This article is provided by Kevin Moor who writes for different sites, which inter alias are working to find better registry repair.

WordPress is powered by PHP and MySQL which is an open resource blog gizmo and a publishing platform as well. WordPress have many features like plug-in architecture and a template system. Actually, WordPress has been widely by thousands of biggest websites in the World Wide Web.

For sure as computer enthusiasts, you have already come across on any feature from a blog. You may wonder how you can get this in your WordPress blog. You do not need to worry anymore because here are some tips that you will absolutely find it effective and very useful.

• Use Custom Page as your Home Page in WordPress
  This is the first thing that you must have to know on how to create a custom page. There is a need for you to duplicate your page.php or you can create a new .php file and enter the following code at the very top of it: <!--?php /* Template Name: WPBeginnerT1 */ ?-->.You may change the name of the template and can even change the style on the page depending on your preference. Just go to your WordPress admin panel and choose your desired template. You will then have to publish this page and go to Settings and select Reading in the admin panel. Choose the page to be your homepage and you can now have a Custom Home Page.
• Create a Page that Displays Random Posts
  For sure you have seen this cool feature somewhere on web site, right? Want to try this cool feature for your site? Simply paste the following code on your custom page template: 

  <?php
  query_posts(array('orderby' => 'rand', 'showposts' => 1));
  if (have_posts()) :
  while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
  <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
  <?php the_content(); ?>
  <?php endwhile;
  endif; ?>

• Display External RSS Feed on Your Site
  Have you noticed bloggers who display their blogs on other’s web site? Do you want to try it too, to earn extra traffic on your website? To do this, just paste the following code in your theme:

  <?php include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/feed.php');
  $rss = fetch_feed('http://feeds.feedburner.com/wpbeginner');
  $maxitems = $rss->get_item_quantity(5);
  $rss_items = $rss->get_items(0, $maxitems);
  ?>
  <ul>
  <?php if ($maxitems == 0) echo '<li>No items.</li>';
  else
  // Loop through each feed item and display each item as a hyperlink.
  foreach ( $rss_items as $item ) : ?>
  <li>
  <a href='<?php echo $item->get_permalink(); ?>'
  title='<?php echo 'Posted '.$item->get_date('j F Y | g:i a'); ?>'>
  <?php echo $item->get_title(); ?></a>
  </li>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
  </ul>

These tips will surely help you. Just remember the tips and for sure your success is within reach.

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Rather than adding lots of new features, this release is going to concentrate on speed improvements and restricting the WordPress minimum requirements (this will allow existing code to be removed and will make adding code in future easier).

The requirements changing are…

• PHP 5.2.4 required – WordPress will simply be dropping support for PHP 4 (i.e. there won’t be very many new PHP 5 features added)
• MySQL 5 Required – like above, WordPress will simply be dropping support for MySQL 4
• Internet Explorer 6 – no more fancy IE6-only hacks. WordPress will be officially discontinuing support for IE6 and instead providing a “use a real browser” nag screen (something this site already has installed)

With support for long-outdated technologies being dropped, they promise this will be the fastest and lightest WordPress in quite some time. To this end they will also be focussing on speed improvements all around, including (but certainly not limited to) the Dashboard and admin menu.

Two further announced changes are…

• New Fullscreen Editor -  a new fullscreen editor that’s “more beautiful, more useful, and simpler.”
• Better Upgrades – only changed files will be upgraded in future. Yay!

WordPress have also promised faster release cycles in future (concentrating on what’s promised and not adding further changes later on).

Certainly, I’m excited by this

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Well, their length is a give-away as instead of pages of text, there’s now a single call to my plugin. A quick bit of SQL will show the length of each post and/or page in characters, allowing me to see if any of the original versions still exist.

Here is an example using standard table naming and will list the details of pages…

SELECT ID, post_title, guid, length(post_content) AS 'Post Length'
  FROM `wp_posts`
 WHERE post_type = 'page'
   AND post_status <> 'draft'
   AND post_status <> 'trash'
 ORDER BY length(post_content)

That 3rd line can be modified to WHERE post_type = 'post' for posts, or combined with the original to list both posts and pages.

