Google Chrome is out. And from first impressions, it is stinking fast. However, i do have some gripes.

1. Comes with link underlining enabled. I hate this. It’s the first think I disable in Firefox and any browser that supports disabling underlining
2. Where’s the “get your hands dirty under the hood” option list? I love the Firefox about:config list. Chrome needs this.
3. Ads. I know. There is little chance for built in ad-blocking, but it’s on my wish-list.

Otherwise, it’s good…so far. And the memory usage is, well, definitely less intrusive.

I plan to use this for a while and see what happens. I will likely find something that drives me back to Firefox eventually.

Ok, found a weirdness when you use a <li> tag in the Wordpress editor. It seems that it starts injecting <div> tags to differentiate paragraphs after you close out the list.

Tags: browser, Chrome, Google, Google Chrome, test drive, testing, Web Performance, web usability

After a few month hiatus, I am starting to code for GrabPERF again. I need to exercise my brain; as I am a hobbyist code mangler, I have to take on a project every now and then to keep my not-so-l33t skillz honed.

The change to the agent is one of efficiency. The current production agent opens two database connections to run tests: one to retrieve the test configuration data; the other to insert the results of the tests. This means I loop through one set of database query results while doing inserts inside the loop on a second database connection.

This is stupid.

The new code opens a single connection to the database, retrieves the test configuration, dumps the results to an array of arrays, then inserts the data on the same connection. This is more efficient, as I use persistent connections and compression to MySQL to improve performance.

I have this running as TEST AGENT 1 from the Technorati #2 site.

Let me know if you see any madness…outside of Washington DC, and specifically with GrabPERF.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, PERL, MySQL

Tags: compress, compression, current, data, database, GrabPERF, GrabPERF.org, HTTP, IE, IM, it, mysql, Om, One, performance, Perl, persistent, persistent connections, pr, run, Technorati, testing, the other, Washington DC

Usually I classify this sort of mail as complete nonsense, and delet it. But this one was such a classic, I had to post it.

The letter is from the new CEO of the joint Borland/Segue. He is announcing that he thinks that Segue and Borland customers will be able to find cool ways to use the products of this new company…at least, after I translate it, it seems like that is what he is TRYING to say.

…

This is a great move for both of our organizations as we come together to tackle what we all know to be a key development challenge and the biggest opportunity for our industry — software quality. Borland and Segue have long shared a common belief that the challenge of software quality reaches far beyond testing and QA. Together we will approach this issue holistically, providing value at each stage of the software delivery lifecycle.

Our focus now is on the development of a comprehensive Lifecycle Quality Management solution — bringing together our unparalleled process improvement expertise with proper skills training and a true end-to-end quality technology offering. Our goal is alignment of people, process and technology, proactively driving higher standards of software quality while systematically reducing costs associated with rework and maintenance.

While continuing to enhance Segue’s quality and application performance technologies, we will also focus on delivering even tighter linkage with Borland’s broad portfolio of Application Lifecycle Management technologies. As part of a complete solution, these technologies will address quality across the entire lifecycle, eliminating quality issues at the root cause.

…

Chaucer and Shakespeare just rose from the dead, and they are looking for the marketing people who wrote this.

Technorati Tags: Fight the bull, nonsense, marketing

Tags: app, application, cool, cro, customers, delivery, EAD, HTTP, IE, IM, improvement, Issues, it, LAN, live, maintenance, marketing, Om, One, performance, pr, Technorati, testing

The Site Statistics | Web Analytics Index measurements have been running now for about 2.5 days, and I wanted to make some general comments on what I am seeing.

The methodolgy for testing is straightforward. I chose sites | services that allowed you to create a free (if limited) account to track your Web visitors, and allowed you to make these statistics available to for anyone to look at. Using this this, a measurement was established against the landing page that visitors would see if they chose to look at these publicly available statistics.

I am using this blog as the placeholder for the tracking “bugs”  used in this index (see the right-hand column).

From the graph above, it is clear that ShinyStat is the performance leader in this space. They have the smallest overall page size as well as the fastest and most reliable performance.

It is important to note that services such as WebTrends, Omniture, WebSideStory and Coremetrics are not included, as they are beyond the reach of most bloggers, and do not provide a public side to their data. Also, Google Analytics is not included, as they do not provide public access to the collected data.

The collected data is available in GrabPERF as both the Site Statistics Index, and as individual measurements.

Technorati Tags: Web analytics, web metrics, shinystat, onestat, statcounter, sitemeter, GrabPERF, Web Performance

Tags: analytics, ARIN, blog, bugs, data, EAD, Google, GrabPERF, GrabPERF.org, HTTP, IE, IM, it, LAN, measurement, metrics, Om, One, performance, PHP, pr, run, statistics, Technorati, testing, tracking, visitors, web, Web analytics, Web Performance

If anyone wants to know why I am proud of GrabPERF, this graph should give you a clue.

