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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By and large this is a question that does not usually elicit an interesting response. However in the world of news-reporting – digital media often covers the essential how, who, when and where questions of journalism, because our communication mediums are increasingly location aware, user-specific and time stamped. What is a question that requires actual human input – and in the past 3 years people have been answering it in terms of Facebook status updates, and for the early adopters – by joining the twitterverse.

Yesterday, however, the answer to that burning question reached critical mass and took on historic significance. Whilst some protested and others wondered about what was going on outside their office walls, multi-tasking employees were able to get on with their work whilst receiving a blow by blow account of history unfolding. It has been overstated to the point of cliché that the medium is the message – but yesterday the message made a medium and Twitter found its place in the global setting. Beyond the news-helicopters, simple tweets turned digital enthusiasts into citizen journalists and for once, a multitude of opinions on the same subject were heard. Suddenly all the hype made sense – some of us had tweeted previously to moderate effect, but for most of us not concerned about letting the world into our daily happenings, Twitter just left us scratching our heads.

The power of Twitter is its ability to allow multiple voices to communicate disparate opinions in unison. Of course, its fantastic to be in the loop of the wonderful world of Stephen Fry via twitter – but what we saw yesterday was not celebrity admiration, but rather the changing documentation of history, where instead of being written by the victors, we captured a glimpse through the eyes of the observer – raw, unfiltered and uncesorable. We have seen dictatorships stifle freedom of expression in blogs and websites – but the immediacy of Twitter gives the voice on the individual more resonance than before.

Of course history in the making needn’t be people tweeting from Hurricane Katrina or Tiananmen Square – we all have histories, cultural histories and personal histories. A father tweeting the anxiety of being in the waiting room whilst his child his being born, a techy tweeting the anticipation at a tech-conference whilst waiting for Steve Jobs to unleash Apple’s new toy, or a Machester United fan tweeting from the stands during half-time with the score at 1-1. Every generation alters the way it communicates, and it seems that those alterations are happening more frequently. In 6 years we have gone from long-form e-mail, to group e-mails, to text message, on to Facebook and finally: Twitter.

Of course Twitter has its critics, and there are those who see it as a distraction and a detraction from complete discourse. But so often when our collective brains are abuzz with thought, instead of thinking in full sentences or having complete thoughts, our minds are aflutter with neural tweets.

Could Twitter be the closest we have come to reflecting how our society collectively thinks, sees and experiences the world?

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I’ve been thinking more about the future of the web, and I’m convinced what’s coming is not just another phase or version, but finally the real deal. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are going to be looked back on as alpha and beta versions of the real Web which is finally upon us. Techies refer to it as the semantic web, which is going to be a big part of it, but ultimately it’s going to come down to making money for businesses. Every enterprise out there is finally understanding the importance of engaging the online medium and utilizing the communities and tools built over the past decade that have captured the attention and time of the consumer. There’s a really cool site I’ve found that’s seeming to capitalize on this opportunity… fittingly enough it’s called Local.com

Local combines the worlds of the big local sites out there, namely Citysearch.com, Yelp.com, Superpages.com, Yellowpages.com, all of which Local.com is partnered with. It’s essentially a 1 stop shop for finding local businesses and services.

The Local.com experience is incredible. It acts like a local yellowpages, and yet so much more. It automatically picks up what city you’re in based on your IP address and then generates a list of local restaurants, local reviews, local coupons, local favorites, and even local traffic and local weather. I find it to be incredibly valuable, especially for anyone moving to a new city. The local search feature is awesome too, as it brings up a list of nearby brick and mortar businesses. I typed in ‘groceries’ and got a great list of small hole in the wall grocers in my area.

This stuff is fascinating to me because it’s paving the way for a real business model on the Internet. With local businesses beginning to build a web presence, new web services will be able to track all consumer purchases, not just those made online, and evolve the Internet from the CPC (cost per click) model Google pioneered to a CPA (cost per affiliate) model in which web services monetize by taking a cut off consumer purchases. To make this work, however, local businesses are going to have to integrate their system in with a player like Local.com so that consumers can easily generate coupons and redeemable points. When this occurs, coupled with the proliferation of mobile technologies, the process will be seamless. You’ll find discounts in real time on your phone as you walk around through whatever web service you use. Then’ll you show up at the store, pick out what you want, and validate at the checkout counter with your iPhone… and boom you get your discount that easy.

Portals like Local.com, as well as the obvious Google, Ebay, Amazon, soon to be Facebook Marketplace, and the one everybody is ecstatic about… Twitter (check out CheapTweet and TwtQpon… wow!), is what will pull local businesses into the mix, incentivizing them to offer deals, because they know it’ll result in more long-term converting customers. And the more local businesses interact and engage with the community, the more popular they will become and the more feedback they’ll gain on bettering they’re products. And consumers who engage will win big by finding discounts and deals constantly.

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