I'm using the SMTP mailer and I keep on getting a timeout message
well before the X seconds I set it for. What gives?
PHP versions 4.0.4pl1 and earlier have a bug in which sockets timeout
early. You can fix this by re-compiling PHP 4.0.4pl1 with this fix:
timeoutfix.diff. Otherwise you can wait
for the new PHP release.
I am concerned that using include files will take up too much
processing time on my computer. How can I make it run faster?
PHP by itself is very fast. Much faster than ASP or JSP running on
the same type of server. This is because it has very little overhead compared
to its competitors and it pre-compiles all of
its code before it runs each script (in PHP4). However, all of
this compiling and re-compiling can take up a lot of valuable
computer resources. However, there are programs out there that compile
PHP code and store it in memory (or on mmaped files) to reduce the
processing immensely. Two of these: APC
(Alternative PHP Cache), Afterburner
(Win32
download), and PHP
Accelerator
are excellent free tools that do just this. If you have the money
you might also try Zend Cache, it is
even faster than most open source varieties. All of these tools make
your scripts run faster while also reducing the load on your server. I
have tried them myself and they are quite stable too.