Floating on CloudFront 9 (and Some Personal Finance Links) |
1 Comment |
You may have noticed that I didn't write a lot of content this past week. Like many, I took a mini-sabbatical. During this time, I was researching ways that I could make reading this website more enjoyable. For too long I've been neglectful of the performance of this website. I've been too content to say: "Eh it seems to be serving up pages, so it must be good."
I went to work on making this website faster. However, instead of doing the things that would give me the most bang for the buck like optimizing database calls, I went a different direction. Based on some things that I was doing with my job, I looked at the images on the site. Even though I don't have a lot of images, they take up much more than 50% of the data you see.
I went through the images that you typically see, the logo, the MoneyStrands ad (I'm biased, but check out their stuff, it's amazed me at Finovate), and all the smaller images like the Email This and StumbleUpon icons. I shrunk them down using Smush It! and uploaded them to Amazon's CloudFront service. CloudFront is a CDN - Content Delivery Network. It takes the files that I upload and spreads them around the world. Someone in Hong Kong doesn't have to request a big file from my server in the United States... they get it from an Amazon server in Hong Kong. Similarly, people in the United States get files from places closest to them rather than having to move them across the country.
The combined effects have been dramatic. Before I started, it would take as much as 10-12 seconds to download some pages according to Pingdom. When I finished last night around 1AM - I was seeing speeds around 3-4 second. Surely some of that was the reduced traffic at 1AM on the west coast. However, since then, I've seen it stay around 6 seconds or so.
I hope you'll notice the speed upgrades as well - please let me know in the comments. Also, here are some links to keep you busy while I get back to writing actual personal finance articles.
Money Writers:
- This week Brip Blap talks on how to have a happy childhood.
- Frugal Dad teaches parents how to say “no†when your child wants something and make it stick.
- Generation X Finance explores the answer to this financial question: my employer stopped matching my 401k - should I Still contribute?
- Million Dollar Journey writes finding your passion.
- Digerati Life gets into balance transfer credit card tips, facts and traps.
- Money Smart Life posts credit score tips you need to know.
- My Dollar Plan asks readers to help a reader: keep the house or save for retirement? How would you answer this?
- The Sun's Financial Diary gives 7 tips to building and maintaining a good credit history.
More Finance Posts:
- Mighty Bargain Hunter blogs on how personal finance will not crawl away and die…
- Consumer Commentary says your house is not a good investment. Do you agree- why or why not?
- No Credit Needed blogs frugal 51 weeks a year!
Related posts:
- Personal Finance Links (Harvey Milk Edition)
- Getting Spring Fever and Some Personal Finance Links
- Lazy Man Politics Policy (and personal finance links)
- NFL Draft (And Some Personal Finance Links)
- Last Day For CollegeAdvantage Free Money (and Some Personal Finance Links)
Links
Stumble
Reddit
Digg
Del.icio.us
TipdRelated posts:
- Personal Finance Links (Harvey Milk Edition)
- Getting Spring Fever and Some Personal Finance Links
- Lazy Man Politics Policy (and personal finance links)
- NFL Draft (And Some Personal Finance Links)
- Last Day For CollegeAdvantage Free Money (and Some Personal Finance Links)
One Response to “Floating on CloudFront 9 (and Some Personal Finance Links)”
Leave a Reply
Next: Save Money with Yard Sales
Smart work on your site speed optimizations.