Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site

Read the whole artic here.

1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests
2. Use a Content Delivery Network
3. Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header
4. Gzip Components
5. Put Stylesheets at the Top
6. Put Scripts at the Bottom
7. Avoid CSS Expressions
8. Make JavaScript and CSS External
9. Reduce DNS Lookups
10. Minify JavaScript and CSS
11. Avoid Redirects
12. Remove Duplicate Scripts
13. Configure ETags
14. Make Ajax Cacheable
15. Flush the Buffer Early
16. Use GET for AJAX Requests
17. Post-load Components
18. Preload Components
19. Reduce the Number of DOM Elements
20. Split Components Across Domains
21. Minimize the Number of iframes
22. No 404s
23. Reduce Cookie Size
24. Use Cookie-free Domains for Components
25. Minimize DOM Access
26. Develop Smart Event Handlers
27. Choose over @import
28. Avoid Filters
29. Optimize Images
30. Optimize CSS Sprites
31. Don't Scale Images in HTML
32. Make favicon.ico Small and Cacheable
33. Keep Components under 25K
34. Pack Components into a Multipart Document

SSH, SVN, Putty, Tortoise, and Zend Studio using svn+ssh://

Here’s some “how tos” that shows you how to set all up .

• HowTo: Configure SVN+SSH with Subclipse on Windows
  Use ssh tunnelling to access a Subversion repository using SSH tunneling (i.e. with a subversion repository url of svn+ssh://myservername/myrepo) using the Subclipse subversion integration with Eclipse. I tried various things and used each of the three interfaces for configuring Subclipse (Window, Preferences..., Team, SVN).

• How to setup svn+ssh
  This Guide will explain in easy steps how to setup your Linux server
  working for Subversion repository access through SSH client access.
  

  The svn+ssh:// protocol enables you to use SSH client access is throught
  the password prompt or using public private keys validation.
  No Public/private key generation is necessary to use the simplified
  svn+ssh protocol, but it might be a good idea, so that you can avoid
  password prompts all the time when using the SVN client access.
  

  This guide assumes that you know how to setup SSH with public/private
  keys on the server and on your client, and that you already have
  installed Subversion on your Linux box.
  
• Secure SVN repository using svn+ssh
  This article assumes you have shell access on a remote server, where you intend to host your repository, and svn successfully installed. If you’ve got that, let’s right jump in!
  
• Zend.com Forums: Zend Studio => HOW-TO: Using SVN+SSH in ZS 5.5 - More ssh, ssh-keygen, installing keys on client via Putty and Pageant, and using the ssh tunnel with Zend Studio. (This seems to be missing one step for Zend to work though which is included next)
• SVN - SSH connection produces errors - This post from the Zend knowledgebase adds the mysterious SVN_SSH environment variable that magically makes this work for Zend. NOTE - while they show this using the path to TortoisePlink.exe, you may also use Putty’s Plink.

Easy setup and configure WampServer - MySQL5, PHP5 + PECL, Apache2, PhpMyAdmin on Windows XP

WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache, PHP and the MySQL database. It also comes with PHPMyAdmin and SQLiteManager to easily manage your databases.

WampServer installs automatically (installer), and its usage is very intuitive. You will be able to tune your server without even touching the setting files.

WampServer is the only packaged solution that will allow you to reproduce your production server. Once WampServer is installed, you have the possibility to add as many Apache, MySQL and PHP releases as you want.

WampServer also has a trayicon to manage your server and its settings.

Download WampServer package

Most frequently used Linux commands

I am .NET developer because the company, i work for, is partner of Microsoft.
I am fan of Open Source because i don't have money to pay for licenses.

I am not expert or geek in Linux, but i have certain experience managing linux systems as a server. Connection from remote through secure shell, running few commands, and it was all that i do. Actually you don't need to know much details, many commands. When you have problem, you just google to find whatever you wish. Being geek in linux is just same as being connected to internet anymore.

I recently installed Ubuntu Feisty on my toshiba laptop(satellite A50) to start using linux as my desktop. Let me say that my mouth was wide open after installation. Everything was there what i needed. Missing or additional softwares can easily be installed using just one line of command; "apt-get". Years ago, i was reading 4 pages of tutorials to setup LAMP environment on linux servers, but now just 4 lines of command to do the same task.

1. Install Apache:
   sudo apt-get install apache2
2. Install PHP5:
   sudo apt-get install php5-common php5 libapache2-mod-php5
3. Install MySQL:
   sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
4. To use MySQL with PHP:
   sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

It is magic, isn't it? You even don't need to write these lines, using Package manager tools, you can easily do the same tasks. So what i mean is, to use Linux as a desktop system, you don't have to know all the shell commands and stay sleepless for nights. The only and most used shell commands you should know is following;

1) ls
Most used command. To list current directory contents. Dir equivalent of Windows

2) find
If you don't remember where you did save your files, you can use this command to search. Find command have various parameters showing the behaveor of search. For example; my most used form is - find /usr -name f* which means to search from usr directory for files started with "f"

3) man
Manual for commands. Useful when you don't remember the parameters or usage, you can apply for man command. "man find" gives you help about find command.