Every hour, an aggregated value is produced for every test url. Counting up the Geometric Mean aggregations on a daily basis, the growth line is pretty amazing.

Doing a rough calculation, the system has grown from testing 40 urls to testing 104 urls.

But the true scope of this growth can only be seen by looking at the number of data insertions into the raw data table on a daily basis.

Currently, with the four measurement agents (I turned down one of the Technorati agents today to relieve the strain on the database server), the system is handling nearly 300,000 data insertions a day. Not even in the same timezone with most of the major sites I measure, but when I think that this is a system that I designed, I am stunned. For an unfunded, not-for-profit, one-person effort, I am constant astounded by what this system can handle.

Other areas of note over the last year:

• The Technorati-donated servers can now easily hold 60 days of detail data on a robust enterprise grade system, in a real datacenter
• The basement datacenter is now closed
• The new interface was created specifically to allow the system to grow and easily accommodate new features
• People are now approaching me on a daily basis to have sites added, or to have data explained
• GrabPERF went from one measurement agent to five agents in four locations, including a location in Europe (Portugal)
• GrabPERF has been used in various places to serve as an indicator or motivator for performance improvement, including: Bloglines, Ping-O-Matic, Technorati, PubSub (1 and 2), Blogwise, and others.
• A number of corporate and individual sponsors have stepped forward to support our efforts in many different ways: money, servers, measurement locations, commentary and critiques

I know that I have said it many times in person, or online, but thank you all. Those of you who use and support GrabPERF are the ones who continue to motivate me to make this system better on a daily basis.

Keep those cards and letter coming.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, growth, Web Performance, analytics

Tags: analytics, app, ARIN, blog, corporate, current, data, database, design, Europe, geometric mean, GrabPERF, GrabPERF.org, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, improvement, it, measurement, NY Times, Om, One, online, performance, performance improvement, Portugal, pr, search, server, Technorati, testing, web, Web Performance, wordpress

The A380 has begun cold-weather testing in Iqaluit, Nunavut. [here]

Perfect weather for it…it’s sunny and -29C (-20F) there today.

And where is there? It’s here.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Technorati Tags: A380, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

Tags: Canada, cbc, HTML, HTTP, IP, it, Om, Technorati, testing

For reasons that I have yet to discover, my outbound connection to the Internet appears to have been down between the times listed in the title.

As I have said before, my connection is less than “professional grade”, i.e. “don’t do this at home”.

If I find a cause, I will update.

I apologize for the incovenience.

UPDATE: Ouch.

Found a MONDO huge problem with mysqldump in MySQL 5.0.15 — it locked the tables. Totally.

I backup the database by taking a dump 4 times a day, 12 hours apart on two machines.

The Web server machine, where I was testing MySQL 5.0.15 prior to the production upgrade, is using the version mysqldump that shipped with that.

I need to read the docs and disable the table locks.

Tags: app, data, database, EAD, GrabPERF, IE, IM, Internet, IP, it, Mac, mysql, Om, outage, pr, server, testing, update, web, Web server

Ok Everyone, if you start seeing some odd behaviour from my sites (GrabPERF, Newest Industry, Pierzchala.com), it’s because I am doing some testing to see if the scripts, processes, and applications I have built on top of MySQL 4.1 can stand the upgrade.

I will not be upgrading the primary database system until all of this testing is complete.

Tags: app, application, data, database, GrabPERF, IE, IM, IP, it, mysql, Newest Industry, Om, One, pr, testing

This morning, I asked the ERTW.com measurement location to turn down, as we have completed testing the remote measurement code.

This will have some effect on results going forward, mostly positive. The ERTW.com location had an unusual DNS configuration which was affecting the overall measurement statistics.

I am still recruiting for measurement locations on the West Coast. Drop me an e-mail or leave a comment if you are interested in hosting a measurement location on your linux server.

Tags: DNS, GrabPERF, it, leave, Linux, measurement, Om, server, statistics, testing, x server

Until Weblogs.com can get their act together, I have suspended testing this site.

The site appears to have suffered some form of catastrophic issue starting August 7, 2005. [here]

I will check in occasionally to see how the site is doing.

Technorati: GrabPERF, Web Performance, Web Performance Measurement, Web Performance Monitoring, Dave Winer, weblogs.com

IceRocket: GrabPERF, Web Performance, Web Performance Measurement, Web Performance Monitoring, Dave Winer, weblogs.com

Tags: app, blog, GrabPERF, HTTP, IM, it, measurement, media, Om, performance, performance measurement, PHP, Technorati, testing, web, Web Performance, Web performance measurement, Web+performance