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30x Faster WP-Super Cache and Site Speed with TMPFS

I haven’t had time to post much the past year, I’m always working! So I wanted to make up for that by publishing an article on a topic that would blow your mind and be something that you could actually start using and really get some benefit out of it. This is one of those articles that the majority of web hosting companies would love to see in paperback, so they could burn it. Now ask yourself, if a webhost makes money based on how much memory, bandwidth, and data used by a customer, what would they not want their customers to do? That’s right, they do not want their customers to learn how to minimize and drastically reduce these moneymakers. They get giddy when you complain about slow-site-speed, or that it takes a long time for your site to load, because they have exactly the right answer- upgrade your memory, bandwidth, and data by purchasing a more expensive plan.

Tagged: Cache, devshm, filesystem, ram, ramdisk, ramfs, server, slram, speed, tmpfs | Continue...

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Tips and Tricks for a BASH Power Prompt

From setting the window title to show the last run command (filtered), saving your history and keeping multi-session history intact, resetting the color/cursor/highlighting of errant color-emitting commands, this prompt does more than meets the eye and is extremely fast.

Don’t have much time or just don’t care? No problem, this is a simple copy and paste of 2 lines and thats all there is to it!

Tagged: bash, bash_profile, Prompt, PROMPT_COMMAND, PS1, Shell, Shell History | Continue...

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Custom bash_profile for Advanced Shell Users

Looking for some advanced uses for the shell? Here is some of my best. The shell is where 70% of my work takes place, and I have at least one terminal open almost 100% of the time, for viewing tailing color-coded logs, and of course for the SSH Tunnels that I use to route various networking through, like my email. So I decided that to standardize and create a bash_profile containing the most time-saving and helpful functions that I could use on all the various hosting environments would really be some sweet sugar, so here is my constant Work-in-progress.

It works for all shells I encounter, including BackTrack, Debian, Knoppix, Arch Linux, etc. Also works for many hosting environments I use including DreamHost, HostGator, WiredTree, and pretty much any linux VPS.

I also rely on this heavily from within shell scripts I write to access all the functions and stuff in this .bash_profile, and to do that I just do like:

#!/bin/bash
 
source ~/.bash_profile &>/dev/nulll
 
pm "PM is a function to output nice messages with color"
yn "Are you enjoying the shell" && pm "Thats great!" || pm "Perhaps you're better suited for DOS"
yn "Show Calendar" && aa_calendar
yn "Show Fortune" && aa_fortune

Tagged: .bashrc, advanced, alias, bash, bash alias, bash_profile, function, linux, scripts, shell script | 4 Comments | Continue...

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Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers

Advanced Web Development by AskApache is a Firefox Collection I created since I’m always trying new Addons out and using multiple computers and I wanted a quick and easy way to install my favorite’s and keep a running list. Firebug, YSlow, LastPass, and Web Developer are the only ones I always use regularly.

I like the idea of the last.fm but it’s not as powerful as the site, which is awesome. Lately listening to Kings of Leon Radio…

Tagged: askapache, Firebug, Firefox, Firefox Addons, Web Development, webdev, YSlow | 4 Comments | Continue...

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Windows Optimization – Intense Part II

If you ever wanted to know the best way to defragment and speed up your Windows-Based PC, I mean you really wanted to know, here is the 2nd part to my article on Windows Speed Optimizing that details the process I have found works really well. Definately not a quick process, and certainly not the best ever, just my best ever and one that you only have to do once to get the benefits.
This article has a lot of incredibly useful (and FREE) tools I recommend, which you can grab and use without reading the article..

Tagged: Defrag, Defragmentation, Deframenting, Disk IO, MyDefrag, PageDefrag, Registry Optimization, SpinRite, UltraDefrag, Windows XP | 5 Comments | Continue...

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Make Windows XP Blazingly Fast

Here is the basic process that I use to speed up Windows. A lot of good tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the past 15+ years of crashing and burning Windows that can transform your PC to be much faster than its ever been. The process focuses on freeing up RAM/Memory, freeing up your CPU/Processor, and optimizing your Hard Drive for a permanent solution.

Make sure to check out the free software I recommend at the end, installing them after this optimization process will keep your machine fast for a long time.

Tagged: File System, Hard Drive, pagefile, Windows XP Optimization | 12 Comments | Continue...

