saved the .vdi file to, and select it. Once that’s done, click the “Select” button. This will close the Virtual Media Manager” dialog.
10. Back on the “Create new virtual machine” dialog, the pull-down menu that used to say “<no media>” should now say something along the lines of “IE6-XP.vdi (Normal, 16.00 GB).” Click “Next,” then “Finish.”
11. From there, click “Settings” along the top of the application.
12. Click the “Audio” tab, and deselect “Enable audio.” We don’t have the drivers for this, so we’ll save ourselves the nag-ware.
13. Click the “Network” tab, and choose “Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop” from the Adapter Type pull-down.
14. Leave everything else as default, and click OK.
15. Click “Start” along the top of the application to start the virtual machine.

Installing the drivers and Guest Additions

1. When the virtual machine starts, the viewport will be very small. Windows also may be asking you to find drivers. Make it go away for now.
2. In the “Devices” menu, choose “Install Guest Additions.” This will load a virtual CD-ROM.
3. The setup should begin automatically. If it doesn’t, go to the Start Menu, choose “My Computer,” then double-click on “VirtualBox Guest Additions.”
4. Go through the process and install the software, then restart your VM.
5. While that restarts, switch back to Mac OS X and download the driver for the Intel PRO/1000 MT ethernet card. Download the version for Windows XP (32-bit). Copy it to your USB flash drive.
6. When the virtual machine comes back up, you’ll need to connect your USB flash drive to your virtual machine. To do this, you’ll need to drag the flash drive icon to the trash from Mac OS X (but leave it physically connected). In VirtualBox, go to the menubar and choose Devices > USB Devices > USB Flash Drive.
7. Navigate to the installer on your flash drive, and install the Intel drivers.
8. Lastly, go to Start Menu > Run, then in the dialog type the following so that you can keep the additional drivers on your VM:

   D:\VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86.exe /extract /D=C:\Drivers

Done!

You should be all set! If you want to get all super-hacky, you can check out “Create IE VBox” for geekier details.

Because of that, we need to go the long way. We’ll download the “officially sanctioned” VirtualPC images containing a time-limited version of Windows XP SP3 and Internet Explorer 6.0, and then we’ll convert these images to the kind that work with VMware Fusion (which works on Mac OS X). This should only need to be done every 3 or 4 months when the images expire.

These instructions are loosely based on the ones found at Running IE6, IE7 and IE8 on your Mac.

Update: Microsoft’s images are broken, and don’t work on anything except VirtualPC now. Mac and Linux users are out of luck for the time being. More information on the subject can be found at http://petelepage.com/blog/2009/09/running-the-ie-vpcs-on-other-vpc-hosts/.

Prerequisites

• You need to have VMware Fusion installed on your Mac.
• You need to have access to a Windows XP machine, as this is where the converting will happen.

Installing Qemu (FIRST-TIME ONLY)

1. Download a small application to our Windows machine called Qemu. At the time of this writing, you want to download the regular version 0.9.1. Once it’s done, unzip it someplace that’s easy to get to via the command line (e.g. c:\qemu).
2. Go into the Qemu folder, then into the bin folder and copy all of the files in the bin folder back to the original Qemu folder (you can simply copy-paste).

Downloading and Preparing stuff

1. On Microsoft’s website, they have a page entitled Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image where you can download various time-limited images that allow you to test combinations of Windows XP SP3 or Vista, along with Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0, and the 8.0 betas. In this example, we’re going to install the IE6/XP image but you can do whatever you need to do.
2. We’ll need to unpack this download in Windows, so if you haven’t already, make sure you’re doing this part in Windows.
3. Double-click it (in Windows) to begin unpacking it. It will warn you that it has an expiration date. On that date, we’ll have to download a fresh VPC image from Microsoft and do this all over again.

