I feel the need for speed. This popular line from the movie Top Gun can easily be translated to the internet as we rely more and more on fast delivery of information and better response time for online games. There are tricks that the web page designer can use to help your online experience be rewarding and it helps that they are working with enough bandwidth from their web hosting provider, but in the end, a lot of the problem with internet speed comes down to the service that is available at your business or residence.
The United States government has recently endorsed yet another round of grants to help expand broadband service to rural communities and underserved populations. And they have also decided to start collecting information on where service can currently be found and if that service is living up to its advertised potential.
To do so the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched a speed test website at www.broadband.gov. Two different tests will allow the user to find out:
• Download Speed – the speed at which data is sent from the testing server to your computer.
• Upload Speed – The speed at which data is sent from your computer to the testing server.
• Latency – the time it takes for data to make a round trip from your computer to the testing server and back again.
• Jitter – The estimated delay between the testing server and your computer.
The federal government wants to know this so they can reassess the availability of high speed internet throughout the United States. You should want to know if you are getting what you pay for or if your internet service provider is delivering what they advertise. Personally, I hope the information encourages better service to urban and suburban areas. In theory, deregulation should keep the services competitive, but continued usage of the established infrastructure is draining on the system. I’m for broadband stimulus money wherever it is needed. You?
According to an article on the Neuromarketing Blog, bad websites are stressful and the greatest stressor of all is pages that are slow to load. I bet you’ve been there; waiting, waiting, waiting and then you finally think, with so many other choices, what am I waiting for?
If the quickest way to lose visitors and prospective clients is a slow website, what can you do about it? Here are a few suggestions that even a novice webmaster can change:
• Take a look at the page. Are there unnecessary text boxes or widgets that don’t really help you make the sale or deliver information? Then delete them. Smaller pages will load faster and the extraneous information would likely distract the reader anyway.
• Break large articles or long pages into two or more pages. Pictures, especially on ecommerce websites can take forever to load. Consider breaking up the categories and then linking to another page per category.
• Remove extra white space. If you are using a content manager, it often inserts extra breaks between paragraphs when pictures are used. The white space generates code and extra code makes the website take longer to load.
• Reduce the size of the pictures and graphics. The standard resolution for a web image is 72 dpi. Lower the resolution of your image files and your website will load faster.
• Tag your image files with size parameters. The page will load first and then return to the image to complete loading the file.
If you are an intermediate webmaster, one of the best tips for a faster loading website is to use cascading style sheets (CSS) instead of tables and XML .
Finally, there is something that the advanced webmaster can do with the help of their web hosting provider and that is to use a content delivery network (CDN). CDN is the basis of cloud computing. With a little information stored at varying point on the delivery network, and with servers located in different locations, the CDN acquires cached code and graphics all along the network and locates the quickest delivery route to the end user. This allows the pages to load faster.
Check with your web hosting provider today to learn how your VPS or dedicated server hosting plan can work more efficiently. You’ll generate more website visits by making your website easy to load.
27 Feb
Posted by Linda Jackson as General, Webhosting, Marketing, 24Shells
In honor of Super Bowl, a lot of people become football fans for one day. They go to parties, drink beer, eat chicken wings and wait for the commercials so they can comment about how bad or how good they were.
You can probably guess I’m not like a lot of people. It’s taken me almost a month to watch those commercials. That is partly because the hype just was not there this year. Nothing really stood out much. Some talked about Dexter’s voiceover for Dodge – you know, Michael C. Hall, the actor who plays serial killer Dexter Morgan on HBO. Yes that’s creepy. Some have mentioned all the testosterone raging in the Doritos commercials. And then finally, today, I took time to watch the most appreciated commercial of all from none other than my favorite search engine and developer Google. Please take a look.
The Google ad “How to Impress a French Girl” is all text. Add in a little music and they produced the lowest cost commercial to appear in a $3 million one minute spot. Was it worth it? I would say yes. It showed the true power of Google; ease of use, multiple relevant choices and the ability to schedule online across continents so that when you arrive to your destination, you can live every moment of your life every day.
This commercial also demonstrated the power of text to get your message across to your readers, viewers, customers and clients. It should come as no surprise to you that I believe in that communication medium; after all, I’m a writer.
But what has to happen for all of that text to work is our web hosting providers have to deliver 24/7. Without the backbone of the industry, our text, everything we input into our computers would be no different than the printed word on paper. It’s our web hosting providers that make the wired world possible and make it so simple for us to find information through whatever search engine we choose. Thanks for choosing 24Shells to make your engine run.
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I belong to an organization that speaks in acronyms. ACPC, DFR, CRA, A&A, and LTG all mean something to me, but I bet you had a hard time even reading through those very simple letters because they might as well have been a foreign language.
Professionals in internet and computer security met this week and came to the same conclusion about computer jargon. Security terminology needs to be demystified. It does not need to be dumbed down, but it does need to be explained in logical, simple, every-day words. These professionals met at an international conference in Brussels and they came to the conclusion that the world’s two billion internet users would be safer, their equipment would be safer and their networks would be safer as well.
One of the wonderful things about using a reputable web hosting provider is they help the average user wade through the computer jargon. They keep your virtual private server clean and that protects your customers and visitors to your website.
In a world where three top stories in the news today were about internet security, hackers from China, and Google coding issues, it’s easy to see why the malicious use of cyberspace is a big problem. You can make things a little easier on yourself by choosing 24Shells as your web hosting provider.
12 Feb
Posted by Linda Jackson as General, Webhosting, Dedicated Servers, News
Snow is blanketing the east coast of the United States this week creating photo opportunities like this gorgeous picture of the White House that I found on Facebook.
Of course this picture was taken by a professional photographer, but it led to a number of blog posts telling amateur and budding photographers how to take pictures in the snow. The beauty of the internet is the ability to share.
Another casualty of the snow has been workers. With school closings and dangerous driving conditions, some employers, including some federal workplaces have declared snow days. Ironically, according to a story in the Washington Post, they are finding that their employees are still logging in to work. Another beauty of the internet is the ability to connect and telework when necessary.
Imagine my surprise then when I contacted a online company and found that they couldn’t help me with my request because the offices were closed due to inclement weather. I was amazed that there was an online company that didn’t have remote capabilities.
This drove home one critical point for me. I am so glad that I have total management control of my website with dedicated server hosting. Total management control means that I have remote reboot – I don’t have to worry that someone else is available if I need to power on or power off my server. And I can continue to monitor and allocate bandwidth as needed to provide for surges in usage that may occur due to outside, unexpected events.
It’s really very simple. Even in an online world, it is best to have keys to your own storefront. For dedicated servers, that means you want total management control.