Lighttpd

[ekrem]

I have to do a lot with Wordpress. It is a Blog software, but it is a lot more then that. I also analyzed and used Content Management Systems like Joomla and Drupal, with Joomla having a mid-difficult learning curve and Drupal a high-difficult learning curve. Still, Drupal is most potent software that exists in my view. But it is very hard to learn.

Wordpress is different. It is idiot secure in learning, customization to your likening.
I use about 60 plugins for Wordpress from official repository. In Wordpress plugin repository are also 2 plugins written by myself and which I shared with community. They have to do with Search engine Optimization.
I have more modifications, which I do not make public, so my sites keep being unique in functunality.

So far I was running Wordpress on normal Apache servers through old technology (mpm-prefork). I just hosted my sites through "Virtual Servers Managed" by a company. I did not have root access to that managed server, so the company managed security of it. I could neither install anything into the system nor could I manage the database ifrom technological standpoint (MyISAM, InnoDB).

I now rented my own server. I installed Debian Lenny Linux 64 Bit on it. I now run server backend called Lighttpd server (Lighty), which is also used by Youtube and major traffic sites. It consumes much less RAM of system and is unbelievable fast.
I also installed PHP accelerator that keeps executed code in RAM.

I split my threads on websites in 50 posts a page. Here on usmb.com I think the standard is 20 posts per page.
A 50 posts page is averagely loaded so far in 0.100 - 0.150 seconds for a visitor (static page) and for a member (dynamical site, always up-to-date) in 0.200 - 0.400 seconds.

I switched my first site to new system. That was such a horror and I was working on it a lot with several times failing. Now it works and I feel confident in implementing the other sites on new system.
So happy.

 

[ekrem]

All managed servers and such are not good, because the company that manages the servers install software on hardware with compatibility in mind.
For example: They have to secure the servers are capable running a lot of different applications.
Some customer runs a normal "Company Website" on servers, other customer runs "Video-Upload-Conversion-Sharing" Website on servers and another runs a a heavy user-interaction website like "Social Community" on Servers.
There are also different programming languages like Python or PHP which those websites are based on.

So those kind of servers are primarily meant to keep customers happy and they do not face problems running their Websites. There is too much installed for compatibility you might not need for yourself, but other customer needs. Compatibility is first priority in capitalist thinking as competition is high in service-economy like Internet-Servers.

Best is to rent own server with root privileges and run it solely in the specification you actually need.

 

[ekrem]

My current private hobby Website is a "Wordpress-bastardized-to-Forum" Website.
I've also friend and chat system in it where people also can challenge each other with simple games like "rock, paper, scissors" and such. So real intercative involving the members with high-scores.
But so far you could only challenge a member 1 time a day in those games, so server does not crash. Now with Lighthttpd server I will make such functionalities unlimited.

The last thing I implemented was a box above the "Text Editor", where you could draw your own Smilie with 8 colours and append that to the post. An Ssmilie image created is just about 0,2 KB big.

The next thing I want to implement is another box under the "Text Editor".
In that new box members will be able to choose and load Text patterns/macros, which they have written in their Control Panel.
Such Text patterns could be simple things like "I agree with you" or often used phrases. Specifical to each member.

From the "Make new Post" page with the box under Text editor, they can then load their text patterns into Text editor.


P.S: I am no competition for usmb.com. I post no links and my site is anyway not English language.

 

[ekrem]

And something, that counts also for usmb.com:

Search engines do not like "repetitive paragraphs". For them that is duplicates, which really is. Such repetitive paragraphs are the "quotes"-functionality.
Also search engines can do nothing with Smilies, which they just interpret as spam syntax like ":/)". It is Spam for them.

I remove quotes and smilies on every thread older then 1 month. After 1 month a thread is considered by me not anymore debated by community. So I remove that quotes and smilies from them, and search engines re-index them with much better rating as threads now have resonable, logic and non-repetitive phrases in them.
You can remove quotes and smilies directly through Database interface (e.g. phpmyadmin) or through PHP page which executes the SQL syntax.