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Mirroring an Entire Site using Rsync over SSH

Sometimes there is an urgent need for creating an exact duplicate or “mirror” of a web site on a separate server. This could be needed for creating Round Robin Setups, Load-Balancing, Failovers, or for just plain vanilla backups. In the past I have used a lot of different methods to copy data from one server to another, including creating an archive of the whole directory and then using scp to send the file over, creating an archive and then encrypting it and then sending that file over using ftp, curl, etc., and my persistence at learning new ways to do things has paid off because now I use rsync to keep an exact replica of the entire directory on an external server, without having to use all the CPU and resources of other mirroring methods.

Tagged: backup, bash, encryption, mirror, password, rsync, ssh | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Advanced Htaccess Demo/Example using Cookies, Headers, Rewrites

Whoa pretty sweet huh? Bet you’ve never seen that before! As I explain the htaccess code that achieves this, keep in mind this is merely one simple application for this code. It’s much more advanced than your basic htaccess trick, notice how this htaccess acts like a php script, very unusual.. I really wanted to share this trick after I created it for one of my clients because this is the tip of the iceberg. Another use would be to display an alternate style sheet depending on a users theme preference. The coolest thing about this example IMHO is that it uses multiple advanced .htaccess ideas in order for it to work, most htaccess code on the net is very singular. This code uses mod_headers to set the Content-Disposition header for forcing a download and uses mod_rewrite to do the rest.

Tagged: htaccess, htaccess rewrites, http headers, Javascript, pdf, PHP | 7 Comments | Continue...

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Advanced Htaccess – SSI, ErrorDocuments, DirectoryIndexing SEO

3-Part article covering practical implementation of 3 advanced .htaccess features. Discover an easy way to boost your SEO the AskApache way (focus on visitors), a tip you might keep and use for life. Get some cool security tricks to use against spammers, crackers, and other nefarious sorts. Take your site’s error handling to the next level, enhanced ErrorDocuments that go beyond 404’s.

Tagged: Apache Htaccess, errordocument, htaccess, htaccess rewrite, mod_include, Server Side Includes, SSI, SymLinks | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Ultimate Htaccess Tutorial for .htaccess files

This is not an introduction to .htaccess… This is the evolution of .htaccess… The BEST, the ORIGINAL, the NEWEST, and the most HIGHEST, FLYEST .htaccess tricks I can find.

Originally known as the “Ultimate .htaccess Guide”, its changed over the years by adding new .htaccess tricks and .htaccess examples to it.. I also add my favorite .htaccess links, the best .htaccess articles on AskApache, the coolest .htaccess experiments, the Web’s best .htaccess hacks, and update this article on the regular.

Tagged: .htaccess examples, Apache, Cache, caching, Files, FilesMatch, Google, Hacking, howto, htaccess, htaccess guide, htaccess help, htaccess howto, htaccess rewrite, htaccess tricks, htaccess tutorial, httpd, litespeed, mod_rewrite, Mod_Security, rewritecond, rewriterule, sample .htaccess, Security, SEO, seo secrets, SetEnvIf, ssl, ultimate htaccess | 56 Comments | Continue...

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COMPUTER SECURITY TOOLBOX

List of mainly obscure security software geared more for the master pentester. These are mostly for unix, bsd, and mac and many are difficult to install and setup (require custom servers, inside access points, obscure libraries). Only programs that output data are included, so no actual exploits or anything. Most of these output extremely useful albeit extremely technical information.

3 Comments | Continue...

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Fsockopen Power Plays

PHP’s fsockopen function lets you open an Internet or Unix domain socket connection for connecting to a resource, and is one of the most powerful functions available in the php language.

Tagged: Cache, Fsockopen, Hacking, HTTO, linux, Networking, Performance, PHP, Pipelining, Socket | 3 Comments | Continue...

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Adding Akismet Anti-Spam Protection Anywhere

Wouldn’t you love to have Akismet Anti-spam protection for non-wordpress forms and pages?

Tagged: Anti-Spam, PHP, Security | 6 Comments | Continue...

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Undetectable Sniffing On Ethernet

I have been in some tight spots where I had to sniff a password or two off the wire, or sniff some packets off the wire and based on the packets content perform some action… Accidentally, I stumbled on a method to sniff data while remaining undetected and invisible.

