I’ve written this tutorial using Ubuntu 11.10 with Netbeans IDE version 7. It’s recommended that you have this version of Netbeans, as certain things change pretty drastically from version to version. This tutorial mentions CakePHP specific set-up from time to time, but will work for non-Cake projects. I assume that you have a working LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) with PHP 5+. If not, Google it ^_^

1. Install Xdebug

If you’re using Ubuntu, this is as gloriously easy as typing this in a terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug

If you’re not, don’t worry – you can install it using pecl. (Having said that, I’ve frequently found that pecl doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and have had to compile extensions manually. Drop a comment if you have problems.)

$ sudo pecl install xdebug

Providing that one of the two previous commands worked, you need to add some configuration settings so that PHP can use Xdebug. Edit or create the file /etc/php5/conf.d/xdebug.ini, adding the following lines:

xdebug.remote_enable=on
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_port=9000

Xdebug should now be working – running php -m on its own should list xdebug as one of the loaded extensions.

2. Configure Netbeans IDE

Go to Tools -> Options, then click the PHP tab. Under “Debugging”, the following options should be set:

• Debugger port: 9000
• Session ID: netbeans-xdebug
• Stop at first line: (ticked)

This is all that’s needed to set up Netbeans in general, but it’s slightly more complex configuring each project.

3. Configure Netbeans project

There’s a huge variety of ways that you can set up a web project on your LAMP configuration, so I’ll try to make it clear what each option means. To edit the settings for an individual project, right click on the project in the Projects side bar, and choose Properties.

This panel has several categories on the right, and should have Sources selected. On this panel, set the Web Root to the directory containing your index.php file (for CakePHP projects this should be app/webroot - this is essential for making it work).

Next, select the Run Configuration panel. This is where you set up profiles for running your web application. You can have multiple profiles for different configurations, which can come in handy if you are using a framework that also supports command line execution. Choose “Local Web SIte (running on local web server)” as the Run As option, and then enter the local URL of your project (this could be http://localhost, or whatever host name you’ve given). The panel should now look like this:

Run Configuration panel in project properties

Note: many people have one local website running at a time (i.e. http://localhost), and swap the Apache document root as and when they need. I prefer to set my sites up as virtual hosts, and give them each internal host names (e.g. http://joncairns.local).

Now, on the same panel, click “Advanced”, which will open up a new window. The most important thing you should do here is add “localhost” as the debugger proxy at the bottom of the window. Another thing that you would probably like to do is choose “Ask Every Time”  for the debug URL, which will ask you to specify the URL when running the debugger, otherwise it will always go to the root URL.

You should now be ready to run the debugger. Click on a line number somewhere in your code (a line that you know will be executed) to mark it as a breakpoint; this means that the execution will pause when it gets to this line. This is what a breakpoint looks like:

Click on the line number to activate a breakpoint

One of the buttons at the top of the Netbeans window, below the menu, is the button to start the debugger (tooltip “Debug Main Project”) – click it. Your browser should open a tab with your project URL, and hang. You will then see that the breakpoint that you set has changed colour, meaning that the debugger has reached that point. You can use the debug windows to browse any variables in the current scope, which is totally awesome! I’ll leave it to you to use its full potential. When you’re ready to move on, click the icon that looks like a white arrow in a green circle, at the top of the Netbeans window. This will tell the debugger to move to the next breakpoint, or complete the execution if there aren’t any more set. You can stop the debugger at any point by clicking the big red square icon.

4. Integrating with Chrome/Firefox (optional)

Currently we can kick off a debug session from Netbeans, which opens a browser window. But what about if we want to go the other way, starting with our browser, and wake the debugger by reloading our website? This is possible for Google Chrome or Firefox, using plugins.

Google CHrome

This is my personal choice, and there’s a neat plugin called Xdebug helper that does a good job of linking your sites with Netbeans and Xdebug. Download and install, then go to Tools -> Extensions and open the options for Xdebug helper. Under Domains, enter the domain of your site (e.g. localhost or joncairns.local). Then open up a tab with your site and click the little bug icon in the far right of the URL bar until he turns green. Start up the debugger in Netbeans, and leave it running. Now, every time you load your site it will use Xdebug.

Firefox

To be perfectly honest I haven’t tried it in Firefox, but I know that an extension exists – try Easy Xdebug. If anyone fancies giving a step-by-step guide, then that would be welcome.

Happy debugging!

