1. Get a free webspace from any free webspace provider. I’m using http://freehostia.com . Click on link free hosting.

2. Click on Signup now.

3. Fill form and press continue.

4. Check your mail for login information.

5. Install a ftp client. I’m using Fireftp, an addon of Firefox. You can install Fireftp from it website http://fireftp.mozdev.org/.

6. Go to tools menu of Firefox and open Fireftp. Click on create account to add ftp account to fireftp.

7. Enter ftp login information.

8. Connect to ftp.

9. Press OK

10. Note that left half shows files on your computer while the right half shows files on remote server i.e. Freehostia server.

11. Now browse to local folder. Select the files and folder you want to upload by holding Shift key and selecting them. Press upload button to upload.

12. See upload in progress.

13. After upload completes, you can see your uploaded files on right half.

14. Open your website. If everything is correct you can see your website now.

Hurray !!! Your website is up for public viewing. Enjoy !!!

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So what are the requirements?

For installation of Media Wiki, you need an Apache Server, PHP, MySQL, Media WIki and a PC of course . Well it might seems confusing at this stage but hold on. No need to be panicked. Apache Server, PHP and MySQL come in one bundle called Wamp Server. Below I am providing the links for downloading the required stuff.

• Wamp Server – http://www.en.wampserver.com/download.php
• Media Wiki – http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

What is Media Wiki ?

Media wiki is a content management system. According to Wikipedia

MediaWiki is a web-based wiki software application used by all projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, all wikis hosted by Wikia, and many other wikis, including some of the largest and most popular ones. Originally developed to serve the needs of the free content Wikipedia encyclopedia, today it has also been deployed by companies for internal knowledge management, and as a content management system. Notably, Novell uses it to operate several of its high traffic websites.

MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language, and can use either the MySQL or PostgreSQL relational database management system. MediaWiki is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License while its documentation is released under the GFDL and partly in the public domain, making it free and open source software.

What is Wamp Server?

As I said earlier, Wamp sever is a bundle of Apache, PHP and MySQL server. In words of Wamp server website

WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache, PHP and the MySQL database. It also comes with PHPMyAdmin and SQLiteManager to easily manage your databases.

OK !!! Enough funda, let’s get started with our business.

1. Well first download the wamp server and install it like any other windows software. Installation is pretty easy. Just accept the default values.

2. Start the wamp server from Start menu

3. Right click on wamp server icon on system notification area and open phpMyAdmin.

4. Create the database for wiki.

5. Click the icon shown.

6. Click the icon shown.

7. Scroll down.

8. Enter password for database and then press Go.

9. Now go to wamp directory. Generally it is C:\wamp or C:\Program Files\wamp
10. Create a directory named “wiki” there.
11. Extract the content of mediawiki‐1.12.0.tar.gz here. A directory named mediawiki‐1.12.0 will be formed. Open this directory and cut all of its contents and paste to wiki directory.
12. Now open http://localhost/wiki in your browser. You will see following. Click the link shown.

13. Give a name to your wiki.

14. Enter admin username and password for wiki. This username and password is required for maintenance of wiki.

15. Scroll down.

16. Enter the database name, username of database and password created in step 8. Username is root.

17. Click install wiki to install the Media Wiki.

18. Note installation successful message. Click on “this link” to go to next stage.

19. Now copy C:/wamp/wiki/config/LocalSettings.php to C:/wamp/wiki directory

20. Now open http://localhost/wiki in your browser. You will see this.

Hurray, your wiki is installed . Start posting content and building your wiki.

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The complete name of Foobar is foobar2000. It’s a advanced audio player for Windows platform. Some of it’s features are as follows:

• Fully customizable user interface.
• Audio formats supported natively: MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC / Ogg FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CDDA, WMA.
• More audio formats are supported through 3rd party plugins.
• Advanced tagging capabilities.
• Low memory consumption.

Okay, show me how it looks?

Eww !!! It’s too ugly.

Well the default is look is not so catchy. But have a look at following snapshot where foobar2000 is configured with 3rd party plugins.

Shocked !!!

Okay, I also want it. Tell me how?

Getting Foobar

Get the latest version of foobar2000 from it’s official website. Click here to go to it’s official website.

Getting plugins

Well, here is the list of plugins which I’m using.

You can download plugins from Hydrogen Audio Wiki or from this link. To install a plugin, just copy it to components directory of foobar. Then restart the foobar, your plugin would be detected by foobar.

I installed the plugins but I’m still not getting that kick-ass look

Don’t bother. You have to configure the plugins to get that look. To configure the plugins, open foobar and press CTRL+P. A new window will open up as shown below.

Click on Columns UI link on left hand side tree structure. Now go to Layout tab on right side and press New as shown above. You will end up with something like as shown above. Now right click on Columns Playlist and change it to Horizontal Splitter as shown below.

Again click on Horizontal Splitter and insert a new Horizontal Splitter as shown below.

Again right click on Horizontal splitter jut inserted and insert a new Vertical splitter. You will end up with something like this.

Now right click on Vertical splitter and insert Album art plugin as shown below.

Again right click on Horizontal splitter and insert Lyrics Show plugin. After doing these steps you will end up with something like this.

Now keep adding Horizontal and Vertical Splitters as well as components until you are satisfied with the look. Below I’m giving the configuration which I’m using.

Well I hope that after doing these steps you will get a nice looking Foobar. If you stuck somewhere, try Googling.

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