grammaat46 Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 I've noticed that on some websites like Yahoo and CNN, my page (with the exception of large graphics) loads almost instantly. If I visit websites that are hosted (like yours) I have some lag built in. I've been told that this is network congestion and stalling. Is there a way to test this with several potential hosts to see which site would give you the best results? I have been checking where the hosting is located (geographically) and what kind of backbone access they have, but this doesn't seem to be as accurate as I would like. Is there a way to run an application (like traceroute or ping) against the server and compare the results? Thanks G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 grammaat46, The lagg can come from anywhere, your connection, alot of traffic on the website you are trying to load, graphics, file size/type and many other things. I am not sure about pinging hosts. If I where you I would ask each of them first. They might think you are trying to attack their servers. I do however feel like I should add, my website loads faster to me since I came to TCH than before with Yahoo! and other hosts that I have hosted with. And Yahoo! also has high prices, and if you think you might need customer service, I would not go with Yahoo!, my experience with them was bad, when I did have to call for customer service I had to wait almost a hour to get a Support Tech on the line just to be told to call back later. I am very pleased with TCH and would recommend them with great pleasure. And goodluck with your search. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grammaat46 Posted April 18, 2004 Author Share Posted April 18, 2004 Perhaps, I should add that I meant Yahoo's search engine and not their hosting. I can go to some sites and the text will load immediately and then the obvious moment while the graphics load. This is understandable and accepatable. Over months (years?) of use you come to notice that some sites will load faster than others. When you strip away the file type/size, net traffic, cached files and such, what you are left with is the path from you to them. My first few hops are going to be the same no matter who I am with. But I notice a big difference once I get past that point where they take different routes. The larger commercial sites always load very fast and I would guess they have multiple colocations and are sitting on very fast connections to backbones. I'm sure they pay for it too. Sites that load very fast for me are news.Google.com and SourceForge.net . There is virtually no hesitation from hitting enter 'till text begins loading on the screen. With my other website (which I visit several times a day and so should be in my cache!) I will see it first take a moment to resolve, then I wait while it says "transferring" then with 6 or 7 seconds, the bulk of the site begins to load. My homepage (the "index.html" that my browser points at) is free of graphics and should be loading so much faster. I just want a way to quantify the delay so that I can identify those hosts offering a better connection for my community. G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youneverknow Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Grammaat46... Try going to here http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/web-hosting-family.html and check out the real sites hosted here by TCH...You will see that they are fast . I have had other hosts and none have been faster or more reliable than TCH servers! youneverknow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grammaat46 Posted April 18, 2004 Author Share Posted April 18, 2004 Hi youneverknow You are right , the sites are impressive. But I'm posting with a question about how to measure a feature and it feels like you and Alan are trying to get me to sign up G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 (edited) The best way that I have found to test speeds is to do pings/traces consistently (say every few hours) over the course of a week or two. Depending how much work you want to do you can try charting this information in Excel; although I do not know an easy way to do it. Or just try to get a feel. If I were going to do this I'd choose several sites to do this at, in several areas of the country and even overseas. Make sure you do them at the same time/within the same time frame or you won't have a really good, controlled experiment. That is the only way that I know to do this, really. There may be software that will be able to automate this charting for you, but I haven't really researched that area. I suggest utilizing traceroute as well so that if there are speed differences you can note WHERE they are. A speed difference in sprint backbone router is different than a speed difference at the end site, as far as controllability goes. I hope that helps. =) Edited April 18, 2004 by TCH-Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grammaat46 Posted April 18, 2004 Author Share Posted April 18, 2004 Hi Lisa Thanks for chiming in. I'm playing with traceroute now but it seems to roughshod a method. I figured someone has already found a way. I'm a member of a local club that would like to put up a website to keep our 140 members in touch. Everyone is local. Until we choose a site, we're using a subdomain on my personal site to try out software (Invisionboard, a blog, etc .) and flesh out a theme. Everyone commented on how slow it loaded and so after narrowing the field to 6 or 7 potential hosts, what's left is who loads consistently faster. Guess I'll break out Excel. Thanks everyone for the input. G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
