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Showing posts from 2018

How to fix: Nginx proxy or fastcgi cache always MISS or EXPIRED

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I've recently had an issue with my Nginx setup: it wasn't caching or serving cached pages properly. Every time I would visit, I'd get "MISS" or "EXPIRED". What I found online is that you have to instruct Nginx to ignore browser request headers relative to caching, therefore allowing Nginx to determine whether it should serve cache, all by itself. This is done by inserting the following directive: # ignore headers to let Nginx control its own cache fastcgi_ignore_headers Cache-Control Expires; However, I already had this in my configuration and it wasn't helping. After investigating the issue, I determined that my PHP scripts were updating cookies at every request. Nginx was forced to execute the PHP scripts via FastCGI (ie. not serving them from cache) because the cookie data had changed. When PHP sets a cookie, Nginx will not hit the cache, which is normal behavior. I wouldn't recommend changing this behavior. What I di

Clickatell vs MessageBird vs Nexmo vs Plivo vs Tropo vs Twilio: outbound SMS pricing comparison

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DISCLAIMER : I am not affiliated in any way to any of those companies. I'm an independent software developer. This article is based on pricing data collected on May 2018. As I was looking for a provider to send SMS internationally from a web application (one-way), I was recommended a variety of services by friends and colleagues. My main concern was the pricing: which of them would offer me the cheapest rates in the most countries? Obviously the answer isn't that simple, so I decided to collect pricing information from major providers to compare. I tried including SMSGlobal in this comparison but they wouldn't provide me with a full list so I had to exclude them. Methodology There are three important pieces of information that you absolutely need to grasp before you continue reading this article: •  The prices I have collected do not include bulk discounts . Most, if not all providers offer such discounts if you talk to their sales department. The rates I have

Nginx HTTP Server - 4th edition now available

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Thanks to the amazing work of Martin Fjordvald , the 4th edition of Nginx HTTP Server (which was, at the time of the 1st edition, the first-ever book about Nginx) is as of today available for purchase in libraries and online. Congratulations Martin! This book is a detailed guide to setting up Nginx in ways that correspond to actual production situations: as a standalone server, as a reverse proxy, interacting with applications via FastCGI, and more. In addition, this complete direct reference will be indispensable at all stages of the configuration and maintenance processes. This book mainly targets the most recent version of Nginx (1.13.2) and focuses on all the new additions and improvements, such as support for HTTP/2, improved dynamic modules, security enhancements, and support for multiple SSL certificates.  This book is the perfect companion for both Nginx beginners and experienced administrators. For beginners, it will take you through the complete process of setting

How to fix: Outlook on iOS/iPhone: "No Internet Connection"

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Microsoft Outlook is probably one of the best (if not the best) email client for iOS to date. Sadly, you may run into a random annoying problem which basically renders the application useless: it displays a message saying " No internet connection ", at which point you can't receive or send emails anymore. The number of people having this issue is incredibly high, as I discovered when it happened to me yesterday: After reading all of these posts and many more, there did not appear to be a particular solution for this. I had already checked the following: my Internet was of course working properly, on both WiFi and 4G I made sure to allow data/internet usage for the Outlook app I made sure my email accounts were working properly (they work fine on the Outlook desktop app & web) I tried enabling or disabling push notifications but that did not help I tried to use the 'reset account' functionality in the Outlook app settings for each of the accoun