AOL has released an open-source tool for measuring Web page performance called PageTest. It shares some similarities with Yahoo!’s YSlow, but works with Internet Explorer (6 and 7).
You can run PageTest as a browser plug-in, or use a hosted version at webpagetest.org (this is still being built out, so please be patient).
We’ve been using (what has evolved into) PageTest at AOL for years. Give it a try.
What keeps users coming back to your Web site? Compelling content? Fast Performance? Cool site design? The answer is “yes”.
Yahoo! released version 0.9 of YSlow recently. The release notes offer the highlights, but this blog entry by one of the developers provides more details.
I haven’t had a chance to spend much time with the new release, but it promises to address what I saw as the biggest shortcoming of prior releases - that it only crawled the DOM and didn’t capture network traffic. The new version promises to do both, providing a much more complete picture.
I was a bit disappointed to see that a bug I had reported in prior versions still remains - YSlow falsely identifies redirects. For example, today on www.aol.com there are 3 redirects, but YSlow identified 20 - the other 17 are listed as “redirects to <blank>” .
Nevertheless, a great tool.
The state of the Mobile Web has bothered me for some time. So, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, and learning more about the attempts at standards, like W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative, and the challenges.
I’ve been using a BlackBerry 8800 for a few months now. Mainly for access to my company’s e-mail and calendar, but also for IM and Web access. This is the first BlackBerry, or Smartphone for that matter, I’ve used, and I must say that I’m sold.
Having a mobile Web browser with me all the time, I find myself trying to look up movie reviews while I’m browsing videos at Blockbuster. Or trying to do a price comparison for something I see at a local retail store. Or trying to find (and reserve) a book at my local library, that someone just recommended in a conversation. I don’t want to wait until I get back to a computer to do these things, I want to do them in real-time, from where I am.
Notice I said “trying” in each case above. Nearly every time I try something like this, I come away frustrated and disappointed because the Web sites are barely usable (and sometimes not at all) on a mobile device.
I’ll be giving this presentation on Apdex at the CMG International Conference next week.
Ran across this old(er) article on techniques to improve Web site performance, written by Cal Henderson of Flickr/Yahoo.
Good stuff.
My daughter is taking an accelerated math class in her elementary school, and was told she needed a TI-36X Solar calculator. This thing is incredible - it would have lasted me through college (granted that was …ahem…a few years ago). It has so many features, each key has three (and some four) functions. All for only $20. Amazing.
That got me to thinking about my first serious calculator - my trusty HP-15C (picture). Paid over $100 for it back in 1980-something. It got me through the latter high schools and early college years, until I upgraded to an HP-28S (picture).
As I was surfing around for info, I discovered folks were selling them on eBay … for hundreds of dollars!
I’ll let you know what mine goes for. <g>
