Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

If you’ve thought about whether upgrading from WP Cache 2.0 to WP Super Cache is a good idea, hopefully this benchmark will convince you. I followed my instructions on benchmarking Wordpress with Apache Bench on four configurations of this blog’s main page to measure performance:

1. Without any caching plugins
2. With WP Cache 2.0
3. With WP Super Cache (no compression)
4. With WP Super Cache (compression enabled)

The results show that WP Super Cache is a clear winner, performing 225% better than the older WP Cache. Here is the raw data I gathered during the test:

No caching:
Requests per second: 22.81 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 4383.559 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 43.836 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 613.75 [Kbytes/sec] received

WP cache:
Requests per second: 872.30 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 114.640 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 1.146 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 23549.46 [Kbytes/sec] received

Super cache (no compression):
Requests per second: 1518.90 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 65.837 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 0.658 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 41150.81 [Kbytes/sec] received

Super cache (compression):
Requests per second: 1960.39 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 51.010 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 0.510 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 53108.70 [Kbytes/sec] received

For more tips on how to improve your Wordpress performance, check out Wordpress Performance: Why My Site Is So Much Faster Than Yours. Another interesting WP caching plugin is Batcache, which uses the memcached backend to serve requests out of a cluster of machines’ RAM memory.

I came across this playing the Facebook Poker game today, the chances are pretty low:

I think the chances are about .2%, if I’m calculating correctly, to get a 666 anywhere in your hand. SCARY!

And here’s a flush on the flop… weird!!!

I was somewhat scared when I noticed this list of usernames / passwords for MySpace. Yeah, someone actually managed to hack my MySpace account, which is more incredible given that I don’t ever log into it:

Myspace hacked accounts 3/20/08
Here a list of myspace accounts and passwords

Example:
Username : Passwords get it

MySpace is pretty advanced in this regard; somehow they detected that my account had been compromised and when I logged in now to change the password, I received this neat message warning me:

MySpace Announcement: Your account has been phished!

What can I do?
Change your password. And don’t use your current password ever again. Why do I care? We’ve blocked your account until you change your password. This means you can’t send a message, post a bulletin, send a comment or add a friend until you’ve changed your password.

What does “phished” mean?
“Phished” means that someone stole the email address & password that you use to login to MySpace. They might be sending out messages, comments or bulletins as you!

How did this happen?
You went to a fake page that asked for your MySpace login email and password, and you gave them your info. Only login to www.myspace.com. Learn more

I’ve changed all my users and passwords now, but still it’s a tiring experience…