Otherwise, it simply lists the ID, title and URL for each page as well as the character length of the page content. It excludes drafts and anything in the trash. The final list is sequenced by the length of the page.

Not sure if this is useful to anyone, but just in case….!

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And what did I learn?

Well, a lot. First of all, the questions I should be asking the prize providers. Instead I kept badgering them as I kept asking some pretty basic questions…

• When do you want the competition to start?
• How long do you want the competition to run for
• Are the prizes all for one person, all a “first” prize, or staged (first prize, second prize, etc)
• How long until delivery
• What will you provide if a product is no longer available?

Whilst running the competition I kept an eye on the entries to ensure that I wasn’t receiving multiple entries per person or household. And, after only 24 hours, I appeared to have found a problem – 3 people, each with an AOL email address, and the same IP address. Suspicious? It looked like it to me.

However, the fact that AOL is their ISP is the key here – they use a proxy-based system, meaning that many users may share the same IP address. Wikipedia has discussed such an issue before on their own site.

The database I created to hold winner details held a name, address, email, competition answer and IP address. Based on the AOL problems I now realise that I should also store a time stamp and user agent. I’ll be making these changes for next time.

I did a lot of work on the competition coding to ensure SQL injection problems. None-the-less I realised a few days ago that although the competition entry form disappears after the closing date, the code to submit the form details into the database still exists. This means that a third party script could inject entries (although not anything that would affect security) after this time. Again, this will now be fixed for future.

Lastly, I had so many entries that just trying to keep track of “rule breakers” became a lot, lot harder – more work on flagging such things at the point of competition entry will be useful, and I feel an automated email coming on!

Meanwhile, I have contacted the 3 winners and am just awaiting a confirmation of their postal addresses before details are announced.

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The device itself was a lot smaller than I was expecting, being not bigger than the hard drive that goes in it. It’s made robustly of metal, with the exception of the plastic front panel. It has rubber feet underneath, but is more sturdily mounted on a the provided plastic cradle – this is a useful addition but cheaply made.

The front panel consists of a number of status lights, a power and sync button and a USB socket.  All other connections are on the back  – SATA, eSATA, Gigabyte Ethernet,  and another USB port.

I had also purchased a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green – not the quickest, but energy conscious and quiet. Putting the drive in is a case of undoing a screw on the underneath of the front panel, lifting the panel away and then pushing the drive into place.

You turn the NAS on and it takes a few minutes to initialise. First time you use it, however, you have to install the provided (or downloaded) firmware, which you do from your PC. After this is done you access the NAS via a web-based admin. panel.

The administration section is detailed and includes many useful options. A media server is included allowing you access to your videos and music anywhere on the network. Additionally, there are options to set up downloads to your NAS, allowing you, for instance, to kick off a large download at night and turn your PC off.  This includes Torrent options. You can also set up feeds, such as Podcasts, which will download automatically.

To access the NAS data you can map the drive to your PC or access it via a network shortcut. Additional access options available include FTP and  a web publishing feature that allows you to access data from a browser.

The NAS can also be set up with timing options allowing you to dictate times when it will turn itself on and off, and also reboot itself.

Connect a printer to the USB port and configure it via the admin menu and you have a simple, but useful, network printer.

And if all these options aren’t enough, you can download and install, from the admin menu, further tools including WordPress, MySQL and Gallery.

NSA210 Administration Screen

So, what’s it like in use? Excellent. I use few of the more advanced features, I’ll admit. I use my NAS, primarily, as a backup device. A good external hard drive isn’t much less, so I went for a NAS for the networking options that it does give me. Also, because it comes diskless, I know that the disk can be easily replaced – many others come with a disk and firmware built in – you may be able to replace the drive but, often, adding the firmware back on is difficult or even impossible. That’s not the case here – in the case of a drive failure, I simply slot a new one in and re-install the firmware.

