OptimizationWeek.com

Website performance news and views™

Home Sitemap Issues About Contact

buy website optimization secrets book cover

New book on Website Optimization Secrets

Free Newsletter

home > issues > 114

Web Page Analyzer Server Upgrade - Apple Bites into Microsoft's Streaming Media Lead - US Drops to 22nd in Broadband Speed Worldwide - Optimization Week of May 4, 2010

Optimization Week Issue #114, May 4, 2010

This time we've got three new items for you. Due to overwhelming demand, over the weekend we upgraded the WebPageAnalyzer.com dedicated server. You should experience faster response times for your free web page analysis. Next we report on how Apple is biting into Microsoft's lead in the streaming media wars. Finally in broadband news, the US has dropped to 22nd place worldwide in broadband speed. In the US, college towns are the place to be for the fastest broadband connections.

WebPageAnalyzer.com Server Upgraded

Over the weekend we upgraded our server devoted to the Web Page Analyzer to improve response times and to increase capacity. We kept running into a limit on the number of simultaneous requests, anything above Apache's MaxClients of 800 bogged down the server. We went from the following configuration for the old server:

Processor: Pentium 4 3GHZ
Hyperthreaded Memory: 2GB DDR SDRAM
Hd1: 120GB 7200RPM SATA / 8MB Cache
Hd2: 120GB 7200RPM SATA / 8MB Cache
OS: Linux - CentOS 5 (+32 Bit)

to this upgraded server:

Processor: Dual Xeon E5504 Quad Core (Gainstown)
Memory: 4GB DDR RAM
Hd1: 250GB 7200RPM SATA / 8MB Cache
Hd2: 250GB 7200RPM SATA / 8MB Cache
OS: Linux - CentOS 5 (+64 Bit)

The new server has double the memory, and more importantly two more powerful CPUs. We're still experimenting with boosting up MaxClients but you should experience faster response times after this upgrade.

Apple Bites into Microsoft's Streaming Media Lead

Who will get the biggest piece of the streaming media pie? By sometime next year it could very well be Apple.

US Drops to 22nd in Broadband Speed Worldwide - Fastest Broadband Cities: College Towns

The average connection speed in the United States fell from 18th to 22nd place worldwide in the last quarter of 2009. The fastest broadband cities in the US are college towns.