Mickey Mouse's hat from the Sorcerer's Apprentice

The recently updated Star Wars ride was our first port of call (believe it or not, this was a mutual decision and not my doing), which was another simulator. As good as it was, these simulators had a habit of making us both feel slightly ill. They’re almost worse than real roller-coasters, as you have the illusion of movement without actually moving. We then went to the Indiana Jones stunt show, which was absolutely fantastic: you’re given an insight into the way that stunts are executed in films, all within the context of the first Indiana Jones film, and with some amusing audience participation.

Mickey and a broomstick

A stand-out show was “Lights, Motors, Action!”, which featured stunt driving by professionals who do the car chases in films. It was pretty amazing to see how they did certain things: for instance, long periods of driving in reverse were done in a specially modified car that had the driving direction flipped, so that the driver was looking out the back window. Five cars at a time span around at high speed, synchronising their movements to the point where they passed each other with only inches to spare. Plus they had the usual cool stuff like explosions and driving through fire.

Another highlight was the Beauty and the Beast show, which was a beautifully crafted musical following the story of the classic film. As clichéd as it might seem, the best word for it is “enchanting”.

Lots of people holding spoons

The finale was “Fantasmic”, a spectacle containing fireworks, walls of water, giant dragons and everyone’s favourite Disney characters. It was set in an outdoor theatre that held up to 7,000 people, and it was completely full when we were there. Even waiting for the show to start was entertaining, as the crowd managed to get a Mexican wave going: at its peak it looked like everyone was joining in, which is pretty impressive for a group that size. The show was a very memorable end to our theme park visits, and simply defies description (so I won’t try).

I think that we both felt like we’d seen enough after our sixth park. There was no way that we could have visited a park every day and, even though we could have fit another one in before the end of the holiday, we elected to spend the last day and a half by the pool at our resort. We will probably (elbow nudge from Joy) definitely go back in the future, and I’m sure we’ll see some of the things that we didn’t see this time, like the Kennedy Space Centre and Magic Kingdom. We’ve come away with lots of great memories of rest and relaxation, but also of discovery and new experiences.

Fin.

A manta ray waving at us.

There were three main shows that we wanted to see: Clyde and Seamore Take Pirate Island, which was a seal, walrus and otter show; Blue Horizons, containing dolphins and people doing acrobatics; and the main event, Believe, with killer whales (and the iconic Shamu).

We saw the seal show first, which was great fun. The slapstick humour and silly story were just a platform for the animals showing their amazing talents and (almost) unvarying obedience to their trainers. Diving, back-flipping and even dancing were just a few of the things they were more than happy to do to earn a fishy snack. The walrus, due to its size, was less agile – in fact, it could barely move!

Seal staring competition

Blue Horizons was amazing for dolphin lovers (like my wife) and the ambivalent (like me) alike. One of the most impressive tricks was when two dolphins would push a trainer (person, not a shoe) around under the water, eventually surfacing to throw them ten feet up into the air. This was mixed in with people doing acrobatics above the water, and divers jumping from unbelievable heights.

"Help, my upper body has turned into a dolphin"

“Believe” is the park’s main attraction, and features half a dozen killer whales performing tricks in a water tank sitting in a stadium that seats five thousand people. We preceded it by buying pretzels in the shape of a killer whale, as we’d heard good things about American pretzels. To say they were a disappointment is an understatement; it was made entirely of thick, tasteless dough. Most of it wasn’t salted, and the tiny area that was seasoned was covered in gigantic shards of salt.

Fortunately, the show was fantastic. The whales were so obedient to their trainers, and seemed to experience human-like enjoyment when splashing the audience with large amounts of water. You can definitely see why it’s the iconic Sea World show.

We finished off the day by going on the Polar Express simulator, which was less impressive than the section afterwards that was like a miniature zoo of Arctic animals, containing seals, whales and polar bears.

All in all, Sea World was a more relaxed experience compared to the other parks, and unusually you came away with full use of your legs.

Next: Day Thirteen – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Islands Of Adventure

Not only that, but Islands of Adventure is currently Orlando’s hottest theme park, because of the new Harry Potter island. The park is made up of six “islands” – not technically islands, as they are just one piece of land surrounding a central lagoon – each of which have their own theme. The islands are: Jurassic Park; Toon Lagoon; Marvel Super Hero Island; The Lost Continent ; Seuss Landing; and, of course, The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter. The park has far more in the way of rides compared to the others, including quite a few roller-coasters (but we’d already resigned ourselves to cowardice on that front).