Converting the image

1. You’ll want to copy the XP SP3 with IE6.vhd file into the Qemu folder. This will allow us to use simpler, more consistent commands to convert the image.
2. In your Windows VM go to Start Menu > Run, type the cmd command, and click OK.
3. Using your deftly intimate knowledge of MS-DOS, use commands like cd to navigate to where you unpacked Qemu.
4. If you don’t know MS-DOS commands from a hole in the wall, you can download Open Command Window Here from Microsoft, install it, find the Qemu folder in the normal Windows Explorer, right-click, and choose “Open Command Window Here”. One method is shorter and harder, while the other is easier and slower. Take your pick.
5. Type the following command in your MS-DOS window:

   qemu-img.exe convert -f vpc "XP SP3 with IE6.vhd" -O vmdk IE6-XP.vmdk

   Note that “XP SP3 with IE6.vhd” is the path to the IE6 VPC file you downloaded, while “IE6-XP.vmdk” is the new file that VMWare Fusion will use.

6. Wait. This will probably take 5-10 minutes.

Configuring the VM

1. Move the new .vmdk file to your Mac.
2. Open VMWare Fusion (or shutdown the Windows VM you may already have running) and click File > New.
3. Go through the wizard and when you get to the “Virtual Hard Disk” page, expand “Advanced disk options”, check “Use an existing virtual disk” and use the dropdown to find the new .vmdk image you just copied back to your Mac.
4. Finish the wizard and start it! If prompted to upgrade the virtual hard drive, click “Yes.”

Installing the drivers and VMWare Tools

1. With VMWare Fusion running, download and decompress vmware_xpsp3_drivers.tar.gz. Copy all of the resulting files to c:\windows\system32\drivers. Make sure you install these BEFORE the VMware tools!
2. Download vmware_mouse.reg and double-click it to load its settings into the Windows registry. VMware doesn’t correctly overwrite these setting upon install of the VMware tools, and the mouse can start doing wonky things. These registry settings fix it.
3. In VMware, click Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools.
4. Follow the instructions. If Windows asks for additional drivers, point it to c:\windows\system32\drivers.
5. Make sure that you shutdown the VM and configure your memory (etc.) settings appropriately.

These instructions apply to a 32-bit Fedora 8 installation. The hardware I primarily use happens to be on EC2, but these instructions aren’t specific to EC2. You may need to tweak things a smidge for an x64 system.

Preparing the LAMP stack (and a few other things)

For FFMPEG-PHP to work, you need to have a web server with PHP support up and running. You’ll definitely need GD for image processing and mbstring is helpful in conjunction with PHP5′s built-in iconv support for managing multiple character sets in ID3 tags.

1. Install PHP, necessary extensions and supporting software.

   yum -y install php-devel php-gd php-mbstring gcc gcc-c++ libtool svn git yasm gsm-devel libogg-devel libvorbis-devel libtheora-devel;

2. Also, I like to create a directory with symlinks to important files so that I can access everything more efficiently. These will be used throughout this tutorial.

   mkdir /www-config; \
   ln -s /etc/init.d/httpd /www-config/httpd; \
   ln -s /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /www-config/httpd.conf; \
   ln -s /var/log/httpd/ /www-config/logs; \
   ln -s /usr/lib/php/modules/ /www-config/php5-extensions; \
   ln -s /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf /www-config/php.conf; \
   ln -s /etc/httpd/conf.d/ /www-config/apache-conf; \
   ln -s /etc/php.ini /www-config/php.ini; \
   ln -s /etc/php.d/ /www-config/php-ini; \
   ln -s /var/www/html/ /www-config/public-html; \
   /www-config/httpd restart;

PHP 5.x should now be installed and you should have a directory prepared that lets you easily access important files for managing your configuration.

Installing FFMPEG

FFMPEG can be fairly complicated to get running properly, so here’s what I’ve gotten working thus far.

1. Download FFMPEG source. Export the latest FFMPEG trunk from Subversion, then change to the source directory.

   svn export svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk /ffmpeg-trunk-source; \
   cd /ffmpeg-trunk-source;

2. Install x264. Export the latest x264 trunk from Git. Enter the directory, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   git clone git://git.videolan.org/x264.git; \
   cd x264; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-shared --enable-pthread; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

3. Install liba52. Download the latest version of liba52 (Currently 0.7.4). Decompress the package, enter the directory, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://liba52.sourceforge.net/files/a52dec-0.7.4.tar.gz; \
   tar -zxvf a52dec-0.7.4.tar.gz; \
   cd a52dec-0.7.4; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-double; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

