Your site loads quickly, the

Plazza — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:09:04 +0000

Your site loads quickly, the mix of colors is very professional. The navigation is very easy to understand. I think its a very good site. By the way I liked the video about the dog called Faith It blew my mind away that's the first time I have seen a dog walk on two legs. Keep it up. Its a great site.

Thanks for the analysis,

decibel.places — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:15:28 +0000

Thanks for the analysis, cmoyer

It is also hosted on a shared account at BlueHost which is generally ok, but occasionally slow - planning to move it to Hot Drupal soon

I think most of those errors are from plugin widgets - Drupal usually produces valid code - I'm not too concerned about validation (for my personal site) as long as it works...

The page load is much Much

cmoyer — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:52:13 +0000

The page load is much Much better now, I wonder if our DSL was being slow the other day...

Now if the user was on a 50k connection it would take about 5 secondes but our dsl gave me 13.5 so that would probably make dial up take about 20 sec.

Once you get the drupal cache enabled it should speed up even more.

That is much better from the 50 secs on dsl!

According to the w3 validators you have 5 css errors and 99 html errors!
(most of the html errors are style properties and the css just dosn't have the : between the selector and the property)

I use a lot of plug-in

decibel.places — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:38:35 +0000

I use a lot of plug-in widgets, which make it slower.

significant speed will be gained when I turn on the Drupal performance caching features.

I don't care too much about validation (for my own site), as long as it doesn't break

I have Yslow - here is the report:

Performance Grade: F (30) Expand All Collapse All
F 1. Make fewer HTTP requests

This page has 12 external JavaScript files.

This page has 23 external StyleSheets.
F 2. Use a CDN
You can add your own CDN hostname preferences.
These components are not on a CDN:

* [HTTP headers] http://downloads.thespringbox.com/web/wrapper.php?...
*
ParamsHeadersPost
Response Headers
Server: Apache/2.2.8 (Unix) PHP/5.2.5 with Suhosin-Patch
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.5
Content-Length: 52276
Content-Type: application/x-shockwave-flash
Expires: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:29 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=0, no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:29 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
X-lori-time-2: 1228227972743
Loading...

several more

F 3. Add an Expires header
These components do not have a far future Expires header:

* [HTTP headers] (1/1/2006) http://del.icio.us/feeds/js/networkbadge/rgoya?name;icon
*
ParamsHeadersPost
Response Headers
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:30 GMT
P3P: policyref="http://p3p.yahoo.com/w3c/p3p.xml", CP="CAO DSP COR CUR ADM DEV TAI PSA PSD IVAi IVDi CONi TELo OTPi OUR DELi SAMi OTRi UNRi PUBi IND PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA POL HEA PRE GOV"
Pragma: no-cache
Cache-Control: must-revalidate, no-cache, private
Expires: Sun, 1 Jan 2006 01:00:00 GMT
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/javascript; charset=utf-8
Content-Encoding: gzip
X-Antivirus: avast! 4
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean
X-lori-time-2: 1228227974281
Loading...

several more

F 4. Gzip components
These components are not gzipped:

* [HTTP headers] (39.4K) http://netsperience.org/
*
ParamsHeadersPost
Response Headers
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:25 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.6
Expires: Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Last-Modified: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:25 GMT
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=99
Connection: Keep-Alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
X-lori-time-2: 1228227972437
Loading...

several more

B 5. Put CSS at the top
1 external stylesheets were found outside the document HEAD.

* [HTTP headers] http://netsperience.org/g23/main.php?g2_view=imageframe.CSS&g2_frames=none
*
ParamsHeadersPost
Response Headers
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:31 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
Last-Modified: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:46:01 GMT
Etag: "1f180d5-43f8-45cf4e33c5440"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 17400
Cache-Control: max-age=1209600
Expires: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:26:31 GMT
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=67
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/css
X-lori-time-2: 1228227976970
Loading...

F 6. Put JS at the bottom
8 external scripts were found in the document HEAD. Could they be moved lower in the page?

