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Here's a quick tip post that will help those doing web development on an Apache web server and cannot see their .htaccess which FTPing. If you use Filezilla as your FTP client, by default, Filezilla may hide the .htaccess file during a remote directory listing. To view the file using the Filezilla FTP client, click on Server and make sure the "Force showing hidden files" option is checked. Your .htaccess file should now be viewable in the remote directory.

After having issues installing Magento on a GoDaddy Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), I had two clients that wanted Magento installed on 1and1's Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting package. After struggling with this process, I decided that I would document that process.

1. Log into your 1and1 Control Panel.
2. Click on Domains and setup your domain as necessary. This will link your domain to your hosting package.
3. Click on Server Administration -> Server Access Data. Here, you will find all the login information needed to login to your Virtuozzo and Plesk control panels as well as your SSH login.
4. Login into the Virtuozzo control panel. Click System Services and then drill down into the psa and mysqld services to make sure they are started and that auto-start is enabled.
5. Login into the Plesk control panel. Click Domains -> Create Domain. Fill out the domain information as necessary and create your FTP account at the bottom of this page. Click Next when done.
6. On the resulting page, uncheck the option for PHP safe_mode. Click Finish at the bottom of the page.
7. Upload the Magento files to the webserver. You can most easily do this by FTPing using the login you created when setting up the domain in the Plesk Panel. You can also SSH into your server, upload the Magento tar and untar the archive into your /var/www/vhosts//httpdocs directory.
8. Try loading your domain in a browser. If you try to load your site in a browser and you get a "Whoops" error stating that you have an invalid PHP version, this is due to the fact that when 1and1 images your server they use an older version of PHP. Therefore, you have to update your version of PHP and you should continue with these steps. If not, try to install Magento and disregard the following steps.
9. SSH into your server and type the following command - wget -q -O - http://www.atomicorp.com/installers/atomic.sh |sh
10. Type yum update to check the available updates, but choose No to install these updates.
11. Type yum update php and choose Yes to all the prompts.
12. Type yum update mcrypt* and choose Yes to any prompts.
13. Type yum update mhash* and choose Yes to any prompts.
14. Type yum update php-mcrypt* and choose Yes to any prompts.
15. Type yum update php-mhash* and choose Yes to any prompts.
16. Type /etc/init.d/httpd restart to restart Apache.
17. Re-load your domain in your browser and you should be able to install Magento now.

Hopefully, this guide helps everyone get their Magento installation up and running with little effort on 1and VPS hosting.

Recently, I was given a consulting project to develop an e-commerce site and I immediately thought of Magento - an open source e-commerce solution written in PHP. Magento is one of the better pieces of software that goes widely unknown by many since very few people develop e-commerce sites (as opposed to say Drupal where everyone and their kids are bloggers).

However, upon installation of Magento on my GoDaddy Linux Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), the installation will stall on the mcrypt dependency. The mcrypt library stores several algorithms that help secure your e-commerce site's data. Unfortunately, by default, the GoDaddy VDS package does not have the mcrypt library installed. To install mcrypt, follow these steps -

1. SSH into your VDS with your favorite SSH client or the SSH Java applet offered by GoDaddy.
2. Login with your credentials.
3. Su to the root user.
4. Type "yum install mcrypt*". Say yes to the prompts.
5. Type "yum install mhash*". Say yes to the prompts.
6. Type "yum install php-mcrypt*". Say yes to the prompts.
7. Type "yum install php-mhash*". Say yes to the prompts.
8. Restart the server.

Once the server has restarted, you can re-run the Magento installation and you will be able to successfully complete the wizard.

The Free 60 Project has a Wiki setup that explains the progress of their project as well as offering insights to the inner workings of the Xbox 360. Of note, their documentation offers some insights as to the design of the Xbox 360. Specifically, Free60.org has the following features listed:

• The flash is encrypted with a per-box key
• The key is stored inside the CPU
• The boot ROM is stored inside the CPU
• Also inside the CPU is a hypervisor that verifies the running state of the kernel, making sure there is no modification (RAM checksums), else the Xbox360 panics and blows up!