Mike's Blog - A blog about technology, business, and anything else that matters (to me)

Making Your WordPress Blog Run Faster Using WP Super Cache

Mike — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:57:00 +0000

Today I was wondering how I could make my blog run faster. After searching Google I came across an interesting plugin called WP Super Cache. I decided to download it, install it, and benchmark it to see what kind of impact it would have on actual performance. Through several of my work projects I know that merely loading PHP can have a rather substantial performance on performance (relatively speaking of course). Before installing WP Super Cache, I benchmarked the length of time it took to load 1) My blog homepage and 2) An article I chose at random. These benchmarks represent the time it took for apache to process the php page being requested (not the total download time of the page or part thereof). I downloaded each page five times and took the average.

Homepage: 0.952s, 0.765s, 1.017s, 1.127s, 1.083s -> Average: 0.9888s
Single Article: 0.799s, 0.901s, 0.851s, 0.848s, 0.821s -> Average: 0.844s

After installing WP Super Cache the numbers changed to:

Homepage: 0.804s, 0.733s, 0.791s, 0.778s, 0.738s -> Average: 0.7688s
Single Article: 0.678s, 0.547s, 0.704s, 0.678s, 0.666s -> Average: 0.6456s

I then installed activated compression (+ cache) and ran stats on just the homepage. This time, page downloading time was factored into the equation in order to see benefits of the compression.

Homepage: 0.562s, 0.793s, 0.628s, 0.729s, 0.626s -> Average: 0.6676s

Conclusion: Using WP Super Cache decreased the server processing time by about 22%. Enabling compression reduced the total time to download the main page (just html of primary site) by another 13%.

I would have suspected that the difference in processing time would be greater considering that apache just has to retrieve a static HTML page rather than dynamically processing a PHP page. However, I would also suspect the differences to be more significant with a web server under considerable load (which mine is not).

How To Get Indexed By Google In 48 Hours

Mike — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:14:50 +0000

When I was first creating this blog, I starting wondering how long it took to get indexed by Google. I’ve created many websites, but have never worked on the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) end. I started reading other blogs and came across numerous posts of people who had pages up for months that had still not been indexed by Google. I also found several other blog sites (example) that claimed to have the magical answers of Google indexing. So I wondered, how quick could I get my new site indexed by Google. From my research, it seemed that anything under a week should be considered good. I, however, was determined to beat that. This is what I did:

I signed up for my hosting account on a Saturday night
On Sunday I installed WordPress and wrote a few articles for the site (I do consider the content in these articles “decent”)
After I had created by articles/categories/tags I went to XML-Sitemaps.comand generated, you guessed it, an XML Sitemap. I then submitted this map to Google Webmaster Tools
I signed up for Google Adsense and placed two ads on the site
I submitted my site to Google’s Add URL page
I downloaded and installed the Google XML Sitemaps Generator plugin for Wordpress which can be found here. I told the plugin to include all sitemap content, created the robots.txt file, and set change frequency to “Daily” for all items in the list.
I downloaded and installed the All in One SEO Pack WordPress Plugin
I added Google Analytics so I could monitor how much traffic I was getting

On Tueday, Google Analytics showed that on Monday I had received some traffic from Google Searches - all in less than 48 hours. I searched for my site on Google and, voila, there it was!

Coin Laundry - A Better Alternative?

Mike — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:35:28 +0000

I’m looking at my pile of laundry and thinking I should get down to the coin laundry place. No, I don’t have a washing machine in my apartment. Yes, I can afford it. But, I’ve grown to find that using coin laundry is not all that bad. Going to a coin operated laundromat, I can wash 4 to 5 loads all at once. That means I can get all of my laundry done in 30 minutes, rather waiting for hours at home while I wash load after load sequentially. And, perhaps best of all, you get to meet all kind of wonderful (crazy) people while you wait. The last time I was there, I got to hear all about this guys revolutionary business idea. He was really into skateboarding and he wanted to start a t-shirt company. His idea was to rip-off corporate logos and incorporate something skater related into them. At the time I was wearing my FSU shirt and he explained that he had an identical shirt (same logo, font, everything) but had changed the “T” to a “K” (”Florida State” -> “Florida Skate”). Well, good luck buddy, but you better have a good legal team for when you get sued for copyright infringement.