We decided to get to the park early and head straight for Harry Potter island, in an attempt to beat the crowd. Unfortunately, this only works if no-one else has the same idea. We arrived to find the island completely packed, with so many huge queues around that it was almost impossible to tell what they were for. We joined a queue that apparently had a two hour waiting time, to ride the Forbidden Journey, the main Harry Potter ride. In the end we only queued for just over an hour, as we’d decided to split up and take the single rider queue. This was a good move: we drastically reduced our waiting time and ended up sitting next each other anyway! The ride turned out to be just about worth the wait: a combination of jaw-dropping simulated scenes and actual movement around a cleverly constructed castle lead to an exciting but disorienting ride. Strangely enough, we didn’t join the back of the queue for another go.

Hogwarts Castle

Although we had tackled the most popular Harry Potter ride at the beginning of the day, we didn’t dare attempt anything else there, due to the crowds. The island consisted of a construction of Hogwarts Castle, which housed the Forbidden Journey, situated just outside a full sized Hogsmeade village, with shops like Olivanders, Zonkos and Honeydukes. You could also buy butter beer, or at least in theory: the queue in the morning stretched the entire length of the village. You could only work through Hogsmeade by slipping through the gaps between the thousands of people who were trying to do the same. We decided to leave the rest until later in the day.

Therefore, we left the Wizarding World Of Harry Potter and went to Toon Lagoon. Here, we rode what turned out to be our favourite ride, Ripsaw Falls. This water ride put you in a sort of canoe, which took you around a water track in an entirely sedate fashion, save for a few exceptions. These were very exceptional however, with one of them being a 75 foot drop into a water-filled tunnel, to the soundtrack of synchronised screaming and universal drenching. It was after our second run on this that the sun decided to pack up for the day – even to be replaced by rain at one point – leaving us wet and cold for the next few hours. Still, it was worth it!

We returned to the Harry Potter island at about 4.00pm, to find Hogsmeade busy, but manageably so: like the centre of town on a Saturday morning rather than an attempt to break the world record for the most annoying number of people in a single space. We took the opportunity to buy sweets from Honeydukes and butter beer from the seller in the middle of the street – nice but very sweet – and also looked around the various shops. Olivanders was still excessively busy, and we were advised that it was mainly a show for kids, so we gave it a miss. The village is an amazing experience, and even those who aren’t familiar with the books couldn’t fail to be impressed. Of course, it’s absolutely captivating for those who are.

Damp, tired, and with Joy still limping with her sprained foot, we made our way back. It was Joy’s favourite park after her previous visits to Orlando, and it’s both of our favourites now.

Next: Day Eleven – Sea World

It was the closest of all the parks to our resort. In fact, we discovered that it was practically outside our door: it’s surprising that didn’t see anything more exotic than this in our back garden:

Name this bird that appeared right outside our door?

We had breakfast at Shoney’s, which is highly recommended, and a ten minute drive to the park entrance. Animal Kingdom is one third zoo, one third park and one third conservation area. They have acres of land which is not even directly accessible to the public, where they keep and breed animals from all over the world. They also have the usual combination of rides and shows, with the shows in particular being some of the best in all the parks. The majority of the park is built like a rainforest, with thick trees surrounding the paths on all sides. A vast man-made tree sits in the centre of the park, called the “Tree Of Life”, which has carvings of animals all around the trunk. The result is a totally unique visual experience, even before visiting any of the attractions.

The first thing we did was to head straight for the safari. The animals tend to hide in shelter as the day becomes hotter, so it’s best to go in the morning when it’s cooler. The tour consisted of a Jeep on a track, taking you through artificially cultivated rainforest and savannah, where you can spot rhinos, crocodiles, giraffes (who practically poked their heads inside our Jeep), lions, leopards and elephants. It’s an amazing experience to see all these animals in such close proximity, and in an environment that’s so similar to their own.

A cheeky giraffe on the safari - I had to zoom right out to take this!

The two shows, “The Lion King” and “Finding Nemo: The Musical”, were both fantastic experiences. The Lion King included music from the film, sung by people dressed as the animals, and acrobatic mokeys, a fire-breather and even Timone and an animatronic Pumba. It’s an absolute classic and Joy’s clear favourite. Finding Nemo surprised us both, as we weren’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. It was an unusual decision to create a musical show from a non-musical film – usually it’s the other way around. It somehow avoided the pitfall of being cheesy, and was both lovable and extremely clever. The theatre stage was decorated to look like an ocean floor, while actors, who were dressed to blend in to the background, carried huge puppets of the film’s characters and danced, sang and flew from one side of the stage to the other.

