At b13 we love using Blackfire to monitor and speed up our clients‘ websites. Here’s a quick overview of what Blackfire does and why we love it.
Though b13 co-founder and TYPO3 CMS Core Development Lead, Benni Mack, is something of an unstructured genius, he gives us the structure we need to succeed in many areas. He’s part of coordinating the business side of our agency and winning new clients. He handles setup and maintenance of our technical infrastructure. And though he’s one of our key resources when we’re solving new problems for clients, he uses a classic “salami tactic” when he can get away with it: Any problem you bring to him, he slices into even finer pieces and gives it back to you. Watch out for leaving with more questions than you came with! Little-known facts about Benni: he was a German national semi-finalist in Olympic Greco-Roman-style wrestling and he can’t swim.
Expertise
- Ansible, Apple, Blackfire, Cloudflare, database, PHP, PSRs, SQL
- TYPO3, v10, core, custom, extensions, workspaces
- Caching, CDN, CI-deployment, regular expressions, web servers
- Contribution, community, enablement, sharing knowledge
- Delivering value, exceptional experiences, international, multilingual, partnership
- Family, listening, learning, sharing, teamwork, trust
Benni and TYPO3
Using TYPO3, we have a tool that has some flaws, but almost no limits. With it, we can make our lives and our work easier. It is predictable, powerful, flexible, and transparent. I can extend and improve TYPO3 on my own. Other tools might not allow that. It’s up to me what I do with it.
I believe that the more we know, the more we should share. As Core Development Lead, it is my responsibility to share as much about TYPO3 as I can. I know a lot, so I can pass on a lot. And yet, this project is SO BIG that I am always learning how to do things easier and faster. It’s delightful how often I see solutions and uses for our project that I never would have thought of. I draw a lot of inspiration from contributing and participating in other projects and technologies, too.
Benni on working at b13
I am humbled and grateful that we’ve built an agency where we get the job done well while caring about each other … and having fun! We’re open to new ideas while focusing on doing one thing and doing it right. There’s a powerful feeling of being in it together with each other, and making a difference for our clients and the world. We identify their needs, we’re there to help them work better and succeed.
Benni’s Dos and Don’ts
- Always understand, build things to last, and maximize your efficiency
- Always ask for the reason and the need before doing something (“understand”)
- Always find a clean, future-proof solution that keeps you out of trouble in the future (“build things to last”)
- Always automate (“be efficient, don’t do the same thing three times”)
- Always be optimistic and see the benefits of bad situations, look for the silver lining
- Always look for a long-term solution or strategy
- Never give up!
- Never blame others!
- Never waste your time!
Benni explains the different caches in TYPO3 and what they do. All about the Caching Framework.
Today’s world is global, and content distribution networks (CDNs) bring content closer to users around the world for lightning-fast performance wherever they are. TYPO3 is ideally adapted to modern CDN technology, reducing the load on your server, and even taking caching off your to-do list!
Workspaces are a killer feature in TYPO3 and we’re helping it reach its full potential. Find out how you can help or support us!
Dive deep into how TYPO3 is caching variants of a page and how to improve caching—but also how you can leverage TYPO3’s Site Handling into speaking URLs.
13 of our favorite small but useful improvements in TYPO3 CMS version 10 that each make our working lives a tiny bit better.
Our TYPO3 caching blog series is ideal for developers familiar with TYPO3 who want to fully understand the core concepts and build robust and faster websites with TYPO3.