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mephis stands for mephisto, who cares about memphis

Archive for April 2008

A week of Memphis #1 (13->20 April 2008)

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Yeah, this type of blogging is copied from other blog but I think it’s cool to remind what I have done or at least my friends can keep up to my work. Make a comment if anything went wrong here :P . Ok, in the previous week, I did:

  1. Deploy a new production server.
  2. Write a php script to clean redundant files on that server.
  3. Solve DNS problem with the domain.
  4. Install memcache on my test server.
  5. Convert real link from text in the book description, for example: mahshelf.com now becomes http://mahshelf.com.
  6. Change page title dynamically to improve page SEO.
  7. Make a presentation about Web 2.0 user interface at EVTEK school and receive lots of criticisms about that :( .
  8. Think about my mom, forex rates showed 1 Euro = 26,058.5 Vietnamese Dong yesterday, my currency lost its value for the last 5 years. Being a Vietnamese is tough.

Moreover, I also write a quick note here as a to-do list, if you find sth missing, inform me through the comment.

  • Make a good benchmark on how memcache can really save the day.
  • Although the link is automatically linked, it still breaks the layout if the URL is too long, need to truncate the URL (not easy with those php preg_replace functions :( )
  • Need to add dynamic meta keywords to improve page SEO as well.
  • Improve URL routing system.
  • Fix current CSS tooltip, an alternative is using an AJAXed one to save bandwidth.

Written by mephis1987

April 20, 2008 at 6:09 am

Some tips to improve the performance of a web app

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Before writing anything about this, I would like to apologize Odin Chen because I did not fulfill my exaggeration that I will make my web app run 500 times faster than before. After the most recent benchmark, it probably runs only 10 times faster :P

Here is the list I have applied to my app, hope it helps someone

  • Compress web files such as javascript and css files, that saves both web traffic and loading time.
  • Add an expires header to web files and images, it is only necessary when those files are not changed before they expire (I am still finding the best way to do it)
  • Choose a small footprint server, I know Ubuntu 7.10 is great but you do not need the latest PHP 5.2.5, why dont you consider Debian?
  • Compile your own package with your own configuration, or at least install only the essential packages from the repos, not all of them :P
  • Use a caching engine such as APC, eAccelerator, Zend Optimizer, or memcached …
  • Use your skill in programming, yes by that I mean code efficiency : do not forget to join foreign table, that saves many time in database querying, and unset the variables or objects that used in actions file that are no longer needed in template file

In the future, if I read or think of some other tips I will blog about it, if you have any advice, do not hesitate do leave a comment here. :D

Written by mephis1987

April 15, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Posted in development

Tagged with ,

Web users, please save web designers by upgrading to the latest IE7 or Firefox

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When I was a normal web surfer, I never thought it would be a critical issue for web page to display correctly on every browser. But recently it comes to me as a head-ache matter when designing the layout of mahshelf.com. Luckily there is a javascript file that makes IE5-6 behave like a standard compliant browser. Although the situation about web design is temporarily stable, I am still looking a talented web designer in the future.

PS: I made a quick look at browser statistics table and in this month, IE5-6 browser users are continuously decreasing.

Written by mephis1987

April 15, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Posted in Uncategorized

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