When it comes to dealing with different file formats, it's hard to faze PHP. XML documents, PDF files, JPEG images, MP3 media...you name it and, chances are, there's a PHP extension to handle it. And so it is with compression formats like RAR, LZF and Bzip2 - although these archive formats are far less common today than the ubiquitous TAR and ZIP formats, they are still actively used by many applications and projects, and continue to be supported in PHP via PECL extensions.

He pulls in a few PECL extensions to give PHP the power it needs, both for unix-based systems and Windows DLL files. He includes some sample code showing how to open up a rar file and list the contents inside as well as extract the files themselves. And, of course, code examples for compressing files into a new archive is included too.

This post describes an approach used to implement highly responsive AJAX applications using the COMET approach. It describes in detail how the AJAX COMET approach can be implemented in PHP.

It also discusses how HTTP compression and chunking affect AJAX response delays, as well aspects that may influence the choice between Apache 1.3.x with mod_gzip versus Apache 2.x with mod_deflate for AJAX COMET applications.

Manuel breaks the tutorial up into sections:

• Multiple response AJAX requests
• COMET: Multiple response AJAX request implementation
• HTTP compression
• Page compression delays
• Avoiding mod_gzip dechunking
• Apache 2.2.x with mod_deflate

Of the six options they provided:

• Object code caching
• Template systems
• Distributed object-caching systems
• PHP variables that can be set
• Output Compression
• Other things that may help

Be sure to cast your vote for their latest poll question - "Which is the Most Common Database Problem?"

Options included:

• Reduce overall latency by reducing HTTP requests
• Save your images properly
• Strip extraneous PHP calls

Be sure to cast your vote in this week's poll asking "What is the Top Criterion for Scaling PHP?"

• object code caching
• Template systems
• Distributed object caching systems
• PHP variables that can be set
• Output Compression
• Other things that may help

Under each item there is more information, links, and even examples of the config files to help you along your way.

Throughout the blogosphere I'm always seeing these blogs, that while they look great, are horribly slow and overburdened. Over the past few months I have become somewhat of a website optimization specialist, bringing my own site from an over 250kB homepage to its current 34kB.

I will help you achieve some of the same success with a few, powerful tips. Most of these are common sense, but I can't stress their importance enough. I will concentrate on the website and not the server in this article, as there are too many things to discuss when it comes to server optimization.

The five tips mentioned include "Reduce Overall Latency by Reducing HTTP Requests" and "Compression", each with a paragraph or so of explaination as to what it is and how to implement it. There's even a PHP-specific one that talks about a paring down of the bits of functionality that really aren't needed.

They start with the creation of a simple data compression class, with functions to see if the browser supports gzip encoding and to get/send/compress the actual data. With the sample class created, they put it to the test with a more real-world example - echoing out user information from a MySQL database.

This article, the first of three parts, shows you how to make PHP pages load faster by showing you how to compress dynamic PHP pages. Techniques covered include using PHP's built-in "gzencode()" function, along with output buffering control functions.

Since PHP offers a powerful built-in library for handling HTTP compressed data, over this series I'll explain the basics of working with HTTP-compressed PHP pages. I'll illustrate, with several code samples, different methods for compressing dynamic PHP pages.

They start with the basics, writing up a simple script to compress the output from a simple PHP file, one that displays records from a "users" database. With that foundation laid, they move on to the heavy stuff - using more than just simple output buffering to speed up those pages. Their new example makes use of the gzip functions in PHP to compress the data even further. A gzip header is passed off to the browser and it pulls it all neatly compressed over to open on the client-side.]]> Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:26:56 -0500 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4729 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4729 a brief guide to help you tune your IIS installation for PHP.

IIS is a multi-threaded web server available on Windows NT and 2000. From the Internet Services Manager, it is possible to tune the following parameters: Performance Tuning based on the number of hits per day, Bandwidth throttling, Process throttling, Timeout, and HTTP Compression.

He looks at tips for each of the above, as well as other things like the memory cache size and max pool threads that can be changed with the help of the registry editor...]]> Wed, 25 Jan 2006 07:17:08 -0600