Tips to crack AWS solution architect associate certification exam

Recently, I appeared for the "AWS Solution Architect Associate Certification" exam and am pleased to share that I passed with a score of 80.4%. For more details about this examination, you can visit  https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-associate/

My pleasure to share my personal experience while preparing this examination as follows:

1. Choose right certificate as per your skill set and interest.
   Reference: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/?nav=tc&loc=3
2. Here we are talking about AWS solution architect associate certification only, so please go through all details of the exam.
3. Exam time: 130 minutes, Cost: 150 USD (Practice exam: 20 USD)
4. Courses and material followed by me:
   a) Udemy online course :  https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate/
   Very helpful but it's not only sufficient.
   b) Whizlabs test papaers: https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-solutions-architect-associate/
   It helped so much to understand actual examination. Standard of questions is very similar to the actual exam. Please analyse your answers, read description and justification properly after the practice test.
   c) Simplilearn online training: https://www.simplilearn.com/cloud-computing/aws-solution-architect-associate-training
   It helped to me make hand dirty with AWS resources and services by using in some dummy project/requirements.
   d) AWS Best Practices whitepaper, AWS Well-Architected webpage (various whitepapers linked)
   e) AWS FAQ,  specially associated to EC2, Load balancer, Route53, S3, RDS etc.
   f) Self notes for revision perspective.
   e) Playing with AWS services in AWS free account
5. Expected preparation time: If you have almost one year hands on experience using different services then 60-80 hours may require to be get ready for exam or ** condition applied, it matters person to person 😏.
6. Unluckily if you didn't get chance to have your hands dirty with AWS services then you need to put more effort  😓 for AWS practice from your own on AWS free account . It's very hard nut to crack with study only😆.
7. Before taking the actual exam, please complete a practice exam to assess your knowledge. 
8. You can flag any questions for review. Plan your time by allocating a specific duration per question and reserving 10-20 minutes to review skipped or doubtful answers. 
9. Arrive at the exam center at least 30 minutes early. If everything is in order, you may be allowed to start the exam early.
   
   If I am able to remind some more information, will append here in future. Best of luck and Thanks to read 👍.

Eclipse commands

Eclipse commands are essential tools for enhancing productivity in the Eclipse IDE. They allow users to perform tasks quickly through keyboard shortcuts or command-line instructions. This guide introduces the most useful Eclipse commands, helping developers streamline their workflow and improve efficiency.

• To make Format:  ESc +Ctrl+F
• To proper indentation :  ctrl+I
• Add block comment: SHIFT + CTRL+ /
• remove block comment: SHIFT + CTRL+ \
• Matching tag: Shift + Ctrl+ >
• Matching Bracket: Shift + Ctrl+ P
• Open declaration: F3 or Ctrl+ left-click
• Last edit location: Ctrl+Q
• Back : Alt + left arrow
• Next : Alt + right arrow
• Key Assist: Ctrl+Alt+L

Stop worrying and start living

few ways to charge yourself and banish worrying:

1. Live with gusto and enthusiasm - If we could keep our mind strongly concentrated on something that will help to get rid of many kind of pain or worrying.
2. Read an exciting book - whenever there is a nervous breakdown, begin reading an interesting and motivational book.
3. Play games, dance and exercise 
4. Relax while you work - Avoid the folly of hurrying, rushing and working under tension. If too many things to do all at once, sit down and relax and have a break for 15-30 min and do nothing.
5. I stood yesterday. I can stand today - Nothing permanent, good time or bad will go away after some time. 
6. Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health.

Cracking 'Acquia Certified Drupal Site Builder' Certification

Recently I appeared  'Acquia Certified Drupal Site Builder' Certification exam and cracked the exam with 82% score. For more details of this examination you can go to https://www.acquia.com/customer-success/learning-services/acquia-certified-drupal-site-builder-exam-blueprint#animated

After appearing in this examination, I found some below points that may help you.

1. Please go through all admin settings and applicable configuration related to all Drupal components like views, content types, users roles, permissions, etc. (Above menu) 
2. Most of question was related to only Drupal core. In contributed modules, I found "views" related questions.
3. If you have 2-3 year Drupal experience with "Awareness" during creating Drupal components, then it is not a hard nut to crack.
4. On exam's blue print page, please go through in depth with test format content. Ex. Given a scenario, determine how.......
5. To take this exam, I shall prefer to go to nearby exam centre in place of  your personal laptop/computer at home.
6. Before to start exam, please make time plan (time per question) and reserve 10-20 minutes to review the skipped or doubtful answers.
7. You can mark "Review later" any question and if you click "Review all" button, then you will see these question with star (*) mark.
8. Please mark any question "Review later" in that case only if you think any possibility to revise the answer, otherwise in last you will face a big number of question to be reviewed.
9. There is no question related to programming. 
10. Please reach your exam centre at least 30 minutes before to time. If everything is Ok then they will allow to start the exam before to time itself. 

If I am able to remind some more information, will append in future. Best of luck and Thanks to read.

