I’ve been working with Zend Framework quite sometime for web projects. I found it’s quite interesting to find that Zend Framework does not have any class to perform image manipulation even though a proposal for Zend_Image had been submitted to Zend community as a wrapper of existing PHP interfaces: GD and ImageMagick but unfortunately the proposal was not considered.

And for your information, GD which stands for ‘Gif Draw’ is a standard PHP installation, unlike ImageMagick. If you wish to utilize these libraries, you need to have php extensions called php_gd2 and php_imagick respectively installed and enabled on the web server.

The noticeable difference between GD and ImageMagick is that GD simply does not support image format like TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). If TIFF is not your issue then go for GD. And if you wish to make your development easier, you may be interested to use Thumbnail class by our fellow developer. But if you’re looking into ImageMagick I’m going to show you the steps (from another site) on how to install ImageMagick on your Windows web server as Windows installation is a bit tricky since “pecl install imagick” does NOT work properly.

1. Download and install ImageMagick software from http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php#windows.
2. Download pecl-5.2-dev.zip (choose the version relevant to your PHP) from http://snaps.php.net/win32/
3. Copy php_imagick.dll from the archive you’ve downloaded to your PHP extension folder.
4. Add the following line to php.ini (in the extensions section):
   extension=php_imagick.dll

   or on WampServer click WampServer icon on taskbar, go to PHP > php.ini and add the above entry.

5. Restart your server.
6. Try this example script below to verify your installation.

   header('Content-type: image/tif');
   
   $image = new Imagick('example.tif');
   // Create thumbnail for the specified image file.
   $image->thumbnailImage(100, 0);
   
   echo $image;

   The script should display the image thumbnail with a maximum width of 100 pixels.

If you find the above steps are difficult to follow you may want to download php_imagick.dll here and start from step 3. And if you need help with these libraries, check the manual pages for GD and ImageMagick.

Lastly if you find this post helpful, kindly leave your rating below to indicate that this post is really useful and at the same time let others know about this post. And if your wish to let other communities know about this post kindly click the sociable icons below. Thanks!

In brief, Page Speed is an open-source Firefox/Firebug Add-on. Webmasters and web developers can use Page Speed to evaluate the performance of their web pages and to get suggestions on how to improve them.

Page Speed works by performing several tests on a site’s web server configuration and front-end code. These tests are based on a set of best practices known to enhance web page performance. Webmasters who run Page Speed on their pages get a set of scores for each page, as well as helpful suggestions on how to improve its performance.

But that’s not all, the good stuff is its article “Performance Best Practices” which explains in detail all aspects on what needs to be done to improve your site: from network (DNS, server settings) to browser layer (CSS, JavaScript, image, compression) which extends my previous post in greater detail.

However these best practices may not be the complete solutions, in my opinion. If your site deals with dynamic content, there should be programming logic behind the content. This means whoever creates the logic has to utilize the best logic for highest efficiency in terms of computation. And if your site deals with a database, optimizing the queries to the designated database is also required.

Ultimately basic rules for programming are to avoid redundancy and to distribute computation load whenever possible.

Foreword

Experience a spike in usage on your hosting server? Well, my old friend does as he highlighted in his recent post about his decision in switching his theme to a simple one: one that he presumed doesn’t chew up a lot of resources from his shared hosting server . So here’s just my little thought or sharing tips on how to increase your web site or blog site performance for better user experience.

My One Cent

There are few factors in order to achieve this, namely

Server Reliability

Personally I think your hosting server reliability is the foremost element to increase site performance, namely server up-time and connectivity. Essentially without a reliable hosting server, the tips below will not have much impact or in other words pretty useless. Well I highly welcome your input on list of reliable hosting servers to use.

Small File Size

Reduce as much as possible the size of the files used for your site: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and image files in order to save network bandwidth. As a result, your page loads faster.

For HTML and JavaScript

I guess the answer is simple: eliminate white characters (spaces and new line characters) present in the file. One drawback of course, it will be difficult to debug your HTML or JavaScript. Well you can easily solve this by maintaining your friendly JavaScript for your debug purpose and dedicate a “compressed” one for production.

