Yowsa!!!!!!!!

Bird · Apr 20, 2001

Yeah, BobT, Jag and I must be in similar boondocks. My local telephone exchange (the entire exchange) is in a concrete block building no more than 10' x 14' and it's about 15 miles from here on these old copper lines.

Bird

GlueGuy · Apr 20, 2001

concrete block building no more than 10' x 14' and it's about 15 miles from here

I feel so inferior. We have some sort of junction panel about 3 miles from here. I think it's made out of chewing gum and bailing wire. Ten times out of nine, it gets full of water, and they have to send Navy Seals up to bail it out. From there it goes down the hill another 6 or 7 miles to the CO. I know it's an old CO, because the phone company told me it won't support ISDN. We get 24K when it's sunny and bright. 21K if it rains. 16K if it's stormy. If the weather got any worse than that, It would be faster with pony express.

They laughed at me when I asked for ISDN /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif. They laughed at me again when I asked for DSL /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif. Cable is impossible /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif.

None-the-less, this is a hoppin site now!

The GlueGuy

Bird · Apr 20, 2001

Sounds much like mine, GlueGuy. Our phone system is so old and decrepit that GTE spent about 4 years trying to find someone who would buy it. They finally sold it (or maybe they gave it away) last year to some new start up phone company out of New Mexico (Valor Telecom) which says they're going to do marvelous things, but in the meantime . . .. And like you, I never know what speed I'm going to log on at (once today was 16.2), but when I log on and find it's less than 24, I usually just disconnect and redial.

Bird

Anonymous Poster · Apr 21, 2001

Muhammad, the site absolutely screams on my cable modem!
Feels like you dumped a nice ALPHA server in there! Makes this ol' sysadmin feel good! Great job, will really be nice when all the little details get ironed out!

john_bud · Apr 21, 2001

Yowsa is right!

I used to just read a few posts because I got tired of the wait, NOT NOW!

Major Kudos to Muhammad and the crew !!!!

This is nearly as much fun as running my tractor, (nearly) /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

John Bud

Edited by John_bud on 04/20/01 11:16 PM (server time).

Harv · Apr 21, 2001

Muhammad -

I'm actually stunned at the performance of this site now. /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

In fact, it's so fast I'm having a little trouble rationalizing it. Not to get too techy here, but it's my understanding that "good" browsers establish and hold a connection until the entire web page is received, but Netscape (oops, the name just slipped out) makes a separate connect/disconnect sequence for pretty much every component on the page.

If that is in fact true, and your new server dishes out lightning-fast connections, then I sort of see why it's nearly an order of magnitude faster.

Whether that's the explanation or not, this is now one snappy web site. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

RobS · Apr 21, 2001

Woo Hooo!!!

This is great! Thanks Muhammad /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

GrantMO · Apr 21, 2001

Glueguy,

I also am at the whim of a slow line. A friend told me about spire.com that allows you to combine the speed of two regular phone lines while using the internet and still be able to dial out using the phone. I haven't checked into that and couldn't tell you how that differs from ISDN. Sounds interesting though. It may be the next millenia before they get around to stringing cable or DSL here though. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Muhammad..........good job on the new server!

GlueGuy · Apr 21, 2001

"good" browsers establish and hold a connection

I think the feature you're referring to is "keep alive", where the browser will hold the socket open between retrievals. Uses a few more resources on the server side (socket open for each active user), but the reponse time difference can be substantial. I don't think it's actually the "browser" per say, but rather the version of HTTP in use.

The GlueGuy

Harv · Apr 21, 2001

I don't think it's actually the "browser" per say, but rather the version of HTTP in use.

That makes sense. A couple of years ago I read that HTTP 1.1 pipelining resulted in a factor of 5 improvement as measured by number of packets (over HTTP 1.0).

I'm sure all modern browsers are using at least 1.1 by now, but I'd be curious to know what versions are being used by Netscape 4.7/Mac and IE5/Win, since the difference between those two is night and day.

Don't have time to look it up now -- the sun finally came out this morning and we're off to the property. Probably too muddy for the tractor - again, but at least I can sit in the seat and pretend. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif