exploroz very slow

sorry, I just cut and pasted from the other thread.

The link is here .... James Cook University

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm
I have cut and pasted this from an earlier reply I posted today - may help.

Saw your posts re the speed of the site, sorry I cant help much.
..... to answer a question I saw earlier -The reason the site uses aspx instead of other formats is aspx suits the mapping applications and facilities it provides for Trek Notes, Plot swap and other mapping innovations.
Right now we are prototyping a live tracking application called Track Me which will enable ExplorOz users to report their trips live to the site.
see explanation in latest newsletter

Latest Newsletter - Track Me

and here

Track Me


Re Other sites and speed.
Static sites ie non interactive sites eg a forum and some static information etc rarely experience major updates and coding changes to break into new interactive territory. Whereas a live site like ExplorOz has over 70,000 pages, most of these live and interactive. Including mapping facilities and applications, trek notes, personal profiles blogs and photos etc etc

It is a real challenge (obviously, as not many attempt it) to have a live interactive website where readers can participate and add so much content (e.g. in features like blogs, places mapping, trader and personal profiles etc etc) While this is no excuse for slow speed (as even with all these features as you know - usually it loads very fast) it does explain why other sites may be faster at the moment - they just may not be innovating and breaking ground with new features and live interaction and therefore are easier to maintain.

Yeah i know excuses excuses excuses!

I know this does not help much but at least I may be able to reduce speculation as to the cause of it. I have experienced the slowdowns, it is frustrating when it is slow to say the least.

David will sort this for us when he returns - meanwhile at least you can track his progress back to home on Track Me

hope this helps and thanks for your patience (sorry cant answer any queries personally)

Kerry W

Hi Kerry

Tks for the reply. It makes IT (pun intended) hard on the team when the lead programmer is absent at such a critical time. I was not aware of that.

For those that don't understand (please correct me if I am wrong Kerry) this site is hosted by WebCentral (a major Australian hosting company which belongs to Melbourne IT Group) - Melbourne IT started life as a "university project", funded with Government money, which was then commercialised.

At a guess, I would say ExplorOz has the latest and fastest hardware and backbone available at WebCentral, which then leaves the intermittent "slow" problem (don't ya just luv dem problems) could be related to software. I'm sure the team will eventually work it out - just takes time. Every programmer has their own special skill set and tools. Just like there is more than one 4x4 to drive - the thing is, in the end, they all get the job done.

When the site works 100%, it's fast. When it's slow it's a dog. I use IE8 and when I click on a link, I watch the top left of the screen and see a small blue revolving circle, this indicates the system is doing something. You can then do one of two things: 1. Just walk away and wait for the page to load, or 2. Click on the "Close Window" button. Until David solves the problem, I'm afraid we will just have to wear it.

Been there, done that. Can't you see all the arrows in my back? LOL

Malcolm

My observation is that it is not the site itself that is slow but that the time taken to access it can be excessive, usually accompanied in the bottom bar by the words "waiting for exploreoz".

It seems that the access ports become overloaded when the site is busy.