About the author
If you’re a freelance web developer / designer, I have an interesting proposition for you.
We are looking for ONE volunteer to help us optimize Green & White and make it faster to load.
Currently the main page downloads approx 680KB of data, which means about 13 secs on a DSL connection or about 1 minute or more on Dialup.
We want someone to help by optimizing the code, the image sizes, the server settings, caches and more to ensure we can serve pages very quickly.
Knowledge of Wordpress (the engine we run G&W on) will be great to have, and perhaps necessary.
In return I will highlight your freelance profile and portfolio here at Green & White, and you will gain a customer reference (mine) to use with your work!
Sound fair?
If you are interested, Email me at osama@greenwhite.org
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June 29th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
After spending few minutes on your page loading stats, here are some suggestions:
- WP has an option to serve posts in gzip format if browser supports that (Options > Reading). This means that the page will be served as compressed file and browser will decompress it on run time. Enable this option for faster download on supporting browsers.
- Control image size. For example, size of the sabzi wala image (500X375px) is 177K. Currently you are pulling it from Flickr hence 177K is downloaded every time the page is refreshed. However if you save it with your post, the displayed size (285×214px) will be 24K – That will certainly make huge impact on page loading time.
- Use Alt tags with images. This way users don’t have to wait for an image to open and can scroll down to see whats next. This is also beneficial for browsers that have images turned off.
- Reduce post length on main and category pages. You can use the Post Teaser Plugin to show limited number of words (say 100 words per post) on main and category pages with a link to full post. This will improve page download time as well as reduce current vertical scroll.
Hope this helps. Also, If you find a capable WP designer in Pakistan, let me know as well
June 29th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Kashif,
Thanks for the suggestions.
The guys who designed this G&W version weren’t bad but they’re not available. Besides, they were designers not optimizers.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
A web designer should be an optimizer too. Unless you don’t know how a page is going to render on user browser, you won’t be able to deliver good UIs.
June 29th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
The main navigation buttons on top are having a file size of 10KB each, that can be reduced. Adobe PS “Save for Web” does it brilliantly.
The total size of external multimedia files is 19676 bytes, which is between 4K and 20K. Using Flash Vector capabilities.. We can sort that out…
I am interested to do this job.. I am a Freelancer…
and luckily i am from Pakistan…
June 29th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
one more thing this particular page is using almost 7 CSS files… way above the normal.. we can cut down that…
and 2 or 3 External files will make it flow much smoothly.. because it has to parse all the Cascading Style Sheet Code…every-time the page is loaded into the browser….
June 29th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
One more thing that need fixing
The total size of the home page is 630596 bytes, which will load in 142.68 seconds on a 56Kbps modem. Consider reducing total page size to less than 30K to achieve better speed on 56Kbps, as most of the surfers in Pakistan use Dialup Connections.
Bilish
June 29th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
stumbled upon the page “Get Your Badge” and observed that the guys that worked for your website did an average job on the appearance of the badges.
June 30th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Bilish, you sure did a complete autopsy of the web site
June 30th, 2007 at 1:15 am
so is it good or bad?
June 30th, 2007 at 1:17 am
G&W has the potential to grow, The quality of the content is very good and helpful for its readers.
Brand needs some more tightness and friendliness towards its visitors.
Good work.. Osama
June 30th, 2007 at 1:38 am
I have no idea about web page designs. but the things you are saying shows your technical abilities, i.e they are actual facts and figures that would make the analysis a good one
if you would have just said that the site is heavy i can make it light i would have doubted your abilities 
June 30th, 2007 at 1:43 am
So what’s your role on this website?
you write..i guess…
June 30th, 2007 at 2:43 am
Bilish, that’s a great analysis – I’ll get in touch with you on email to get going further.
I’m the Managing Editor for G&W and Qazi’s our spearhead author for the career counseling area.
June 30th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Oh and Qazi will be presenting at the PASHA Career Expo in Lahore tomorrow – do look him up.
June 30th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
hmm seems interesting let me know if i can re-invent greenwhite.org….gtalk { zeeshanhasan at gmail }
June 30th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Osama
I just sent you an email.
Bilal