For CSS

The similar approach as the former. However I found some CSS can be quite bloated or in other words huge in size for some reason. And it is more likely that there are a lot of redundancies. If the former case is true, try CSS Framework as your foundation/start in creating your style-sheet.

For Image file

Choose the best compression format (GIF, JPG, or PNG) that is suitable for your images and its purpose. Check this post to find out more about the advantage and disadvantage of the individual format.

If you use a WordPress blog, you may want to install a plug-in called WP Minify but be warned of its drawback which I’m going to explain to you later.

Reduce Round-trip

Wonder what round trip means? Sorry but I couldn’t find a best definition for the term from google, but I found a closest one from wiki and answer.com. answer.com cited that a round trip is

A trip from one place to another and back, usually over the same route.

In Web, number of round trips is calculated based on the number of requests made by a browser before it is complete: one primary request for HTML files and subsequent requests for your JavaScript, CSS, and image files if needed. The solution is easy: use just one file for respective file type. (How’s that possible?) Na… just kidding.

For JavaScript and CSS

If you have more than one files, merge them into just one file.

For Images

One way is to piece those images together and create one bigger image file and use Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to show the respective image to the respective space on your page. CSS background tells you how to achieve this.

Avoid Dynamic pages

Nowadays dynamic pages are inevitable as web audiences are looking for more interactive web sites which serve fresh sets of information each day or even every hour. I guess here I’m not asking you to edit your HTML files for each of your post (for your blog) and I think those were the old days where page scripting had not been invented yet.

Why do I say that? because dynamic pages may consume a lot of CPU power which may cause a hiccup on your hosting server. And worse if your site resides on a shared server, other sites may have to wait (or sacrifice) for your site to complete its computation.

Caching is a way to help reduce CPU consumption. Caching is a process of creating a duplication or copy of  your dynamic pages to be stored elsewhere, thus subsequent request of the same dynamic pages can be fetched from existing cache in order to prevent computation redundancy. For WordPress user, try WP Super Cache plug-in.

Just a note, avoid dynamic compression of your web files to save your network bandwidth as this has its drawback: yields a high CPU usage.

Lastword?

Well, that’s all for the tips. Mike, if you’re reading this, I hope this can be your humble guidance in finding the best theme and plug-ins for your blog.

Ciao!

BitLet.org

Good News! (or perhaps Old News) For torrent leechers this could be an alternative. But for those who do not like to have BitTorrent client fill up your hard disk space but still love to use torrent when needed, then BitLet is definitely the answer for you. BitLet is a cute web-based Java applet that allows you to download torrent files on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed.

Downloading a torrent from this applet is simple. All that is needed is to copy the torrent URL you wish to download and paste it into a box as shown below. Or select your local .torrent and then click download torrent.

BitLet - Type torrent url

Click the download button to start torrent-ing and you will be prompted to allow downloading the applet if this is your first time using this. Simply download this and unblock the installed applet if you have active Windows Firewall. And a small dialog will pop up showing the status of the torrent.

BitLet - Download Status

As depicted above, most of relevant information is shown on the box: transfer rate, downloaded size, file name (shh… censored ), number of current seeders, number of current leechers, and also edit your settings. But that’s not all, you can also upload your file to BitLet and share it to your friends to leech or even consume video streaming. Check out the blog here for development updates. Happy leeching!

So far I’ve been working with some IDEs out there like Microsoft Visual Studio (including Express edition), Eclipse for PHP, Zend Studio, and PHP Designer, and to me Visual Studio is the most developer-friendly IDE. But this task is still repetitive to me and personally I am into the notion of DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself).

Well, I finally found a way to resolve this in PHP and I’m going to share this. The code is extended based on a sample file from Zend QuickStart.