We had a particularly unusual lunch in the Rainforest Café, entirely due to the surroundings. It was superbly decorated with plants and trees from floor to ceiling, interspersed with animatronic monkeys and fish tanks. Every 15 minutes or so the waiters would start a countdown, at the end of which the monkeys would start screeching and screaming as loud as their robotic lungs would allow. The food was great too!

Despite feeling like a very full day, we only went on two rides: Dinosaur and Khali River Rapids. Dinosaur gave us our first long wait – about 40 minutes – which was unnervingly due to the ride being down for maintenance. When it came to our turn, even though the mechanics of the ride were fine, it was genuinely terrifying: much of it was spent twisting and hurtling around in the dark while being chased by a giant animatronic Carnosaur. Khali River Rapids was our first water ride, which we did twice out of sheer insanity. The first time round left us completely soaked, and the rest of the day was unusually overcast, meaning that we never completely dried out.

Animal Kingdom was every bit as good as I’d hoped, and the safari alone was enough to make the park memorable.

Next: Day Nine – Islands Of Adventure

They had set up an enormous tent in Downtown Disney, which is a kind of high street featuring restaurants, shops, bars and a huge number of people. The auditorium was enormous, seating thousands of people around a stage the size of an olympic swimming pool. We were, unbelievably, right near the front.

Two clowns emerged from the crowd, playing jokes on people for pre-show entertainment. It was particularly memorable watching them harass latecomers who were trying to find the way to their seats. However, their style was very much in contrast to the atypical clown; these clowns were altogether more sedate and slow-paced, but were much funnier as a result.

The show was an assault on just about every one of the senses. A live band played evocative music as an accompaniment to dozens of performers, who were often all performing at the same time. In fact, it was impossible to take everything in: watching one acrobat back-flipping around the stage meant that you were missing someone fly around the auditorium on a wire.

The highlights were the trampolinists, who were simply unbelievable. In fact, I’m not going to try and describe them, just watch this video of them performing “La Nouba”, which was the performance we saw:

The other section that stunned us both was that of the Asian children with diablos (sounds strange, but it was amazing).

Cirque Du Soleil was much more than a circus act. The performers were more like actors and, even though all the usual acts were present, they flowed into each other in a natural way so that the show felt like a totally unique experience. It was worth every penny and more of the high price to see it and we would both urge anyone who is given the opportunity to go and see it without hesitation!

Next: Day Seven – Animal Kingdom

The park was about 30 minutes from our door, which, being the furthest we’ve had to travel to reach a park, is a testament to the great location of our resort. Before we even arrived, however, we were already inwardly cursing Universal for their terrible signposting – almost non-existent and wrong when in existence.

We arrived at Universal Studios, in spite of malicious sign posting on the way

Universal Studios has attractions based completely on film and TV and they have built the park to feel like the streets of 1930s Hollywood. It was surprisingly empty: we found ourselves walking straight in to attractions that could easily rack up hour long queues at peak times of the year. One of these was Shrek 4D, which is a 3D cinema show featuring moving seats and water sprays, all synchronising with the action on the screen. A particularly memorable one was getting sprayed with water as Donkey sneezes – lovely. There are plenty of these types of shows at all the parks, but they’re always entertaining and Shrek is one of the best.

Jake and Elwood singing the blues

Another highlight was the Men In Black ride, which was a shoot-em-up in the style of laser quest, where you have to shoot aliens while being driven around streets in a kind of bumper car. The more accurate they are the more points you get, so a natural competition emerge between me and Joy. Not that I offered much in the way of competition on our first run: Joy scored about 150,000 while I managed an embarrassing 30,000. The second time around, after I’d learnt what to do, I managed a quite frankly spectacular 250,000 to Joy’s 187,000. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish that counts.

The Simpsons ride deserves a mention because, despite it being a simple screen and simulator car combination, it had the full effect of a roller-coaster. The highly convincing technology and hilarious on-screen antics made it another highlight, despite making both of us slightly ill.

Jaws: we resisted the urge to put our heads in its mouth, unlike most people

I soon learned that part of this nausea was due to a heat rash that I’d somehow picked up (in November!); my body became very itchy and I suddenly felt very tired. It also brought on a painful headache and made me lose all my appetite. Not only that, but Joy’s foot was beginning to feel very painful. It turned out that she sprained it, most likely at some point during all the walking around at Epcot. This was bad news: we knew that we had at least four parks left and each of them were best experienced with two working feet.

Despite these events, Universal Studios was a great day and just about topped Epcot, at least in terms of pure entertainment.

Next: Day Six – Cirque Du Soleil