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Byq292u
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Banner Ad Rotation | Replace datafeedr with "ad rotate" – NOW!

For years, I’ve used DATAFEEDR to manage my banner ads, and used Google Calendar to manage expiration dates. Not ideal, but it worked.
Finally, I decided to do something about it. I was seriously considering writing my own system, based on Datafeedr, but with start & end dates etc.
I’ve learned though, to check what’s already out there before jumping in with both feet and re-inventing the wheel.
So I had a look around and found “Ad Rotate”.
It does everything that datafeedr does, ads & groups, but also has a concept of “blocks” of ads. Ads have start and end dates, and can be disabled. There are “fallback” groups, in case no ads are live. Tremendous! And it’ll even e-mail me when an ad is about to expire.

The system was installed, ads copied from datafeedr, new template tags inserted, and we are up and running in half an hour.


Byq292u
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Banner Ad Rotation | Replace datafeedr with "ad rotate" – NOW!

For years, I’ve used DATAFEEDR to manage my banner ads, and used Google Calendar to manage expiration dates. Not ideal, but it worked.
Finally, I decided to do something about it. I was seriously considering writing my own system, based on Datafeedr, but with start & end dates etc.
I’ve learned though, to check what’s already out there before jumping in with both feet and re-inventing the wheel.
So I had a look around and found “Ad Rotate”.
It does everything that datafeedr does, ads & groups, but also has a concept of “blocks” of ads. Ads have start and end dates, and can be disabled. There are “fallback” groups, in case no ads are live. Tremendous! And it’ll even e-mail me when an ad is about to expire.

The system was installed, ads copied from datafeedr, new template tags inserted, and we are up and running in half an hour.


Byq292u
, , , , , , , , ,

Banner Ad Rotation | Replace datafeedr with "ad rotate" – NOW!

For years, I’ve used DATAFEEDR to manage my banner ads, and used Google Calendar to manage expiration dates. Not ideal, but it worked.
Finally, I decided to do something about it. I was seriously considering writing my own system, based on Datafeedr, but with start & end dates etc.
I’ve learned though, to check what’s already out there before jumping in with both feet and re-inventing the wheel.
So I had a look around and found “Ad Rotate”.
It does everything that datafeedr does, ads & groups, but also has a concept of “blocks” of ads. Ads have start and end dates, and can be disabled. There are “fallback” groups, in case no ads are live. Tremendous! And it’ll even e-mail me when an ad is about to expire.

The system was installed, ads copied from datafeedr, new template tags inserted, and we are up and running in half an hour.


Byq292u

WordPress Optimisation

I’ve just been comparing the pageload times for two of my similar (architecture, not content) wordpress sites.

Site A was coming in at about 1000-1500 milliseconds, whereas Site B was anything up to 6000 milliseconds 🙁

Turns out that caching had been disabled during a search to find a dodgy plugin, but never re-enabled on Site B..

That got me thinking though.. what if I could get the load time down.. would that improve the bounce-rate?

So, before I starting messing about with settings, I took some baseline stats with www.whichloadsfaster.com, (try it, it loads two pages in parallel, and measures load times..)

Then I re-enabled caching on site B. Suddenly, Site B loads faster than site A..
Next move: use the same caching settings on Site B on Site A.. (Site B had compression turned OFF, A was ON..)
Bingo! Both sites are now around 700-1000 milliseconds!

Next move: use the csprites plugin on both sites. (this makes dynamic css sprites from the images, loads faster).

We are now down to 500-750 Milliseconds on BOTH sites.

Can I just remind you of where we started here?

Site Before (ms) After (ms)
A 1000-1500 500-750
B 6000 500-750

P.S. this took less than half an hour, all-in..

Plugins used: wp-supercache, csprites
Tools used: www.whichloadsfaster.com


Byq292u
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

WordPress Optimisation

I’ve just been comparing the pageload times for two of my similar (architecture, not content) wordpress sites.

Site A was coming in at about 1000-1500 milliseconds, whereas Site B was anything up to 6000 milliseconds 🙁

Turns out that caching had been disabled during a search to find a dodgy plugin, but never re-enabled on Site B..

That got me thinking though.. what if I could get the load time down.. would that improve the bounce-rate?