Tagged: Ethernet, Hacking, linux, nsa, Sniffing, Undetectable, wireshark | Continue...

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Auto-Login to Google Analytics to impress Clients

Google Analytics for your clients sites is a no-brainer, it ROCKS! I have 100+ client sites running Analytics and all of them have trouble-free (no password or username to remember) access to their site reports. Thanks to the method in this post, my clients couldn’t be happier..

Tagged: Analytics, Forms, Google, Login, password, post | 21 Comments | Continue...

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Faster Form Submission and Processing with fsockopen

Part II: Example illustrating how to speed up GET/POST form submissions. Uses fsockopen to initiate a server-side background request to process the submitted data, so that the result page of the form is displayed to the client lightningly quick.

Tagged: Forms, Fsockopen, optimization, PHP | 3 Comments | Continue...

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Faster POST and GET Form Submissions… Shazam

Just a very brief look at speeding up form submission by delegating the processing and bandwidth to your server, not your client.

Tagged: Bottleneck, form, Form Submit, Fsockopen, GET, http, PHP, post, Snoopy | 1 Comment | Continue...

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Hacking WP Super Cache for Speed

A plugin built to generate static files from php+mysql for Apache to serve the way its supposed to be.. My dream. Conclusion: Needs some improvement, pretty sweet though.

11 Comments | Continue...

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HTTP Status Codes and .htaccess ErrorDocuments

There are a total of 57 HTTP Status Codes recognized by the Apache Web Server. Wouldn’t you like to see what all those headers and their output, ErrorDocuments look like?

Tagged: Apache, errordocument, htaccess, HTTP Error, HTTP Status Codes, PHP, Redirect, Status Code | 19 Comments | Continue...

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Lets win the DreamHost Contest

DreamHost has a contest every month nicknamed “DHSOTM” or DreamHost Site Of The Month, that lets the customers rank websites hosted on DreamHost.

By winning the contest you get to put a graphic designed in the 90’s on your site. I want it so bad!

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Simple PHP Anti-Spam Captcha Script

Prevent automated web robot tools and spammers from taking advantage of your site with this simple php script that I hacked up earlier today to use on my Advanced HTTP Header Viewer.

12 Comments | Continue...

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Awk Tutorial and Introduction

While researching a unix/linux tool awk I came upon one of the most thorough and helpful tutorials I’ve ever seen devoted to a particular topic. It’s old-school just the way I like it. I contacted the author, Bruce Barnett because I just HAD to have this article for my readers, who are predominantly running solaris/unix/bsd/linux and he kindly gave permission.

1 Comment | Continue...

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Abbr and Acronym examples

Acronym and Abbr examples from the W3C Quality Assurance Site.

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Website SEO Score Tool

Check out this free online SEO site-scoring tool. The SEO generated report is simple, neat, and helpful. The main thing I like about it is how it is a stand-alone website, a residual money making machine.

4 Comments | Continue...

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CSS Background Image Sprites

Using a CSS Background Image Sprite with the CSS background-position and background-image I can display all these icons: . I can even have them show up anywhere on the page!

2 Comments | Continue...

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.htpasswd file Generator

.htpasswd is a flat-file used by Apache and other applications to store usernames and password for HTTP authentication. Apache .htpasswd files may contain multiple types of passwords; some may have MD5-encrypted passwords while others in the same file may have passwords encrypted with crypt(3) and/or SHA-1. Usernames are limited to 255 bytes and may not include the character :.
Htpasswd Formats
Apache Servers recognize 4 formats for representing a password hash in the text file usually named .htpasswd.

CRYPT
crypt(3) is the library function which is used to compute a password hash. Technically the name is a misnomer since it is actually a cryptographic hash function. The output of the function is not merely the hash: it is a text string which also encodes the salt and identifies the hash algorithm used. Apache uses the traditional Unix crypt function with a randomly-generated 32-bit salt (only 12 bits used) and the first 8 characters of the password. ALG_CRYPT
MD5
MD5 is one in a series of message digest algorithms designed by Professor Ronald Rivest of MIT. The 128-bit (16-byte) MD5 hashes (also termed message digests) are typically represented as a sequence of 32 hexadecimal digits. In .htpasswd files the hash is: $apr1$ + an Apache-specific algorithm using an iterated (1,000 times) MD5 digest of various combinations of a random 32-bit salt and the password. ALG_APMD5
SHA-1
The SHA hash functions are a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the National Security Agency (NSA) and published by the NIST as a U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard. SHA-1 produces a 160-bit digest from a message with a maximum length of (264 − 1) bits. SHA-1 is the most widely employed of the SHA family. It forms part of several widely used security applications and protocols, including TLS and SSL, PGP, SSH,…

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The REAL Way to Optimize AdSense

Optimizing the position, color, and size of AdSense Ads is confusing. The REAL way to optimize AdSense for clicks and revenue is using variations and measuring the results.

