Status report on Photo Gallery

[SteveColes]

I definetly know some of the causes of the relative slowness of the Photo Gallery Index page. The answer is that it is the largest single page on our website. And, as time goes by, it will only get bigger, because it lists every Album we have. As more people get Albums, the larger that page gets.

In response to that knowledge, Every page in the system is now being compressed, before being transmitted to you. In addition, I have done some tuning of some of the components that run the system.

Some of you will probably not see much difference, some of you will. I just don't know for sure. You are welcome to post you impresions.

There is another factor going on here. Windows is distributed tuned for dial up modems, not for broadband, This makes it probable that you are not getting the most out of your broadband connection. Sometimes, the difference can be astounding.

So if you want to try to change those parameters and see what happens that would be great. There are many free programs that will help you do that. One that I have gotten some experience with is called TCPOptimizer and you can get it here

Note that this program uses a lot of technical terminology. Don't let that intimidate you. Your really need to know only one thing. The max download speed of your broadband connection. The rest is easy. I'll put in a bit of a tutorial in FAQs.

 

[Ray Martin]

Steve,

I'll try the optomizer, but whatever you've done in the past day or so seems to have made a huge difference. For me, the system is MUCH faster than it was 3 or 4 days ago.

Ray

 

[NCPete]

Steve, earlier this morning was the first time I noticed access to pics being almost painfully slow(sure, slow before, but worse today), but I attributed that to the fact that my computer was running more than a few applications at the same time. Anyways, I just checked out the TCPOptimizer, and will give a report as to success. look forward to your tutorial, perhaps there is something I didn't do, it seems fairly simple to use, but then I am not too savvy with that kind of app....

(edit)
not a big diff yet... perhaps your tutorial will provide some insight on using this tuning tool

 

[SteveColes]

I thought if you are using Windows XP it is optimized for a broadband connection? This is true if you have Service Pack 2 which if you don't you need this ASAP. I do know any of the 9X versions (Windows 95, 98 and ME) were optimized for dial up. It is also very important to keep spyware off your PC with software like Ad Aware or Spybot. There are sites like Speedguide.net that have tweeks for your TCP/IP stack. These will help the connection speed on the old 9X versions. Maybe I am wrong. I am open to other ideas.

Marty

Windows Home and pro are optimized slightly differently. While microsoft says they are optimized, they optimized at the lowest common denominator.
Run TCPOptimizer. Click on current config. take note of ALL parameters, particularly RWIN which has been "optimized" at 65536. Now fill in everything. speed. latency test, etc. Then click to optimized view and see the parameters that TCPoptimizer suggests.


You will see a difference. That said, is this optmizer perfect no! But it is not bad:eusa_clap

Also, it will set up selective acks, usually, unless it measures a high packet loss, in which case you got bigger problems. It will also increase the number of simultaneous http conections, which on this site probably has a good effect on page loads.( I really can't see the difference on my connection, since it is a an 8Meg bit connection and when the stars are aligned it flys.:eusa_danc )

 

[LTurner]

Steve I really appreciate what you are doing with this. I wish I were more computer savy. This stuff is over my head so in your tutorials keep us in mind too.