The problem?.. curl was not enabled by default in Xampp.  You receive the following error:

• Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in C:\xampp\htdocs\tayst\twitter\index.php on line 4

The solution?  These simple steps!

Step 1. Stop all Xampp services: Apache, Mysql, Filezilla, and Mercury.

Step 2. Open the following files in your editor of choice. (Replace C:\xampp with the location of your xampp install)

• C:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini
• C:\xampp\php\php.ini
• C:\xampp\php\php5.ini
• C:\xampp\php\php4\php.ini
• C:\xampp\php\php4\php4.ini

Step 3. Find the following code in each of the files, and remove the ; (semicolon) at the beginning of the line. You will most likely see it at line 546 or line 582.

• old line – ;extension=php_curl.dll
• new line – extension=php_curl.dll

Step 4. Start your apache services.

See what an easy fix to curl on xampp by simply removing a few semicolons.  Happy Coding!

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• What?

Step 1 - What are you promoting? – Login to Facebook, then go to the Create Ad page and enter the url you want your traffic to go to. (For our clients, we customize a landing page for each ad in an effort to better convert the traffic).

Step 2 – Select your demographic – I love the functionality here. As you are selecting your audience, and using the auto-suggest for keywords, watch the top of the page. You will see it is construction a paragraph that explains your target audience, and displays the approximate market size for that demographic. I do wish there was a feature so you could choose all BUT high school students.

Step 3 - Create your Ad-Copy. Here are Facebook’s guidelines for ad copy. Keep in mind what you are trying to accomplish. If you just write something crazy in an effort to get traffic, your conversion rates will be low. If you are specific, and enticing, visitors to your site will know why they are there, and will be more like to join your site, or purchase your products. They will even let you upload a photo to attach to the ad. Your logo, or an image of the product works best here.. but mind the size, you don’t want a distorted image.

You can also specify social actions that relate to your ad here. If you are a member of a group, or have an application, Facebook will enhance your ad with associations to the actions of those groups or apps.

Step 4 - How Much Do you Want to Spend – The first choice you have to make is whether you want to pay based on the number of views (cost-per-impression) or on the number of actual clicks your ad receives. The cost per impression (CPM) is a good idea if you are just trying to spread awareness, as it carries an overall lesser cost. Keep in mind though, your ad can receive a lot of impressions on a site like Facebook, and just because it is loading on the page, doesn’t mean that eager eyes waiting to see your ad.

A good portion of Facebook users are going to be blind to advertising. This is why I generally recommend taking the cost-per-click (CPC) route, as you truly “get what you pay for”. Facebook will recomend a CPC price based on what others are suggesting, and as a general rule, put the most you are willing to pay for a click to ensure you get the best positioning.

You have a final option to specify if you want the ad to run continuously starting upon approval (Facebook does check the ads before they go live) or if you would rather the ad run only during a specified time. This is in case you only want to test out the service for weekdays, weekends, holidays, or special events.

Step 5 - Review and Pay – Alright… now just review the ad to make sure everything looks in order, enter your credit card information (if it isn’t already stored), and click Place Order. Facebook will review your ad, and unless you did something bad, like advertise for porn or ignore their guidlines, you’re ad will soon be sending traffic to your site.

You might also be interested in Millennial Marketing and Facebook Ads

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STEP 1 – Install Xampp – ApacheFriends has made it really easy by giving us a simple windows installer to download. If your interested in developing with Perl, Tomcat, you can download their Add-Ons by clicking the links. Once you download, just give it a click and follow the on-screen instructions. I recommend you install Xampp at the default c:\xampp (if you do not, remember to replace the code below with your installation directory). Here’s a video to show you how simple it is…don’t be fooled, it takes a little longer than the video shows.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

STEP 2 – Install Ruby – Thanks to RubyForge, you can download an easy one-click Ruby installer to use here. Once you download, click to open, and follow the instructions. I recommend you install Ruby at c:\xampp\ruby so it falls in line with your other programming languages, etc…

STEP 3 – Install Rails – Fortunately, the Windows version of Ruby comes with RubyGems already set up. Open your Command Prompt (start-> run-> cmd -OR- start-> programs-> accessories -> command prompt) and type the following commands.

Do the gem update from the bin directory in rails. For my installation:

cd c:\ruby\bin
gem update
You may be prompted several times to choose which gem. Pick the highest version for (mswin32)
gem install rails --include-dependencies

There may be some delays, and the install could take a while. If you encounter an error trying to use the gem command, just restart the Command Prompt.

STEP 4 – Create a Rails App – While your still in Command Prompt, type the following Command (without the brackets, and change “your-app-name” to whatever you wish to call your application)

rails C:/xampp/htdocs/<your-app-name>

STEP 5 – Configure Apache – With your Xampp installation, http://localhost (localhost:80) defaults to the Xampp browser control panel, which displays your status, tests, etc.. We want to be able to use Ruby, without disrupting this service, or interfering with our standard Xampp settings. Open your Xampp directory (in our case C:\Xampp) and browse to Apache\conf\httpd.conf and open the httpd.conf file in a text editor or other text editor of your choice.

Scroll all the way to the bottom, and add the following:

Listen 3000
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
#################################
# RUBY SETUP
#################################
<virtualHost *:3000>
ServerName rails
DocumentRoot "c:/xampp/htdocs/<your-app-name>/public"
<Directory "c:/xampp/htdocs/<your-app-name>/public/">

Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride all
Allow from all
Order allow,deny
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi

</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
#################################
# RUBY SETUP
#################################

Finally – Check it Out – Point your browser to http://localhost:3000 and you should see the “Welcome Aboard” from ROR.

If your also looking for some editors. A nice simple free PHP editor with great extensions is “PSPad“. For hardcore coding, I recommend Zend(free for 30 days). For a nice simple free Rails Editor, “RoRED“, something a little more intense I would say go with the free “NetBeans” (don’t forget the .jdk).

Update 04/15/09

I now dual boot to Linux to play with ROR vs. fighting to install ruby on rails on a windows machine. I found it to be an endless battle of debugging.

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