/**
 * This class is a helper class that allows developer to
 * create an object model easily by simply inheriting and
 * declaring their desired variables as public in the child class
 * and seamlessly creates a pair of getter and setter functions.
 */
class JLoe_Model_Object
{
  /**
   * The regular expression for get method name.
   *
   * @var string
   */
  const REGEX_GET = '/get.*/';

  /**
   * The regular expression for set method name.
   *
   * @var string
   */
  const REGEX_SET = '/set.*/';

  /**
   * Get the value of a property with method syntax.
   *
   * Map method calls to get and set the declared public variables.
   * This is used to help to create magic get and set functions seamlessly.
   *
   * @param  string $method method name
   * @param  mixed  $param  parameter values to be passed
   * @return property value or this object
   */
  public function __call( $method, $param )
  {
    // Check whether it's a get or set method, else throw exception
    if ( preg_match( self::REGEX_GET, $method ) ) {
      $isGet = true;
      $propName = str_replace( 'get', '', $method );
    }
    elseif ( preg_match( self::REGEX_SET, $method ) ) {
      $isGet = false;
      $propName = str_replace( 'set', '', $method );
    }
    else { throw new JLoe_Model_Exception( 'Invalid method' ); }

    // Check whether property name exists
    $propName = ucfirst( $propName );
    if ( ! property_exists( $this, $propName ) ) {
      throw new JLoe_Model_Exception( 'Invalid method' );
    }

    // Perform respective method call
    if ( $isGet ) { return $this->$propName; }
    else
    {
      $this->$propName = $param[0];
      return $this;
    }
  }

  /**
   * Map variable access onto the underlying method representation.
   *
   * Allow to map the variable access with the respective get method.
   *
   * @param  string $name the property name to access
   * @return mixed value depending on the underlying method called
   */
  public function __get( $name )
  {
    $method = 'get' . $name;
    if ( ('mapper' == $name) || !method_exists($this, $method) )
    {
      throw new JLoe_Model_Exception( 'Invalid property' );
    }
    return $this->$method();
  }

  /**
   * Map variable access onto the underlying method representation.
   *
   * Allow to map the variable access with the respective set method.
   *
   * @param  string $name the property name to access
   * @return instance of the inherited class
   */
  public function __set( $name, $value )
  {
    $method = 'set' . $name;
    if ( ('mapper' == $name) || !method_exists($this, $method) )
    {
      throw new JLoe_Model_Exception( 'Invalid property' );
    }
    $this->$method( $value );
  }
}

And with this, you can code your model class with just a few lines. Here goes a sample.

class Quot_Model_Quote extends JLoe_Model_Object
{
  /**
   * Quote id.
   *
   * @var int
   */
  public $Id;

  /**
   * The quote
   *
   * @var string
   */
  public $Quote;

  /**
   * Tags for this quote.
   *
   * @var array
   */
  protected $_tags;
  public function getTags() { return $this->_tags; }
  public function setTags( $tags )
  {
    // Put your own logic here
    $this->_tags = $tags;
  }
}

Here if you wish to allow other class to access it via its variable name, getter, or setter functions, you just need to declare the variable as public as depicted on line 8 and 15. On the other hand, if you wish to limit access to a variable, you can always declare the variable as protected and create your desired getter or setter functions associated with the variable as shown on line 22 to 27.

And now you may access the class as follows.

$quote = new JLoe_Model_Quote();

$quote->Id   = $id;
$quote->Name = $name;
$quote->Tags = $tags;
// You may also use this
$quote
  ->setId( $id )
  ->setName( $name )
  ->setTags( $tags )

$id   = $quote->Id;
$name = $quote->Name;
$tags = $quote->tags;
// Similar with
$id   = $quote->getId();
$name = $quote->getName();
$tags = $quote->getTags();

It’s that easy. Now I can write my model class quickly and easily for other PHP projects. Yey!

Introduction

As a new blogger I always hope I could draw more readers to drop by my site at the same time increase my site traffic or in marketing term “increase your branding”. However I realise I’ll be competing with millions notable bloggers out there and this is not an easy task. Here, I believe my patience and persistence are being challenged. So, if you’re up to this challenge I will share some guidance on where and how to start. But do take note though that there is no guarantee that my guidance will definitely do the magic.

To start off, I believe that first you have to begin with your own blog – get yourself ready first. It’s just like constructing your home or house: first you start with building a strong foundation and thereafter you can easily stack up your block. Once you think you’re ready to go, then you start publicizing your blog with confidence.

