Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization: Amazon.ca: Andrew B. King: Books

Product Description

There's a time bomb on the web: user patience. It starts ticking each time someone opens one of your pages. You only have a few seconds to get compelling content onto the screen. Fail, and you can kiss your customers and profits goodbye.

You can't count on fast connections either. Most of your customers are still sucking content through a 56K straw. You have to serve up greased lightning or they'll bail. That's why you picked up this book. In it you'll learn how to cut file sizes in half. You'll trim (X)HTML, CSS, graphics, JavaScript, multimedia, and bandwidth costs. Real-world examples illustrate techniques with before and after code and percentage savings. After reading this book, you'll know how to make your pages literally "pop" onto the screen.

From the Back Cover

There's a time bomb on the web: user patience. It starts ticking each time someone opens one of your pages. You only have a few seconds to get compelling content onto the screen. Fail, and you can kiss your customers and profits goodbye.

You can't count on fast connections either. Most of your customers are still sucking content through a 56K straw. You have to serve up greased lightning or they'll bail. That's why you picked up this book. In it you'll learn how to cut file sizes in half. You'll trim (X)HTML, CSS, graphics, JavaScript, multimedia, and bandwidth costs. Real-world examples illustrate techniques with before and after code and percentage savings. After reading this book, you'll know how to make your pages literally "pop" onto the screen.

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13 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.8 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Grab this book to save bandwidth and improve speed!, July 18 2004

By

Michael Lugassy (Ra'anana, Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization (Paperback)

King has some amazing insights and tips on how to get your website to respond faster. Your clients will be happy, your ISP company will charge less and your site will be faster.

The bandwidth you will save on a single month will cover the costs of this great reference. Plus, you get a good overview of search engine visibilty.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Best practical web performance optimization guide available, Jun 9 2004

By

Michael Czeiszperger (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization (Paperback)

Covering a wide variety of techniques, this book describes many of the common causes of slow pages and how to avoid or remedy them. While not specific to load testing, it is a valuable reference for those who have the task of making a site faster. Many of the methods provided here are simple but rarely implemented - they should be!

Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance, Inc. Stress Testing Software
http://www.webperformanceinc.com

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5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST read for every web designer and developer!, April 10 2004

By

Bob McIntyre (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization (Paperback)

When the GUIguy reviews books, it is usually with the intent of reading fairly quickly to get a sense of the author's approach, their writing style, and the value of the content.

When I picked up Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization, an amazing thing happened: I was captivated by the content and the style. Amazing! A first! I found myself reading every word and every line of code, lest I miss some gem hidden within the letters.

Andy King's basic premise is clearly stated: "At current bandwidth-to-CPU speed ratios, bandwidth is the limiting factor." Therefore, optimization of code is vital for a well-received web site.

Sure, that's easy to write, but how do you do it?! The author meticulously goes through many, if not all of the ways code can be streamlined, addressing HTML, XHTML, DHTML, CSS, and even more.

As for style, you can almost hear the author talking; the conversational tone pervades the tome. The book is a delight to read, and the text is peppered with subtle and not-so-subtle humor like "Link to external style sheets site-wide to cache in." Even code snippets are occasionally injected with nostalgia and rib-ticklers. (There is a reference to Burma Shave signs-search the web if you don't know what that is- and even the Emperor with No Close. (sic))

And for those who wonder why all this optimization is important, the author opens with two chapters on the Psychology of Performance, with well-researched excerpts and citations from human factors writings. The forward is even written by usability guru Jakob Nielsen.

There is a companion site (http://www.speedupyoursite.com) that contains all the code along with all the references, chapter summaries, chapter excerpts, color figures, etc. After all, web sites are living documents, and having all this information on a web site allows it to be updated easily.

The only flaw that I found with the book is that there is no accompanying CD. I would love to be able to search the complete text for suggestions and tips that I probably won't remember when I need them-like when I redo my own web sites, a job that I must undertake now that I have read this book.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Means To Save You $ and Surfers Time
This book is well researched, comprehensive (HTML, XHTML, CSS, Multimedia; to name a few) tweaking, and offers lots of "Further Readings" from the web and other... Read more

Published on July 23 2003 by Darryl Roberts

4.0 out of 5 stars Get it fast and read it before doing more Web design
This book deserves 4 1/2 or 4 3/4 stars. A small star is clipped only because of the first two chapters focused on psychology of performance, theory, and background. Read more

Published on April 11 2003 by Meryl K. Evans