442GlenwoodAvenue Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Typically, over several months, I've found that large files on my TCH websites download at roughly 75% of the fastest speed I can get on my Comcast connection. This holds true whether I use my computer - or my T1 connection on my computer at work. My fastest speed via Comcast is now 400Kb/sec. Files on my tch webwite download at about 300Kb/sec. In all fairness to TCH, the 300KB/sec seems a little faster than the "average" website. I've only run across a couple of websites where I can download at the fastest my Comcast account will allow. Even downloading files on Microsoft.com is almost always slower than 300Kb/sec. So, my unscientific educated-guess perception is - TCH is not the fastest, but is above average. As long as the speed on TCH is typical or above average, it's not an issue with me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 I agree. On my cable connection here, around 3am I can get speeds around 550kb from Logitech (whee!) but I've never seen speeds like that elsewhere. I'm really not sure how or why their site is so incredibly fast. I'm thankful though, because I've had to re-install my quickcam software several times, and I keep losing the install file.... But around 250-300kb/s is about normal for me. =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Lisa, You know of any scripts that allow you to put the Video Chat into a personal website, rather than a automated website? And any scripts that restrict the age? Such as age verification? I don't want to waste my time with iFriends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 *the* video chat? Do you mean like what I occasionally have on my site? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Hi youneverknow You are right , the sites are impressive. But I'm posting with a question about how to measure a feature and it feels like you and Alan are trying to get me to sign up G. You will have to forgive me, I am only 16 and misunderstood your question. I thought you where saying you where trying to choose a host. Not Search Engine LOL! Sowwy for any misunderstandings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Nah, I mean the realtime cam, not the one which updates every so often. I want one where friends, and people on yahoo chats can just join it through my site, instead of me having to accept all of them through the 'Join my Webcam' Requests thing. It gets very annoying when you are away from the desk, and have to get up, walk to the desk and click 'Accept' every few seconds lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Hey, I didnt know we are allowed to have webcam on shared servers. Now I do (I think) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 (edited) Alan, like this? That's real time, I promise you. =) I just want to make sure that's what you want before I go spouting off advice, you see.... Oh! And Thomas, you can place these on the shared servers, it's simply an http stream via flash. This software can do it via javascript or a java applet as well, but I've found flash the speediest and highest quality. Edited April 18, 2004 by TCH-Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Lisa, Have you went into the Logitech cam interface, and went into the 'Video Chat' option? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 We need to remember that your IPS will be caching the big sites as it is to give you a faster service as well. Caching servers are designed for this and they give the impression that you are getting great speeds when you are going no further than your own ISP network wich will always be faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 (edited) Alan, the video chat option in Logitech uses a remote service, it's free for 30 days then expensive, and you have very little control over it. Is the link I posted what you are after? Or did you have something else in mind? *nods at Rob* that makes sense, I hadn't really considered it... =) Edited April 18, 2004 by TCH-Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Just something that will allow me to host my webcam, allowing people to connect through a website, not my Computer, or a Messenger Service. And to allow them to type and me to use Mic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 *nods* The software I use can stream sound as well, although I am not using that option. =) I'm not sure how good it is. WebcamXP You were just in chat so you've seen it, what do ya think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 I will give it a try. Ty. And if not, I will try to write my own in Visual Basics Yuck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 (edited) One question that popped up in my head (ouch, that hurted ), that has nothing to do with video but anyway... Programs like skype, are they stealing much bandwidth if used on a normal basis? To Alan: Who of all people i have seen on your avatars is YOU? Edited April 18, 2004 by Jikrantz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 I use skype a lot, have noticed no slowdown or browsing issues, doesn''t seem to take up much bandwidth at all. =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Good. Thanks Lisa. I havent had the pleasure of using skype before (or any voice program) since i had no microphone, but i got a webcam with built in microphone now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaJill Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 It may not be great with a webcam microphone. I use a stereo, noise cancelling headset for skype that works wonders, though. =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 Ah ok. Well I tried it the other day and I was told the sound was acceptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 To Alan: Who of all people i have seen on your avatars is YOU? *Giggles* All of them are me, LOL! I will have to reformat soon, so all the traces are gone if my mom wants to use my PC lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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