It’s been a while since I wrote, and its not that I forgot about my blog, it’s just that I’ve been busy.  Our Moodle installation is growing up and will be getting its own server soon.  I’m hoping that it’ll be a OSX 10.5 Server so I’ve been working out some of the kinks in my test installation:

1. GD Library — By default the GD library’s aren’t part of the PHP package in Server 10.5.  I was poking around in this Step by Step Installation guide trying to upgrade my PHP library on my server.  Turns out I didn’t need to for various reasons (also the package recommended screwed with my Apache).  So instead i went into my php.ini file and uncommented the line:
   

   extension=php_gd2.dll

   This turned on the GD Library and Moodle looks much better now.

2. MySQL — I was getting a weird error in Moodle under Admin > Server > Environment.
   

   It is required that you store all your data in Unicode format (UTF-8). New installations must be performed into databases that have their default character set as Unicode. If you are upgrading, you should perform the UTF-8 migration process (see the Admin page).

   I thought that was a bit weird cause I installed the database from scratch. But sometimes you just need to do what it tells you to. So I ran the following query:

   alter database moodle collate = utf8_unicode_ci;

   And voila the error went away.

So now my Moodle is a bit happier.  I am of course (like always) recording this so that when I get my new server and I run into these problems again, I can remember what the heck I did.