Bankers Petroleum (BNK:TSX) - Update

Mike — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:27:10 +0000

Bankers Petroleum (quote) closed at $1.99 today. That means I’m up 16.4% since buying it last month. I’m still going to hang on as I’ve got a stop order set for $1.80.

Unethical MS Exchange “Journaling”

Mike — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:08:25 +0000

A friend and business associate of mine called me up today with an interesting problem. He does contract work for a company in Oregon who recently had to let their system administrator go. The reason he was let go had more to do with the state of the economy than job performance. In order words he was not fired (although after this, he probably should have been), but he was let go for financial reasons. Now, fast forward several months later until May, 2008. This friend of mine was browsing their active directory and happened to find a domain user called “Archive Archive.” The account looks innocent enough, as if there is even a legitimate purpose for it. Their old SA, however, had been silently forwarding all corporate email to it. As it turns out, he found out that he was going to be canned about a week or two before it happened and changed the setting to forward all corporate mail to his personal mail account so he could still read it after he was let go.

How was he doing this? He was using the journaling feature of Exchange 6.5 which allows you to archive all mail sent and received by a specific data store to one users mailbox (in this case, user “Archive”). He then setup a rule to forward mail received by Archive to his two personal email accounts. The screenshot to the left was taken from this website which goes into more depth about the feature:

Exchange 2003 ‘Journaling’ – A quick tutorial

This left me wondering what a company could do to better protect itself. After he left they forced all domain users to change their passwords. However, he still would have had full access to the network (via Terminal Services). After logging in, he just would have been prompted to change the password to his illegitimate account. I suppose it could be argued that someone should have scanned the AD listing and questioned what the “Archive” account was for. Let’s say that instead of using “Archive” he had used a permutation of the presidents name, for example “Dave Smith” instead of “David Smith”. I know personally, I’d probably see that quickly, wonder why two accounts were setup for him, and then continue scanning. This company uses a software package that legitimately requires some users to need two account to avoid some poorly designed licensing pitfalls.

Google Finance - No More Spinning Tops?

Mike — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:04:14 +0000

Today, I stumbled upon the new Google Finance. The funny thing is, I use the Google finance portfolio widget on iGoogle all the time. But, for whatever reason, I guess I’ve never clicked on my stocks, as retarded as that sounds. In any event, I had been looking for a while for a chart that combined news (earnings reports, upgrades/downgrades, whatever else) with chart data so you can more easily determine the effect of different types of news on a stock. I’m sure Google isn’t the only company that does this, but its just the only one I’ve come across so far in my young investing career. So, I was looking at the chart of my stock and trying to find a way to see a candlestick chart. I looked under chart “Settings” - Nope, that’s not it. I look around the page - Nope, still don’t see it. Why is there no option to view a candlestick chart? Aren’t candlesticks the most often used chart in technical analysis. I did a quick Google search on it, and that came up empty. Is it really true…are there no candlestick charts in Google Finance? Someone, please tell me I’m wrong. I would love to use Google Finance more often…

Standardizing Outlook Signatures Company Wide

Mike — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:50:37 +0000

Today I got an email from someone in our accounting department. The woman had totally butchered her signature. She had a handwriting font, multiple colors, multiple font sizes…you get the picture. That lead me to wonder, how can we standardize all employee signatures company-wide. I looked in the server side rules on Exchange 2007 and found there was no provision that allowed you to do this. There are some commercial products, such as this one, but I didn’t find anything for free. Next, I started looking for scripts we could add to our usual login scripts that would set a specific signature of our choosing. I found a few scripts online and a few tutorials and started working away at it. I can’t seem to find the website where I got most of my tips to link back to it. In any event, this is what we are now using and it seems to work very well:

On Error Resume Next

Set objSysInfo = CreateObject(”ADSystemInfo”)

strUser = objSysInfo.UserName
Set objUser = GetObject(”LDAP://” & strUser)

strName = objUser.FullName
strTitle = objUser.Title
strDepartment = objUser.Department
strCompany = objUser.Company
strPhone = objUser.telephoneNumber
strFax = objUser.faxNumber
strMail = objUser.Mail
strWeb = “www.ourwebsite.com”

