More Than Scratch The Surface » performance

WordPress Optimization Myth: Saving Database Calls

Stephen Cronin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:04:56 +0000

Tonight I read an article on WPTuts+ titled 10 Quick Tips: Optimizing & Speeding Up Your WordPress Site. For the most part it’s a good article with lots of great tips, but there is one tip which is just plain incorrect:

Using a constant instead of get_option('home'); saves a database call.
… [visit site to read more]

How To Add Site Speed For Google Analytics In WordPress

Stephen Cronin — Thu, 05 May 2011 07:28:07 +0000

Yesterday, Google announced the addition of Site Speed to Google Analytics, which adds a page load time dimension across a range of reports. Great! Lets get it working with our WordPress sites.
… [visit site to read more]

WordPress Caching Plugins For Shared Hosting: W3 Total Cache vs WP Super Cache vs Hyper Cache

Stephen Cronin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:56:53 +0000

I recently was faced with a decision: which WordPress caching plugin to use on my shared hosting account. The choice was between WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache and Hyper Cache. This article documents my admittedly limited testing of these plugins and the decision I made as a result.

… [visit site to read more]

Microsoft Tech.Ed Australia 2009 (Thursday)

Stephen Cronin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:05:16 +0000

I was fortunate to attend Microsoft Tech.Ed Australia 2009 last week. I made copious notes during the day, so I thought I’d share them. … [visit site to read more]

Amazing Results – Optimising Image Size Using Smush.it

Stephen Cronin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:59:57 +0000

There are dozens of new web based applications being launched every day. Most are moderately useful, but it’s rare that I actually need to use one. After playing with them for a while, I normally abandon them and go back to the core tools I use to get things done.

Well, I found one that’s going right into my toolset: smush.it, the image optimisation web application.

… [visit site to read more]

IFrameWidgets 1.01 Update – Fix For WordPress 2.5

Stephen Cronin — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:07:46 +0000

I’m finally releasing version 1.01 of the IFrameWidgets WordPress plugin. The only change is that is has been re-written so that it will work with WordPress 2.5, which changed the way widgets worked.

If you are on WordPress 2.5 and above, use Version 1.01 of IFrameWidgets. If you are on an older version of WordPress, use version 1.0 of IFrameWidgets.

IFrameWidgets can stop slow loading JavaScript widgets from breaking your page. Widgets remain hidden until completely loaded, then appear in whole. If they don’t load, they won’t take up any space on your sidebar. If they load slowly, or hang, they won’t stop the rest of your page from loading. … [visit site to read more]

WordPress Plugin IFrameWidgets 1.0 Released

Stephen Cronin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:52:44 +0000

I’m pleased to release IFrameWidgets v1.0, a WordPress plugin that can stop slow loading JavaScript widgets from breaking your page.

Widgets remain hidden until completely loaded, then appear in whole. If they don’t load, they won’t take up any space on your sidebar. If they load slowly, or hang, they won’t stop the rest of your page from loading. … [visit site to read more]

PHP Performance Profiling With APD On Windows

Stephen Cronin — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 08:29:22 +0000

When writing code, its important to keep system performance in mind. No matter how useful your software is, if it places too much stress on the server, it won’t be used. How can you tell if your code is efficient? Well, experience helps, but it also pays to have good tools. … [visit site to read more]