It is widely known that, if virtual hosts in Apache (httpd) are configured to permit vhost administrators override specific configuration options at the directory level using htaccess files, the web server consumes valuable time in order to check whether an htaccess file exists in every directory included in the requested path and parse it. On [...]

During the last six months, running a CentOS server as a guest in Virtualbox or VMware has been as common for me as running a web browser. This is because I’ve constantly been trying to streamline the server configuration and utilize new technologies or techniques attempting to get better performance or just make it easier [...]

It was about time I started using a cache in WordPress. After doing some research, I found out that WP-Super-Cache is sophisticated enough and works quite well, judging by the posts of many satisfied users. In this post I will outline the installation procedure step-by-step, because the installation instructions of the README file were a [...]

This is mainly a note to myself about two patches, just in case I ever decide to use OpenSSH for networking, in addition to remote administration. First, is the cipler-none patch that adds none as a valid argument to the -c command line option. By using it, the transferred data is not encrypted. Pros: eliminates [...]

Syndicated content has almost become the standard way of distributing web content nowadays. WordPress can deliver its content in various different feed formats -RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, RDF, RSS 0.92- and can generate feeds for both the published posts -grouped by time, category, tag, author etc- and the comments that have been submitted by readers. [...]

One of the most efficient methods to reduce the usage of bandwidth by the web server and, at the same time, increase the speed of the content delivery is to compress your web pages and, generally, all output that is returned to the clients. The compression of the web content can be done using several [...]

Usually, when writing or modifying a CSS file, the author adds comments and excessive indentation to the code in order to preserve its readability and to simplify maintenance. Although this might be a good habit, all those extra bits stored into the CSS file increase its filesize, often resulting in unnecessary waste of bandwidth, especially if such a file is used in a production web site. Today, I decided to search for tools that can perform compression and optimization of a CSS file.

Some months ago, I had a talk on IRC with someone who had created a useful plugin for WordPress, which shows performance related information. The plugin is called Performance Probe. Its output is saved in text files. I had written a quick python script, for demonstration purposes only, that uses performance probe’s output and RRDTool [...]