The OpenX installer choked because the memory limit for PHP wasn’t high enough for it’s liking. The fix for this is pretty simple:

Make sure your domain is running PHP 5.3. Create the directories ~/.php/5.3/ and a file called ~/.php/5.3/phprc

In your phprc, just add memory_limit = 128M to appease the cranky OpenX installer.

Run a `killall php53.cgi` to make PHP pick up your new settings, and retry the OpenX installer. It should work normally from there.

Acquire

Things you’ll need:

• Wine
• VirtualBox 4.0.4
• Intel PRO/1000 drivers
• Disk Utility (comes with Mac OS X)
• The Unarchiver

I used the Windows XP versions because they’re smaller and easier to get running. Download any or all of these images:

Install

Install Wine, VirtualBox, and The Unarchiver.

Extract

Open and run the XPSP3-IE*.EXE file(s) you downloaded from Microsoft using Wine. You can place the extracted files wherever you want.

Extract the PROWin32.exe file you downloaded from Intel using The Unarchiver application.

Prepare Drivers

Run the Disk Utility application (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility) and create a new disk image (File -> New -> Disk Image from Folder).

Select the PROWin32 folder which you created when you extracted the download from Intel.

Save the disk image as (Image Format: DVD/CD master) with (Encryption: none). You can save it whatever you want, but you should end up with a PROWin32.cdr file.

Run this command to convert the .cdr file to a Windows compatible .iso with this command:

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o /full/path/to/PROWin32.iso /full/path/to/PROWin32.cdr

Create

Run VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine. Tell it to ‘Use existing hard disk’ and select the .vhd file you downloaded and extracted from Microsoft. Don’t start up the virtual machine yet.

Note: the .vhd files from Microsoft all share the same UUID. So, if you want to use more than one image, you have to change the UUID of the subsequent images. You can do this with the following command:

VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid /full/path/to/IE7Compat.vhd

Before you start up your virtual machine, edit the settings and change Network -> Adapter 1 -> Advanced -> Network Adapter Type to Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM).

Make sure that System Preferences -> Keyboard -> ‘Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys’ is checked, otherwise you might start playing iTunes when you try to boot into safe mode.

Start

Start up the virtual machine, and push F8 repeatedly before the Windows logo appears. When the boot menu appears select to boot into Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

Cancel all the driver installation dialog boxes that pop up. Yes, it’s very annoying.

Make the Intel drivers available by clicking on Devices -> CD/DVD Devices -> Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file… and selecting the .iso you created earlier.

Run the explorer command in the command prompt to get access to the Start menu.

Open the Device Manger by clicking Start -> right clicking on My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager.

Find the Ethernet Controller device and right click on it and select Update Driver… It should automatically detect the virtual CD you just mounted and install the Intel Drivers from that.

After you’ve installed the driver you can reboot the virtual machine and allow it to boot normally.

Activate

Because we’ve changed so much of the virtual underlying hardware, Windows wants to reactivate. Now that you’ve got network connectivity, just click Yes and tell it to activate Windows over the internet.

Guest Additions

At this point you can install the VirtualBox Guest Additions, which will help correct some things like the display driver.

You may still have a few bothersome missing driver pop-ups which can be solved by disabling hardware in VirtualBox settings, removing devices from Device Manger, or finding the missing drivers as necessary.

Thanks

Thanks to Travis for teaching me about the Microsoft VPC images! Also, I couldn’t have figured this all out without this helpful blog post from R0B0TZ,and this tip from MakeUseOf.

Let me know if you find this post helpful or if I missed any steps. I’ll try my best to answer any questions in the comments.

Here are some more specific details about how to get the MongoDB driver working with PHP 5.3 on DreamHost.

First, make sure the PHP mode for your domain is set to PHP 5.3 FastCGI in your DreamHost Web Panel.

SSH to your server and download the latest MongoDB PHP driver:

wget http://download.github.com/mongodb-mongo-php-driver-1.1.0-0-g6eab09c.tar.gz

Extract the source code:

tar zxvf mongodb-mongo-php-driver-1.1.0-0-g6eab09c.tar.gz

Change directories:

cd mongodb-mongo-php-driver-b177907

Run phpize using 5.3:

phpize-5.3

Configure using PHP 5.3

./configure --with-php-config=/usr/local/php53/bin/php-config

Compile:

make

You should now have a compiled mongo.so extension in the modules/ folder.

Setup your domain(s) to use a custom php.ini file following DreamHost’s instructions here.

When you’re creating your script wrapper, make sure you use the PHP 5.3 executable. My php-wrapper.fcgi looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
exec /dh/cgi-system/php53.cgi $*

Finally, add the following lines to your custom php.ini

extension_dir = "/full/path/to/your/mongodb-mongo-php-driver-b177907/modules"
extension = mongo.so

Obviously, replace the path above to match the full path to your modules/ directory. You should now see the mongo extension listed when you run a phpinfo().

Let me know how this works for you in the comments below!

Note: These instructions work well for connecting to a hosted instance of MongoDB, like MongoHQ. DreamHost terms of service prevent you from running your own MongoDB service on a shared hosting plan. In order to run a legitimate MongoDB server, you’ll probably need to upgrade to a DreamHost VPS.

Apple recently released a 10.5.6 update to OS X. While I was downloading the new stuff using Software Update, my internet connection was interrupted. I relaunched Software Update and assumed it would continue downloading. It appeared to finish and then asked to reboot to complete the update process.

Unfortunately, the update process got stuck on Configuring Install and just sat there indefinitely. After an unhealthy hard power reset, I tried again with no luck. It seems the interrupted download led to some incomplete files and was hanging the update process.

I was able to solve the problem by deleting the partially downloaded files, then re-downloading using Software Update. This time around, the update applied successfully, upgrading and patching my OS X installation.

Hopefully this post will help others experiencing the same problem. My initial Google search returned a lot of outdated results.

In summary: if you keep getting stuck on Configuring Install during an update, try deleting the files in /Library/Updates/ and restarting the update process.

UPDATE: YouTube now allows you to select dimensions when customizing embed code. Simply click the Customize icon next to the embed code, and select the size you want- the embed code will be updated to match!

YouTube recently announced a change that modifies their video player to a widescreen format. Unfortunately, the default code provided for embedding videos still defaults to a 4:3 size (450×355). It’s easy to modify the dimensions to match the player on YouTube.

In the embed code provided, change the the width parameters to 640, and height parameters to 385.

<object width="640" height="385">
 <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rs-jAImScms&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param>
 <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
 <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
 <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rs-jAImScms&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed>
</object>

Make sure to change the dimensions in both places. Hopefully YouTube will update the options for customizing their embed code to do this automatically. For now, it’s easy enough to edit by hand.

Note: For those that wish to keep the original width of the YouTube player with a widescreen format, use a width of 450 and a height of 271. This might be useful for sites that were designed around the original player width.