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Feeling blue? No rhythm. The answer may be that you are seeing too much blue.

More and more, we are being inundated with the glowing light from electronics. Computers, gaming systems, PDA’s, televisions, etc. Some sleep researchers think these glowing electronics may be tricking our brains into thinking it’s daytime by disturbing our circadian rhythm (internal biological clock) – which could disturb sleep patterns, and exacerbate insomnia.

When exposed to bright light, eye receptors send a message to the brain to awaken. The brain responds by inhibiting the secretion of the hormone, melatonin. Melatonin induces sleepiness, and helps regulate circadian rhythm.

As we near the sleep cycle, the brain begins to stimulate the production of melatonin to induce sleep. At least, until the glow of the new technological age embraced us. Our eyes are particularly sensitive to blue light, which is common during the day, but less so during the night. Computer screens emit a disproportionate amount of light in the blue spectrum. This blue light may be tricking our circadian rhythm into thinking it is day, and thereby reducing melatonin production by the brain.

There are steps that one can take to minimize the effect when are working with electronic displays at night:

1. Wear orange tinted glasses. The orange tint blocks light in the blue spectrum.
2. Stop using display-equipped electronic devices a few hours before retiring to bed.
3. Dim your display.
4. Download and install the F.lux application. F.lux is a free application automatically adjusts the hues on your computer screen to eliminate blues when the sun starts setting, and reintroduces them when the sun rises.

I downloaded F.lux today, and tried it out. And dang, if it did not work. By sunset, I was starting to feel drowsy as my monitor started to take on a more reddish hue colour. So much so, I had to disable F.lux since I had a few hours work to do – for example, writing this blog entry. Now, of course, this is only one night, and completely non-scientific and anecdotal. Nevertheless, food for thought.

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A little known secret is that PHP sends a header as part of the web server’s HTTP response. The PHP header is the infamous X-Powered-By. For example:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 07:28:03 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.15 (Unix)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.2
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

The PHP header has a number of implications. One is that it shows you have PHP installed on the server, and the version of PHP you are running. This can expose security vulnerabilities to a hacker if your PHP is not up-to-date.

Secondly, it can alert a search engine robot that a given page is being served dynamically via PHP instead of statically via HTML. There are those that argue that the SEO (search engine optimized) quality of a page is greater for static pages. This is particular applies when you use mod_rewrite to rewrite PHP pages as HTML pages. For example, rewrite index.php?action=contactus as contactus.html. If the search engine robot detects the PHP X-Powered-By header when spidering the contactus.html page, it may see this a deceptive, and devalue the page – for example, Google may reduce the weight or PageRank (PR) of the page. This is speculative, and there are those who will disagree. However, it is still a possibility.

So, what can be done to disable the PHP X-Powered-By header? There is a simple solution. Edit your PHP configuration file (php.ini) by changing:

expose_php = On

to:

expose_php = Off

Then, you need to restart Apache (web server). To do this, you will require root SSH (secure shell) access. Otherwise, you will need to ask your web host to do it for you. Once done, PHP will no longer add it’s X-Powered-By signature to the web server HTTP header.

Here is a quick and easy solution to those who want to force all URLs to lead with www. For example, rewrite http://yourdomain.com as http://www.yourdomain.com. There are those that argue that is it is more SEO optimized to do this. To do this, add the following to your top (root) .htaccess file (or create one if it does not exist already):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

$1: RewriteRule backreference – requested directory/file passed to rewritten URL
R=301: Permanent Redirect – 301 redirect is the most efficient and SEO Friendly method for redirection.
L: Stop the rewriting process here and don’t apply any more rewriting rules.

Got a lot of valuables (cash, jewelery, etc.) you need to store safely in your home? Then, a home safe may be the answer. But, they can run into the hundreds of dollars for a good one. Here’s a cheaper solution. Go to a swap meet, and pick up a VCR. You should be able to get one for less than $10. Doesn’t matter if it works or not. Take it home, place it by your TV, and hook it up. Again, doesn’t really have to work (only have the appearance that it is part of your entertainment system), so you don’t have to be exact with the connections. Bingo, you now have a home safe (invaluable) to store your valuables. Just open the tape door, insert trinkets, and close door. No self-respecting or self-loathing thief would ever consider stealing a VCR. And, can you imagine a burglar lugging around a VCR, with the best hope of selling it for lunch money. To that end, try to get the oldest and heaviest VCR (which should be next to nothing). Even better, BetaMax machine. DVD machines next on list in near future, but more suitable for cash.

Next week’s tip: Turning Your CRT TV into an Aquarium