Major "Link sharing" sites also support importing of HTML-files.
Through SQL-Syntax you can export all threads from Database into a HTML file which supports being imported into such link-sharing sites like del.icio.us.

I've created an interface that saves my last export. When I visit again that page for exporting into HTML-file I just can choose export from last date of export.
Then I load those created HTML files into my accounts of those link-sharing websites.

When I first exported threads from my Database I had about 2.600 threads.
I imported the created HTML file into 4 link-sharing sites. That were already over 10.000 internet links created for my site within some hours.

 

[ekrem]

Also by removing quotes from old threads, the Database becomes much smaller in size. Consider that almost every post has a quote in it from a member who posted before in that thread, some also consist of nested quotes.
By removing them Database performace also rises as a request to Database has to crawl through much less information in the tables.

I suppose (only guess) that usmb.com's Database could be cut more then half size by removing quotes from old threads.
Benefits in search engine ranking of those threads also included.

 

[ekrem]

Regarding front-end performance I already made that thread:
usmb.com
http://www.usmessageboard.com/announcements-and-feedback/113002-site-optimization.html

But to recall the important:
From Yahoo:

Remember that 80-90% of the end-user response time is spent downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc.
This is the Performance Golden Rule.

Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site

YSLOW is a service plugin for Firefox by Yahoo analyzing front-end performance of a site.

One of my sites I posted back then in that thread had maximum score available by Yahoo. 100 points max, and that site had 100 points max. Allthough that site currently is a major "road works site" currently waiting to be imported to new infrastructure of Lighthttpd. It is currently still running on old Apache server-shit (as it is currently being impoted to new server it is half-offline site).

Look at white part area of picture.

 

[ekrem]

For clarification: I do not sell anything, nor am I working in Internet business.
All my websites are either my personal websites or that of family or friends.
My uncle has a regional outreach media company in the town I live in Turkey (newspaper, radio, TV). It's 6 biggest city in Turkey.
I set-up his news-website, they manage news by theirself. I only care if something does not work.
I also have 2 close friends which run their own company, I manage also their sites.
But those are more not-so-frequentiall updating sites, more static.

In my sites there is no "advertisement" and I do not earn money by them.
My major site (NOT the one in above picture) is dedicated to German-Turkish youth, to bring them near to the magnificiance of their root identity and to make them remember the colour of the noble blood running through their veins.
As I already stated sometimes, I was born in Germany before I moved to Turkey. So, when I miss "Germany" or so I connect that feeling with that site.
It's indeed a dream-country (Germany) although not on same level as Turkey.

For work I also travel to Germany once in a while. I have not much social activity when I'm in Germany, so my social activity in Germany is on that site.

That whole Internet-Website knowledge I learned also when I was in Germany for work. I just had too much time not knowing hat to do with it. So I learned all that things, paralell to mocking up some Americans on usmb.com.

When I'm online on usmb.com, it also means, that I'm currently in Germany.
I alsmost never log in into usmb.com from Turkey, as I then enjoy having my time in real social activity in real life.

 

[ekrem]

It is trend of recent years that young Turks of Germany leave Germany.
Most it is the 3rd or 4rd generation of German-Turks which go back, allthough they were born in Germany.
LINK: Emigration: Kültürschock in Istanbul - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - UniSPIEGEL
LINK:DasErste.de - Plusminus - Fachkräftemangel made in Germany - (17.08.2010)

Same thing With Austrian-Turks:
LINK:Der lautlose Braindrain in die Türkei DiePresse.com

Most of them are University educated and are needed and payed well in booming Turkey.
In English:
Leaving Germany for Turkey: Ethnic Turks Encounter 'Kültürschock' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Turkish-German Professionals: Young, Qualified and Unwanted - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

 

[ekrem]

Same with German-Turkish academics:

One out of three Turkish academics in Germany think about moving to Turkey
One out of three Turkish academics in Germany think about moving to Turkey

 

[ekrem]

US Muslims feeling increased pressure from US majority society, which exclude others by defining itself as Christian, are also welcomed.
Facing prejudice, many young Turkish-Germans return to Turkey | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 30.07.2010

Raise your children with Mediteranean flavour.
No "Retarded Seargent" or "Neubarth" over here.