PC Pro tests mentioned that it was quite slow, but I’ve not noticed in comparison to my previous Maxtor model. That was particularly slow when trying to access the data, something the ZyXEL doesn’t have a problem with. And that, above basic transfer speed, makes it feel a lot quicker in use.

It’s tucked away, next to my printer and is quiet and efficient in use.

Summary of ZyXEL NSA210

Quiet, excellent value for money and packed full of features. For home users it’s ideal.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 19th May 2010.

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I usually use phpMyAdmin for backing them up but restrictions on port forwarding has meant I can’t do this whilst at work¹. So, I wrote myself a script to do this. And optimize the tables as well.

An extract of the script is below… mine allows me to choose the database and compression type and then populates the appropriate database fields (username, password, etc) but for generic usage purposes, the script below should be fine for other people to use and build upon.

if ($compression=="None") {$comp_cmd=""; $comp_ext="sql";}
if ($compression=="Gzip") {$comp_cmd=" | gzip"; $comp_ext="gzip";}
if ($compression=="Zip") {$comp_cmd=" | zip"; $comp_ext="zip";}
mysql_connect($host,$user,$password);
mysql_select_db($database);
$query="SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM ".$database;
$result=mysql_query($query);
$num=mysql_numrows($result);
$compressed=0;
$i=0;
while ($i < $num) {
   $table=mysql_result($result,$i,"Name");
   $gain=mysql_result($result,$i,"Data_free");
   if ($gain!=0) {
       if ($compressed==0) {echo "<br/>Compressing tables...<br/><br/>\n";}
       echo "Table ".$table." - ".$gain." bytes gained<br>\n";
       $query="OPTIMIZE TABLE ".$table;
       $optimise=mysql_query($query);
       $compressed=$compressed+$gain;
   }
   $i++;
}
if ($compressed!=0) {
   echo "<br/>".$compressed." bytes gained in total<br/>";
} else {
   echo "<br/>No tables were optimised.<br/>";
}
$backupFile = "backup/".$name."_".date("Ymd").'.'.$comp_ext;
$command = "mysqldump --opt --extended-insert --complete-insert --hex-blob
--host=".$host." --user=".$user." --password='".$password."' ".$database.
$comp_cmd." > $backupFile";
exec($command, $ret_arr, $ret_code);
if ($ret_code==0) {
   echo "<br/>Database backed up: <a href=\"".$backupFile."\">download</a>.\n";
} else {
   echo "<br/>The database could not be backed up - the return code was ".
$ret_code.".\n";
};

Before running the above, you need to populate the following fields…

$database – your MySQL database
$user – your MySQL username
$password – your MySQL password
$host – your MySQL host name
$name – used to name your backup
$compression – this is the type of compression you wish to apply and should be either None, Zip or Gzip.

When run any tables that require optimizing will be, well, optimized and the details output. Finally a backup is made of the database and a link displayed so that you can download it.

Downloads are placed in a folder named /download, so make sure you add write permissions for this folder. The filename will be xxx_yymmdd, where xxx is the name you specified in $name and yymmdd is the date. Obviously the extension will be based on the type of compression you requested.

Whilst trying to write this code I came across various scripts and resources which did something similar but often didn’t work (grrr) for one reason or another. In particular, often the backup files are create empty if you have the MySQLdump parameters wrong. One thing you might spot that I’ve worked around – and here’s my tip for the day – is that I’ve placed single quotes around the password. This was because one of my passwords had an ampersand in it and, well, MySQLdump doesn’t like it.

Enjoy, play and let me know how you get on!

1. and I have a tendency to forget if I leave it until the evening at home

So my solution was based on simple maths. Using Google Analytics and the like I work out how long an average user spends looking at a page on the site. Let’s say it’s 90 seconds.

I’m using PHP and MySQL for this example. So, create a new table named users_online and create two fields for it – the first named timestamp and the second ip_address.

With your database already open execute the following PHP, pre-setting the variable $online_seconds with the figure we discussed a couple of sentences ago (in my example, 90). This should be at the top of each page.