4. Install FAAC. Download the latest version of FAAC (Currently 1.26). Decompress the package, enter the directory, create the configure file, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/faac/faac-1.26.tar.gz; \
   tar -zxvf faac-1.26.tar.gz; \
   cd faac; \
   autoreconf -vif; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

5. Install FAAD. Download the latest version of FAAD (Currently 2.6.1). Decompress the package, enter the directory, create the configure file, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/faac/faad2-2.6.1.tar.gz; \
   tar -zxvf faad2-2.6.1.tar.gz; \
   cd faad2; \
   autoreconf -vif; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

6. Install LAME. Download the latest version of LAME (Currently 3.98b8). Decompress the package, enter the directory, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/lame/lame-3.98b8.tar.gz; \
   tar -zxvf lame-3.98b8.tar.gz; \
   cd lame-3.98b8; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

7. Install libmpeg2. Download the latest version of libmpeg2 (Currently 0.4.1). Decompress the package, enter the directory, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://libmpeg2.sourceforge.net/files/mpeg2dec-0.4.1.tar.gz; \
   tar -zxvf mpeg2dec-0.4.1.tar.gz; \
   cd mpeg2dec-0.4.1; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

8. Install Xvid. Download the latest version of Xvid (Currently 1.1.3). Decompress the package, enter the directory, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://downloads.xvid.org/downloads/xvidcore-1.1.3.tar.gz; \
   tar -zxvf xvidcore-1.1.3.tar.gz; \
   cd xvidcore-1.1.3/build/generic; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ../../../;

9. Install AMR/3GPP. Download the latest version of AMR (Currently 7.0.0.1). Decompress the package, enter the directory, run configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   wget http://ftp.penguin.cz/pub/users/utx/amr/amrnb-7.0.0.1.tar.bz2; \
   tar -jxvf amrnb-7.0.0.1.tar.bz2; \
   cd amrnb-7.0.0.1; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ../;

10. Compile FFMPEG. Configure, make, and install the software, including all options that enable enhanced functionality.

    ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-liba52 --enable-liba52bin --enable-libamr-nb --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libfaadbin --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid; \
    make; make install;

Installing FFMPEG-PHP

Once you have FFMPEG functioning properly, you can install the FFMPEG-PHP extension.

1. Download and install FFMPEG-PHP source. Enter the directory, download the source, run phpize, configure, make, install, and go back to the parent directory.

   cd /ffmpeg-trunk-source; \
   wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-php/ffmpeg-php-0.5.3.1.tbz2; \
   tar -jxvf ffmpeg-php-0.5.3.1.tbz2; \
   cd ffmpeg-php-0.5.3.1; \
   phpize; \
   ./configure --prefix=/usr; \
   make; \
   make install; \
   cd ..;

2. Add FFMPEG-PHP to the PHP configuration.

   echo "extension=ffmpeg.so" > /www-config/php-ini/ffmpeg.ini

3. Restart Apache.

   /www-config/httpd restart

All done!

FFMPEG and FFMPEG-PHP should now be installed and ready to go. Make sure to check your error log if something isn’t working properly.

cat /www-config/logs/error_log

For those who are concerned about efficiency in all things (as I am), I believe I’ve found the most efficient way to get the snot as far away from your sinuses as possible.

1. Take the roll of toilet paper and wrap it around your hand 2 or 3 times. This is really all you need per blow.
2. As you cover your nose with the toilet paper, plug one of your nostrils to ensure that maximum airflow is being forced through the other nostril, ensuring that the greatest amount of snot is removed.
3. Do the same to the other nostril. Repeat as necessary.
4. Once you’re through blowing, you still have bits of snot that cling to your nose hair. We’ll want to clean these out as well.
5. Take one perforated square of the toilet paper and cram the whole thing into your nostril. Make sure that there is enough sticking out for you to grab. Once it’s in there, twist the toilet paper in a circular fashion. Give it a minimum of 4-5 rotations before pulling it back out.
6. Do the same to the other nostril. Repeat as necessary.
7. You’re done!

In my experience, this is the most effective way to get all of your snot out. It’s also safe to use this method without following up with a mirror to make sure that there is no snot clinging to your nose hair because the follow-up twisting is nice and tidy.