Tuning LAMP Systems

I have been on a website performance and scalability kick lately. I thought I would share some articles I have enjoyed on the topic.

IBM Developer Works has a nice little two part series on Tuning Lamp Systems (pt 2).

Then again, IBM Developer Works often has some awesome articles. Scan it regularly if you can!

Enjoy!

When Stupid People Use Computers (Humor from InfoWorld)

Let’s face it: some people should just NOT be allowed near computers.

Photo by °Florian

InfoWorld, a magazine that is seldom considered a bastion of humor, has a series of hilarious articles with real-life stories about seriously stupid things that IT people and Hackers did with computers.

They are a great way to kill some time and leave you feeling smugly confident that you are, at least, not that stupid.

Stupid user tricks: Eleven IT horror stories

More stupider user tricks: IT horror stories redux

Stupid hacker tricks

Stupid hacker tricks, part two: The folly of youth

Thai Open Source Initiative Uses… .NET?

From the The Nation:

Soon, a factory will lead the push for development of open-source code software for Thai industries, locally.

The Association of Thai Software Industry (ATSI), the Industrial Promotion Department, the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa), Microsoft (Thailand), Rangsit University and 20 local software companies have joined hands to set up the country’s first software factory.

ATSI president Somkiat Ungaree said the software factory is expected to open in the next two months. It will be housed at Rangsit University. The factory will receive Bt3 million in funding from the Industrial Promotion Department and Bt2 million from Sipa.

The factory’s first project will be developing a prototype of small-size manufacturing resource planning (MRP) software used in small and medium manufacturing plants.

Excellent! Home-grown, open source software so small Thai manufacturing plants won’t have to shell out big-bucks and be locked into proprietary software. GREAT IDEA!

But wait…

He said 100 programmers from the 20 local software companies, would be trained in Microsoft’s .Net platform at the factory. They will then develop open-source code software two days a week at the factory.

Huh? They are developing it in .NET! OK–so application will be open source and the application will be free… you are just locked into an expensive, closed-source, insecure PLATFORM.

I don’t know who dreams this stuff up…

Yahoo Design Patterns – Awesome!

There’s the thing you do all the time. Solutions that you have internalized and you often can look at a problem and you think “oh, that’s a _____ problem and if you do _____ it’s easy to solve.” That’s a design pattern: a generalized problem that has a set of generalized solutions.

Design patterns don’t mean cookie cutter solutions! Design patterns are just generalized solutions to common problems. They are usually a good starting point when tackling complex problems: deconstruct the complex problems to component pieces, look at common solutions, then build something unique and amazing by combining them in new ways and adding your own unique flourishes as appropriate.

When I saw the Yahoo Design Patterns page a light went off. Kind of like a flash bulb. I had been working on a conceptual site design for a client and, looking over the catalog of design patterns, I suddenly saw how I could combine a few pieces to make a pretty darn slick feature for the website.

I am going to make the YDP site a regular stop when I am pondering complex site architecture or UI issues. It’s great to have a simple catalog of basic design patterns to pour over.

It’s easy to get caught up in the complexities of a problem and forget to take a step back and think about it from a simpler, more granular level.

It’s much easier to deconstruct complex problems when you have a bare-bones catalog of simple design patterns staring you in the face. The little nuggets trigger all sorts of “aha” flashbulbs that get the creative juices flowing again.

Awesome.

Encylopedia Britannica Goes Wiki

Well, Encylopedia Britannica has gone wiki.

Not a bad move, but will they be able to be able to build a strong contributor base? One one hand there is some cachet to having your contribution approved by EB, on the other hand, it’s perceived as closed, old-school, stuffy and exclusive–which might put potential contributors off.

I do like the “open for contributions but expert moderated” model. I think it’s the best model for online travel content site and it’s the kind of model I see for travelguide.com’s future.