Well, kindasorta.

Finally, I have my business license AKA Business Tax Certificate (because California has to take the fun out of everything), my Fictitious Business Name Statement and, last but not least, my seller’s permit. Yay! Go Me! I am official and all legal-like. This is just the neatest thing, the greatest feeling in the world! Yes, everyone at the various offices was laughing at me and my excitement. I know that they process these things about 50 times a day but I don’t. I only have the one and this is it! So I’m entitled to be excited, I think.

Today, however, was a bit rough. So, awhile back I was trying to get my teeny head around Filemaker Pro to set up this nifty database doing all sorts of things I have crawling around in my melon. Nope, not gonna happen. My brain just doesn’t work well with databases. So I talked to Miss Computer Goddess and she mentioned that she was trying to do the same thing and that it may be easier to use a nifty wiki. Since I’m extremely stubborn I spend a good deal of time trying to make my brain comprehend the aforementioned evil Filemaker to no avail. So I found a couple of wiki things that looked like what i wanted, picked one and commenced the install.

Can you guess what’s coming next? If you know me at all, you know that it was supposed to be a very simple thing that was really straightforward but instead took me all day, a pack of smokes and 4 liters of Pepsi to figure out.

TIP: Don’t use TextEdit to make a .htaccess file when you don’t know what the hell you are doing. I will tell you what will happen to save you the time.

You will find out that your host uses PHP4 by default and you have to make Apache use PHP5 because the wiki will require only the best and nothing less. Then you will try some dumbass idea you’ve spent 2 hours looking for on the internet and just do a global extension change, only to find out that all of the source code that says ‘.php’ needs to be changed as well. So you will go and do that only to find out that it doesn’t work and was a stupid idea posted by morons who don’t know any more than you do.

So you will then call your host and ask them what to do. They will tell you to create a .htaccess file using a regular, simple text editing program and only put a tiny line of code in there to make Apache do what you want it to do. So you will do that and put it into your root folder (because they didn’t tell you any different and you have no idea) and then your whole site won’t work because the other parts of your site run on PHP4 and now you’re forcing everything to try and use PHP5 and you’ll spend another 2 hours finding that out. Then you will deduce that you should just put the .htaccess file in your wiki folder and that should fix everything.

Except it won’t. And you won’t be able to figure out why. So you’ll go into the kitchen, breathing heavy, cleaning everything in sight so that you can think clearly about things that aren’t in your brain to find in the first place. Then you’ll come back to the computer and read and re-read the .htaccess file and searching the internet for someone, ANYONE, who has the same problem and can’t figure it out. After 1.5 hours of searching you will realize that you are the only dumbass in the world with this problem. Out of all the complete idiots out there in the world, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE with this problem. Now doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy? Yeah….no.

Finally, after pulling your hair out in chunks and realizing you missed your midday nipple soak, you will call your host, again, and tell them that you are an idiot and could they please help you. They will say….’What’s a wiki?’

So you will explain, which ends up sounding like you are a completely insane Hawaiian, and off they go to look at your .htaccess file. When they can’t find it you will feel a little smarter telling them where it is but it is short lived. They will find it and tell you that there is a bunch of ‘blah blah blah’ in there that shouldn’t be in there but is added because TextEdit is a bigger crackhead than you are. You will remove the gobbledeegook and save it to the server.

Voila! Instant Wiki!

There. That should save you a lot of time. Now for the solution. Create your .htaccess file using a ’simple’ text editing program. Add the following line, without the brackets: [ AddType x-mapp-php5 .php ] and you may need to name the file “.htaccess” to make your system happy. Upload the file to your server in the directory where it will apply. Once it’s uploaded, rename it simply .htaccess and then OPEN IT to make sure there is no crap, just the proper code. Then you’re good to go.
Now I’m too tired to play with it, I just wanna go die for 8 hours or so. G’night! *snore*