Set objWord = CreateObject(”Word.Application”)

Set objDoc = objWord.Documents.Add()
Set objSelection = objWord.Selection

Set objEmailOptions = objWord.EmailOptions
Set objSignatureObject = objEmailOptions.EmailSignature

Set objSignatureEntries = objSignatureObject.EmailSignatureEntries

objSelection.Font.Name = “Calibri”
objSelection.Font.Size = 8.5
objSelection.Font.Color = RGB(128,128,128)

objSelection.TypeText strName & “ | ” & strTitle
objSelection.TypeText “ | Email ”
objSelection.Font.Underline = 1
objSelection.TypeText strMail
objSelection.Font.Underline = 0
objSelection.TypeText “ | Phone ” & strPhone & “ | Fax ” & strFax & “ | ” & strWeb
objSelection.TypeParagraph()
objSelection.Font.Color = RGB(79,129,189)
objSelection.TypeText UCase(strCompany) & “. Our Slogan.”
‘objSelection.TypeText “| Address City, State ZIP | “”Slogan 2″”"

Set objSelection = objDoc.Range()
objSignatureEntries.Add “Default Signature”, objSelection
objSignatureObject.NewMessageSignature = “Default Signature”
objSignatureObject.ReplyMessageSignature = “Default Signature”

objDoc.Saved = True
objWord.Quit

This script pulls user information our of our active directory store to use for the signature. To use this, you’ll need to save it as a .vbs file. Just double clicking it should render results. It won’t delete any existing signatures you have, just create a new one and make it your default.

Bankers Petroleum (BNK:TSX) - New Stock Buy

Mike — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:14:38 +0000

The price of gas is killing me - it costs me $70 to fill up my tank. Americans think their gas is expensive, but in Canada my friends and family are paying around 40% more. There good ‘ol socialism at work. It’s really only the taxes that make the majority of the difference. Anyways, I’ve been thinking lately that I should start investing in oil, essentially hedging myself against future rises in the price of gas at the pump. If gas increases by 10% and my oil stocks increase by 10%, it should help offset any difference. Ideally, however, I’d like to make more than just offsetting the price of gas. Anyways, acting on a stock tip from a friend, I researched and decided to buy Bankers Petroleum (BNK) on the TSX. I bought it at 1.70, so we’ll see what happens.

E*Trade - No Soup For You!

Mike — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:35:39 +0000

Earlier in April I decided to open up a new US E*Trade account. I have an E*Trade Canada account, but trying to get money out of Bank of America into E*Trade Canada is a real pain. After they sent me an email saying that my account was setup, I logged in, and verified my bank account information. However, when I tried to move money into the account, there was no options to transfer funds into my brokerage account. I ended up leaving it that night and forgetting about it until today, when an E*Trade representative phoned me at work to find out if I had had any problems with my account. I explained what happened and he transferred me to some customer verification department. Since I only recently moved to Ponte Vedra, their 3rd party verification company couldn’t verify my address. So, get this, they want me to fax them a copy of my Social Security card to verify I am who I say I am. I haven’t done it, and I’m not sure if I will. With all the identity theft going on in North America, I have a problem faxing copies of my social security to anyone regardless of who it is. Certainly, E*Trade must have other means to verify that I am who I say I am. My banking information was verified by them (Name, Address, Bank, Bank #), isn’t that enough?

Got2b Probably the Best Hair Gel Ever

Mike — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:19:58 +0000

I know that endorsing a hair gel seems pretty lame, but I have been using this product for a couple months and I still think its fantastic. It’s kind of like the difference between a 3 blade and a 4 blade razor - minor, yet significant. Anyways, this stuff will hold every hair on your head in place during a hurricane without giving it that wet, greasy, look. It’s also water resistant.

It’s made by a company called “Schwarzkopf” and I use the “Spiking Glue” version even though I don’t spike my hair. I’ve tried the kind that comes in the small circular container, and it just doesn’t compare.

All in all, I think this is probably the best syling product in the market, and at around $5, its quite reasonable too.