I am assuming that you already have Apache2 installed and working on a Windows server.

For SSL/HTTPS to work you need to download and setup the Win32 Binary including OpenSSL "httpd/apache_x.x.x-win32-x86-openssl-x.x.x.msi" on your Windows server.

If you now have regular HTTP server working follow the guide below to setup HTTPS.

Setting up HTTPS on a Windows Server:

• Creating a self-signed SSL Certificate using OpenSSL:

  Open the command prompt and cd to your Apache installations "bin" directory. Usually it would be:

  cd "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\bin"

  To create the SSL certificate we will need the openssl.cnf files location but the default location set by OpenSSL for this file is setup according to a Linux distribution, so we need to fix it for Windows.

  We need to setup the Windows environment variable OPENSSL_CONF to point to the openssl.cnf files location. It is usually located in "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\openssl.cnf" directory.

  So we can set it up by the following command or through the GUI interface:

  set OPENSSL_CONF=C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\openssl.cnf

  All files generated from the following commands will reside in "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\bin" folder.

  Now that we have the environment variable set we need to create a new OpenSSL certificate request using the following command:

  openssl req -new -out server.csr

  It will ask you some questions and you can safely ignore them and just answer the following questions:
  PEM pass phrase: Password associated with the private key you’re generating (anything of your choice). 
  Common Name: The fully-qualified domain name associated with this certificate (i.e. www.your-domain.com).

  Now we need to remove the passphrase from the private key. The file "server.key" created from the following command should be only readable by the apache server and the administrator. You should also delete the .rnd file because it contains the entropy information for creating the key and could be used for cryptographic attacks against your private key.

  openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -out server.key

  Now we need to set up an expiry date, it could be any time of your choice, we use 365 days below:

  openssl x509 -in server.csr -out server.cert -req -signkey server.key -days 365

  We have the Self-signed SSL certificates ready now. Now We need to MOVE the "server.cert" and "server.key" file to the

  "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf" location.

• Configuring Apache to run SSL/HTTPS server:

  Now that we have the Self-signed SSL certificate ready, all we need is to configure Apache to start the SSL server.

  First we modify the "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf" file.

  Open up conf\httpd.conf in a text editor and look for the line:

  LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so and remove any pound sign (#) characters preceding it.

  Include conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf and remove any pound sign (#) characters preceding it.

  Now we need to modify the "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\extra\httpd-ssl.conf". Let all the default options as it is but make sure to modify the following section according to your need:

  <VirtualHost _default_:443>
      ServerAdmin some@email.com
      DocumentRoot "Your Root folder location"
      ServerName www.domain.com:443
      ServerAlias domain.com:443
      ErrorLog "logs/anyFile-error.log"
      CustomLog "logs/anyFile-access.log" common
      SSLEngine on

      SSLCertificateFile "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/server.cert"

      SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/server.key"
  </VirtualHost>

  Make sure that "SSLCertificateFile" and "SSLCertificateKeyFile" are properly located.

  For better organizing you can also put the whole <VirtualHost></VirtualHost> section in the "C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf" along with your other Virtual Host settings there but you need to uncomment “Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf” in your conf\httpd.conf file to use that.

• Opening SSL/HTTPS port on Windows:

  Now we need to open an exception in Windows Firewall for TCP port 443. You can do that by going to “Windows Firewall” settings in Control Panel and adding a port in the exception section.

Well that was long and painful but but now Restart the server and everything should work fine.

Please feel free to leave comments if this guide helped.

Related posts:

1. Guide to Running Apache on Windows or Ubuntu After using IIS for almost 4 years now, I have...

The W3C DOM Level 2 Event Model specifies addEventListener as the standard way to register event handlers but IE doesn’t support addEventListener. Instead IE provides an alternative attachEvent method for that purpose.

It does exactly the same thing but Microsoft decided to create their own method for the same purpose.

An example is given below shows how to provide cross browser compatibility for addEventListener:

someElement = document.getElementById('divName'); 

// for IE compatability

if (!someElement.addEventListener) {

    someElement.attachEvent("onclick", someFunction);

}

else {

    someElement.addEventListener("click", someFunction, false);

}

Please feel free to post other alternatives, if you know.

If you have Quicktime plugin for Firefox, annoyingly enough, Quicktime takes control and becomes the default mp3 player for your browser and leaving no option whatsoever to change the default mp3 player. Even if you change the  Tools -> Options -> Applications settings to change the default player, it will have no effect as Quicktime has already Hijacked this setting from users.

Now, we go brute force and restrict these kind of plugins to take such controls in the future:

• Go to about:config
• Type ‘plugin’ in the filter box (minus quotes)
• Look for ‘plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types’
• If it already exists and contains a value, add ‘,audio/mpeg’ to the end of it, otherwise just change the value to ‘audio/mpeg’
• Fully close Firefox, wait a few seconds for it to clean up and die
• Launch Firefox again.. click an MP3 link..

voila! it does whatever you’ve specified in your Firefox Options -> Applications.

iTunes although does a great job backing up all the data which you can restore at any time if you have issues but if you are upgrading hardware, i.e. 3G to 3GS or a major OS update like version 2.x to 3.x, restoring from old stuff may often create unnecessary legacy files left on the system, slowing up the OS or in some cases may also contribute to battery depletion issues (This has not been confirmed yet but there might be some conflicts in the system that might cause faster depletion of battery).

So the best way to get started with your brand new system would be to connect to iTunes and select “Setup as new”  instead of “Restore from backup”. This will ensure that you have a fresh and clean system running without any kind of conflicts going on in the background.

Before you do “Setup as new” phone you will need to backup your important files/data. The process of backing up your data described below is a manual backing up procedure and would require you to have SSH access to your iPhone. If you know what I am talking about go ahead and proceed at your own risk. Backup these following folders so that later you can restore them manually after you have your new System up and running. In most cases it will be a very easy Copy/Paste operation of the following folders after you SSH to your iPhone.