* [HTTP headers] http://netsperience.org/misc/jquery.js?1
*
ParamsHeadersPost
Response Headers
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:28 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
Last-Modified: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 01:28:33 GMT
Etag: "42ec608-443-458635e3e7240"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 1091
Cache-Control: max-age=1209600
Expires: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:26:28 GMT
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=90
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/javascript
X-Antivirus: avast! 4
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean
X-lori-time-2: 1228227974560
Loading...

A 7. Avoid CSS expressions
n/a 8. Make JS and CSS external
Only consider this if your property is a common user home page.
F 9. Reduce DNS lookups
This page has more than 4 domains.

* netsperience.org
* downloads.thespringbox.com
* widget.meebo.com
* static.ning.com
* del.icio.us
* l.yimg.com
* feeds.delicious.com
* www.google.com
* i1.ebayimg.com
* www.websiteoutlook.com
* www.brown.edu
* assets0.twitter.com
* www.linkedin.com
* www.stumbleupon.com

F 10. Minify JS
The following JavaScript files do not appear to be obfuscated nor minified.

* [HTTP headers] (9.7K) http://netsperience.org/misc/drupal.js?1
*
ParamsHeadersPost
Response Headers
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:27 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
Last-Modified: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:31:12 GMT
Etag: "42cd0d9-2611-45a0756a88c00"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 9745
Cache-Control: max-age=1209600
Expires: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:26:27 GMT
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=97
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/javascript
X-Antivirus: avast! 4
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean
X-lori-time-2: 1228227973606
Loading...

A 11. Avoid redirects
A 12. Remove duplicate scripts
F 13. Configure ETags

To address the problem of

webwiz — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:14:19 +0000

To address the problem of slow page load, check out the Firefox/Firebug add-on "Yslow"[1]. Hint - click the messages to get information on how to fix the problems.

[1] http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

P.S. A trip to the validator might be in order ...

Thanks for all the comments,

decibel.places — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:48:46 +0000

Thanks for all the comments, pretty much stuff I had a hunch about, good to get feedback

I like the portfolio the way it is

1. The color and font changers are now onclick

2. I dropped a few blocks

3. I shortened the number of posts

4. got rid of the ecard, when people got it they didn't understand, there are better more general tell a friend modules

5. Keeping meebome, even though that is usually what slows the pageload - just got contacted with it again

6. I set an explicit width for the search input

7. currently hosting it at BlueHost with about 1700 IP neighbors - plan to move to my Hot Drupal acct with 65 neighbors...

The font/color changing on

cmoyer — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:16:05 +0000

The font/color changing on hover is a little bit annoying, especially if you use a track pad and bump it when you type or when you try to get to another web browser tab.

On the left-hand column the Nav should show up before the login and the google search (I would put it at the top -then login then - google search.

To tell you the truth I think the site has too many blocks on it, It makes the design cluttered and look messy. (the gallery, random image, dzone, keyword typo generator, speed test, and random album blocks could go and free up a bunch of space as well as quicken your site's loading time.

It took me 50 seconds to load the home page! At about 500kbps (using your speed tester) Even though the size of the d/l was about 315kb. 95 requests is also in my thinking way too many. I am on a dsl modem on a fairly new computer too and it still takes 50 seconds, I'd hate to see how long it would have taken on dial-up!

On a reload it took 16 sec with 95 requests and a total of 235kb.

The pop-up for the portfolio is out of place and looks unprofessional, as well as not fitting the site.

I also feel that there are too many posts on the home page if you limited it to a simple home page or even about 5 recent posts that would be good, but 10 is too many.

The logo looks slightly out of place on the site, but if you are preserving the history from 1997 then that's fine.

To solve your TWF Forums you could have TWForums which looks decent and has what you want without a repeat (even though I have no problem with it either way stated above)

Needless to say if I were a less patient person I would have left the site before it loaded the first time. Fix that and some of the other things and you will have a good site.

Quote: What is wrong with

teammatt3 — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:42:51 +0000

Quote:

What is wrong with the search?

