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Enjoy!

Apache Vs Nginx

Most hosting companies currently run the Apache web server, there are other options and from our testing Nginx (pronounced engine-X) is a real stand out. Nginx is extremely good at serving static content quickly with low and predictable memory usage.

Nginx is one of a handful of servers written to address the C10K problem. Unlike traditional servers, Nginx doesn’t rely on threads to handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but more importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load. Even if you don’t expect to handle thousands of simultaneous requests, you can still benefit from Nginx’s high-performance and small memory footprint. Nginx scales in all directions: from the smallest VPS all the way up to clusters of servers.

Generally the ability to change web servers is not something offered by most hosts, however DreamHost does give this option with their Web VPS service, this article is a tutorial on switching your Apache server to Nginx and setup the W3-Total-Cache plugin to speed up your WordPress install.

Before We Being

Switching to Nginx is a big change, there are major differences between Apache and Nginx, among the most important is that your .htaccess file (that magic thing that makes your pretty permalinks work) will NOT work! Prepare to have some downtime if you are using permalinks.

Prepare for the Move

I generally recommend making this switch one site at a time, that means if you have more then one website  on your VPS setup a second server running Nginx, leave your original running Apache, it’ll cut down on the amount of downtime you have during the move. For the sake of this tutorial we’re going to pretend you’re only running one website on the VPS.

1) Log into ftp and create a folder within your home directory called nginx, within that folder create another called yourdomain.com, so for wheretohost.net it looks like this:

nginx/yourdomain.com/

This folder is where your website specific nginx rules are going to go, although these rules  can be complex we’re all very thankful that the basic WordPress rules are very simple. You’re going to create a file with the extension .conf, I normally put my wordpress rules into a file called wordpress.conf and it contains the following:

if (!-e $request_filename) {

rewrite ^.*$ /index.php last;

}

Making The Switch

As long as you have a Web VPS, DreamHost makes this part easy. Visit the DreamHost control panel and visit the VPS->Configure Server page. You’ll want to change the HTTP Server setting to “nginx”. Enable the PHP cache setting for that extra special boost only opcode caching can provide, plus we’re going to be using that as the basis of our WP cache setup! Save your settings and go get a cup of coffee, it’s going to take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes for the change to take affect.

VPS Configure Server Page

Test Your Site

Finished that coffee already? Awesome, well welcome back! It’s time to check out your website, it should be responding already and doing so rapidly, unless you had a special setup everything should simply work.

Now it’s time to setup so cache, so let’s visit your WordPress dashboard. Go on, log in… good stuff!

Install W3-Total-Cache

W3 Total Cache Settings

Check your plugins and make sure you disable any other cache plugins – such as WP-SuperCache or wp-cache.

Visit your Plugins->Add New page in the dashboard and do a search for W3, the first result should be W3 Total Cache. Click on the “Install Now” link, confirm the install request, if all went well on the next page you’ll be able to click on the “Activate Plugin” link.

Configure Cache

If everything has gone smoothly you’ve now got a new menu on the bottom left of your WordPress dashboard section, it’s called “Performance”. Go click it, then check out the screenshot, since you’re running on a VPS and have XCache enabled use the opcode caching method for page, database, object cache, and minify.

That’s it, enjoy!

DreamHost Green Hosting

With so many companies out their saying they are green and listing the many different ways they adhere to that statement, I would like to start by breaking down “green”. Green is more than just a color; it has become a well known word used to describe eco-friendly businesses, products, people, and has become a symbol of environmentalism (we all know the political party by that name as well). Then there is that “carbon footprint” phrase being thrown around. So what IS a carbon footprint? Well, Wikipedia describes a carbon footprint as “the total set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event or product”. For simplicity of reporting, it is often expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs, emitted.”

So, we covered green, and the footprint, but what about a green business? According to Green America Today (http://www.greenamericatoday.org/) “Green businesses operate in ways that solve, rather than cause, both environmental and social problems. These businesses adopt principles, policies, and practices that improve the quality of life for their customers, their employees, communities, and the environment.”

What about green hosting? Thats what I really want to know!! Are they just green businesses? Well kind of, yes, but there is a bit more to it than that. More and more web hosting companies are finding ways to offset their carbon footprint, create their own energy, plant trees for new sign-ups, eliminate paper in the offices, switch to biodegradable cups and mugs, aluminum water bottles for the employees, offer incentives for carpooling, and more.

1 and 1 Green Hosting

There are a few ways that Green Hosting companies provide green hosting solutions to the customer. The first is with “eco-friendly” hosting, which makes up the majority of green hosting companies out there. Eco-friendly means that the particular web host purchases Renewable Energy Certificates or carbon credits which offsets their carbon footprint. Others, use things like solar or wind power to directly generate their own power. Most hosting companies, no matter which method they choose to power their servers, are using multiple methods to help the environment.

