If you are closely tuned in to the web world as I am, you may have heard that Google may include “web page load time” as one of their ranking factors in 2010. I heard about this, saw a few videos about this and read about this. Apparently, when Google talks about changing what makes people’s websites rank differently, people listen…and then talk about it themselves.
I run a bunch of different websites. Some of them have rather large page sizes. The reason they are so large is because of additional files beyond simple HTML that each page pulls in to make the web page behave correctly. These files, such as .js and .css files can get kind of big. Over the years, I didn’t really dig too deeply into the page size issue because the sites get fairly good traffic. I just let things ride.
A few days ago, I came across a post on a forum that talked about mod_gzip or otherwise known as GZIP. This is software that you can install on your web server that compresses your web pages up to 70%. Google recommends that webmasters use GZIP to speed up their websites. Google likes to present its visitors with nice speedy pages in their search results.
I read that it’s pretty easy to deploy GZIP and that it really shouldn’t take more than a few minutes (if it’s already installed on your server). I decided to give it a try. So I did. It didn’t work. Hmmm.
I called my web host and started asking questions. I was like, YO B%^&*, what up with my GZIP??? No really, I was polite. I asked about why GZIP wasn’t giving me any compression results and they told me that I was running Apache2 and that mod_deflate was already installed, not mod_gzip. All I needed to do was to deploy it. I kind of like the name “GZIP” better than “DEFLATE” but who am I to argue?
By the way, here are some good resources on using GZIP and DEFLATE:
First, I asked the web host to deploy mod_deflate on only one domain. I wanted to gauge the results and also take a night to see if anything got screwed up from it. They were agreeable and did the following:
At your request I enabled mod_deflate for one domain on server 123456:
I checked out some stuff overnight and since everything looked fine in the morning, I gave the web host a call back and asked them to undo what they did to that individual domain and set it up server-wide. They put the server back the way it was and set up mod_deflate to compress all the websites on the server by doing this:
Created a file /my/path/mod_deflate.conf with the following line:
That was about it. Since Apache2 comes with mod_deflate installed already, all we had to do was to deploy it. We did this both for an individual domain and server-wide.
I bet you want to know about the results, right? Okay. Well, I can tell you that I had some web pages that were over 400kb. They are now running at about 165kb. I also had some web pages that were about 445kb. They are now running at about 45kb. That’s about 10% of what it was. Is that crazy? Yes, it’s nuts.
Next week, I am going to deploy mod_deflate on my other web server. That should really make some positive changes.
There are a few things you should know. The first thing is that if you decide to do this and have a cable internet connection where you are connected to the internet, you most likely won’t notice much of a change. I read that this has something to do with packets. I am not that smart, so I just took this statement as face value. Although, I run cable and didn’t really notice much of a change. People who use DSL and dial up will definitely see some speed improvements from the smaller web page sizes.
Also, if you are running a website and are using a shared server, you may not be able to use mod_gzip or mod_deflate. Since both of these modules use an increased amount of processing power, many web hosts won’t allow its use. If you aren’t aware, some of these web hosts pack like 10 billion websites on each server. Any increase in CPU demand is going to cause problems. Still, you should give them a call to see what they say. You might get lucky.
I told you I was going to write about how to upload music to the Droid in my last post. I mean, getting songs over onto this thing is one of the great features, right? By the way, I was laying on the hammock this most perfect afternoon listening to some tunes through the new Droid. I must say, the quality is right where it’s supposed to be. I use real headphones, so my results are probably better then some earpieces out there.
Okay, let’s get to uploading some music files over to the Droid. It’s actually very simple once you figure it out. Here are the steps:
1. Plug the micro USB cord into your Droid.
2. Pull down the “notification menu” and you will see an area that says, “Ongoing – USB connected – Select to copy files to/from your computer.”
3. Select that area by touching it with your finger.
4. You will be presented with the next screen that says, “USB connected – You have connected your phone to your computer via USB. Select “Mount” if you want to copy files between your computer and your phone’s SD card.”
5. Press “Mount”
6. Now, on your computer, open the “Computer” folder.
7. Open the “Removable Disk” folder. In my case, it was drive H:
8. Next, open the “dcim” folder.
9. What I did was to create a new folder called “Music” and copy my songs into that folder. You can arrange them any way you want. The Droid recognized that and I have been listening to music ever since.
Oh yeah, you will obviously need to open up the “Music” app and play around in there. That’s where all your music is. Questions? Comment?
I took a few pictures to help explain the process.