So, before I starting messing about with settings, I took some baseline stats with www.whichloadsfaster.com, (try it, it loads two pages in parallel, and measures load times..)

Then I re-enabled caching on site B. Suddenly, Site B loads faster than site A..
Next move: use the same caching settings on Site B on Site A.. (Site B had compression turned OFF, A was ON..)
Bingo! Both sites are now around 700-1000 milliseconds!

Next move: use the csprites plugin on both sites. (this makes dynamic css sprites from the images, loads faster).

We are now down to 500-750 Milliseconds on BOTH sites.

Can I just remind you of where we started here?

Site Before (ms) After (ms)
A 1000-1500 500-750
B 6000 500-750

P.S. this took less than half an hour, all-in..

Plugins used: wp-supercache, csprites
Tools used: www.whichloadsfaster.com


Byq292u
, , , , , , , , ,

WordPress Optimisation

I’ve just been comparing the pageload times for two of my similar (architecture, not content) wordpress sites.

Site A was coming in at about 1000-1500 milliseconds, whereas Site B was anything up to 6000 milliseconds 🙁

Turns out that caching had been disabled during a search to find a dodgy plugin, but never re-enabled on Site B..

That got me thinking though.. what if I could get the load time down.. would that improve the bounce-rate?

So, before I starting messing about with settings, I took some baseline stats with www.whichloadsfaster.com, (try it, it loads two pages in parallel, and measures load times..)

Then I re-enabled caching on site B. Suddenly, Site B loads faster than site A..
Next move: use the same caching settings on Site B on Site A.. (Site B had compression turned OFF, A was ON..)
Bingo! Both sites are now around 700-1000 milliseconds!

Next move: use the csprites plugin on both sites. (this makes dynamic css sprites from the images, loads faster).

We are now down to 500-750 Milliseconds on BOTH sites.

Can I just remind you of where we started here?

Site Before (ms) After (ms)
A 1000-1500 500-750
B 6000 500-750

P.S. this took less than half an hour, all-in..

Plugins used: wp-supercache, csprites
Tools used: www.whichloadsfaster.com


Byq292u

FL Studio

On a different tack, I was looking to obtain a copy of FL Studio to install on one of my netbooks. Since this is the same spec (ish) as the desktop I used to run FLS 4 on years ago, I was looking for a copy of FLS4/5.
Turns out that FLS has lifetime free upgrades. Meaning that no-one has FLS 4 or 5.
The min spec for FLS 10 is 2Ghz Cpu.. netbook is 1.3Ghz.
However, it appears that user are running FLS 10 on netbooks without problems.
And I can get a copy of FLS 10 (Fruity Edition), for £60.. with lifetime free upgrades. Tempted..


Byq292u
, , , , ,

FL Studio

On a different tack, I was looking to obtain a copy of FL Studio to install on one of my netbooks. Since this is the same spec (ish) as the desktop I used to run FLS 4 on years ago, I was looking for a copy of FLS4/5.
Turns out that FLS has lifetime free upgrades. Meaning that no-one has FLS 4 or 5.
The min spec for FLS 10 is 2Ghz Cpu.. netbook is 1.3Ghz.
However, it appears that user are running FLS 10 on netbooks without problems.
And I can get a copy of FLS 10 (Fruity Edition), for £60.. with lifetime free upgrades. Tempted..


Byq292u
, , , , , , , , ,

FL Studio

On a different tack, I was looking to obtain a copy of FL Studio to install on one of my netbooks. Since this is the same spec (ish) as the desktop I used to run FLS 4 on years ago, I was looking for a copy of FLS4/5.
Turns out that FLS has lifetime free upgrades. Meaning that no-one has FLS 4 or 5.
The min spec for FLS 10 is 2Ghz Cpu.. netbook is 1.3Ghz.
However, it appears that user are running FLS 10 on netbooks without problems.
And I can get a copy of FLS 10 (Fruity Edition), for £60.. with lifetime free upgrades. Tempted..


Byq292u

Connection problems.

Slap bang in the middle of the wordpress problem, my broadband went down.
Now, I was trying to get my netbooks to talk to my wireless router, so I thought I was dealing with a machine problem.
Turns out that the phone was off as well. Quick call to talktalk, and it’s a “cable fault”, already being investigated.
Phone and broadband off for at least 5 hours..


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