On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Raina Gustafson <raina@thequeensmen.com> wrote:

> 1. I'm using Magento. I am willing to use plugins/extensions, and will
> apply local overrides/customizations, but don't want to alter the code
> base to the point of having difficulties with upgrading, etc.

That's my policy - never alter the core. Always extend with
plugins/modules/whatever. OO-based products are probably much easier
to extend as well. So A+ there.

> 2. I tried using Amazon S3 as a cheap CDN, but Varnish was WAY faster.

a properly working CDN should offload your traffic from the origin -
it shouldn't be considered a performance-tuning cache, it's more for
delivering content better to different geographies and saving origin
resources for the dynamic processing, things of that nature. local
stuff will probably feel faster almost always unless there is a lot of
load :)

> I really need to gain a better understanding of the basics of how
> everything works. My background is in fine art–not tech. I've used
> Lynda.com and Sitepoint to learn about front-end development. Beyond
> this mailing list, blogs and general googling, I'm not sure what the
> best resources are for me to become self-taught and establish a true
> understanding of server management. If anyone can make suggestions
> about what I should read or watch, I'm all ears.

You've done quite an impressive job of picking this stuff up from that
background :)

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