I must admit these guides are not totally created by my own, instead I collated based on other sources I found, along with my own intuition. I’ve separated the guidance into two: What to prepare and How to publicize.

Prepare your Blog

Timeless is Everlasting

Means do write posts that will be readable in a year or more. A constructive and useful post may not immediately catch readers’ attention (just as this post) but sees it in long-term view. Personally, I know that there are millions posts out there with the same topic as mine, but here I did not think of marketing this post but instead regarding this as my future reference.

Create Sitemap

Sitemap (or a site map), according to Wikipedia, is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users as this helps search engine bots to find pages on your site. For WordPress user, you can easily achieve this by installing a plugin called “Google XML Sitemaps” mentioned in other post. Think of sitemap as shortcuts for search engine bots.

SEO Compliant

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What does this mean? This means that any websites including your blog has to be SEO compliant in order for search engines out there (like Google) can easily index your pages and return your pages when people search. Again, a WordPress plugin called “All in One SEO Pack” is the magic wand.

More Ping Services

This may be the simplest one to do. In WordPress what you need to do is go to “Settings > Writing” and look for the ping list text-area and add more ping services into the box. This is to notify the ping service providers when you published a new post. You can easily find a long list of them from Google or you may refer to my sources below.

Be Opportunist

As opposed to my previous point, if you think there’s a very interesting topic that may grab some-one’s attention immediately, do attempt. Short announcement may be a short-term branding selling strategy.

Be Social

Give social readers option to promote your post if they like it. These readers may come from other sites, like twitter, stumbleupon, digg, technorati, and alot more. In WordPress, a plugin “Add to Any” will help you fill the job for free and hassle-free.

Be Smart

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not talking about how you dress here instead how to dress your blog. Impress your readers with unexpected catch. Fortunately in WordPress you can easily fulfill this with the power of plug-ins. Kindly refer to this post for the list.

OK, that’s my last point on what you need to do first with your blog. Next thing is to start to publicize your blog.

Publicize your Blog

Submit to Blog and RSS Directory

First is to submit your blog – tell your existence. Blog and RSS directory provides a catalog of blogs or posts for readers to find on a specific topic or category. Submitting to these directories will definitely help you climb up the ladder in search engine results too because these directories may be more popular and therefore make your blog quickly recognised.

Contribute

Make contributions to other blog posts. Contribution doesn’t mean to dig out your pity pocket and donate, instead post your comments to the blog posts if you find it interesting and useful. Give kudos to the authors for their hard work in sharing their ideas.

Be Proactive

Join free Internet community out there, namely facebook, twitter, technorati, digg, stumbleupon and many more, and market your blog in your profile. These communities grows bigger and faster than you could imagine.

Appreciate and Respect

Appreciation and respect are what people always look out for in office, and even in your daily life. And here in cyberspace, the same rules apply. If you post a topic in your blog with sources from other blog, do include the URL to their site in your post to allow pingback/trackback – a way to notify the author your token of appreciation. As a result they feel encouraged and may post more stuff for your feed.

My One Cent

Lastly just my one cent, always think outside the box because I’m pretty sure you can do better than my above list which may be less effective as time lapses. And also keep in mind that this virtual space will always evolve, just like our life.

Hope you find this useful and I welcome your feedback or help me complete the list. Don’t forget to leave your rating or comment below. Thanks and Cheers!

Sources

• Promoting Your Blog – Blogger Help
• How to get traffic for your blog
• How to write an effective blog description and keywords?
• 9 Ways to Make Your WordPress Blog “Smart”
• Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites
• RSS Specifications – Submit RSS feeds
• WordPress Ping List
• Top Ping URLs & Update Services

/**
 * Read the remote file and send the content as the response
 *
 * @author Jonathan Loe
 * @date   May 05 2009
 */
protected function readAndSendRemoteContent( $url )
{
  // Set the configuration parameters
  $config = array( 'adapter' => 'Zend_Http_Client_Adapter_Socket' );

  // Instantiate a client object
  $client = new Zend_Http_Client( $url, $config );
  $response = $client->request();

  $this->getResponse()
    ->setHeader( 'Content-type', $response->getHeader( 'Content-type' ) )
    ->appendBody( $response->getRawBody() )
    ->sendResponse();
}

First line of code is to set the adapter as Zend_Http_Client_Adapter_Socket. Next line is to specify the remote url along with the adapter set in the config and make the request. My last code is to send whatever was received and send it to the client as a response with the same ‘Content-type’. $this refers to the instance of the Zend controller class.

