If like to keep the PC I use for development as clean as possible, to reduce the odds of “other installed stuff” influencing whatever I’m writing. Whenever I need to install some kind of server-type software on it, I prefer to use small virtual machines to install them in. Like a sandbox running the server, which I can just start and access from the host machine whenever I need it. Another big advantage of this approach is that it allows me to just copy the entire virtual machine to another machine and run the server there, for example on a colleague’s machine. Below are some tips on getting the open source database server PostgreSQL running on a virtual machine, accessible from the host (or any other machine on your network).
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Remember how mediaplayers were really primitive back in the day? How they always had trouble keeping your music properly sorted and display the right metadata for whatever format you preferred? I bet you do because nothing changed, really. (Yes, I know, “RAEG” right?)

When I drop my properly standardized ID3-ed MP3’s and FLACs into my player, I get all sorts of interesting effects. And before you start, we’re talking about my own CD’s here. Ripped to FLAC for playback on my media center and MP3-encoded for convenient use on my smartphone and other devices. Depending on where you live, that may be illegal or borderline illegal, but where I live, it’s legal - at least at the time of writing. At the worst, we could be having a discussion about the legality of mp3-encoding.
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