Ubi panis ibi patria

The company that represents me, A-Team Solution, has been invited to speak at WordCamp Philippines on the developers track. The topic we will be presenting is, “Optimizing WordPress with PHP-FPM, Nginx, and Caching”, we’ll also share some common security exploits and how to protect against them.

Stay tuned, as the presentation will be posted up @ slideshare.

This event is taking place on October 2, 2010 at the College of Saint Benilde in Pasay City, Philippines.

We are very grateful to share our experience, and I am personally grateful to A-Team Solution and Wordcamp for having us

One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her, he allowed his soul to be heard. “My darling, anything you wish, anything I am, anything I can ever be… That’s what I want to offer you — not the things I’ll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get
them. That thing — a man can’t renounce it — but I want to renounce it — so that it will be yours — so that it will be in your service — only for you.”

The girl smiled and asked: “Do you think I’m prettier than Maggie Kelly?”

He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed.
– Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead”

A Brief presentation for the Manila Python Hackers Guild meetup. Join the Facebook page here

Quick note to self. I was blown away by siege tests this afternoon.

Two servers, identical
Server Hardware
linux kernel 2.6.32-12
512MB RAM

siege -c 90 –time=120s
server 1= running apache 2.2 with mod_wsgi with nginx 0.7.35 as front end wwwsvr.
Lifting the server siege… done.
Transactions: 2735 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 120.21 secs
Data transferred: 9.17 MB
Response time: 3.38 secs
Transaction rate: 22.75 trans/sec
Throughput: 0.08 MB/sec
Concurrency: 77.00
Successful transactions: 2735
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 11.08
Shortest transaction: 0.16

vs.
siege -c 90 –time=120s
no apache, nginx 0.7.35 with uwsgi
Lifting the server siege… done.
Transactions: 20605 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 120.06 secs
Data transferred: 74.51 MB
Response time: 0.03 secs
Transaction rate: 171.62 trans/sec
Throughput: 0.62 MB/sec
Concurrency: 4.82
Successful transactions: 20605
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 9.02
Shortest transaction: 0.01

Who said you need apache?

siege -c 250 –time=30s
apache/mod_wsgi
Lifting the server siege… done.
Transactions: 185 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 30.01 secs
Data transferred: 0.62 MB
Response time: 7.69 secs
Transaction rate: 6.16 trans/sec
Throughput: 0.02 MB/sec
Concurrency: 47.42
Successful transactions: 185
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 27.10
Shortest transaction: 0.15

nginx/uwsgi
Lifting the server siege… done.
Transactions: 8147 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 29.60 secs
Data transferred: 29.46 MB
Response time: 0.39 secs
Transaction rate: 275.24 trans/sec
Throughput: 1.00 MB/sec
Concurrency: 108.68
Successful transactions: 8145
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 21.02
Shortest transaction: 0.01

uwsgi was able to serve 8147 requests to 250 concurrent connections in the same time mod_wsgi could only serve 185

each time i pull a new bash shell, i’m enlightened by /usr/bin/fortune

this one time caught me off guard and I had to share it.

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for
counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the
experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth
them; but in new things, abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin
of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might
have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and management of
actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly
to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few
principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not how they innovate,
which draws unknown inconveniences; and, that which doubleth all errors, will
not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop
nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little,
repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but
content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to
compound employments of both … because the virtues of either age may correct
the defects of both.
– Francis Bacon, “Essay on Youth and Age”

I’m adding this to my checklist when exporting a virtual machine via virtualbox.

on the guest image,

1. become superuser
2. echo “” > /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
3. shutdown -r now
4. open up the 70 persistent net rules again. change eth1 to eth0
5. shutdown -h now
6. go ahead and export (VBoxManage export $image_name -o $image_name.ovf)

For me, this saved a lot of asprin when importing VM on a new machine. This permits udev to assign the first available eth adpater to your machines virtual mac address.

I really enjoyed this article from the blog of  Swaroop CH

In it he de-mystifies all the hoopla about innovation, creativity and boils it down to two basic ideas.

Solving a Problem,

then,

Implementing a Solution.

That’s it really folks,

Read Swaroop’s Article Here.

Cheers Swaroop, keep it coming!

also check out:

10 Laws of Productivity

The Discipline of Creativity, P. Drucker

For me, + this is just an opinion.

Manila has so much potential. The city and it’s country are only beginning to realize some of its potential.

Most of us were not around during the 1900s.

Though from what we could remember about then, they were times when Industrialism & Entrepreneurial were in full swing. Think  Carnegie, the Ford, Firestone, Morgan.

It is 2010, yet in so many ways Manila still physically represents scenes like this:

New York City Early 1900s

It’s really Amazing! Time Travel doesn’t seem possible. But not only are we in a time zone 12 hours ahead of New York City, but it feels like New York City in 1900 — at times.

Worldwide, one could think that  ‘Developed’ Western Economies better re-think what they have done and where they are going, and whether they think they will attempt to drag the entire world down with them.

The higher you are, the higher you fall.

These Developing Nations, such as the Philippines have nowhere to go but up! Brazil, Russia, India, China simply lead the pack. Many others are more nimble, smaller, and resourceful.

\eof

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win, but you think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.

If you think you’ll loose, you’re lost.
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellows will — doused in faith.
Its all in the state of mind .

If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You have got to think high to rise,
You have got to be sure of yourself
Before you can ever win a prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the faster or stronger man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

When rooted by a power greater than thyself,
Freedom is granted,
Sails of Thought are already set.

In Memory of Luke J. Malloy

experimenting with django-uni-form brings a valid point. In order to bid on any IT projects with the U.S. Government the interface must be Section 508 Compliant

django’s native form render method is to put out forms as tables. uni-form allows you to use template tags to have a real control of the divs and layout of your forms which is great for designing for people with disabilities and enhancing the overall user experience.

here’s a great slideshare i ran into on the topic