American culturalism is over. Arabs now have mobile ring-tones of Turkish soap operas. They learn to make their first teenager kisses from watching how it's done in Turkish TV.

NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/arts/18abroad.html?scp=24&sq=&st=nyt

 

[ekrem]

Turkey has begun to exercise a big influence at Arab dinner tables, in boardrooms and in bedrooms from Morocco to Iraq of a sort that the United States can only dream about.
Muslim Characters in Turkey’s Racy Soaps Attract Arab Fans | The Jakarta Globe

Leave it to Turkish soap operas to conquer hearts and minds
Four-hundred years after a nasty occupation of Arab land by the forefathers of these young Turks, the Arab world is embracing Turkey, opening its living rooms and flocking around their television sets to watch over 140 episodes of second-rate Turkish soap operas that don't even do well in Turkey itself.
Leave it to Turkish soap operas to conquer hearts and mindsin the Arab world by Nadia Bilbassy Charters | The Middle East Channel

 

[ekrem]

Send Obama over to Turkey to be taught some lessons in PR issues.

 

[asterism]

And something, that counts also for usmb.com:

Search engines do not like "repetitive paragraphs". For them that is duplicates, which really is. Such repetitive paragraphs are the "quotes"-functionality.
Also search engines can do nothing with Smilies, which they just interpret as spam syntax like ":/)". It is Spam for them.

I remove quotes and smilies on every thread older then 1 month. After 1 month a thread is considered by me not anymore debated by community. So I remove that quotes and smilies from them, and search engines re-index them with much better rating as threads now have resonable, logic and non-repetitive phrases in them.
You can remove quotes and smilies directly through Database interface (e.g. phpmyadmin) or through PHP page which executes the SQL syntax.

Major "Link sharing" sites also support importing of HTML-files.
Through SQL-Syntax you can export all threads from Database into a HTML file which supports being imported into such link-sharing sites like del.icio.us.

I've created an interface that saves my last export. When I visit again that page for exporting into HTML-file I just can choose export from last date of export.
Then I load those created HTML files into my accounts of those link-sharing websites.

When I first exported threads from my Database I had about 2.600 threads.
I imported the created HTML file into 4 link-sharing sites. That were already over 10.000 internet links created for my site within some hours.

That seems like an awful lot of continued workaround just for link sharing. Why not mod your Lighthttpd server to send .html files through the php (or whatever) interpreter and then just write a script to parse the url and pull content from the relevant .php page with the variables? That's what I've done. Same dynamic content but the "old media" thinks it's static. That would also allow you to write a script to dynamically remove quotes and smileys from user agents known to be web crawlers.

It's a bit more front end work but you'll better utilize the server capacity that way instead of batching exports all the time whether they are needed or not. Reconfigure some other extension (I used .static) for static .html pages.

Just a suggestion.

 

[asterism]

Also by removing quotes from old threads, the Database becomes much smaller in size. Consider that almost every post has a quote in it from a member who posted before in that thread, some also consist of nested quotes.
By removing them Database performace also rises as a request to Database has to crawl through much less information in the tables.

I suppose (only guess) that usmb.com's Database could be cut more then half size by removing quotes from old threads.
Benefits in search engine ranking of those threads also included.

My data shows that it was more like a 20% reduction. I never had a problem with search engine ranking by leaving them in, but I never found SEO tactics to be of much value on discussion boards anyway.

 

[asterism]

US Muslims feeling increased pressure from US majority society, which exclude others by defining itself as Christian, are also welcomed.
Facing prejudice, many young Turkish-Germans return to Turkey | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 30.07.2010

Raise your children with Mediteranean flavour.
No "Retarded Seargent" or "Neubarth" over here.

American culturalism is over. Arabs now have mobile ring-tones of Turkish soap operas. They learn to make their first teenager kisses from watching how it's done in Turkish TV.

NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/arts/18abroad.html?scp=24&sq=&st=nyt

I enjoyed my visits to Turkey (Izmir has the most beautiful women on the planet), but Turkey isn't quite there yet. Still lots of these:

And what's with the wives outside of Turkish prisons?