High performance

2010-03-12T03:06:59Z

High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers

Reviewed by mind dump on 2010-03-09  •  Reviews (41)  •  Read Full Review

Really thought this would help. He seems to have a good handle on the rules. But the solutions and tools area is lacking. Plus there is little if any emphasis on IIS.

Editorial Review ::

Want your web site to display more quickly? This book presents 14 specific rules that will cut 25% to 50% off response time when users request a page. Author Steve Souders, in his job as Chief Performance Yahoo!, collected these best practices while optimizing some of the most-visited pages on the Web. Even sites that had already been highly optimized, such as Yahoo! Search and the Yahoo! Front Page, were able to benefit from these surprisingly simple performance guidelines.

The rules in High Performance Web Sites explain how you can optimize the performance of the Ajax, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, and images that you've already built into your site -- adjustments that are critical for any rich web application. Other sources of information pay a lot of attention to tuning web servers, databases, and hardware, but the bulk of display time is taken up on the browser side and by the communication between server and browser. High Performance Web Sites covers every aspect of that process.

Each performance rule is supported by specific examples, and code snippets are available on the book's companion web site. The rules include how to:

  • Make Fewer HTTP Requests

  • Use a Content Delivery Network

  • Add an Expires Header

  • Gzip Components

  • Put Stylesheets at the Top

  • Put Scripts at the Bottom

  • Avoid CSS Expressions

  • Make JavaScript and CSS External

  • Reduce DNS Lookups

  • Minify JavaScript

  • Avoid Redirects

  • Remove Duplicates Scripts

  • Configure ETags

  • Make Ajax Cacheable

If you're building pages for high traffic destinations and want to optimize the experience of users visiting your site, this book is indispensable.

"If everyone would implement just 20% of Steve's guidelines, the Web would be a dramatically better place. Between this book and Steve's YSlow extension, there's really no excuse for having a sluggish web site anymore."

-Joe Hewitt, Developer of Firebug debugger and Mozilla's DOM Inspector

"Steve Souders has done a fantastic job of distilling a massive, semi-arcane art down to a set of concise, actionable, pragmatic engineering steps that will change the world of web performance."

-Eric Lawrence, Developer of the Fiddler Web Debugger, Microsoft Corporation



List Price $29.99 On Sale $6.00

High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More

Reviewed by Lucas de L. Lorenzo on 2010-02-11  •  Reviews (21)  •  Read Full Review

It's a good start point into high performance tunning, but not a deep into every concept, which is not possible in a single book. The book dives into some benchmark, optimization of queries, the capabilities of every storage engine, and also its weaknesses, some compared backup strategies, replication, and master-slave configurations, all well explained, up to MySQL 5.1, but with new versions in mind. I enjoy this book, although some concerns are hard by nature, and some kind of query optimization could be more graphical to better understanding.

Editorial Review :: High Performance MySQL is the definitive guide to building fast, reliable systems with MySQL. Written by noted experts with years of real-world experience building very large systems, this book covers every aspect of MySQL performance in detail, and focuses on robustness, security, and data integrity. High Performance MySQL teaches you advanced techniques in depth so you can bring out MySQL's full power. Learn how to design schemas, indexes, queries and advanced MySQL features for maximum performance, and get detailed guidance for tuning your MySQL server, operating system, and hardware to their fullest potential. You'll also learn practical, safe, high-performance ways to scale your applications with replication, load balancing, high availability, and failover. This second edition is completely revised and greatly expanded, with deeper coverage in all areas. Major additions include:
  • Emphasis throughout on both performance and reliability
  • Thorough coverage of storage engines, including in-depth tuning and optimizations for the InnoDB storage engine
  • Effects of new features in MySQL 5.0 and 5.1, including stored procedures, partitioned databases, triggers, and views
  • A detailed discussion on how to build very large, highly scalable systems with MySQL
  • New options for backups and replication
  • Optimization of advanced querying features, such as full-text searches
  • Four new appendices
The book also includes chapters on benchmarking, profiling, backups, security, and tools and techniques to help you measure, monitor, and manage your MySQL installations.

List Price $49.99 On Sale $27.49

The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization (Collins Business Essentials)

Reviewed by John Hogan on 2010-01-07  •  Reviews (23)  •  Read Full Review

In this challenging period of trying to do more with less, expanding results can be achieved with focused efforts on using the thoughts and talents of your team.

Editorial Review :: Teams -- the key to top performance

Motorola relied heavily on teams to surpass its competition in building the lightest, smallest, and highest-quality cell phones. At 3M, teams are critical to meeting the company's goal of producing half of each year's revenues from the previous five years' innovations. Kodak's Zebra Team proved the worth of black-and-white film manufacturing in a world where color is king.

But many companies overtook the potential of teams in turning around tagging profits, entering new markets, and making exciting innovations happen -- because they don't know how to utilize teams successfully. Authors Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith talked with hundreds of people in more than thirty companies to find out where and how teams work best and how to enhance their effectiveness. They reveal:

  • The most important element in team success

  • Who excels at team leadership ... and why they are rarely the most senior people

  • Why companywide change depends on teams ... and more

Comprehensive and proven effective, The Wisdom of Teams is the classic primer on making teams a powerful too[ for success in today's global marketplace.



List Price $17.99 On Sale $6.70

SanDisk 8GB Extreme III - SDHC Class 10 High Performance memory card (SDSDX3-008G-P31, Retail Packaging) - NEW 30MB/s edition

Reviewed by Robert A. Mullins on 2010-03-02  •  Reviews (15)  •  Read Full Review

I had a class 6 card in my Canon Rebel XSI, when I would shoot action shots the camera would slow down after 6 shots... The specs on the camera say that it should take several hundred rapid shots on its Highest .JPG compression before a noticeable slowdown occured. Buying this card solved all my problems, I can take action shots without worry that I will miss the next lightning strike, or that perfect smile at a wedding. I recommend this card to anyone who needs to have speed. It certainly has it.

Editorial Review :: With 30MB/s read/write speeds, you'll see it takes more than a great digital SLR camera to bring your ideas to life. Get exactly the shots you want with the professional-grade responsiveness of SanDisk Extreme® SDHC cards. You'll have room to capture it all in RAW+JPEG, and save the editing for later. Plus, you'll get faster photo and video transfers from camera to computer.

List Price $119.99 On Sale $48.45

Chevy High Performance

Reviewed by Deanna Helm on 2010-01-24  •  Reviews (1)  •  Read Full Review

CHP is a must in any Chevy lovers house. Has been a regular in our house for many years. Always learn something new or better ways to work on my Chevy. Most up to date information.

Editorial Review :: CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE is the source for all Chevy enthusiasts who are interested in buying, building, restoring and modifying high-performance Chevrolet vehicles, not only in terms of speed, but also in street prowess, road handling, show beauty for the classic concourse look. Our step-by-step technical articles go in depth to show the reader how to modify, fabricate and build high performance into their Chevys. Coverage includes the why as well as how the modifications work. Regular departments that answer readers questions and offer shopping tips about performance and restoration; provide the latest in news, showcase readers' cars, list events and add a little humor to solving technical problems.

List Price $71.88 On Sale $17.00

Whistler PRO-78 SE High-Performance Radar Detector with Blue Text Display

Reviewed by Michael J. Veltri on 2010-03-07  •  Reviews (20)  •  Read Full Review

This product goes off all the time. I have it set to the lowest setting and it still goes off for no reason. When it does go off it has multiple alarms. With so many alarms, you can't trust if it is true or not.

Editorial Review :: High-Performance Radar Detector with Blue Text Display

List Price $229.95 On Sale Too low to display