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Recently I noticed that my site was loading uber-slow. I never really thought much of it, but then more and more people were complaining so I took a closer look at it. There were a couple of issues that I uncovered.

The first big issue was the social networking plugin I was using had a server that was down, that is why I don’t have the bookmark links at the end of posts right now. I removed that and it sped up a little bit, but it was still lagging. This is when I discovered a downfall with WordPress.

Upon doing an audit of my WordPress, I found out that I had a bunch of plugins activated that I wasn’t using, some of which were calling 404 pages. This was draining my site big time and making loads take forever. Once I deactivated the unused plugins, load times dropped. This site still has a few issues that are causing a not-so-optimal load time, but it is more along the lines of normal now.

Firefox add-ons turned out to be my best friend for this task. I used FireBug and YSlow to determine the issues. Both these tools provided me with the insight I needed into my site’s issues and then with a few clicks, I was able to remedy the majority of the issues.

Now that those extra plugins and error pages are gone, my site is running much better. I am a little baffled as to what to do next. Some of the plugins I am using are pretty standard these days and I like them. They are Web 2.0 and are easy to implement via plugins in WordPress. The only downfall is now my site is calling out to multiple servers and loading tons of javascript code. The only workaround is to write these modules myself. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the time to write all of this custom interactivity myself, so for now, I will just sit back, be happy with what I have and wait for the developers of the plugins to eventually write lighter weight plugins.

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Apple has taken a small bite out of Windows. Well, not really. Apple has moved up in market share to 6.6% based on a not-so-formal analysis from Net Applications. I used to always refer to Mac users as part of the 3%. For years I always saw Mac users as 3% and Windows as virtually 100%, but not exactly. Turns out, based on the analysis of internet usage tracking the OS that was used to access the sites that Net Applications has tracking code implemented on Apple has moved up on the charts significantly.

Though, the study is informal, it is based on about a half million sites with a total of about 1 billion page views per month. So, informal, yes, but representative of fact, probably pretty close. Now that Apple has gained in market share, one would assume that Windows went down, but it didn’t. Turns out that Windows has stood strong at 91%. It is true that Apple has gained a share, if you want to listen to these numbers, but Windows has not dropped, therefore, the title of this article is false.

The article goes on to predict that Apple could gain up to 15% share potentially in 5 years. I see this as being possible, but not a guarantee. With iPods and iTunes becoming mainstream, people are accepting Apple products and getting comfortable with the ease of use. However, with prices still being through the roof compared to PCs on the market, the mainstream may just decide that even though they are using Apple products, the products are compatible with PCs, so why switch. It makes sense, Apple is sneaking into peoples’ homes but isn’t really driving a convincing campaign to capture the computer market.

I guess the real question is, does it matter what OS people use? I don’t think so. Now that everything is moving towards being web-based, the OS that people use will soon become irrelevant. As long as you have a web browser, you will soon be able to do absolutely all computer tasks online, including storage. With this being the movement, we may see less of an OS struggle and more of a browser struggle. This is when I predict we will see Google enter the arena of web browsers. They are already building plenty of desktop applications that are solely web-based so once they perfect that, we will surely see a gBrowser follow.

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My ultimate dream is to just tell my fridge what I always want and have it do an autoreplenish order, and then be able to add impromptu items. Every Friday, my refrigerator places an order to the grocery store, then they send a delivery kid to bring me my groceries, which have already been paid for via credit card by my fridge. Then all I have to do is tip the delivery boy and eat. Gimme that technology, within the next 10 years please.

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With the introduction of the iPhone, touch sensitive screens are now guaranteed a speedy entrance into mainstreamers’ hands. There are some laptops available now and they are fairly new still. This video gives some insight as to what a touch sensitive screen could potentially provide in a user interaction and organizational demonstration that will blow your mind. The only major piece I need is a finger print/french fry greese resistance touch screen.

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