It is a tried and tested trio which works phenomenally well. Usually to gain access to this trifecta, you need to purchase hosting, and this hosting is usually run in a far away datacenter running on a Linux server. However, not many people know that it is available locally, and for Windows as well. You can use these services for running your own applications, and also for locally testing software you are writing, before uploading code to a production server.

WAMP stands for Windows Apache, MySQL and PHP. Compare this to LAMP, which is Apache, MySQL and PHP on Linux.

There are several ways to get these services running locally. Each service, by itself, has Windows installers. That being said – once the programs are installed, you need to know how to configure the services. That may not be simple unless you happen to be a system administrator.

We are going to focus on WampServer. In my experience, using WampServer is the fastest way to get up and running. Wikipedia has a nice list of all Wamp servers.

Step 1

Download the latest WampServer. As of the writing of this article, it includes Apache 2.2, PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5.0.

Step 2

Run the installer. It will warn you to uninstall WAMP5 1.x if you have installed that already. You can use the defaults and it should install without problem.

Step 3

Start the services. You will see a small icon in your taskbar. Left click on it (right clicking does not display the right menu) and select “go online”. The icon will then make a little animation, and your services will be online. You can view your homepage by going to http://localhost/.

Thats it! Wamp is now running. You are ready to install your application, or start learning some PHP! The public website directory is ‘c:\wamp\www\‘.

Any directory you create in this directory, shows up as a ‘project’ on the main index page.

Advanced Settings

PHP Customization

Depending on which type of program you want to install onto your server, you may require additional extensions that are not loaded by default. There are a whole variety of PHP extensions you can load that come built in, but disabled. Left-click on the Wamp menu, go to PHP->PHP Extensions and click off the extension you would like to reload.

You can also edit the configuration file, php.ini through the menu. Edit anything you need, and save this file. The most common edit is the memory_size, but there are many options you can tweak to your liking.

After making any changes to php, make sure you reload apache. I’ve learned the hard way that changes aren’t automatically pushed to the server, until it is reloaded.

Apache Customization

For you advanced tinkerers out there, you can tweak the apache configuration files to your heart’s content. Make sure after making any changes, to reload apache.

MySQL Customization

Depending on your project, you may need to create a database in MySQL. This can be done through phpMyAdmin, which is handily included within the WAMPServer install. By default they include no password on the root MySQL user, which is not the best thing for security reasons. I would recommend changing this password. phpMyAdmin can be reached via the Wamp Menu, or via the url http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

In Summary:

Don’t let the fun stop there. Install a blog and start experimenting with PHP and templates. Run your own Wiki. Run your own music server. The howtos on how to install some neat programs are coming in some future articles.

One of the greatest things about running a home apache server, is that you can use it in combination with a VPN (Hamachi) to access your server anywhere in the world, securely. You can even change your setup to host pages to the outside world, if you so desire.

There is no limit to what you can do! OK, maybe it won’t cook you breakfast in the morning – not yet anyway!

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or need help with the install!

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Lets see what you can do with an IPN, Remobo and how to set it all up.

Remobo allows you to:

• Control your own computer remotely from any other computer.
• Access your files securely from work or while traveling.
• Share files, photos and media with friends & family on your network.
• Secure all your messages and file transfers against hackers.
• Create a virtual private network (VPN) instantly and securely.
• Play LAN games over the internet as if you were all in the same place.
• Connect to any computer in your list securely to access files and data.
• Run virtually any 3rd party application on top of Remobo.

Quite a handful isn’t it? Lets set it all up!

Download and Install

Simply download and install. It will try to install a BitTorrent client (which will be required later as you will see) so if you already have your own, you can say no to this. While setting up the virtual network driver Windows will warn you. Click ‘continue’ and you should be good to go.

Set up an account

Set up a Remobo account. Simple and easy, no fuss. Requires an email address.

Add buddies

When Remobo starts, it asks you for the account details you just set up. Log in and then click on the button labelled “Menu” and then add one of your buddies on the Remobo network. You would have to enter the username of your buddy and your buddy will have to approve your request. This is unlike Hamachi where you create a network where others can join.

Remobo actually supports more than one PC per account, so you can have multiple entries under one buddy. This simply translates to the various computers of your buddy that you can access. This also means that you can use the same account on more than one computer. So you can have your work and home PC listed under the same username.

Let’s MakeUseOf Remobo

This little menu is all you have to take note of for being a Remobo King!

Send files

Files are sent using BitTorrent. Click on “Send a File” and you will be presented with an option to choose the files and folders to share, choose them and specify if you want to share this one time only or keep it shared for longer. Remobo will now automagically create a torrent and send the torrent file to the other side (to the buddy). The other side can then download the torrent file and use any BitTorrent client to download the file. This increases in significance if you are sharing a file with a group!

View Shared files

Clicking on “View Shared Files” will open up a webpage that allows you to view all the shared files (yours and others’) and also allows you to browse the files categorized by usernames so that you know who is sharing which file..

Windows File Sharing

Don’t want to use Bittorrent for some reason? Well no problem you can try “Windows File Sharing” just as you would do on a LAN. Just that it is a lot more simple here. When I clicked on it I was hoping to go through a messy workgroup setup and complicated network settings, but what did I see? I saw the shared printer and shared docs (in other words, it’s already done and I did nothing). Yes that’s how simple it is. Depending upon your situation you may be prompted for a password or do some minor configurations here.

Play games, Stream Media

Basically you can run any 3rd party application atop of Remobo. Want to play any game with your buddy just like you would have played it on the LAN? Easy, hover your mouse over the buddy name and get the IP. This is the virtual IP or the Remobo IP. Use this for streaming media configuration or playing games over the network.

Control Computer from other computers

Click one of the computer names that you want to access. Choose “Remote Control” from the menu that shows up. Enter your buddy’s password and you’ll get remote access to that computer. The whole password situation used for Remote Control bothers me a bit. While this is fine if you are in a work/home scenario, this might not be a good idea in the “buddy” scenario as the Remobo password and the Remote Control password are the same. So if you know someone’s remote control password, you know their account password. Kinda lame?

Chat

I am not going to tell you how you can chat with Remobo. This is just for you to know, that you can chat as well!

Secure Connections

All the connections are secure and encrypted so your data is secure!

Domain Names

Don’t like remembering IP addresses? Well just use <username>.remobo.com and you don’t need to remember any IP address. In case of multiple computer setups use <username>.<computername>.remobo.com

Community

There is a great Remobo community over there. You can make feature requests, get skins, discuss problems and see how others are using Remobo.

All in all a great application. There is the password issue that I mentioned and some dialogs that I feel are redundant, but overall it greatly simplifies the whole process or sharing files, using BitTorrent to send files, VPN setup and Remote Desktop.

It’s still in beta and I am sure it will mature as it grows. If you thought Hamachi was easy and feature rich (or otherwise) try Remobo, you’ll have no idea!

Let us know what you think about it. Have you tried it? Or do you plan to stick with Hamachi or some other application?

(By) Varun Kashyap, who is getting absent minded and forget to mention his name in the last two articles. And before he forgets, he would like to invite you to his TechCrazy Blog, where he writes about latest on the web, tech tips, tweaks and hacks.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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