Micro USB plugged into the Motorola Droid
Droid notification menu with USB connected box showing
USB connected box on the Motorola Droid
Opening the removable disk folder on computer
Opening the dcim folder on computer
Creating Music folder and filling up with songs
One last thing. If memory serves correctly, I think I had to “Unmount” before any songs showed up in the Music app. I forget, but I think that’s what happened.
I am not sure why I am still using Firefox. I was turned on to it a few years ago, when I thought Internet Explorer was too slow. It was, compared to Firefox. It wasn’t because of lack of features, because I’m not a features guy. It was simply because Firefox appeared to “glide” around, instead of being “choppy.” I guess they differ in how they load each page.
For the most part, I am very happy with Firefox. It does everything I want it to do (load web pages), but I do have two pretty major compaints:
- Firefox crashes when I close it. I would say this happens 9 times out of 10. I did a reinstall, but that didn’t help. I have also been waiting for this problem to cure itself with each upgrade, but it never does.
- Firefox crashes when I download more than two files. I can download one, no problem. I can download two, no problem. When I try to download three, every one of my Firefox windows disappears.
I have the Firefox crash report set to “on,” but I don’t think anyone over there is reading these things. Who knows, maybe they are. There are many things I am about to read over here. Maybe they will offer some insight on what’s going on.
I may consider giving Chrome a spin, but wanted to get some opinions on it first. If you are using Google Chrome, what do you think of it? Is it worth the download? Is it stable? Do you like Chrome better than Firefox and IE?
Before I did anything, I bought a domain name and pointed it to my server. That is basic stuff. I set the domain up on my server and created a mysql database for this application. That’s more basic stuff.
After that was all good to go and the domain resolved to the server, I went over to Joomla for the latest download, which happens to be version 1.5.4. I clicked the link in the left navigation column and downloaded the “Joomla_1.5.4-Stable-Full_Package.zip” file and saved it to my desktop. I unpacked the zip file and placed the contents of it in my website folder. Since I already had the FTP account set up on my server, I uploaded to contents of my website folder to my server. Here is a word of warning…there are almost 4,000 files. If your host has file limitations, you should find out what they are. Since I have a dedicated server, I am not worried about that. Also, remember that your database is still empty. That will be populated during the install.
After all the files were uploaded, I headed back over to Joomla and clicked on the “New Installation” link about half way down their homepage. Since I am familiar with these types of installations, I skipped past all the upper links and clicked right on “Installation.”
Apparently, there are two different types of installs…one being the web browser method and the other being the manual install. In this case, I did the web browser installation.
In my case, I am did a remote installation to the domain root directory. I did not use a sub-domain, a local install or install the package in a sub-directory. If you would like to, there are instructions on how to go about this on the Joomla website (the same instructions I am using). Basically, you have to visit your domain and, if you have done everything correctly so far, you should see the first Joomla installation screen.
The first screen asks you to choose your language. Simple enough. Since I speak English, I kept the default “English” setting and hit the “Next” button.
The next screen checks the server to see if everything is set correctly and if Joomla is able to utilize it’s resources. In my case, everything checked out fine, but I was told that the “configuration.php” was not writable. After reading the instructions, I found out that this is a regular occurance. I actually didn’t see a “configuration.php” file. I clicked to the “Common Issues & Error Handling” page and read about it. The page gave a few options:
* Do a manual installation
* Create a completely empty file, name it as configuration.php and upload it to your joomla_root/ directory before commencing the installation. Joomla! will then enter the details as the installation proceeds as normal.
* Wait until the end of the installation when at Step 7 the Finished Screen is displayed a list of the variables and settings for the configuration.php file will be displayed. These should then be copied and pasted into a new text document and saved as configuration.php
* As with the last suggestion wait until the end and using the information provided in Step7 manually alter the content of the configuration.php-dist file (this is simply an example file and not a part of the functioning installation) included with all Joomla! installations. There is clearly a greater chance with this method of making mistakes so greater care should be taken. Once the variables have been correctly edited, change the name of this file and save it as configuration.php
I decided to go with creating an empty file named, “configuration.php” and upload it to the root directory. I also chmod the file to 777.
This time, everything checked out, so I clicked the “Next” button.
The next screen is nothing but the license agreement. I read the entire thing and understood it. Then, I clicked the “Next” button.
The next screen is the database configuration. Remember that empty database you have sitting there? Well, you have to fill in the required information.
I entered the information and clicked the “Next” button.
The next screen is the FTP configuration. This is the first time I have come across something like this, but I filled in the FTP information. They suggest to create a local FTP account and not use one that can control the entire server.