$timestamp = time();
$timeout = $timestamp-$online_seconds;
$insert=mysql_query("INSERT INTO users_online VALUES('$timestamp','$REMOTE_ADDR')");
$delete=mysql_query("DELETE FROM users_online WHERE timestamp<'$timeout'");
$result=mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT ip_address FROM users_online");
$user_num=mysql_num_rows($result);

This will add the period of time (90 seconds) to the current timestamp and insert a row into the table with that as a “timeout”. We then delete any rows where this timeour has now passed. Finally, we read the number of distinct IP addresses – this is the number of users currently online and is returned as $user_num.

How does this work? Well, the idea is that after 90 seconds if the user hasn’t moved onto another page or refreshed the current one then they’re gone. If they do, a new row with their IP address is created and they’re counted once more as still being active. Quite simple really. Possibly not the most accurate but without using host-side JavaScript, for instance, then I’m not sure how you would.

If nothing else it’s handy to have an idea as to how many people are online before you upgrade your site and potentially break it

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Unlike some of my other packages which have had more visible changes, this is more “back end”. Having said that, to me, it’s exciting stuff. The site is performing more caching and I’ve completely re-written most of the MySQL – it’s more efficient and protected against SQL injection (I hope).

There’s also detection of MySQL failures – when this happens a message bar appears at the top of each page indicating that a problem is occuring and that the site may be affected. The site pages are then designed to degrade gracefully – in other words, either cope with the lack of database access (easier for some pages) or simply display an appropriate message to indicate that no information is currently unavailable. In the past any database problems have simply lead to the site erroring and generally looking shabby.

Additionally, I’ve added some flags to the back-end database. These indicate either a major problem or that the site is undergoing maintenace – I can then flick these flags on when required and a message will appear on the site. The maintenance is particularly handy to turn on whilst I’m upgrading the site.

Lastly, and one of the few visible changes, I updated the member profiles – they’re a bit plainer than before but I think they work a lot more effectively now, as they’re less “fussy”.

Now I’ve started work on the Eevee package – I’ve already written the maintenance changes (including the width of the pages being increased, whilst still ensuring that a horizontal scrollbar doesn’t appear on 800 pixel wide monitors), but the main changes is to the online shop, which helps to generate some much-needed cash for the society.

Meantime, if you can guess (no looking on Wikipedia!) the naming convention I’m using then… you’re sad. Ok, that makes me sad too. And Catherine Furber, who also knew it.

However, all of this has had an impact of server times. In the past I’ve not measured server times for performance monitoring, as they’ve been so insignificant. Now, I’m having to for the show pages. In fact the changes have pretty much negated recent performance improvements.

The next package, though, should help with this as I bring in some further performance improvements (including image caching and sorting out some shoddy MySQL programming of mine).

However, going forward (and I hate that expression), performance is something I will look at it with each package update.

After that there are packages due to SEO and Accessibility. So, they too will become part of the “standard” package check. Indeed, I have 4 things on my radar…

1. Accessibility
2. SEO
3. Security
4. Performance

Security, which will be tackled in the next package along with performance, is mainly around MySQL injection and the like – making the site as hacker-proof as possible.

It’s actually quite exciting as SEO and Accessibility is not something I’ve really concentrated on in the past, so I’m looking forward to the research and learning that will go with this.

What these people forgot is that not everybody is on the same super-quick broadband. But, even if that’s not the case, we all know that we prefer a quick website over something slower. Then factor in the fact that many people have hosts that limit bandwidth, and the need for efficiencies becomes more apparent.

In this article, I’m going to be using my own websites for demonstration purposes, so I will be talking about HTML (or rather XHTML), PHP and MySQL.I’ve provided details in a past post about useful tools for reducing images in size, so don’t intend to cover this again.

The aim is simple… to look at performance and reduce loading times and bandwidth.

So, where to start.

Well, there are various tweaks we can do to Apache servers and PHP and MySQL installs to improve such things but, if like me, you’re getting hosting from a third party you’re unlikely to be able to do anything about this, so I’ll be concentrating on coding. However, changes to site configuration files – such as .htaccess – are usually allowed so I will include these.

