Pixelpost and Personal Web Sharing in Tiger

Question

Dear Friends:
I figured out how to install Pixelpost (for a photoblog) in my OS X Tiger system -- by using MAMP. I changed the Document Root in MAMP so that now it looks to the Personal Web Sharing folder in the Mac (the Sites folder in the /usr/ space). The installation of Pixelpost works fine, letting me add images, manage it, etc. However, when I type in the computer address ("personal website") as provided in the Sharing tab under system preferences, it does not bring me at all to the photoblog. For instance:
http://my.computer.address/ (just brings me to the regular Apache Server notice that it is running)
if I type this:
http://my.computer.address/~username/
It brings me to the generic OS X page in place. But when I type:
http://my.computer.address/~username/pixelpost/
it opens to the pixelpost directory which I placed in the Sites folder. What I'd like to do is figure out what address will call up this blog so that others can access it.
The blog comes up fine under this URL:
http://localhost:8888/pixelpost/
But that's not a proper address for external viewing. So, what address should I provide others? I've tried various configurations with the address provided in the Sharing tab of System Preferences, but no luck so far.
Thanks!
N

Answer 1

I changed the Document Root in MAMP so that now it looks to the Personal Web Sharing folder in the Mac (the Sites folder in the /usr/ space
I think you mean /Users/ space. /usr is something completely different.
http://my.computer.address/ (just brings me to the regular Apache Server notice that it is running)
Then it means you didn't change the DocumentRoot like you think you did. If you did, and assuming you restarted Apache after changing the DocumentRoot, then this URL would point to whatever directory you specified (/Users/whoever/Sites) and not /Library/WebServer/Documents.
But [http://localhost:8888/pixelpost> is not a proper address for external viewing.
but it can be. If all you're using this for is PixelPost then just setup the port forwarding on your router to forward to port 8888 rather than port 80 and you're done.
Now, that said, the fact that you're using two different ports here (port 80 and port 8888) means that, at the very least, you are running two virtual hosts, or quite possibly two completely separate Apache instances.
That could explain why changing the DocumentRoot doesn't help. You may have changed either the PixelPost VirtualHost configuration, or the MAMP-specific server configuration, but that's not the server/virtualhost you're talking to on port 80.
I've never used MAMP, so I don't know how it installs, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that it installs a whole new Apache distribution and you'd need to find that server and its configuration files to fix the DocumentRoot problem, if that's the way you want to go.
You can also fix it via a simple Alias in the standard Apache configuration - just alias /pixelpost to /Users/whoever/sites/pixelpost - that way users who hit /pixelpost on your server will get the User-specific directory, while all other URLs continue to be served via /Library/WebServer/Documents. This might improve security and avoid the possibility of leaking other content from your home directory that you don't want to make available.