It extends off the block in Firefox on linux (it's not just pr0g, I see it too).

I too don't like the style change on hover. If someone unexpectedly runs their mouse up there, everything changes. Probably more annoying than useful.

Is there any reason you don't want the portfolio to open in the normal window? I don't really see the need for a popup, and it looks really strange when you come to a plain white page with "If Portfolio Window...". Maybe on the onclick event of the Portfolio tab you could do a popup and redirect the main window. Most popup blockers will allow that type of popup (as opposed to an onload popup).

pr0gr4mm3r, I appreciate the

decibel.places — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:17:09 +0000

pr0gr4mm3r,

I appreciate the in-depth comments, thank you.

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

I don't think it's necessary to have the color and font preferences at top, especially activated by only a rollover.

I changed the controls to rollovers, on purpose. They are part of the Four Seasons theme, which I customized. My quirkiness, it's my site and I can do what I want.

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

Your website is like your brand, and you want people to recognize it by it's layout, colors, etc.

Or my brand is an unusual front-end with customizable views - sort of a Drupal thing...

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

TWF Forums translates to The Webmaster Forums Forums :)

True, but TW Forums looks funny... and plain TWF is too abscure...

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

The meebo widget is nice, but I'm not so sure it's best to have it on every page because it takes a couple seconds to connect, and the sessions aren't carried over from page to page anyway.

Yeah, I removed it from my admin pages for that reason. I actually get contacted through it, sometimes the first contact with a new client comes through it by IM...

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

You may have seen my ID up on your list if you were watching it over the last couple minutes.

No, didn't notice, but if you pinged me I would have replied...

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

There were a couple layout issues, of which I will attach.

Forums are not really developed, and as you noted, not very busy. I am thinking of removing the ecard feature or only enabling it for specific nodes. What is wrong with the search?

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

I was reaching for the Home tab a couple of times only to find it wasn't there. I know clicking your logo goes there, but I think a home tab would help.

Thank you! That is one of my frequent comments on other sites, but on my own I never noticed...

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

I don't think it the best idea to set up a forum unless you are convinced that you can have regulars posting there consistently. Otherwise, it just makes the site look like a ghost town. Sticking with the blog approach is best in my opinion until you get posts where you get tons of comments and regulars posting on almost every one. Once you start to get good discussions in your blog posts, it could be time to launch a forum.

Well, I get pretty steady traffic, a few hundred hits per day, without much promotion. I'd like to develop the forums into a community feature, but that would be part of further development. Maybe I'll turn them off for now...

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

Other than that, it looks nice. News feeds on the side is good to have for consistent new content.

Thank you. I actually put the feeds there for my own use.

pr0gr4mm3r wrote:

Again about the colors & font size, I probably changed that a dozen times because I move the mouse up in that direction to tab between this thread & your site.

Right, I noticed it is easy to mess up the view, I should separate the controls from the menu more... or more likely change them back to clickable controls...

pr0gr4mm3r: Are you sure you wouldn't like one of the McCain/Palin lawn signs gratis? I sold 2 of them on eBay so far...

I don't think it's necessary

pr0gr4mm3r — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:42:09 +0000

I don't think it's necessary to have the color and font preferences at top, especially activated by only a rollover. Your website is like your brand, and you want people to recognize it by it's layout, colors, etc.

TWF Forums translates to The Webmaster Forums Forums

The meebo widget is nice, but I'm not so sure it's best to have it on every page because it takes a couple seconds to connect, and the sessions aren't carried over from page to page anyway. I tested it on my own site, and when I reload the page or go to another one and send another message, it comes up in a new chat session. You may have seen my ID up on your list if you were watching it over the last couple minutes.

There were a couple layout issues, of which I will attach.

I was reaching for the Home tab a couple of times only to find it wasn't there. I know clicking your logo goes there, but I think a home tab would help.

Other than that, it looks nice. News feeds on the side is good to have for consistent new content.

Again about the colors & font size, I probably changed that a dozen times because I move the mouse up in that direction to tab between this thread & your site.