About two months ago I was sitting in a hotel conference room being trained on a new piece of software here at Bridgeline when an interesting philosophical question was raised. When something is not true, is it necessarily false? I suppose I should provide a little more background information for this question before getting into why this question is important.

(more…)

In just about every web content management implementation one of the overarching goals is to reduce dependence on corporate I.T. Of course everyone loves I.T.,but we all know they are very busy and sometimes place the web as a lower priority item.

The onus is on marketing (generally the owner of website redesign and content management initiatives) to ensure an on time and on budget WCM implementation. So the key is how much support from IT is needed to ensure success. Here are a few recommendations:

(more…)

Content Re-use through CMS

In a world that has gone mad with overused terms such as re-use, green and recycle (not that those are bad things) I will attempt to make a case for content re-use that seems to be alluding companies both large and small.

For the past 12 years I have worked with numerous companies to help them develop more effective web strategies utilizing technologies like content management, portals and ecommerce. And to this day I find it both fascinating and somewhat sad to continue to see more and more companies siloed in their website and intranet approaches.

(more…)

Web Application Performance has always been one of my favorite topics due to its challenging and complex nature.  Most developers would probably describe web application performance as the length of time and amount of resources that are required for the software to concurrently read the request, process the request, and generate an HTML response.  Typically, this performance is analyzed through the use of load testing to simulate multiple users while measuring CPU, Memory Utilization, Response Time, and Database Connections.  This effort is often conducted in parallel with development efforts and outside the scope of this post.

Site visitors would probably describe web application performance as the amount of time required for the entire page to be loaded into the browser and become usable.  Rich Interactive Web Applications often include the download and execution of several Javascript, CSS, and image files in order for User Interface to function.  Additionally, there are often Javascript and image files for ad serving, analytics, and behaviorial targeting.  Perceived loading time versus actual loading time can be debated and by loading the page components in the proper order, perceived loading time can be improved without actually improving the overall load time.  Despite the subtle difference between perceived and actual load time, the amount of time required to download the entire page and all of its components often dwarfs the time required for the underlying software to actually generate the response.  Improving the overall page load time involves identifying and optimizing all of the page components.

(more…)

Everyone who manages or is responsible for meeting the business goals for their company’s website is constantly trying to increase their traffic. But what if the traffic you’re already getting is not being fully optimized?  Perhaps it’s time to work on improving the traffic you’re already getting.

How do you do that? You can start by understanding the Who, Where, and What of your website visitor audience.

Who are your website visitors? Are they prospects looking for your products and services? Are they existing customers looking for support or account information? Are they potential investors interested in your company’s finances? Are they job seekers looking for career opportunities? More than likely, you have mix of all of the above.

(more…)

Based on the number of inquiries from my last post (Building Scalable Ecommerce Solutions) I decided to follow-up with a more in-depth discussion on one of the topics which I have touched on previously. In this post I will concentrate on Data Caching.

In my opinion Data Caching is the single most beneficial strategy a System Engineer or a Developer can implement in order to achieve scalability. In this article I will discuss a few guidelines for implementing an effective Data Caching strategy.

Data Caching is a method by which data is stored and retrieved from transient memory. Transient memory, distinguished from persistent memory, is storage that is normally short-lived and is reset or removed when the server or the computer on which it resides is rebooted or when the storage is replaced with other transient data. Transient memory is the fastest medium used to retrieve from and store into modern computers. (more…)