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How to measure the speed of your web pages
A few days ago I was building a web page that required a rather heavy use of JavaScript includes (like the deli.cio.us links and last.fm "recently played" list here on this site) as well as several Ajax calls to the server. During testing I noticed that the page was dog slow and assumed that all my extra JavaScript tomfoolery was the culprit. Not knowing exactly how to tell where the hangups were in my loading times, I set off Googling like a madman (mixed with some bugging of my cubicle neighbor Mac) to find an easy solution to test web page speeds.
The first solution I found was the Firebug Firefox extension, conveniently already installed on my machine. Firebug is by far the most thorough solution I found. With the Firebug pane open in your browser, select the "Net" tab where you will then see each item the browser has to download, and details about each item. It was everything I was looking for, but I really don't like browsing with an extra pane taking up screen real estate. And the only way you can see and info about page loading in Firebug is to have the pane open.
That's when I noticed FasterFox (another Firefox extension) had the option of showing page download times in the browser's status bar. While it doesn't offer any of the details that Firebug does, it sits nicely out of the way but is always available without having to open any browser panes.
Although the combination of Fasterfox and Firebug has worked great for my needs, there are a couple of issues that you should be aware of. First, the results are highly dependent on your internet connection. If you are on a super fast or slow connection your results will be skewed. Since internet speeds are always fluctuating anyways I don't really see this as a big deal. Results should still be accurate enough to find bottlenecks in your pages. The second issue is that your browser caches page elements to improve download times, and this can cause you to miss big problems in your code. One solution to this is to clear your cache before testing, but I am way to lazy to ever do that. An easier solution is to use a site like WebWait to confirm your local speed tests. WebWait simply downloads the page you request and reports the wait time. While I'd love to see the WebWait have some more advanced features like Firebug, it is still a pretty handy tool to have available.
Should you be concerned about the loading times of your web pages? Of course you should! Just check out the problems Fred Wilson has had with his popular blog over load times. There was a time when I always checked page weights during development so that I could keep things relatively fast for dial-up users. Over time web design has moved more towards lightweight CSS based layouts, and the public has moved towards increasingly fast broadband connections. For the past two or three years I kind of got lazy and stopped caring about page speeds, and never really had any problems. But with the increasing use of 3rd party Flash/Javascript widgets and asynchronous Ajax calls, this is an issue that responsible web builders need to consider again.
If you know of any other good ways to test page speeds, please let me know in the comments!
The two huge music related events from today
Sometimes I hate how much I write about Apple here, so I'll get that one out of the way first. Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to the music industry asking them to abandon DRM. While I often think Jobs is full of, um, "great salesmanship", his letter is a lengthy dose of common sense in an industry full of saber rattling and hyperbole. Here is a choice quote from the letter:
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.
It will be interesting to see how the Big 4 and iTunes (and the rest of the online music industry), who are already facing pressure from several European nations to ditch DRM, respond. Jobs basically threw down the gauntlet and it is up to the labels to either go along with Apple or look really, really evil. Which as you know they seem to have no problem doing.
Speaking of the major labels, Warner Bros. announced a partnership with Last.fm. In the long run I think this might be the bigger piece of news of the two. Basically starting this week WB is going to open up its entire catalog of music for streaming from Last.fm. The details are pretty scarce so far, but it seems like if you are a paying subscriber (the best $3 you will ever spend) you will be able to stream any Warner Brothers music in the last.fm player whenever you want. I have a hard time believing that I haven't missed something here because that is an amazing bargain, especially if the other labels follow. Could this be the beginning of a free streaming version of iTunes? If so, what does it mean for the other subscription-based services like Napster and Yahoo Music?
Technorati Tags: music mp3 itunes drm last.fm warner brothers RIAA Apple