Dev Blog » Rackspace Cloud

Common .htaccess Rules for SEO and Rackspace Cloud Sites

by Josh | Posted in Scripts & Code Snippets | Tagged: , ,

Every site we build on the Rackspace Cloud ends up needing a lot of similar rules in the htaccess file. On my local PC I've collected them in a text file, that I copy paste sections from almost every day. Most of the below examples will work on your average Linux-based server with Apache and mod_rewrite enabled. A few are RS Cloud Sites specific (as noted). In case you've never messed with this stuff before, note that this isn't a single file to copy in its entirety. Each section has a different purpose.

Huge Email Delays on Rackspace Cloud Sites – Don’t Use PHP Mail()

by Josh | Posted in Scripts & Code Snippets | Tagged: , ,

Starting last month, Rackspace Cloud Sites has not been delivering mail sent through PHP's mail() function in a timely matter, and sometimes not at all. The company I work at has been using RS Cloud Sites for a few years now, and while mail delivery has always been slower than average, emails tended to arrive within 20 minutes. Now we have emails showing up 3 days late, and there were some tests that I never received. Why is there no uproar about this? And why has Rackspace failed to notify its customers of this ongoing issue? Most websites rely critically on scripts that send email for their contact forms and web applications. For any brochure-type website, the main goal is to get the visitor to contact them. Call to actions point to a contact form. The contact form submits to a script that either sends mail via PHP's mail() (sendmail) or via SMTP.