Ticker / Countdown Clock Generator to use?

[CAG CheechDogg]

I posted at the same time as well...jasff...we are only trying to help you out ...while that counter on that disney site looks cool and all, it "will" eat up your bandwidth and quite honestly none of the tickers that are available here on v.org are even worth using on a site like yours.

[CAG CheechDogg]

Originally Posted by Max Taxable

Or worse, hacked/defaced. How many times have we seen that?

I can't even count lol....there is a counter here but it doesnt work like that one...If i see it I will post the link...

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

just so long as it truly does not take ages or hang you'll be just fine, I find that often times some tend to place too much emphasis on that (ohh the serious ones on here will disown me for saying that just now ) I say if the site works, loads in moderate time and content is good then no worries.

Edit: Ahh posted about same time as Max but yeah see he was being helpful as I suspected .

Web Stress: Understanding the neurological impact of poor performance

Not to mention, how Google and other valid crawlers hate slow sites and will rank them lower because of it.

But you're right, I have seen alot worse than the OP's site. :up:

Originally Posted by jasff

Thanks everyone for your advice. Max, I apologize.

No worries Mayng. I have very thick skin.

[jasff]

well, I gues I should ask....

1. Since you guys are the smart ones what is it that I need to focus on then?
Those reports are beyond my bank of knowledge. What seems to be the problem?

2. As for the Tickers, I was looking for a generator program that I can load onto my server to generate from my own site. I didn't want to use or be linked to an external generator. I'm sure they are loaded with junk.

Thanks in advance

[TheLastSuperman]

Start by saving images as jpg, they can save at a smaller file size which means the page loads quicker and images are typically an issue if you've customized your site and not thought of that while doing so.

[Max Taxable]

You have 76 objects requested on pageload of main page, from the link I posted earlier. Many of the later ones which are slowing you down, using most bandwidth and CPU, are third party applications, images, mostly from google and youtube. In the image below I grabbed from the link, you can see them numbered 45, 54, 55, 65, and 67-76.



I am not familiar with most of these and don't know their purpose, but I do know they increase your load time, bandwidth usage and CPU utilization way out of proportion to your native calls. (Note the graphs at bottom.)

Third party objects will load or complete only as fast as their own 3rd party server lets them. So that if google or youtube is really slow, you're going to be really slow as a result.

But again like Superman said - your speed isn't atrocious. Everything is loading in under 4 seconds. It's nothing to lose sleep over, but by contrast my site does only 34 calls and loads in just under one second, very consistently. But then again, I have made it a point to achieve that speed.

--------------- Added [DATE]1379641264[/DATE] at [TIME]1379641264[/TIME] ---------------

Originally Posted by jasff

2. As for the Tickers, I was looking for a generator program that I can load onto my server to generate from my own site. I didn't want to use or be linked to an external generator. I'm sure they are loaded with junk.

The thing is, every ticker I have seen no matter if it's third party or not, relies on the USER'S resources, not yours. Making THEIR CPU do all the work, and using THEIR bandwidth.

[CAG CheechDogg]

Also, from the test results here : http://gtmetrix.com/reports/slotfanatics.com/pgb3ihtk , it is asking you to specify image dimensions something that vbulletin just doesn't put enough emphasis on which actually slows your site down quite a bit because it doesn't tell the browsers what size these images are and it makes it work harder to render them.

It is only 30 images most of which are the collapse icons and other smaller icons used for the whos online and category icons. I also see that you don't have your attachments and avatars being server from your file system and instead they are being served from your database. Moving your attachments and avatars over to the file system takes you about 2 mins to do and will decrease your servers workload.

To switch them to your file system go to your attachments menu, click on attachments storage type and just move them to your file system. You might have to create the directory for them but usually vbulletin already has it done automatically.

Do this for your avatars as well and you will see an improvement.

For the other images that it's asking you to provide the image dimensions, just do a template search for the image, i.e., collapse_40b.png , sometimes you only need to look for the file extension which is (40b.png) and then you add the correct dimensions of that image like this,

<img width="16" height="16" title="if needed" alt="if needed" src="images/styles/your-theme/path/collapse.png">

This is going to take you a couple of hours to find all the images to add their dimensions but it is worth it , believe me!

If you need any more help just ask.

Also in your htaccess you will want to add some custom code to give your forums some Leverage browser caching ....I will give you what I use if you want it so you can check it out before you add it to your htacces file.

Hope this helps you out my Man !!!