To prepare for several upcoming articles on AskApache that are focused on optimizing Servers and Sites from a server admin level, here is an article to introduce the main tools that we will be using. These tools are used to optimize CPU time for each process using nice and renice, and other tools like ionice are used to optimize the Disk IO, or Disk speed / Disk traffic for each process. Then you can make sure your mysqld and httpd processes are always fast and prioritized.
Optimization CFQ Idle linux Linux scheduler Load Nice RAM Scheduling algorithms
Google AdSense calles their AdSense Ads, "Sponsored Links", while Text-Link-Ads.com recommends "Sponsored By". Of course it is against the Google Adsense TOS to rename your ads, but in general, for non-adsense, what do you like to call your sponsored links?
SEO
One of the first things that I do upon receiving a new Windows computer is immediately create a poweruser-style customized boot menu. Then every time I boot I can choose Safe Mode, Recovery Console, Debug, whatever I want! It's quick and easy to set-up and everyone should have one, soo sweet!
Windows
An image and technicacl achievement so profound, it will touch yoour heart.. So 3D... it'll hurt you eyes! LOL.. lol.. Man I am cracking up here. haha Ha definately the best intro ever, those really do look 3D for terminal though huh.. Sweet. Here is the little function I wrote to output that grey marble.
Linux ANSI escape code ANSI.SYS Control characters Escape sequence Stty Termcap Terminfo Tput
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! Htaccess Cache Cache-Control ETag Expires Header Headers Htaccess mod_expires mod_headers
Hacking Cheat sheet linux
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...
Software Addons Firefox Mozilla
I used to have a problem of controlling flash elements on my sites.. On one site we have 6 different flash flv movies that are all the same size and are in the same position on the page. But only 1 is displayed at a time based on what the user wants to watch. So the selected flash movie needs to have the highest stacking order/zIndex.
CSS
The bottom line for this article is that I want to make WordPress as fast, secure, and easy to install, run, and manage because I am using it more and more for client production sites, I will work for days in order to solve an issue so that I never have to spend time on that issue again. Time is money in this industry and that is ultimately (time) what there is to gain by tweaking WordPress.
Note: I spent no time on readability, this is primarily a read the code and figure it out article.. This is for advanced users looking for a reference or discussion and for those of you looking to advance. Feedback would be great if you make it that far..
WordPress wordpress wp-config.php
Very nice tutorial dealing with the robots.txt file. Shows examples for google and other search engines. Wordpress robots.txt and phpBB robots.txt sample files. SEO
I am almost ready to publish the final tutorial on using ssh tunnels from a truecrypt partition on a Windows machine. Of course I choose to go way overboard in my research and the tutorial is full of some pretty awesome windows tricks.. I will come back to this post soon and post all the other advanced tools I use for debugging windows, for now though you MUST know how to debug the kernel and use these basic debugging tools.
Windows Assemblers basic debugging tools Debug Debuggers Debugging Kernel
Its really nice to be able to print out a webpage you are reading using your browsers built-in print feature. Using CSS you can easily transform your site into a print-friendly site.
Today I received an email from a visitor to my site requesting that I add a way to print site articles on AskApache
CSS Cascading Style Sheets nicer printing Style sheet
Apache, Hosting 2.4 Apache Error
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!
CSS
Stop wasting your lives with Mac Terminals.. or Macs. Get a real machine and then get a real shell multiplexer! For many years we all loved GNU Screen, but tmux is by far a better option today. The only time I am in the shell and not using a multiplexer, is when I'm not on one of my machines. My Arch Linux machines all run URxvt and my .bash_profiles all start tmux automataically, whether in X or single-user mode, tmux is where it's at.
Hacking, Linux linux.bash Screen shell tmux
Scrolls the latest log entries for multiple log files to the current screen or to any other monitor or TTY in color using syntax highlighting, making debugging easier and saving a lot of time for multi-monitor workstations.
Linux
Time-dependant rewriting uses mod_rewrite and apache server time variables to display different files depending on the time, while the URL stays the same. An often requested implementation of this is to display a different home page or image depending on if its morning, noon, or night.
Htaccess
CSS is one of the most useful tools I have in my toolbox as a Web Developer. Having a CSS Toolbox containing good CSS Classes that you repeatedly use is quite helpful for us XHTML / web-standards / best-practices developers. Check out 10 of my favorite CSS classes.
CSS
This amazing bash linux prompt does more than meets the eye. If you want to know how to become really good with technology, linux is the secret sauce behind the AskApache articles. Open Source is elixir of the web. Thanks to everyone who helped me for the past 20 years. I use linux/bsd because homey don't play, so this is geared to be as productive a prompt as I can make it.
