Tuesday, January 12, 2010

2010

Well 2010 is upon us so I thought I should announce The Plan. I know it’s crazy talk, but there are other things besides mechanical pencils, so this year my master plan is to publish one blog post per week. Posts will tend to alternate between something significant like a proper review and something lighter and less laborious. We will see how well The Plan is implemented.

Now for a few other things.

Firstly, in the news it is reported that Porsche Design have ceased their contract with Faber-Castell, and Pelikan will take over manufacturing their products.

Secondly, Palimpsest, a blog you might want to browse, primarily focusing on the relationship between various historical figures and their writing instrument of choice.

Lastly, I have recently been disturbed by Google Webmaster Tools telling me my blog is way way way down low in the page loading speed rankings. I make it into the slowest 10% of pages on the net, though apparently that’s not exactly unusual for blogs. I have always paid some attention to my blog loading speed because for the first few years of this blog I was on dial-up. So, I’d like to get your opinion on my page load speed, in comparison to other blogs, hence the Poll over in the sidebar.

Speed! In comparison to other blogs this blogs pages load - Fast, Average or Slow?

*********
Update - 16 January - Thanks for your comments and poll votes about page speed. I've ended the poll as the results are clear. Total 56 votes, with Fast = 50%, Average = 46% and Slow = 4%. So, as I suspected, I don't have much to worry about re page speed despite what GWT says.

8 comments:

Julia said...

I chose 'average' as the load speed because that's how long it takes for me to be able to read the post, but I did notice that it takes quite a while for the page to completely load -- that is, the side bits. Won't stop me from reading, though!

David Wu said...

Images take 2-4 seconds, the rest is instant!

Max said...

It loads almost instantly for me (and always has). I can't compare it to other blogs as I don't follow other blogs. But it's faster than a visit to the BBC website. (I'm on wireless).

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave, I guess it's fast enough. The front page appears almost instantly (main article is readable and watchable right away) and the rest of it in between 20-30 seconds. I got a standard ADSL connection with T-Online (major European service provider) and a Mac with OSX.
Nick

Kiwi-d said...

Thanks folks. Yes its certainly the sidebar elements that take the time, but the main body articles load quickly.
Nick - 20 to 30 seconds is really long. Google rates it as about 9 seconds total, which is what it is for me personally.

2nd_astronaut said...

I think 9s is not enough for me (I also tried at work with broad pipe).
The question, if it is fast enough for me, depends... If I want to see a new blog entry, it is fast enough; if I want to see new comments, it's too slow (because new comments appear last).

I didn't vote, because I don't read other blogs (ok, pencils11, and that is faster :-) )

I must confess that alltogether I would prefer a pencil forum with picture threads and responses and so forth -- but life's no cake walk.

Mark said...

Your site loads quickly for me, certainly in less than 5 seconds.

Germ said...

Loads and works great for me. Google is probably going to try and sell you something......