If you’re using homebrew, your native PEAR install will be here:

/usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.10/lib/php/PEAR

I used to use go-pear, but it is so old now that it won’t work on newer versions of PHP.  Time to learn that command line.

brew install wget

wget http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar

sudo php -d detect_unicode=0 go-pear.phar

Make sure to setup option 1 to point to the homebrew location of PEAR referenced above (I’ll reference here again in case you weren’t paying attention)

/usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.10/lib/php/PEAR

The go-pear.phar installer should offer you the option to update your path for you.   If you’re silly enough to not let it, you can manually add it (/usr/local/etc/php.ini).

include_path=”/usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.10/lib/php/PEAR/share/pear:.;/usr/local/Cellar/php/5.3.10/lib/php”

At the time of this writing, I’m relatively new to the world of homebrew package management.  Chances are good that if you are reading this, you are too.  Have no fear these things are easier to install than you think, even if you hit a few bumps in the road.

Once you get the hang of homebrew you want to start installing all kinds of awesomeness.  I had already fired up the native install of Apache that comes with Mac OS 10.7 and was well on my way to serving up websites that didn’t need databases.  Then I ran into one that needed it.

I tried the usual suspect:

brew install mysql

to my delight, mysql was installed (pretty sweet right?).  Next up I installed phpMyAdmin (you gotta have a way to manage that database right).  This too magically installed, however once I made the required modification to the apache httpd.conf file and fired up phpMyAdmin through my browser I kept getting the “The mcrypt extension is missing” error.

If you are using Homebrew as your OSX package manager, chances are that you are using the default PHP that comes with Lion. This PHP installation does not have the mcrypt extension, so if you are trying to use something like PHPMyAdmin, you’ll get an error message saying that mcrypt is not enabled in php.ini. I stumbled on a few articles on this topic, which I list here in case you want to read them too.  Skip down for the solution:

• PHP mcrypt in Snow Leopard with Homebrew - this method didn’t work for me
• (Re)installing PHP 5.3 on Mac OS X - this method worked

Even though the re-install of PHP solved the lacking mcrypt issue, I still had an issue accessing phpMyAdmin.  I didn’t change any of the defaults, so I could connect fine with:

mysql -uroot -p

However, phpMyAdmin by default has a flag set in the config that prevents you from logging in with an empty password.  A good security measure to be sure, but to get in you ‘ll need to make the following change to the config.inc.php file

 36 $cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘AllowNoPassword’] = true;

Now you should be able to fire up mysql

msyql.server start

Login to phpMyAdmin

http://localhost/phpmyadmin

via kellysutton:

layervault:

We’re trying to get better about open-sourcing some of the great code that we write. Our first foray into open-sourcing the cool stuff behind LayerVault is the simple yet effective jquery.data.filter.js.

It’s a simple jQuery plugin that makes it easier to filter DOM elements by data-*…

Some new hotness we just open-sourced.

Every wonder why you can, or opt not to, use semi colons in your javascript?  This article spells it out.  I personally opt for the best practice of always using semicolons (and opening and closing brackets for that matter).  What’s your take?

bigweek:

John’s comments from episode 86 of The Talk Show are getting some attention from a few of my favorite Apple-centric websites, like Mac Rumors, The Next Web, and The Tech Block.

Update: Also The Verge.

Just finished listening to Dan Benjamin and John Grubber discussing the finer points of what may affectionately become known as the iPad Jr. - I’d buy one in a second, where do I sing up?!

This was an interesting topic I came across last week.  The author seems to have a problem with merge “bubbles” and suggests eliminating them with the use of

git pull —rebase

—rebase is a self proclaimed “dangerous” tool as it works like a clever to rearrange history to your liking:

Rebase helps to cut up commits and slice them into any way that you want them served up, and placed exactly where you want them. You can actually rewrite history with this command, be it reordering commits, squashing them into bigger ones, or completely ignoring them if you so desire.

http://gitready.com/intermediate/2009/01/31/intro-to-rebase.html

Rather than hack history every time I want to make a commit, I’d rather just do it by the books.  What’s wrong with a bubble anyway?  Then again, I’m not the type to jailbreak my iPhone either

Lots of people think simplicity is the opposite of confusion (“It’s confusing, let’s make this simpler”). It’s not. The opposite of confusion is clarity.

forrst:

I’m thrilled to announce that Forrst has been acquired by the folks behind COLOURlovers and Creative Market, and that Keith, Mike, and I will be joining their team.

It’s crazy to think that Forrst started two years ago as nothing more than a side project used by just a handful of…

Thinking of re-skinning my site based on my Family Crest.  Generated this palette using the tools from the kind folks at http://www.colorhunter.com