Thanks. Got it and ready to play

I posted my findings in a new thread: http://th3core.com/talk/web-development/mod_pagespeed-first-findings/

Mod_pagespeed is still in beta and many people have reported nasty bugs so for now mod_pagespeed is only for experimental use.
I have tested it on a test server and I'm not impressed. It does give you better load times but it is not an optimal approach to the load time problem.

Conclusion: Mod_pagespeed is a symptomatic treatment for the lazy webmaster.


We use WordPress for most of our sites and I always use W3 Total Cache and mod_pagespeed doesn't do anything that W3TC can't do.

Some say that mod_pagespeed is better because it is a binary Apache module but nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, it is a binary module but it is a symptomatic treatment to a problem that should be handled at the application level. mod_pagespeed optimizes the pages in real time and caches them, but it does not help generate the pages any faster. W3TC caches database queries and PHP data objects, which makes WP generate the pages faster.

When it comes to minifying, page caching and compressing files W3TC wins again because it gives you much more granular control over minify and caching policies. Furthermore it saves the optimized and compressed file on disk or in memory so all Apache has to do is serve the file to the client browser. How ever you look at it, it is always faster for Apache to serve a preprocessed static compressed file than it is to process html output with mod_pagespeed.

I don't want to go in to detail but there are plenty more cool functionalities in W3TC that you won't get with mod_pagespeed like 3rd party CSS or JavaScript optimization, preloading pages to cache,  integration with CDN just to name a few.

Optimal performance starts at the application level and all the issues you can fix with mod_pagespeed should ideally newer be an issue to begin with if you do things the "right" way.

So what about a site that does not run on WordPress or any other platform with built in caching and optimization? Suppose you have built your own template system and caching haven't been a high priority. In this case you may gain a lot from mod_pagespeed (when it becomes stable). However, because mod_pagespeed doesn't have granular controls of the optimization you may have to build your site to be compatible with mod_pagespeed.

The problems you may run in to are:
-   Not all JavaScript, css, html can be minified
-   Some .js files depend on inline JavaScript which means that you may not be able to combine the scripts in one file.

In other words it is something you have to test on a per site basis, so it is not a fire and forget solution. Having said that I would definitely test it and use it if it is compatible with you site because it does give you better load times.

Damian, have tested their translations but having a native confirm the quality?

I remember a project we did for a client where the translation quality was important. We hired the same agency Dell uses in Europe. Then we send a Dutch text to Damian to have the quality confirmed and he was not impressed. So a big agency is not a guarantee for quality.

Good review. Seems to me that the price is $97 or are you not talking about scrapebox.com?

Anyone using Yahoo Web Analytics?

I'm not too worried about it. Exept for the "Strengthening individuals' rights" part it's all good.

We already have laws in Denmark that give consumers rights over personal data. All it means is that life is hard for hard core lead spammers.

"Individuals should also be clearly informed..." so you put it in the TOS and force the user to confirm.

Thet did a good job on the iPhone but i agree they did a shitty job on the iPad.

Given the size of the iPad they should have been able to give it more cpu and functionality in general. It's pretty but that's it.

I have begun testing mod_pagespeed.

First thing to notice is the filename of RPM mod-pagespeed-beta_current_i386.rpm

Beta? No where on the Page Speed project site does it say anything about beta. I'm aware of that G likes to keep stuff in beta for as long as possible for legal reasons, but seriously guys? Don't lure webmasters in to installing beta software on production servers. 

If you use GetClicky with WordPrees and install the plugin "Clicky for WordPress" clicky will track names of commenters. So instead of an IP or ISP hostname you will se the actual name of the visitor.

>There were (apparently) good reasons not to implement the PageSpeed suggestions to the letter

The only valid reason for not implementing those five actions is if you think your time is spent better else where. Each of those areas will improve load time. End of story

You are not giving Google any control by using mod_pagespeed.

All mod_pagespeed does is rewrite and optimize your site in the way you should be doing anyway if you care about loadtimes. Actually most of the functionality is covered by the W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress.

Google has just released an Apache module, which automatically optimized the load time of a website.

It's called mod_pagespeed and pretty much implements all the elements evaluated in the PageSpeed browser extension

http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html

I'm not a big fan of bot traps.

The usual reasons for using bot traps are to reduce bandwidth usage, stop content scrapers and stop spammers.

In my opinion it's not architecturally optimal to try to solve these problems with an IP filter at the PHP level. The payoff from running the filter on every page request just isn't high enough.

Bandwidth doesn't cost anything if you have a good hosting partner. However, if you have a very dynamic site it may cost you on the performance. The big bandwidth thieves are usually search engine bots. It's easy to pick out bots from search engines you no interest in and filter them out. Just do it on the webserver (Apache) or the firewall and not in PHP.

When it comes to content scraping I don't care what kind of filtering you have in place. If it is publicly available it can be scraped.

When it comes to blog spam the Akismet spam filter does a really good job on WordPress installations. However, if your website is getting hammered by spam bots you can stop most of them by denying access to no-refferrer requests in .htaccess at the webserver level.

# DENY ACCESS TO NO-REFERRER REQUESTS
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*mywebsite\. [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) - [F,L]
</IfModule>

 
Last but not least there is the issue of page load time and caching. You cannot use IP filtering at the PHP level and use page caching at the same the.

>Few have even seen the new Office 365 software

In the small business version you will only get web apps and they are still in beta. However, the enterprise version is a standard Office Professional Plus package connected to the cloud and this is the edge that will lead Microsoft to success in this market.

Honestly. Who want's to use a web app regardless of what cache features they may implement? In my opinion the web app is for when ever you are away from your primary computer. The great thing about Office 365 enterprise is that it is the good old suite of office applications as we know them today but we no longer have to worry about the domain controller/Exchange/Sharepoint server because it's all in the cloud