I have been busy the past three months working on a site optimization project for a startup company where the code had been written by 10+ programmers who had come and gone over the last year. That left a big site with lots of unused and crazy CSS, images, javascript, and nasty HTML structure. I approached this project with two stages in mind:

1. Start clean with CSS and XHTML. The first thing I did was unlink the main 5 thousand line CSS file along with a handful of others which was wreaking all kinds of havoc. I then went into every view, standardized the overall HTML structure (so it could hold it’s own without any CSS), and then only added in the CSS that was used.
2. Maximize HTTP requests. The next phase will involve spriting images and pairing down and combining javascript so the number of HTTP requests goes way down.

The initial results:
Total HTTP Requests: 192
Total Size: 1353141 bytes

After the first stage (finished today), the general results:
Total HTTP Requests: 67
Total Size: 693064 bytes

After stage two is completed - I think I can get those numbers down by another half.

From Yahoo!:
“80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. Reducing the number of components in turn reduces the number of HTTP requests required to render the page. This is the key to faster pages.”

Why does all this matter? Think of a big, busy site. Think about the number of users - and then multiply that by the number of requests as well as the size of each page load. If you want good performance from your site - the pay off from optimizing your site will really pay off. It is pretty easy to go through your site and cleanup small things that over time will really add up. Not using a javascript you once did? Remove it from the header. Redid the site but still have a link to the old CSS “just in case”? Get rid of it! Remember, a little goes a long way.

WordPress 2.6 has officially been released. The new version includes almost 200 bugfixes (see full list) and now includes some of new features as well like post versioning, drag and drop sorting for galleries, word count, image captions, separation of active and inactive plugins, and more. For more information on WordPress version 2.6, read the official WordPress version 2.6 documentation.
Download the latest versions of WordPress: WordPress 2.6

url: http://topspinmedia.com/

SDAC Inc. provided:

• XHTML/CSS programming
• WordPress theme customization

technologies used:

XHTML, CSS, WordPress , PHP, CSS

front end:

The client came with a basic layout and all the artwork finished and wanted to me to build a WordPress theme out of it. The layout is very clean and minimal which I really enjoy.

back end:

This was a very straightforward build - no fancy custom functionality - but I was able to help out with some of the Apache difficulties they were having which was a fun change of pace.

lessons learned/random thoughts:

Working with the people at Topspin was a great experience and I look forward to reading their blog.