So the WebSvr mini here at my home-based NOC (named ActionMoniker.com) is now running LightTPD as the web server. The benefits are that I can now run my PHP-based Drupal blog in FastCGI mode while also allowing virtual hosting under the same server/IP for my RAILS projects. The end result has turned out quite well and I am actually loving the speed improvements and the simple configuration for LightTPD, which has a more natural feeling for me when it comes to configuring a web server.

Tim Toady tells us that (There Is More Than One Way To Do It) and I am sure this is not the first and not likely the last blog post you will ever see that tells you the best way to install RAILS on OS X. Some people would just rather than go the simple path but I implore you, do it this way. Gaining the experience of compiling your own software will help you down the road when it comes time for doing more advanced things, especially deploying your RAILS app. When you are done, you will have a rock solid deployment environment for RAILS that will include:

If you are like me, an up and coming network geek, you probably thought that browsers automatically cached a site's assets and media as you went through it and looked at each page. I was very surprised to find out that this was not the case. In fact, every time I went from page to page on my newly created MetaSkills.net blog all of the CSS, PNG, JavaScript and other media files that were common to those pages were being downloaded at each and every request. WOW! This was bad news for me and, if left untouched, it would have easily caused all of my bandwidth to be taken up when 50+ users came and started clicking around.