We recently helped a client install PDFLite on their server and it was a little more quirky than usual so we thought we’d share the installation process.

First of all, PDF Lite is the stripped down but free version of PDFLib. This library allows you to generate PDF files and can be quite handy. The easiest thing is to confuse the two versions, we’re using the Lite version which doesn’t have as many features but it’s free and doesn’t watermark your PDFs. The Lite version is good for just messing around with but if this is a commercial endeavor, you should get the full version found here : http://www.pdflib.com/

This tutorial installs the FREE Lite package version 7.03. Alright, let’s get started:
OS: CentOS 4.5/5,RHEL 4/5
Requires: PECL to be running and available and most likely has to be done as the root user

cd /usr/src
wget http://www.pdflib.com/binaries/PDFlib/703/PDFlib-Lite-7.0.3.tar.gz
tar xzpf PDFlib-Lite-7.0.3.tar.gz
cd PDFlib-Lite-7.0.3
./configure
make
make install
pecl install pdflib

The system will now ask you for the installation location of pdflib (path to pdflib installation?), put in:
/usr/local

Once it’s done installing, let’s finish this up:
cp /usr/local/lib/libpdf.so /usr/include/php/ext
echo "[libpdf]” >> /etc/php.ini
echo “extension=pdf.so” >> /etc/php.ini
service httpd restart

That should do it, check your phpinfo to make sure it works and go make some PDFs.

We’ll do a complete tutorial in this blog series. Hopefully we can get this done in 3 main blog posts and then an accompanying post with some information about using Memcache in other common PHP scripts such as vBulletin, IPBoard, Joomla, etc.

Part 1 - Install Memcache

Part 2 - Install eAcclerator

Part 3 - Modify Wordpress to use Memcache + eAccelerator

PART 1 of 3: Memcache
Memcache aka Memcached is:

…a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load

In layman’s terms, it’s a caching system using RAM to cache your website and make it run quicker. Why would Memcache speed up your site? It basically takes your often hit pages and caches it into RAM. By caching it into RAM, your page doesn’t need to be regenerated as the information is still in memory. Large websites have huge Memcache server farms whose sole purpose is to cache data for quick retrieval, that’s how the big boys do it. Even Howard Stern uses Memcache.

Well we might not have millions of hits and gigabytes of Memcache but even a little bit of Memcache can help medium traffic sites. No, memcache is not for everybody, it doesn’t do you much good if your site doesn’t see much traffic. But if you have a popular Wordpress Blog or vBulletin forum, a little Memcache can go a long way.

We have found that Memcache + eAccelerator greatly increases the speed of your site and reduces the overall server load. So you might ask, how do I get Memcache working with Wordpress, let’s get started:

NOTE: This article assumes that you have root/admin access to your server. If you are on a hosted/shared webserver, just ask your hosting company to do the work for you and skip to the Wordpress Memcache plugin section.
(more…)

A long time client of ours, ArenaJunkies.com, has just been picked up by the Curse Network. Curse.com runs a prestigious gaming network primarily targeted at online gaming such as World of Warcraft, Warhammer, Conan, etc.

Congratulations to the fine gentlemen who we’ve gotten to know at Arena Junkies, here’s their presser.

Arena Junkies Joins the Curse Network
http://arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=26892

We are very excited to announce today that Arena Junkies has joined the Curse network. Curse approached us a few months ago, as they’ve been interested in supporting the PvP community for quite a while now, and immediately recognized the strong community we’ve built here. It’s with that in mind that we’re excited to finally tell you about the partnership.

Having the support of Curse is going to allow us to bring you much cooler tools and features in the future.

How will this change Arena Junkies as you know it? Very little; myself and Naxos are still the site administrators and we are going to uphold the high standards for which Arena Junkies has become known.

Partnering with Curse is going to give us even more resources to, as always, bring you the best Warcraft PvP site around. Expect to see some great new features in the coming months like the enhanced talent calculator, improved recruitment features, and more.

One of our very own clients runs a popular domaining blog at www.dnxpert.com. They recently launched a contest with $9,000 in free prizes. And yes, included among them is an iMountain hosting package that is applicable to our current clients…if you win of course.

Here’s a link to the contest and a short excerpt(maybe we’ll get some points too:

Greatest Domaining Blogging Contest Ever

Want to win over $8979.13 in real cash and prizes?

I am happy to announce the launch of the DNXpert contest / prize giveaway that is going to shake the foundations of the blogosphere.

This contest comprises of over 62 genuine prizes including cash, material goods and quality digital products that a domainer / blogger can make use of on a daily basis.

All the resources below ( include $1,360 in cash ) can be used to directly benefit a domainer or blogger in their daily pursuit of online wealth.

With so many prizes at stake you have every chance of winning!

(more…)