As of Laravel 4.1, the framework now uses StackPHP's implementation of Symfony's HttpKernel. This means we can add our own middleware to our HTTP layer! Here's how.

Your firewall is an important first line of defense on any publicly-accessible server. In previous articles I listed how to set up a firewall without getting into any detail. This article goes into depth with configuring your iptables firewall.

Setting up your computer for Vim and Tmux often comes with a few issues. Here's how to manage plugins for Vim and use Tmux to boost your productivity, as well as settle a few common issues.

Mac's come with the ability to serve static content out of the box! and there are simple options to get fancier with dynamic content. Here are some examples.

If you have a highly-trafficked site or want the best site-speed for global traffic, using a CDN such as Amazon's Cloudfront might be worth your time. Here I investigate whether it's worth using Cloudfront to deliver not just static assets, but your whole site.

NodeJS introduced some breaking changes in its 0.10 version. Because this breaks so many packages, I often need to install pre-0.10 versions of Node. Here's how to do that in Ubuntu 12.04 server.

PHP's PDO has many attribute options you can configure. Here's how to set those in Laravel.

How to use raw queries safely.

Here's how to use multiple database connections within Laravel 4

I'm writing an eBook called Implementing Laravel. It will be for bridging the gap between knowing how to use Laravel and knowing how to implement Laravel using SOLID principles in practices.

Some basics I do on every production server install to setup iptables and increase security.

Set up Varnish, and some PHP in Laravel for setting proper headers

Queues are a great way to take some task out of the user-flow and put them in the background. Here's (most of) how I set up Beanstalkd to work with Laravel 4 in a production environment.

How Config and Environments work

How to extend or replace a core class in Laravel 4