Being a green host, rather then a non-green hosting company, doesn’t necessarily make one host better than another. You should still weigh everything that is important to you and your business, such as what applications they support, the uptime, the price, whether they are eco-friendly or not, and more, before you make your decision. Green hosting, is however, a great way to add that little extra bit of help to the environment.

1) 1&1 has .com registrations for $7.99 (currently a special)

New! Just $7.99 .com Domain from 1&1. Free privacy included. Free Site builder + email.

2) GoDaddy has .com registrations for $10.69 but you can easily find specials for $7.49.

Domain Sale! $7.49*.com at GoDaddy.com

Of these two only GoDaddy handles bulk registrations with ease so it looks like we’ll be going with them, but I’d love to hear if anyone has other suggestions!

Installing Magento Commerce on DreamHost – A PS machine is recommended! Click the link to read more.

1) Follow @WhereToHost on twitter: http://twitter.com/WhereToHost

2) Send a message @WhereToHost telling us who your favorite web host is and why.

We’ll look over the messages and select the most creative, that person will get a free domain – heck we may give more then one.

–The WTH Team!

JJ

Great to see the advancement on a project like this!

Their changelog includes the following about zenpage.

Zenpage now included as official plugin

• Performance improvements [sbillard]
• More internal restructuring and integration with Zenphoto [sbillard,acrylian]
• Content scheduling and expiration [sbillard, acrylian]
• Some pure theme related plugin options moved to theme options [sbillard ,acrylian]
• Zenpage setup integrated with main Zenphoto setup [sbillard]
• Zenpage default theme
  • Homepage option to choose any unpublished page [sbillard,acrylian]
  • Thickbox theme option [acrylian]

So great job to the zenPhoto team, keep up the good work! You can check out their notification about this here:

http://www.zenphoto.org/2009/03/version-124/

• The hosts we are collecting data from will soon be announced

So I never actually did that, I just activated the host list page about a week back and left it at that. A few of the major hosts that were going to setup accounts for us fell though, unfortunate but we’ll find a way to grab the info anyhow even if it means shelling out the cash to grab an account.

• The host cloud will become active soon

I eventually figured that the cloud for the hosts might be a bit too redundant and decided to just drop the idea, at least for now.

• The application detail pages will go live

Still going to do, of course, but there is quite a bit of information I haven’t gotten around to getting into the system and I have higher priorities at the moment.

• A page explaining the beta for hosting companies will be put up

I should have done this already but haven’t with any luck I’ll get it up within a week or so.

• Some code cleanup for the template engine will be implemented (done!)

This was actually a rather large rewrite of the current template class that runs the system, stripped out a few unnecessary functions and added a few more while I was at it.

• A banner rotation system will be added for the promo spot

Better then just doing that I setup an openX install for the advertising server. I now get weekly reports of all ads that get displayed, click throughs, impressions all the basics and more in a rather easy to use system. Quite nice!

So beyond all that I’ve also integrated a list of all the php extensions we check for on a host, so if I’m missing something important let me know! You’ll find that over here on the PHP Extensions We Check page. Each of the links on that page lead to another with more detailed information about that particular extension in PHP.

Finally we’ve activated three hosting companies in the current beta system, two are paid hosts and one is a free host, they are: DreamHost, GoDaddy, and 000WebHost.com. If any more hosting companies are interested in getting themselves into the system let us know!

-JJ Galvez
Black Falcon Solutions
WhereToHost Webmaster

BlueHost

Bluehost.com president Matt Heaton posted to his blog on the 20th of January about the pain of backups. Included in this post is information regarding the solution they have developed and plan to release; a kernel patch that creates a list of modified files which should be backed up. Matt claims that using this system has given Bluehost an increase of 10x over their previous method of creating backups.

They also plan on releasing the addon they are creating. Check out the post over on Matt Heaton’s blog.

For anyone who is interested the following additions have been made very recently.

1. 25 applications are now in the system! We’re still adding requirements but we have the main details and requirements recorded.
2. Slight changes are being made to the check file being run on our beta hosts. Extra checks for version numbers have been added.
3. The application tag cloud now randomizes the location of each application name. (Still working the CSS out for the design of each.)
4. The news feed for the right hand column is now being pulled and displayed.
5. Forums have been added to the site BUT still needs to be properly setup. Actual forums need to be added and users are needed!

Changes to come soon…

1. The hosts we are collecting data from will soon be announced
2. The host cloud will become active soon
3. The application detail pages will go live
4. A page explaining the beta for hosting companies will be put up
5. Some code cleanup for the template engine will be implemented
6. A banner rotation system will be added for the promo spot