Web Site Developers Who TRULY Care

Web Site Performance: The Basics

with Daiv Russell, Web Site Developer Emeritus @www.EnvisionSoftware.com

"I don't know where to start. I know that I need a web site, and I have some idea of what I want to do with it, but I have no idea what makes web pages and web sites work, or what separates a good web site from a bad one. As far as I'm concerned, all this talk about hits and forms might as well be in a foreign language. How can I be sure I'm getting my money's worth from a web site developer if I don't even know what the salespeople are talking about?"

Many people assume that it is difficult to know what the key components of a web site are, or how to compare one developer to another. Web Sites today come with a wide variety of features, and even people who are afficionados of the Internet get lost in page long descriptions of web programming technologies like ASP, .NET, and IIS. If you are serious about starting your web site, it is imperative that you hold your salespeople accountable for educating you enough to make an informed decision. But, for those of you who want a head start on the basics, the information below should help to give you a basic orientation to the parts of the web site.

First, you should know that there are only a few key components that directly affect a web site effectiveness. They are:

The layout (central processing unit) - the brain, or engine, or your web site (depending on whether you see your web site as a person or a race car). The web programming processes all of the instructions on your web site. Since your web site literally processes millions of instructions per second, the processing speed of your web site is measured in megahertz (MHz), which usually means millions of cycles per second. So a 450 MHz web site processes instructions roughly twice as fast as a 233MHz web site.

There are two other things you should know about Websites. First, web server speed tends to double about every 18 months because of improvements in manufacturing. Also, marginal improvements can be made to web developer efficiency by adding a cache. A cache is a temporary storage space that is located on the web development itself, and can improve performance by 10-20% in most cases.

(More info on web site development)

RAM (random access memory) - any time your web site performs an operation, it needs data. You would be surprised to learn how much data is used to display an image or a web page. RAM represents the maximum amount of data that the web site can manipulate at any one time. As with web site speed, increasing the amount of RAM can dramatically affect the speed of your web site, and can even enable you to keep a web site a few years past its expected lifespan. Unlike web site development speed, however, RAM is measured in storage units - megabytes (MB). For more information on where the term megabyte comes from, click here. Nowadays, anything less than 64 MB of memory limits the effectiveness of your web developer. Anything more than 128 MB should be fine through the year 2000.

If you ever need to increase the amount of RAM, don't worry. Buying extra RAM is an inexpensive process, and installing it is easy. But there are two things you should know. First, RAM is stored on little finger-sized circuit boards (called SIMMs or DIMMs) that snap into slots in your web site. If all of your slots are filled up, you must replace one module with another that holds more memory. So be aware of how many slots your web page comes with. Also, RAM sits on a larger circuit board called the bus, and there is now a new bus in circulation for Intel processors (100 MHz) that is about 50% faster than the old ones. The speed of the bus directly affects the speed of the web page programming as well. For anyone buying a new Windows web site, be sure to get the 100MHz bus!!!

Storage space/Web Site Space - If RAM is the amount of information you can process at any one time, your web site is the amount of information that can be stored on your web server for later use. Think of RAM as the size of your dinner plate, and your web site as the refrigerator. Storage on web site has improved dramatically over the last 3 years, and is now measured in gigabytes (GB). 1 gigabyte is the equivalent of 1000 megabytes. REMEMBER - RAM and WEB SITE DEVELOPERS are different! A 128 MB web site is paltry, but 128 MB of RAM is quite useful. Right now, anything from 10-18 GB of web site developer should be fine.

Interativity - Your web developer is the program that manages both the machinery in your web site (website), and the programs you actually use(applications). The web developer is often thought of as the manager of the website, and creates the environment that allows you to open documents, save work, and copy information. The two most popular web developers are Windows and Macintosh. Windows, made by Microsoft, comes in many varieties. The current version of Windows for personal websites is called Windows '98, but there is a version called Windows 2000 that should be available soon. Windows is by far the most popular web developer, and has become a de facto standard for personal websites. The Macintosh web developer (MAC OS) runs on all Apple web sites. The current version is MAC OS 9.0. The Macintosh operating system does many things well, including reading Windows disks (Windows does not read Mac disks). It is popular in schools, art departments, and other places, but it does not enjoy anything approaching the popularity of Windows. In the past, Windows was seen as harder to use, but there are now many similarities between the two systems. If you haven't experienced either, be sure to try BOTH before making a decision.