This is a well known bug. To make Wireshark run again, try to delete your local X11 font cache, i.e.

$ rm -rf $HOME/.fontconfig

That should do it.

I install those two web applications myself rather than using MacPorts to do so. The installation is basically nothing more than unzipping the distribution package and to modify the configuration files to make sure they connect to my MySQL database on my localhost. However, while installing Wordpress went smooth, I run into database connection failures when installing Mediawiki. It took me some time to figure out what is going on here.

If you have weird connection problems using PHP and MySQL then try one or both of the following solutions:

• Solution: Use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost as host of your MySQL database server. This has a rather surprising effect, see below.
• Solution: Change your PHP’s configuration file, which is /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini, to contain the following two lines:
  1. Tell PHP about the Unix domain socket to use

        mysql.default_socket = /opt/local/var/run/mysql5/mysqld.sock
     

  2. In addtion make sure that PHP’s save mode is off (notice that this feature has been deprecated and removed in PHP 6), otherwise your previous modification will be gracefully ignored:

         safe_mode = Off
     

  Notice that in addition you need to restart your Apache web server so that your changes are taken into account. You can do that with apachectl restart.

Background Information

Neither Mediawiki nor Wordpress (nor most other PHP based web application accessing MySQL) implement the gory details how to connect to a database. Usually they just delegate this to mysql_connect();, a API function provided by PHP.

PHP in turn uses the functionality of a (shared) library provided by MySQL, i.e. the MySQL driver. MySQL allows you to connect to the database via two routes:

1. via Internet sockets (TCP/IP); and via
2. UNIX domain sockets

So, how does one choose between this two routes? The answer is rather surprising. MySQL decided to give localhost a new meaning. If you specify localhost, then the UNIX domain socket route is chosen. If you say 127.0.0.1 instead, then you connect via an Internet socket. While this is probably the most natural thing for those MySQL folks, it’s a rather confusing fact for all other humans. It is rather carved deep in our brain for years now that 127.0.0.1 and localhost is the same thing.

After I have changed both Mediawiki and Wordpress to use localhost I had for the first time a situation where both web applications behaved in the very same way. They both did not work. Then, when I changed to 127.0.0.1, both worked fine. Btw, notice that localhost is the default hostname used by Mediawiki while 127.0.0.1 is the default host suggested by Wordpress.

Using 127.0.0.1 is usually fine, however I do want to use the UNIX socket and I was wondering what went wrong.

The problem is that MacPorts MySQL port patches the original MySQL sources to use socket /opt/local/var/run/mysql5/mysqld.sock instead /tmp/mysql.sock. This change is not particular well documented. One would assume that this kind of change goes into an appropriate my.conf configuration file. That’s actually not the case. Even worse, MacPorts MySQL port does not even ship with such a configuration file.

Changing the default socket location is one thing, not telling us and the PHP5 maintainer this is another sin. So, while MySQL happily uses that weird socket location, PHP5 still expects /tmp/mysql.sock. In other words, PHP and MySQL are not working out of the box when using MacPorts. At least not when relying on Unix domain sockets. It does work when using Internet domain sockets cause that default port, being 3306, has not changed. Btw, the MacPorts maintainer of PHP and MySQL is one and the same person. Sounds familiar? Yes, I also have been thinking about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. No serious. I assume that there is a serious reason why this does not work out of the box as we all wish. I just don’t get it.

iSync screenshot with device Nokia 2720 added.

The easiest way to install this plugin is by using the nokia-2720a-2.dmg installer package. When being used, the plugin will be installed in folder /Library/PhonePlugins/. To support other installation locations, other package formats have been uploaded as well. To support a private installation, create folder ~/Library/PhonePlugins then download an untar package nokia-2720a-2.phoneplugin.tgz within this folder. Eventually restart iSync and try adding your device again.

After that call I decided to go for a master reset of my good old T630 phone. Obviously such a master reset will kill any data on that device. So how to export them? On Windows XP I used FMA which worked reasonably well and is free software. Ok but now I’m using a Mac..

After I while of searching the Internet for a Mac based tool I had the glorious idea to just let my Mac connect to my via phone via Bluetooth and see what will happen. So I did and voila , after having established a connection, a tool started up out of the blue. It was iSync which comes packaged with Leopard. And from there I lifted off and saved my phone’s address book on my back. Basically it all happens in seconds. So there it was, the wow effect. This is really a marvellous piece of work, this computer and it’s software. I love it.

As you might know, light and shadow are close friends. I’m still not able to do my master reset cause I have no clue about my phone’s phone lock code….

Happy Hacking.