It’s that simple hey?

PS: If you’re looking for other samples which demonstrate use of the native functions. Here are a few links you may be interested in.

Links:

• Reading a Remote File Using PHP
• How to download a remote file in php and then save it

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets.

If you are familiar with friendster and facebook, well I guess this is just another social networking site with different sets of features, in my opinion. I might be wrong but I’ll find out about Twitter more and let you know more in this post.

Well if you’re new to blogging and wish to publicise your blog, you may want to make full use of Twitter to expand your network. And to do that, as usual you need to register to the site to create a new account. Registration is quick and easy, despite of having to verify/authenticate your email. But yeah that is it! And Twitter is ready for you.

Ok now I have my blog and my twitter and wish to publicise myself via these media. Well I think it’s really a hassle to maintain two sites with probably the same posting and I simply do not have the luxury to spare. Luckily just found a service which saves me time from doing the task. This service is called twitterfeed. It gives you the convenience to feed your blog entry to the twitter automatically with just a few mouse clicks and keyboard press.

All you need to do is to sign up, authenticate to your twitter account, and finally add your blog rss feed url as one of your feeds. That’s it! and your twitterfeed is ready to feed your twitter with your blog entries regularly.

Essential

Akismet
This plugin is definitely the most popular one for filtering spam comments. For senior bloggers, they definitely need this as their blogs are becoming more popular and spammers are becoming eager to “sneak” into their site by submitting bogus comments. These spammers nowadays have become smarter and more sophisticated.

All in One SEO Pack
The purpose of having my own blog is to publicize the blog as much as possible to the readers out there and we are talking about millions readers out there. And this definitely helps optimise your blog entry to be search friendly by search crawlers like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Wonder what SEO means? Check our friend wiki.

Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. This is also one option to promote your SEO goal and has several helpful settings too.

Recommended

FD Feedburner Plugin
This is used to redirects all feeds to a Feedburner feed. Feedburner is a service provided by Google to help track subscribers to your feed. You need to register to Feedburner before you can use this plugin.

Google Analytics for WordPress
If you are Google Analytics user, then this plugin is a must to help you track your visitors. The advantage of having this plugin is that this plugin adds Google Analytics with extra search engines and automatic clickout and download tracking to your WordPress blog.

Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form
Do you want your readers to be able to communicate with you privately? This plugin is the answer as it provides a powerful yet easy-to-install contact form features exceptional accessibility and usability while still providing extensive anti-spam and anti-exploit security features. A marriage of communication and peace-of-mind.

WP-PostRatings
This is just a tool for your good readers to participate in your blog – how they like your posts. Rating helps you identify whether that specific post is favourable. Hint: find out your readers’ likings.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
This plugin returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. This helps promote more page hits to your internal pages. Spice your readers into reading more of your posts.

Optional

Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress
Aha! This is only applicable if you’re a software developer and wish to include your code inside your post. Google Syntax Highlighter definitely help beautify the look of your ugly code.

Snap Shots™ Plugin for WordPress.org
Snap Shots enhance links with visual previews of the destination site. This helps your readers stay longer in your site by taking a peek of the site before choosing to leave for another competitor site.

I hope this list is useful for you. I’ll be updating this post as I go along and find out more interesting plugins.

Signing off!

Not only that, if you use Google Analytics to help you track and analyse your site hits, this definitely will help you identify which posts are more interesting to your readers and at the same time increase the number of page views.

I found a few good articles on how to enable this, which may be of use for your blog. These articles give very clear and complete information on how to display excerpt on your front page and other pages as well.

Here are the links:

• Display Post Excerpts Only in WordPress
• Template Tags/the excerpt