Posts Tagged ‘Firefox’

Google Page Speed

Friday, June 5th, 2009

By word Google, you’ve done it again. You’ve given we web folk another simple tool that makes our life easier, and our websites faster. The newest addition to the Google stable of website wonders is Google Page Speed. It’s officially open-source, and works in cahoots with FireFox and FireBug (so you need both those tools to run it).

Page Speed takes Firebug to another level, showing you some really cool stats and facts on your test page. Some of the coolest features are ….

  • CSS Efficiency: It goes as far as advising how many, and which of your CSS rules are either “inefficient” or  ”very inefficient” rules.
  • Unused CSS: Do you have one big, sitewide style sheet? Google Page Speed will tell you the size, the %, AND which selectors are unused on the test page. It’s is a big eye opener when you see how much CSS is load but not necessary.

And there are plenty more worth mentioning, including …

  • Script and Style order
  • Proxy Caching
  • Browser Caching
  • JavaScript Optimisation
  • Image Optimisation
  • DNS Lookups
  • Parallel Downloads
  • and heaps more

Page Speed is a MUST try, so here’s the Google Page Speed download link.

The Best WordPress Archive Ever

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

HOLYmac! I stumbled across a WordPress website today that is a real “WordPress: WOW!”. I was doing some research, trying to better understand the scoring variables of the Yahoo’s YSlow Firefox extension, specifically the Etags/Entity Tags, when I stumbled on dquinn.net. Wow.

Apart from an amazing example of WordPress design wizardry, Daniel Quinn shares some really awesome WordPress performance and optimisation tips. So not only was I blown away by the The Best WordPress Archive ever seen, I also managed to implement some of the page load tips into my current website optimisation obsession.  dquinn.net is just one of those websites that you IMMEDIATELY subscribe to, in both RSS and twitter fashion. Do yourself a favour ……

FireFox 3 + WordPress Grief = Where are you Chrome for Mac?

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Since my last FireFox (for Mac) upgrade, to version 3.0.1, I’ve had to avoid the WordPress Admin panel like the Swine Flu. It crashes, it stalls, it gives me grief. Safari has become my WordPress Admin playground while I continue, and continue, and continue … (are you listening Google?) … to wait for Chrome for Mac. Come on Google Gods! Chrome for Mac won’t replace FireFox – there’s not ‘that’ level of extension yet, and I’m way to dependant on many FF AddOns  - but it will be used everywhere possible on this beloved Mac.

There’s been very few rumblings about Chrome for Mac in the media lately. I expect it we’ll just wake up one morning, and “BOOM!”, there it will be. Maybe that morning is tomorrow …?