2 Comments | Continue...

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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.

Tagged: Cache, Cache Validation, Etags, optimization, YSlow | 8 Comments | Continue...

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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.

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Sending POST form data with php CURL

CURL Guide for sending POST data form request with PHP and CURL

Tagged: curl, form, htaccess, PHP, post | 17 Comments | Continue...

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SEO in Wordpress

Search Engine Optimization for WordPress

3 Comments | Continue...

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Running a Reverse Proxy in Apache

In 2003, Nick Kew released a new module that complements Apache’s
mod_proxy and is essential for reverse-proxying. Since then he gets
regular questions and requests for help on proxying with Apache. In
this article he attempts to give a comprehensive overview of the
proxying and mod_proxy_html

This article was originally published at ApacheWeek in January 2004,
and moved to ApacheTutor with minor updates in October 2006.
Web Proxies
A proxy server is a gateway for users to the Web at large. Users
configure the proxy in their browser settings, and all HTTP requests
are routed via the proxy. Proxies are typically operated by ISPs and
network administrators, and serve several purposes: for example,

to speed access to the Web by caching pages fetched, so that
popular pages don’t have to be re-fetched for every user who views
them.
to enable controlled access to the web for users behind a
firewall.
to filter or transform web content.

Reverse Proxies
A reverse proxy is a gateway for servers, and enables one web server
to provide content from another transparently. As with a standard
proxy, a reverse proxy may serve to improve performance of the web by
caching; this is a simple way to mirror a website. But the most common
reason to run a reverse proxy is to enable controlled access from the
Web at large to servers behind a firewall.
The proxied server may be a webserver itself, or it may be an
application server using a different protocol, or an application
server with just rudimentary HTTP that needs to be shielded from
the web at large. Since 2004, reverse proxying has been the preferred
method of deploying JAVA/Tomcat applications on the Web, replacing
the old mod_jk (itself a special-purpose reverse proxy module).
Proxying with Apache
The…

8 Comments | Continue...

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Speed Up Sites with htaccess Caching

2 awesome ways to implement caching on your website using Apache .htaccess or httpd.conf. Both methods are extremely simple to set up and will dramatically speed up your site!

10 Comments | Continue...

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FastCGI on DreamHost

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Web Development Glossary

Web Development / Webmaster Glossary
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Z | other glossaries
This glossary defines some of the common terminology related to Apache in particular, and web serving in general. More information on each concept is provided in the links.

Access Control
The restriction of access to network realms. In an Apache context usually the restriction of access to certain URLs.See: Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control

Account
The term “account” is often used synonymously with username here at DynDNS. Both terms describe the name you use to log in to our system. An account is not the same as a hostname, which may be named differently.

age
The age of a response is the time since it was sent by, or successfully validated with, the origin server.

Alias
See cname.

Algorithm
An unambiguous formula or set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps. Algorithms for encryption are usually called Ciphers.
APache eXtension Tool (apxs)
A perl script that aids in compiling module sources into Dynamic Shared Objects ( dsos) and helps install them in the Apache Web server.See: Manual Page: apxs

A Record
An A Record, short for Address Record, allows a numeric ipaddress to map to a more human-readable domain. An A Record may also be referred to as a host or hostname.

Authoritative Nameserver
A nameserver which has been configured to provide answers for a specific domain, rather than simply getting and caching data about domains from other nameservers.

Authentication
The positive identification of a network entity such as a server, a client, or a user.See: Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control
Advisory Committee
An Advisory Committee is a formal advisory…

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Regular Expressions in Dreamweaver

Find and Replace tool in Adobe DreamWeaver is useful of course, but you aren’t using a fraction of the power until you use REGEX.

3 Comments | Continue...

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