Don't have much time.. or just don't care? Not a problem, here are the 3 lines to copy and paste - you can just paste them right in your shell to test it, or add to a startup script.
export AA_P="export PVE=\"\\033[m\\033[38;5;2m\"\$(( \`sed -n \"s/MemFree:[\\t ]\\+\\([0-9]\\+\\) kB/\\1/p\" /proc/meminfo\` / 1024 ))\"\\033[38;5;22m/\"\$((\`sed -n \"s/MemTotal:[\\t ]\\+\\([0-9]\\+\\) kB/\\1/p\" /proc/meminfo\`/ 1024 ))MB\"\\t\\033[m\\033[38;5;55m\$(< /proc/loadavg)\\033[m\";echo -en \"\""
export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a;((\$SECONDS % 10==0 ))&&eval \"\$AA_P\";echo -en \"\$PVE\";"
export PS1="\\[\\e[m\\n\\e[1;30m\\][\$\$:\$PPID \\j:\\!\\[\\e[1;30m\\]]\\[\\e[0;36m\\] \\T \\d \\[\\e[1;30m\\][\\[\\e[1;34m\\]\\u@\\H\\[\\e[1;30m\\]:\\[\\e[0;37m\\]\${SSH_TTY} \\[\\e[0;32m\\]+\${SHLVL}\\[\\e[1;30m\\]] \\[\\e[1;37m\\]\\w\\[\\e[0;37m\\] \\n(\$SHLVL:\\!)\\\$ " && eval $AA_P Linux bash Prompt PROMPT_COMMAND PS1 sed ssh
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.
PHP
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).
CSS
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. Security
I've had a lot of people ask about the FeedBurner FeedCount image on AskApache. Specifically how to set it up with custom messages and different colors each page view... It is pretty sweet..
Hacking Feed Count FeedBurner Htaccess
After many years of using any and all terminal emulators out there, from xterm to the Gnome terminal, to KDE Konsole to xfce4-terminal, lxterminal, vte, yakuake, rote, roxterm, sakura, terminator, and putty I finally I settled in for the long-haul with rxvt (rxvt-unicode).
My BOX: Slim -> Ratpoison -> URxvt -> Tmux -> Bash
Linux .Xdefaults .Xresources bash Gnome terminal GNU Screen ratpoison rxvt rxvt-unicode Terminal multiplexers tmux urxvt Xterm Yakuake
SEO
This article is a quick and easy HowTo detailing the use of Wireshark or another network sniffing program to debug your Apache .htaccess or httpd.conf files.
Software
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.
PHP fsockopen PHP socket strace udp Unix
#### No https except to wp-admin -
# If the request is empty ( implies fopen or normal file access by a php script )
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^$ [OR]
# OR if the request if for wp-admin or wp-login.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(wp-admin|wp-login.php).*$ [NC,OR]
# OR if the Referer is https
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https://www.askapache.com/.*$ [NC]
# THEN skip the following rule, basically all this does is force https or badhost to be redirected
# BUT because of the above 3 rewritecond's, this won't break poorly written admin scripts
RewriteRule .* - [S=1]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =on [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.askapache.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* https://www.askapache.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9} /(wp-admin/.*|wp-login.php.*) HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] Htaccess RewriteCond RewriteEngine RewriteRule
My improved version of the common printenv / test-cgi scripts for debugging Apache environment variables set in .htaccess files
Shell Scripting
Grab the latest php.ini developmental version and discover new or previously hidden php runtime configuration settings... ahead of everyone else!
PHP
Hosting HTTP HTTP Headers Wireshark
What I used to do when I was still learning CSS was to check the web page in each of the various problematic browsers to make sure the display stayed the same. I have several actual machines and several vmware virtual machines running various browers but I decided to skip all that extra time and effort and just use an online tool to do it for me. The tool views my page in all the various browsers and generates a screenshot image from each browser so that I can see if there are issues with my CSS.
Software
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
Linux Arch Linux bash linux shell Unix shells
The idea is to use CSS to have the browser display programming and code similar to the high-quality look of a developers machine, like this older screenshot of my VIM.
CSS Digital typography Typeface Typesetting Typography
Just a quick reference to all those delicious unicode characters and how they render on the web‽‽
Web Development symbols Unicode
If you want to pre-load .flv / .mp3 files into a visitors browser cache using flash, here's the actionscript I use to do it, and some ideas behind a good javascript implementation using swfobject or ufo.
Optimization
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.
Htaccess SSI
Let me show you an example that works so well I am using it right now on my site. Every page in fact. If you are a young or up and coming web developer with skills to pay the bills, lets make the future Net fast, learn about optimization and refactoring while you still have the chance.
CSS
Turns every 404 Not Found error into a SEO traffic generating event! Help your site visitors find what they were looking for automatically by leveraging both Google and WordPress. It's one of about 6 plugins I use on every WP site I run. Highly recommend you try it for a few months.
«Take My 404 for a Test-Drive
SEO 404 Google 404 SEO wordpress WordPress Plugin
