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For those of you still running Windows Vista, be aware of an interesting conflict between Skype and WAMP or XAMPP.

WAMP stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. It's used for running software like Joomla on your local computer, generally for development purposes. XAMPP stands for any operating system (they have versions for Mac and PC), Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl.

If you load Skype first (or if it's already running), and then you try to turn on WAMP or XAMPP, all you'll see are blank screens when you go to http://localhost.

Be sure to turn Skype off, or make sure it's off, before turning on WAMP or XAMPP. Once they're running, you can turn Skype on and no conflict will exist.

Via Twitter, I hear that there are conflicts with Windows XP and WAMP as well as Windows 7 64 plus XAMPP, so there's a good chance this conflict exists across most versions of Windows.

Philip Locke has a suggestion to fix the problem. In Skype, go to Tools - Options, choose the Advanced tab, then choose Connections. Uncheck the box that says "Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections." Since Apache is also using port 80, this is where the conflict arises.