Review of High Performance Web Sites

When I came across

For those who are not familiar with Yslow, it is (again) a plugin for the firebug, the addon for Firefox. It tests a website based on 14 varying rules, from server settings to page construction. There are a few on the list that most people haven’t heard of, yet are rather important (I had never heard of an ETag much less known what to do with one). When Yslow came out, I took a peek at the best practices document which briefly explained each of the rules. I wanted to find out more, so I ordered the book. Unfortunately, High Performance Web Sites let me down for just that reason. I didn’t find out much more.

High Performance Web Sites starts off with a table listing alexa’s top 10 U.S. websites (substituting AOL.com for craigslist.org). Then, 14 chapters (one for each rule) are devoted to explaining the rule, and showing how many of the top 10 are implementing it. The final chapter steps through the 10 websites and shows what they do to reduce the load time of their websites.

My problem was that the book really didn’t offer any new information. Basically, the best practices document was explained in slightly greater depth…but only slightly. I was disappointed to find out that there were very few additional ideas in the book… apparently the 14 rules cover the possibilities of writing faster-loading websites (ahem). The chapter analyzing the ten major websites had a ton of room for furthering ideas, but offered a limited few.

I was most disappointed in the book because I had looked forward to more. The plugin itself, and the list of rules are both terrific. Having a concise set of tests to walk through is extremely valuable. I can not say the same for the book. I hope my money went towards further work, yet I wonder how that’s being filtered through O’Reilly (the publisher) and Yahoo (the official creator of Yslow). I recommend reading the Yslow best practices, and taking a look at the Yslow user guide instead.

Photos!

Be that as it may, I’ve been focused the last 2 days, buring through many of them. I’ve got two sets down, with one remaining. I’ve posted the first two to my newly purchased flickr pro account (I ran over the 200 image limit, and want to continue to see the old ones.)

Check out my party/band shots, and my photos of Boston and ALCS game 2.

Long 3 day weekend

So I return from East Hampton. 800 miles to empty out the freezer (and then de-ice it with only a metal spatula). Alright, so I’ve had some better trips. At least the Amagansett Farmer’s Market was good. And the surf looked good (if not near-frozen). I won’t go into details, but my weekend consisted of:

• 800 Miles of driving. That’s a lot. Additionally, I got stuck in one traffic jam on the L.I.E., but made my orchestra rehearsal… by three minutes.
• Cleaning out the fridge, bringing in the latter, insulating the skylight, closing windows, bringing in tools, and all of the other things we do to “close down” the house. Not sure why I did it all myself.
• Cutting the large fallen branch of a red-pine tree. It was so large that I had to cut it with my small handsaw… so I could simply drag it across the yard.
• Finding out my favorite pizza place of the last 20 years is now owned by someone else. Instead of Yankees photos on the wall (even I can admit it’s appropriate for a NY pizza joint), the woman who ran my credit card was wearing a VA Tech sweatshirt. That’s simply wrong. Boo, Springs Pizza, boo.
• I gave the chinese place a second chance… turned out to be the worst chinese I’ve ever had. Heh, and the place was called “Best Taste,” of all things.

Now that I am back, my list of tasks continues. Bills are due soon, room looks like a tornado hit it, still trying to rent the basement, want to get Xmas shopping done early. Groan.

I promise to edit the photos soon too… I’ve got about 5,000 on backlog. Groan-again.

Weekend

Leaving in about an hour to drive up to the summer house in New York. Yes, I know it’s fall, and it will be cold (40’s) but I have to shut off the fridge. Really. Anyway, I hope that I can relax a tiny bit for the time I am there.

C ya maryland!

Time for small celebration!

Indeed, it is time for a small party… my last 2 to 3 months of work has gone live!

http://www.pubmed.gov

Go take a look and see what’s wrong with your foot. 🙂 Also, make sure to check out my favorite PubMed article. I’ll give you the id… just search for that. It’s: 17328369.

Unfortunately, it isn’t a complete overhaul… in fact, it’s pretty minor. There are many things that I would like to improve that were “put-away” for later. The good thing is that it is a really big step, and based on today’s meeting, it certainly isn’t the last. I am excited about the things I can do to the next major release… if that is what I end up working on next.