WebandBlog.COM

Apache vs. Nginx – testing performance under heavy load

It has come to my attention, when a client of mine recently experienced unexpected traffic spike, that some industry standard solutions not always work or should i say not 100% reliable all the time. My client's server setup was an-old-school Apache 2.2/mod_php Wordpress blog installation. One day they posted some "hot-buzz" celebrity photos and server had become non-responsive under the traffic flow. Of course, at that time i was unaware about high-availability setups and never imagined scenarios like this one, when you get monthly volume of visitors during the 24 hour period.

Since then i have researched a lot of places online and found, that Apache web server is not the only solution to the hosting setup problem. Many others exist and those others, event quite "beta", allow for the great tolerance for the high volume traffic.

Today i'd like to share with you my test results for my current server setup - LEMP or Linux, nginx (Engine-x), MySQL, PHP-FPM versus my old setup for this blog: LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. Both of those are on the Linode VPS (Linode 360). Before getting rid of the old server configuration i booted it one more time and ran tests using guys from LoadImpact to determine how will each of these survive under the load of 10-20-30-40-50 simulations requests.

› Continue reading

Tags: Apache, Hosting Setup, Linode, nginx, performance

Hacking T-Mobile Pay As You Go to use with the iPhone

Say you have your friend/colleague coming over from outside the US with his fancy iPhone and looking to use all the email and web while in the states, not paying a lot for all that. AT&T is sure here to help, however the price is way too high. T-Mobile, on the other hand does not have the 3G supported by the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but you can have that unlimited data access your friend's iPhone is soon looking forward to.

Update: As of March 2010 the web browsing is not working, email access however does.

Update 2: Added alternative scenario of hacking. Let me know if it will work for you.

And here is how:

› Continue reading

Tags: 3g, AT&T, hack, iphone, t-mobile, unlimited data, unlimited internet

Zip a folder on the server with php

I have a spent a day today figuring how to zip a client's web site folder on a Godaddy shared Linux hosting today (they made sure users don't have SSH access on those) in order to transfer it to another server. Apparently, given the limitations of the account setup the best way was to write a php script by executing which i would zip the given folder contents, so that then i could copy just one file and unzip it on the target server.

And it can't be easier than that - if you have a folder, which contains a number of other folders and files in them the script below lets you add to the zip file quickly and easily:

› Continue reading

Tags: godaddy, PHP, zip

Wordpress: drop-down pages menu with jQuery magic

Using Wordpress as a content management system (CMS) for a web site is a great idea. You get both - static content via Pages and blog entries via Posts. However one may ask - how do you put it all together, given that some sites require drop-down menus?

› Continue reading

Tags: drop-down menu, jQuery, styling wordpress, Web Design, wordpress

Nokia N75 – de-branding and updating firmware

Nokia N75 promo

Nokia N75 has had a huge success as a first descent USA 3G phone and is being used by many, but little do you know that Cingular/AT&T had removed some of the features from its firmware. Of course there is an official, Nokia-branded firmware available to make your phone more stable. This procedure is called de-branding. In case you are looking to do it now - look further down: › Continue reading

Tags: 3g, AT&T, Cingular, de-branding, firmware update, nokia, Nokia N75