Drupal 7 performance options and tips

Some basic configuration practice

• Non-essential modules: Disable and uninstall unused and non-essential modules.
• Statistics module: Disable the statistics module as it puts an extra load on the database with every hit. 
• Update manager module: Disable the Update Manager module on Production 
• Drupal cache: Enable site-wide caching over at Administer » Configuration » Development » Performance.
• CSS/JS Aggregation: Improve CSS/JS performance with Advanced CSS/JS Aggregation or Aggregate

System administration

• APC:  Alternative PHP Cache (APC) for PHP < 5.5.  (This is available in new version of  core PHP)
• Nginx:  This is one of  alternatives to Apache Web server.
• Syslog:  Saves all logs to your operating system instead of the database.
• Solid state drives (SSDs):  You have to pay more cost. If it spans in your budget, then go to SSD option in place of tradional HDD.
• Cron jobs: Disable unnecassary cron jobs
• Improve CSS/JS performance with Advanced CSS/JS Aggregation or Aggregate cache

Cache Replacements

• The default Drupal-site caching is not very efficient. As a result, alternative mechanisms have sprung up to fill the void.
• Memcache API and Integration or Memcache Storage
• File Cache
• Redis (a key-value store)
• Specific Components optimization
• Minify JS files to reduce the fils size.
• React to page-not-found errors quicker with Fast 404.
• Cache components with logged-in users via Authenticated User Page Caching (Authcache).
• You can use CSS sprite images for theme images to reduce the HTTP request.
• Load images only when needed with Image Lazyloader or similar modules.

External Caching

• Varnish - Basically, Varnish handles serving static files and anonymous page-views for your site much faster and at higher volumes than Apache, in the neighborhood of 3000 requests per second.
• Cache Expiration - This module provides configurable actions upon events that will expire URLs from caches like reverse proxy caches, internal page caches, etc.
• Boost module - for shared servers, then you can run Boost instead.
• Services -There are several services that can be used in conjunction with your Drupal site to monitor and/or increase performance.
• Content delivery networks (CDNs)
• ProjectPAAS - along with its connector module: Drupal-specific performance service.
• New Relic: General performance monitoring that supports Drupal. Works nicely with Pantheon.
• BlazeMeter Module - for Load and Performance Testing

FULC (Frequently used LINUX commands)

The most common Linux commands are shown in this table.

Command	Description
cat [filename]	Display file’s contents to the standard output device (usually your monitor).
cd /directorypath	Change to directory.
chmod [options] mode filename	Change a file’s permissions.
chown [options] filename	Change who owns a file.
clear	Clear a command line screen/window for a fresh start.
cp [options] source destination	Copy files and directories.
date [options]	Display or set the system date and time.
df [options]	Display used and available disk space.
du [options]	Show how much space each file takes up.
file [options] filename	Determine what type of data is within a file.
find [pathname] [expression]	Search for files matching a provided pattern.
grep [options] pattern [filesname]	Search files or output for a particular pattern.
kill [options] pid	Stop a process. If the process refuses to stop, use kill -9 pid.
less [options] [filename]	View the contents of a file one page at a time.
ln [options] source [destination]	Create a shortcut.
locate filename	Search a copy of your filesystem for the specified filename.
lpr [options]	Send a print job.
ls [options]	List directory contents.
man [command]	Display the help information for the specified command.
mkdir [options] directory	Create a new directory.
mv [options] source destination	Rename or move file(s) or directories.
passwd [name [password]]	Change the password or allow (for the system administrator) to change any password.
ps [options]	Display a snapshot of the currently running processes.
pwd	Display the pathname for the current directory.
rm [options] directory	Remove (delete) file(s) and/or directories.
rmdir [options] directory	Delete empty directories.
ssh [options] user@machine	Remotely log in to another Linux machine, over the network. Leave an ssh session by typing exit.
su [options] [user [arguments]]	Switch to another user account.
tail [options] [filename]	Display the last n lines of a file (the default is 10).
tar [options] filename	Store and extract files from a tarfile (.tar) or tarball (.tar.gz or .tgz).
top	Displays the resources being used on your system. Press q to exit.
touch filename	Create an empty file with the specified name.
who [options]	Display who is logged on.

PHP-Mysql tuning for Drupal projects

Hi Guys,

If we installed a lot of number of modules in Drupal project, we see some heavy weight process(CCK field creation, clear performance, saving views , enabling/disabling modules etc.) takes so much time to be executed. Please follow some tips and then enjoy the magic in speed :).

Note: Please take backup of these files before to implement these steps.

" Drupal" settings

1. Disable the "update" module to check status of installed modules.
2. Disable unused modules

" php.ini" settings

1. memory_limit = 512M 
2. max_execution_time = 180s
3. realpath_cache_size = 2M

" my.ini" settings

1. innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 0
2. key_buffer = 160M
3. max_allowed_packet = 20M
4. table_cache = 64 
5. sort_buffer_size = 5120K
6. net_buffer_length = 80K 
7. read_buffer_size = 2560K
8. read_rnd_buffer_size = 5120K 
9. myisam_sort_buffer_size = 80M