I want to create something similar to http://fmylife.com but I ran into several issues. First of all, I have good understanding of HTML, CSS, RSS, PHP, SQL, mySQL, Postgres, etc. The problem I have is the following How to create pages dynamically Update for example the homepage, and create a cached version, instead of having to query the database each time How to determine when to update a cached page Basic security for such a site In other words, I need to be pointed in the right direction in order to get this working. This is more like a personal project and something that might have potential. Thanks for your time.
You can use something like APC for the caching - http://pecl.php.net/apc. You can also use a squid reverse proxy cache. Another good method, but significantly harder to configure. As for updating, you generally set a TTL on the cached version. If your site doesn't change a lot, this can be a fairly extended period of time. Usually this is something you need to determine based on how often your site changes and the traffic load that you receive.
Another easy to setup solution to cache would be via apache modules see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_cache.html and http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_mem_cache.html
try to see php default buffer out or somenthing like this.This is the way i do it and i can keep the mysql statements in an order.Hard to configure but very effective. http://gr.php.net/ob_start apc sucks(not suitable for you) the other i dont know i will check it.