The important folders that you may want to backup first:

• Notes Database:
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/Notes
• SMS Database:
  • /private/var/Mobile/Library/SMS
• Pictures and Video Recordings
  • /private/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE
• Call History Database:
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/CallHistory
• Voicemail Database:
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/Voicemail
• YourTube Downloaded Video Folder:
  • /private/var/mobile/Media/Downloads/YourTube
• MxTube Downloaded Video folder:
  • /var/mobile/Media/MxTube

The following databases may not work directly by Copy/Paste method as they may require iTunes Syncing:

• AddressBook DB
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedb
• AddressBook Images DB
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBookImages.sqlitedb
• Maptiles DB
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/Caches/MapTiles/MapTiles.sqlitedb
• Calendar DB
  • /private/var/mobile/Library/Calendar/Calendar.sqlitedb

My address book and calender is always synced with Google, so I don’t have to worry backing them up but if you backed them manually, feel free to share. I have tried this on 3G, 3GS using OS 3.x and worked without any problem. Please feel free to post your experience doing this below.

Related posts:

1. iPhone – 3GS Camera not saving Pictures If you have recently Jailbroken the iPhone 3GS with the...

In order to compress a ‘pets’ servlet/web application/project into a "Web Archive" file named pets.war which can easily be imported in Eclipse or other IDE”s or can easily be transported to another server, Execute the following commands in the terminal:

   1: cd \webapps\pets 

   2:  

   3: // Use the java archive command 'jar' to bundle up your application

   4: // compress everything in this directory into a file named pets.war

   5: // (c=create, v=verbose, f=file)

   6:  

   7: jar -cvf pets.war *

Now you can copy pets.war to any webapps directory on a new Tomcat Server. If Tomcat is running, the war file will be automatically decompressed and a web application named ‘pets’ will be created in the appropriate directory as soon as you save it!!

Please let me know if it helps :).

Related posts:

1. Resource Needed for JDBC Connection Pooling Support In order to get JDBC working with Connection Pooling Support,...

In order to get JDBC working with Connection Pooling Support, you will need to add the latest version of the following files to your Library:

• commons-dbcp-x.x.x.jar (http://commons.apache.org/dbcp/)
• commons-pool-x.x.x (http://commons.apache.org/pool/)
• mysql-connector-java-x.x.x-bin.jar (http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/)

Put the above files in your WEB-INF/lib folder and let your IDE(Eclipse) know the existence of of the above files.

You will also need to add the following imports at the the top of files where you want access to CPDS:

• import org.apache.commons.dbcp.cpdsadapter.DriverAdapterCPDS;
• import org.apache.commons.dbcp.datasources.SharedPoolDataSource;

Related posts:

1. Compressing a Servlet Project into a .war file In order to compress a ‘pets’ servlet/web application/project into a...

OSX by default uses a kernel that is placed in the root directory "/" and loads from a file named "mach_kernel".

So in order to replace the default kernel, all you have to do is to replace that file with your own kernel file. But remember, the kernel you are replacing with must be compatible with your current system otherwise you will not be able to boot.

In my case, I have several kernels in my root directory anv, voodoo, kabyl, and vanilla. I would like "anv" to my default kernel. To do that open the terminal and type following command’s :

   1: // backup your current kernel First

   2: // Enter your password

   3: // replace your current kernel with new one "anv"

   4: // Change the owner to root

   5: // change the file permission

   6:  

   7: > sudo cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_old 

   8: > (type your password) 

   9: > sudo cp -f /anv  /mach_kernel

  10: > sudo chown root:wheel /mach_kernel* 

  11: > sudo chmod 644 /mach_kernel* 

Now reboot and you should be booting with your new "anv" kernel.

After using IIS for almost 4 years now, I have decided to give up on IIS for so many of its limitations.

Among one of those limitations was the inability to use “pretty permalink” or the mod-rewrite feature which comes built in with Apache. Although IIS 7 seems to have a plan to include similar sort of functionality but waiting for that to come and who knows how many more problems along with it, is just not worth waiting for. Its just more easier to get Apache running on your machine and get everything that IIS gives and much more.

You can either run Apache on Windows or in a Linux machine, for most people it will be easier to run it on windows.

To Run Apache on Windows:

1. Download latest Windows version of Apache from apache.org
2. And then there are some steps we will need to follow to configure the Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf file located in your Apache installation directory (I will soon post the necessary modifications for the httpd.conf file).
3. After modifying the file you can easily restart the Apache server using the GUI that comes with Apache.
4. And your new Server is set to go.

And the second best option is to totally get rid of windows and start with a brand new Debian distribution Ubuntu and follow the following steps after you get Ubuntu running.

To Run Apache on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)/Linux with PHP, MySQL support:

1. Optionally, install SSH Client and Server (for remote access to this server)
   sudo apt-get install ssh

2. Install Database Server
   sudo apt-get install mysql-server

3. Install Apache2 web server
   sudo apt-get install apache2

4. Install PHP5
   sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

5. Install PHP5-MySQL support
   sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

6. Restart Apache
   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

7. Optionally, install phpMyAdmin
   sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
8. Restart the machine and you are set with your new LAMP server.

Note: If you are not very familier with Apache, it might help to start with a GUI control panel to manage all aspects of Apache. I found http://www.webmin.com/ to do a great job when it comes to managing Apache servers. It comes with tons of other goodies too.

Related posts:

1. Setting up Apache HTTPS/SSL on Windows I am assuming that you already have Apache2 installed and...
2. WordPress on Windows IIS Server with SMTP WordPress 2.7 runs very smoothly on IIS 6 with PHP...