ASP.Net Load Testing and Optimization Toolkit R...

One of my passions is optimization. There's no code related task I like more than making something run better, faster, snappier -- from tweaking UI registry keys to stripping out crap code -- I want results.  Usually if something is noticeably slow on the user's end, there's something fundamentally wrong that can be made faster -- a lot faster. Why do I love optimization? It's because it's the...

Ten PHP Best Practices Tips that will get you a jo...

The last couple of weeks have been quite the experience for me. I was part of a big layoff at my former company, which was interesting. I've never been in that position before, and it's hard not to take it personally. I started watching the job boards, and a nice-looking full-time PHP position caught my eye, so I sent out a resume and landed an interview. Before the face-to-face portion, I chatted with the owner...

Build a CentOS LAMP server

I finally finished re-building a development CentOS LAMP server. More importantly, and the primary purpose of the whole exercise, is that I finished my guide to building a CentOS LAMP server. I am happy to now post said guide on this blog (under Articles), for everyone to read and abuse as they please! So here you go… may I present Blake's CentOS LAMP Server Guide, single-page edition, and the perhaps friendlier...

Benchmarking Mono ASP.Net vs. PHP – a slight...

We promised some numbers, but I've run into a snag that's slowed down my testing. Originally when we first started toying with the idea of pitting Mono + ASP.Net against PHP, I wrote a quick PHP script that would just make a cheap fopen call to whatever URL you wanted to test, however many times you wanted to hit it. This isn't really load-testing, it's more like a basic timer, and not a very accurate...