4) vi
Text editor used by linux geeks, i don't like it. I use gedit in gnome environment. Or pico :)

5) cat
Useful command when you want to look at the content of text files. cat xxx.txt

6) more
If you standard output is more than one line, you can use more to page the result. Press space button to go to next page. cat xxx.txt | more

7) grep
Used to search for certain strings or patterns in text files. For example; grep “passwd” xxx.txt search for "passwd" string in xxx.txt file.

8 ) chmod, chown
In linux filesystem, all files have three kinds of permissions(read, write, execute) for three kinds of roles(me, group, eveyone); These commands used to change owner or permission of files. For example; chmod +x script.sh will make the script.sh file executable.

9) ps
To see what background or foreground processes are working. You can see the process id and use "Kill -9" to stop the process.

10) cp, mv, rm
Used to copy, move, delete files and directories. Usage is same as you do in Windows shell.

Find plenty of commands from the following resources;

• http://linuxreviews.org/beginner/
• http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/usersguide/linux_ugbasics.html
• http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Command_Reference
• http://www.linuxlots.com/~jam/guide4.html
• http://www.userlocal.com/helpbasic.php
• http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/commands.htm
• http://www.laynetworks.com/linux.htm
• http://cs.clark.edu/~clug/commands.htm
• http://members.tripod.com/~earthen/linuxcom.htm
• http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/commands/index.html
• http://www.sorgonet.com/linux/commands/index.php
• http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/cmd/
• http://www.linux.ie/newusers/beginners-linux-guide/basic-shell-commands.php
• http://blog.lxpages.com/2007/02/25/top-10-linux-commands-for-newbies/
• http://people.debian.org/~debacle/refcard/refcard-en-a4.pdf

See Also;

1. Valuable Resources for Linux Sysadmins
2. Run your asp.net application on Linux
3. Looking for Free PHP/MySQL Web Hosting?
4. Looking for Light WebServer?
5. Learning Resources for Python Language

Looking for Light WebServer?

Apache is the best web server i have ever tried. Nobody can say the opposite one. But for someone who plan to host lightweight application, Apache may come heavier since it has many modules which brings load to system. Of course you can add/remove modules by changing httpd.config file, but what if you are having shared hosting? So shortly, if you need different, new, faster, secure, you can give a try to Lighttpd. You can host PHP applications on Lighttpd, here is the short tutorial how to do so; http://joshdick.net/index.php?section=article&name=lighttpd

According to the their statistics, Lighttpd is faster than other servers in most cases. Netcraft also reported that Lighttpd is one of TOP 5 web servers on the internet. TOP sites using Lighttpd are;
- youtube
- wikipedia
- imageshack.us
- sourceforge.net
- sendspace
- and more than 178,619 detected servers

See Also;

1. Valuable Resources for Linux Sysadmins
2. Run your asp.net application on Linux
3. Learning Resources for Python Language
4. Looking for Free PHP/MySQL Web Hosting?
5. Most frequently used Linux commands

So you want to become hacker?

You must have heard about Eric S.Raymond, is a programmer, author and advocate for the open source movement. He have written a cool guide for people who want to become a hacker. You can find the article here.

See Also;

1. Valuable Resources for Linux Sysadmins
2. Run your asp.net application on Linux
3. Looking for Free PHP/MySQL Web Hosting?
4. Looking for Light WebServer?
5. Most frequently used Linux commands

Valuable Resources for Linux Sysadmins

From the following links, you can find everything related to the administration of linux

http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/tools.htm
http://siteadminstuff.com

ISA Web Access?

Firstly let me say that I am not expert in ISA or other types of firewall systems. I was just wondering and looking for new software ideas to implement in my spare time as a open source project and i found a success story about a company named "Devbiz", an IT company developing and selling .NET components, acquired by Microsoft just because they have implemented web based application which enables Web access to Microsoft's Team Foundation Server. As a result of Microsoft's acquisition of devBiz, TeamPlain Web Access is now available as a free download. Even more, TeamPlain is now official part of Team Foundation Server product. So i thought that why can't i implement such product to Microsoft, and started to checkout all the product families to find out is there any similar idea to add value to Microsoft's core products. Finally, i got ISA Server which don't have Web Access. I checked different vendor's security products like ISA, they all have web access for remote and easy administration and configuration. I asked questions "Why i should not implement ISA Web Access?" on some forums, but i didn't got clear answers except security problem. So other vendor's products are unsecure? I think No. There must be different reason or ...

Then i decided to search for ways to implement my idea, downloaded ISA SDK, and samples from official sites. You can extend ISA using its SDK in languages C++, VB Scripting and VB.NET. I am familiar and good at VB.NET, and played with VB examples. But i faced with a problem which is to run my VB.NET application, i need to install IIS on Firewall which is said to be unsecure as they said. But there is a better way to do. Webfilter feature of ISA SDK. You can create a webfilter to listen to port 80, and filters the incoming packages to see whether it is your request or not. Your webfilter will receive requests from remote client, invokes the administration functions of ISA using SDK or your component which supplies interface to webfilter and hides details of SDK. Webfilter will then processes the result of the SDK functions, and sends back to client. Client is using web browser to access to our webfilter to manage, configure firewall settings, rules etc... Bingoooo. It looks like simple, but again problem. Webfilter can be implemented using only C++ which i am not familiar with. So i wish someone else could implement this idea.

Maybe I am already on wrong way, like i said i am not expert in ISA. Just opening my ideas to you. If you are expert in ISA, Please comment on this subject "Why/Not Web access?"