Since I am getting slow in my old age, I placed in the FTP username and password and then clicked the autofind path button. That worked and filled in the path automatically.
The next screen is the main configuration. I placed in the main (Super Administrator) email address and password. Then, I clicked the “Install Sample Data” button. I was told that the sample data imported properly.
A word of warning: My first attempt at installing this application gave me an error message that read, “Error: the XML response that was returned from the server is invalid.” on the FTP page and when I tried to install the sample data on the main configuration page. The reason for this had to do with the “configuration.php” file. I needed to upload one and set the permissions correctly. After I did that, I was able to pass those pages. You can read more about the issue here.
The last page looked like this…
Basically, the page gives you the option to view your site or log in to the admin section. I always like to log in to the admin section so I can get the URL. Also, the system says to delete the entire “installation” directory. Lastly, I like to download the now populated config file for backup.
To log in to the admin area, the username is “admin.” Obviously, you should change this.
You can take a look at the site I just set up at http://www.fiixer.com. Next up, configuring and customizing Joomla. Ye haw.
This one is for those people out there who know about computers. When people are searching for a new computer, they usually ask me what to get. I say something like, “I design websites, what the heck do I know about computers?” That usually gets some mean look and the person walks away. I haven’t been known for my bright attitude at times.
Well, I usually do ok, but I am getting a little tired of buying computers. I want my next one to last. I bought the one I am working on about 6 months ago. I am going to keep this one for something, but I need a monster. Here is the issue…I work with tons of files. One of my sites has 59,000 image files that I need to copy/paste, delete, move, whatever. That’s just one example. I also have very large files that I need to open/close, etc… My problem isn’t the need for processor power to run huge applications or for gaming, I just need something for big, and lots of files. Uploads and downloads are my middle names. I have been working on getting the fastest servers available and now my bottleneck has become my PC.
Here is what I am thinking:
- Dell Precision T7400 Workstation
- Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5405 (2.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333) (Do I need a 2nd processor?)
- Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media (I’m willing to move on from XP. Plus, Vista actually puts the computer in sleep mode, like I never got XP to do. Big power savings.)
- 3 Year ProSupport for End Users and 3 Year NBD On-site Service (This is important because I want someone in this house if the computer breaks.)
- 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable ( I know absolutely nothing about video cards.)
- 4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) (I want more.)
- C23 All SAS drives, RAID 5, 3 drive total configuration ( I also know nothing about RAID. I basically want the speed of SAS drives, the speed of two drives working together and the redundancy of a third drive. I don’t know the difference between RAID 0 and RAID 5.)
- Three 146GB SAS Hard Drives, 1 inch (15,000 rpm) (How much faster are SAS drives than SATA drives?)
- PERC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card – For Connecting Internal Hard Drives
- Dell 1505 Wireless-N PCIe Card
So there you have it. I already have a monitor, so that’s cool. I think I can save a few bucks by switching out the SAS drives for SATA drives. It depends on what I find out about them. I want more RAM, but didn’t see the option for more. I am wondering about another processor and the video card.
I am not sure if I previously mentioned this or not, but I am now in need of business class internet service, because I now require a static IP address.
The guys from Comcast just left. They switched our services from residential TV, cable and internet to just residential TV and cable and now business internet. They did a bunch of stuff, but the main thing was to set up another modem downstairs, alongside the old one and the router.
I already see a speed increase with downloading my files. I just happen to be in the middle of a big download, and strangely enough, the connection didn’t break…it just got faster. I have yet to set up the router to work with the static IP, but have found the support page that tells me how to do it. We are going out for a little while and I’ll give it a shot when we get back.
One thing I am going to do is the create a screen capture of the original settings, just in case I screw up. I am also going to have Hannigan’s number on hand. Hopefully he is familiar with Linksys routers.
I was doing some changing around of things last night, when I came to the point of having to delete some files and folders off a few of my servers.
The funny thing is, when I went to delete them off my old server, everything disappeared just fine. When I went to delete them off my new server (different host), there were some directories that wouldn’t delete. This got a little annoying to me.
I called the hosting company to figure out what was going on. I told them that some directories wouldn’t delete and told them which ones. The dude took a look and told me that there were still some files in those directories and that their server configuration required that all directories be empty before they will delete. I told him that they were empty. He responded by telling me that there were some “.htaccess” files still in there, but I probably had my FTP program set to not see hidden files.
I hung up the phone. I then looked at the settings on my FTP program (FileZilla). He was right. The setting was to hide hidden files. I switched the setting, closed the program, reopened the program and deleted the directories.
What’s the moral of the story? If you want to see hidden files on your server, switch the setting.
