We host Like that Idea and WebCMS Forum through Dakota Hosting on one of their Virtual Dedicated Servers (also known as Virtual Private Servers or VPS). Dakota Hosting’s normal hosting plans have always been optimized for php using Zend Optimizer. However with the virtual as well as dedicated servers you manage the servers yourself and have to install the “extras” yourself. By default the self-managed server does not come with an optimizer for PHP. So today we loaded the free Zend Optimizer. Hopefully, visitors to our site will notice some performance improvements. Although we haven’t had problems before…occasionally our articles get some broader online attention than normal and we like to be ready for those busy periods.

Installing Zend Optimizer was probably the easiest thing we’ve done so far on our server. Put it this way, it was a lot easier to install the optimizer than installing Wordpress or Drupal (both of which are not too difficult to install either). If you have a server you manage yourself, you can get the Zend Optimizer at Zend’s Website. We found a good but dated explanation of how the optimizer works in a publication called New Architect.

We would like to hear from our regular readers if they notice any improvements since we installed the optimizer. We’re always looking at different solutions for tweaking the server! Any additional suggestions for improving performance are also welcomed.

For awhile now, I’ve wanted to build a Website focused on reporting today’s news in the world of content management systems (CMS). In simple terms, a CMS is a system used for storing, managing, organizing, and displaying content. There are all kinds of CMS out there, with one that you’re most likely familiar with, the Web CMS (we use one here at Like that Idea). While a CMS is more than just software, among the computer techies it is usually the software that is talked about most.

Building a site for the Internet, whether for business or personal use, can be overwhelming. Where do you start? Well that’s the question I would like to help answer. While the concept for the new site is still being developed, I would like to occasionally post here information regarding the process it takes to build a Website. We currently plan to build the new site, CMS Report, around an open-source application called Drupal. I don’t want to overwhelm our Like that Idea readers with too much computer talk, so as soon as we can, we’ll move this conversation over to the new site. Until we make the move, a hearty welcome to any Drupal users that happen upon this site looking for information about Drupal. You’ll find some information about Drupal, but you will also find that we chat about all good ideas, even those ideas that don’t require a computer.