Web Development, WordPress, Apache, .htaccess, tutorials, mod_rewrite, phpmailer, programming articles
Speed Tips: Remove Last-Modified Header
If you remove the Last-Modified and ETag header, you will totally eliminate If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match requests and their 304 Not Modified Responses.
Speed Tips: Turn Off ETags
By removing the ETag header, you disable caches and browsers from being able to validate files, so they are forced to rely on your Cache-Control and Expires header.
Speed Tips: Add Future Expires Headers
A first-time visitor to your page will make several HTTP requests to download all your sites files, but using the Expires header you make those files cacheable. This avoids unnecessary HTTP requests on subsequent page views.
Firefox, Firebug, and yslow are REQUIRED
A lot of the past and upcoming articles on AskApache are focused on speeding up a server or website, or just making things more efficient. I’m starting several speed tip articles that require the following 3 programs if you want to follow along, that is… if you can keep up! ;)
Wget Trick to Download from Restrictive Sites
Before
After trick
I am often logged in to my servers via SSH, and I need to download a file like a WordPress plugin. I’ve noticed many sites now employ a means of blocking robots like wget from accessing their files. Most of the time they use .htaccess to do this. So a permanent workaround has wget mimick a normal browser.
Speed Tips: Turn On Compression
Use the Apache module mod_deflate to compress your static .css and .js files, speeding your site up like crazy!
Downloading Multiple Files with Curl Simultaneously
Wouldn’t it be great if you could use php and curl to download multiple files simultaneously using built-in curl functions? You can!
AskApache Search Engine Verify
You may not think much about verifying your website with these search engines, but I am of the opinion it is extremely good for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In fact, I read the other day on Google that if you buy a domain with a checkered past that has been punished by the search engines and you want it to be reincluded in the index this is what they recommended. Verify your sites.
Alexa Toolbar Add-On for Firefox Works!
This is the 10th anniversary of the Alexa Toolbar, July 17, 1997. Do you remember what the Net looked like back then? Netscape was the most popular browser. AOL had released it’s first Instant Messenger program in Beta. Jodie Foster’s new movie Contact was number one at the box office.
Troubleshooting Apache .htaccess Authentication
Apache Web Server users have problems getting Apache Authentication/password-protection in htaccess working, this is a troubleshooting guide to get Password Protection working!
Redirect index.php to root “/”
WordPress blogs show the same duplicate content for http://www.askapache.com/index.php and http://www.askapache.com/. If you’ve read about using a robots.txt file for WordPress SEO, than you already understand this setup results in Duplicate Content penalties being levied against your Blog and Web Site by Search Engines.
Want to know how to really hack?
An interesting post by a computer hacker explaining how to really hack.
Speedier Sites use CSS Sprites
An Image Sprite is simply multiple images combined into one image. Using the background-position in CSS you can display a specific image from the image sprite.
Sprites reduce the number of files that are requested and downloaded by site visitors, resulting in noticeable decreases in Page-Loading times, Bandwidth usage, and Server loads.
Custom Webmaster Shell Environment
Webmasters often use SSH to remotely admin web sites and servers, learn how to make your shell colorful and powerful using my sample .bash_profile and you can be up and running in 30 seconds!
Rigging the DreamHost Site of the Month Contest
Since I was disqualified and accused of cheating, which is absolutely false, I decided to go ahead and do the crime I have been punished for. That’s right, I’m going to show YOU how I could have rigged the DHSOTM contest to hopefully make the statement that I absolutely did not cheat and I absolutely want to be re-instated as the winner.
Allow AdSense Crawler Access
Google AdSense uses the robots.txt file to optimize Ads displayed on your site for the Mediapartners-Google robot
DreamHost Site of The Month is AskApache!
AskApache.com won the contest for May! Thanks to all of you who voted for my site! Even though AskApache won the contest according to the rules, somehow they said I cheated by giving DreamHost too much free publicity and advertising. I love DreamHost!
Advanced Google Analytics 404 Error Page
Advanced 404 Not Found Error page usage with Google Analytics. This makes it very easy to diagnose and keep track of 404 Error messages from within google analytics. Enjoy!
Multiply your DreamHost Referrals
Learn how to make YOUR DreamHost promo codes work much better for YOU! This is not about promo-codes, this is about a simple method you should implement.
Install multiple OS Without Cds
I had a CD-RW drive but being a struggling computer security researcher I had no money for blank cd-recordables. What follows is how I managed to install various operating systems on my computer (1 hard drive) without having to burn to a CD the ISO and then boot from that.
Changing Any Password On XP
This quick tutorial will show you the steps to change and reset any user password on a windows computer, and also show you how to protect your computer from people doing this to you!
PullQuotes using CSS
I looked at a lot of different ways to display quotes and pullquotes and even though the javascript solutions are very nice, esp. the 456bereastreet.com solution, I decided to just use CSS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Top methods for Faster, Speedier web sites
High Performance Web Site list of the best and newest methods to make web pages super fast using caching, compression, cache-control, etc.
DreamHost Site of The Month Contest
Every month a contest called DHSOTM is held for the highest rated website on DreamHost. By winning the contest your site gets SEO and traffic benefits, which I hope to measure soon.
On-Demand MySQL Backup Shell Script
On-Demand WordPress MySQL database Backup Shell Script for DreamHost
WordPress robots.txt SEO
WordPress robots.txt file can make a huge impact on your WordPress blogs traffic and search engine rank. This is an SEO optimized robots.txt file.
Apache Variable Fun in htaccess
Server and Environment Variables are used by The Apache HTTP Server by provides a mechanism for storing information. This information can be used to control various operations such as logging or access control.
htaccess HTTPS / SSL Tips, Tricks, and Hacks
Apache has the best SSL/HTTPS support and can be controlled by the httpd.conf file or other HTTPD server configuration file. This htaccess tutorial has htaccess example code to make it easy to secure and use HTTPS and SSL with Apache.
Security with Apache htaccess Tutorial
Apache Security tips and tricks for securing Apache Web Servers using htaccess, httpd.conf, and other built-in techniques to thwart attackers. This really should be required reading for any Apache admin or user because these little tricks are so easy to do.
Apache Authentication in htaccess
How to password-protect, Allow or Deny a visitor based on a condition. If you are having trouble getting htaccess-based password protection to work see: Troubleshooting htaccess Authentication: Getting it to work