The first thing to do, and excuse me if this sounds obvious, is to try and identify where the slowdown occurs. Is it the host server(possibly PHP or MySQL scripts) or client side (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Images, etc.)?

When it comes to code, there are 3 basic rules on how we can improve this…

1. Compress (or, as it’s called elsewhere, “minify”) so that the files are smaller
2. Reduce by removing redundant code
3. Improve code so that is works more efficiently

PHP

How we code our PHP can make a difference in the speed. Reinhold Weber has published  a useful list of tips on how to code more efficiently in PHP. This is a pretty good list and is pretty much all I can say on the subject, other than – and this applies to all other coding – to look through your code and try and remove redundancy.

MySQL

The general advise is..

1.Do as little SQL processing as possible. Reduce down what the SELECT fetches, if you can

2.One of the biggest things is select *. If you don’t need all the columns, only ask for the ones you need. If you don’t need all the rows, ask for the ones you need, but ask in a way that exploits the indexes already there.

3.Use Indexes wherever possible

And whilst I’m at it, don’t forget to look at SQL Injection. It won’t help with speed, but is essential for site security.

HTML/XHTML

Other than some of the tips mentioned previously (reduce code where appropriate, etc), there is no magic bullet for this one. Compression programs give very little benefit (reducing code by a couple of percent). There are some that make huge improvements but these come with decompression routines and can slow down the display of pages, as they are decompressed browser-side.

Additionally, many compression routines will strip out characters that will then mean the page can’t be validated without errors.

JavaScript

Unlike HTML/XHTML, I’ve found compression of JavaScript to be beneficial. My particular favourite is the one provided on the Creativyst website. The Litebox script, for example, will compress to 67% of its original size, saving a third of the total size. Unlike other sites and tools, I’ve never found the Creativyst version to break a script.

CSS

Like JavaScript, compression can help with CSS. Be wary, though, of various “hacks” that are used in CSS for cross-browser compatibility. Compression may break these.

Therefore, I put any such “hacks” in a separate CSS file, which I don’t then compress.

My recommendation is the online compressor at CSSdrive, which can provide some impressive results (a 28% saving on the CSS that I tried). Using this compresses the main stylesheet for the BMTG website down to 72% of its original size – a saving of 28% on pretty much each page.

I’d recommend you set the following options…

Having said that, I’ve achieved even greater compression using manual search/replaces (but doing it for each stylesheet every time I change them is laborious). One day I might write a program to do it for me!

.HTACCESS

There are two options, which can be set via your .htaccess file, which will help further.

1. GZIP – assuming your host server has GZIP installed, this will activate this compression functionality
2. Far_future_expires – this adds an “expires” header to your files

Both of these options should be used carefully and fully tested. The latter option, Far_future_expires, should be of particularly note. This caches JS and CSS the first time a user visits. It’s only then an advantage when they return again. Bear in mind that if you then change of these files you’ll need to give them a different name, so document control will be useful here.

Both of these, plus a minify option, is also available via a script named PHP_SPEEDY. I will be covering this in a second article, however.

Server Calls

The number of calls you make to the server for files to make up a resultant web page can have a big impact on load time.Combining images, stylesheets, etc, is the best solution.

Now, you can do this manually, or there’s a rather useful and clever script for automating this on the takaz blog.

Yahoo! Exceptional Performance

Yahoo! Have a section of their Developer Network titled Exceptional Performance. It states that their “team evangelizes best practices for improving web performance”.

First of all, I’d recommend their list of performance rules. This includes full explanations of each recommendation.

Secondly, and to back this up, they’ve introduced a Firefox plugin that will check a website for performance issues, using their aforementioned rules. This is named Yslow and requires the Firebug developer plugin as well.

Now, some of these recommendations are going to be for large-scale commercial sites, including having a number of interspersed host servers, etc., so I suspect it’s doubtful that anyone with a small scale site is going to be able to achieve a high rating.

If you’ve found this article of interest, then a PDF version is available for download below. I’m happy for you to use and distribute this, but please don’t edit it, sell it or generally be beastly.

improving-website-performance.pdf