Very Intimidated
Posted: 04. December 2009 08:25
Hi,
I’ll start with some back ground. My experience with computers, for the most part, is sitting down and playing (simple) games and surfing the web. A few months ago I started messing around with HTML and CSS. Less than a month ago I started looking into JavaScript. Now I want to expand my learning to PHP and found that I need access to a server to make it work.
That led me to Apache friends and XAMPP.
With that said, I’m going to have some very stupid questions and comments so please bear with me……..
After reading about XAMPP (installation, configuring, Vista problems {I have Windows Vista home premium SP2}, etc…) on the Apache site, Apache Friends forum, SitePoint forums and in the book I bought (PHP for absolute beginners by Jason Lengstorf) I feel very intimidated and afraid to even download it.
I’ve read where you need to fix code in the program and I don’t have a clue how to or where to do that.
Another issues that worries me is, I only want the server for learning purposes (for the moment) and have been told by “computer savvy” people I work with, that having a server on my computer will allow outsiders access to my computer. I don’t know if there is any truth to this or not but it concerns me.
Also, in the installation instructions, it said
To me (and probably anyone with the same knowledge level as myself) that sounds like it will wipe out all the files/programs on my computer. The information talks about a “developer computer” which makes me think that “work” is the only thing that is on the computer and that feeds the fear that it will wipe everything out.
I don’t have and probably won’t have for some time, a second computer so if this is so I guess that PHP and other server related languages is out.
There was mention of using USB connected directories.
That leads me to the question:
How much space do you need for XAMPP and is it possible to download and install it on a USB Flash drive instead of on my computer? Currently flash drives are inexpensive compared to external hard drives.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks for your help in advance.........
Scout1idf.
I’ll start with some back ground. My experience with computers, for the most part, is sitting down and playing (simple) games and surfing the web. A few months ago I started messing around with HTML and CSS. Less than a month ago I started looking into JavaScript. Now I want to expand my learning to PHP and found that I need access to a server to make it work.
That led me to Apache friends and XAMPP.
With that said, I’m going to have some very stupid questions and comments so please bear with me……..
After reading about XAMPP (installation, configuring, Vista problems {I have Windows Vista home premium SP2}, etc…) on the Apache site, Apache Friends forum, SitePoint forums and in the book I bought (PHP for absolute beginners by Jason Lengstorf) I feel very intimidated and afraid to even download it.
I’ve read where you need to fix code in the program and I don’t have a clue how to or where to do that.
Another issues that worries me is, I only want the server for learning purposes (for the moment) and have been told by “computer savvy” people I work with, that having a server on my computer will allow outsiders access to my computer. I don’t know if there is any truth to this or not but it concerns me.
Also, in the installation instructions, it said
“Warning:
All files in the target directory will be overwritten!”
(default is "C:\")
To me (and probably anyone with the same knowledge level as myself) that sounds like it will wipe out all the files/programs on my computer. The information talks about a “developer computer” which makes me think that “work” is the only thing that is on the computer and that feeds the fear that it will wipe everything out.
I don’t have and probably won’t have for some time, a second computer so if this is so I guess that PHP and other server related languages is out.
There was mention of using USB connected directories.
That leads me to the question:
How much space do you need for XAMPP and is it possible to download and install it on a USB Flash drive instead of on my computer? Currently flash drives are inexpensive compared to external hard drives.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks for your help in advance.........
Scout1idf.