MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. It's great software that let's you develop offline.

My problem had been that no matter what images I would upload, the EXIF data was not being extracted. Interestingly enough, the IPTC tags were. People kept telling me that maybe it was my images and the EXIF data didn’t exist in the images I was uploading. But that wasn’t the problem because I could upload it to Flickr and the EXIF would display fine. I also checked the EXIF in Photoshop CS3 and it was fine also. Couldn’t figure out the issue.

I had about given up on ever being able to display the EXIF data on my blog until today, I was making some design changes to this theme on MAMP and decided to just layout the look of the EXIF data just in case I figured out a solution one day and to my surprise, the EXIF data showed up!

This is what you should see in your PHPInfo to know that the EXIF extension has loaded correctly.

After a bit of digging, turns out that the PHP EXIF extension was not enabled on my VPS (virtual private server). The beauty of MAMP is that practically all the extensions are turned on and I was able to immediately see the problem.

Now enabling the EXIF extension on PHP takes a bit of work and the wonderful techs at my web host, Autica (a part of MidPhase that is also part of AN Hosting), are currently working on getting it enabled for me. It sounds easy, but it’s complicated and easy to screw up if you’re not careful. You have to uncomment the line that executes the EXIF extension in your php.ini file and then recompile Apache. I think most people on shared hosting won’t have to worry about this, depending on host, it should be enabled and compiled. But if you notice that the EXIF data isn’t be extracted, then create a phpinfo file and run it on your web server to see if EXIF is installed. Now I have to go back and reupload all the images that I uploaded when the EXIF extension wasn’t active. Fortunately that only means some 9 albums as I hadn’t put up all the old and new albums just yet.

Also if you are interested in the code that is necessary to extract the EXIF, please see this post by Sarah as this was the first post I could find via Google that showed the code on how to do it.

[UPDATE 2008-08-02: My webhost has successfully enabled the EXIF extension! Apparently what was causing the delay was that the Apache version, for some reason, wouldn't recompile with eaccelerator. So now Apache has been recompiled with EXIF but no eaccelerator until a partch by Apache comes out. Thanks Autica!]

Before my friend introduced me to MAMP (Mac + Apache + MySQL + PHP), I wasn’t really able to do much web producing commuting to work. I was limited to making site mockups using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and some basic coding, but I couldn’t actually make the pages until I had internet connection so I could upload my test site to the sandbox.

Then came along MAMP, an all-in-one application for Mac OS X that allows you to locally host a web server! This was fantastic because now I can develop, hard code, check changes, and make all the changes I want without having an internet connection. It also lets me test run PHP codes or scripts that may be unstable and vulnerable without risking the web server.

How To Install

Installing and configuring MAMP is very, very easy.

1. Download the latest copy of MAMP from the MAMP website. After it is done downloading, double click the downloaded file to unzip the contents.
2. Drag the MAMP folder into the Applications folder.
   
3. Once MAMP has completed copying into the Applications folder, you can find the executable at Applications>MAMP>MAMP.
   
4. When you start it up, you’ll notice two things will appear: (1) the MAMP admin panel and (2) http://localhost:8888/MAMP/?language=English loaded into your default web browser.
5. From the admin panel you can stop and start the Apache and MySQL servers.
   
6. Your default web url is http://localhost:8888/ and your public folder is located (by default) at Applications>MAMP>htdocs. So anything that is placed within the htdocs folder will appear at http://localhost:8888/. Please note that this web address is local only and others will not be able to see it or the contents even if your computer is connected to the internet. I’ve seen where some people have mistakingly thought that MAMP can be used as a live web server. No, this was only designed to allow people to work locally.
7. To change the default location of what folder will be the web folder, in MAMP, go to the menu bar and select Preferences and then select the Apache tab. Enter or select a new location.