A lot of blogging and follow-up discussion ensued with the announcement that IE8 supports six connections per host. The blogs I saw:IE8: The Performance ImplicationsIE8 speeds things upIE8: 6 Connections Per HostIE 8 and PerformanceTesting IE8.s Connection ParallelismIE 8 Connection Parallelism IssuesIt’s likely that Firefox 3 will support 6 connections per server in an upcoming beta release, which means more discussion is expected. I wanted to pull all the facts into one place and make several points that I think are important and interesting. Specifically I talk about:the HTTP/1.1 RFC...

We have faced this problem many of the times. When we want to display some message on top of all layers on a page or use some feature like jQuery light boxes. Normally the flash file continues to shine through the page. No matter what you do with layering the dom elements using z-index.See the layering flash content problem definition here.Before this, people used to dodge this issue with some fixes like hiding the flash area completely and then showing a static image of the html file in its place. Then it gave a semblance of layering flash beneath html conte...

If you're using an HTML form on your web site and would like to use an image submit button instead of the boring standard submit button, this HTML code is for you.In order for your form's input box and your image submit button to line up properly, you will need to place it within an HTML table. In addition, unless your image has a transparent background, you will need to set the table background color to the same color as the image background so that it will seamlessly blend together. <FORM METHOD=post ACTION="/cgi-bin/example.cgi"><TABLE BORDER="0" CELLS...

Preventing directory listings can be very useful if for example, you have a directory containing important '.zip' archive files or to prevent viewing of your image directories. Alternatively it can also be useful to enable directory listings if they are not available on your server, for example if you wish to display directory listings of your important '.zip' files.To prevent directory listings, create a .htaccess file following the main instructions and guidance which includes the following text:IndexIgnore *The above lines tell the Apache Web Server to prevent directory listings of director...

[Apple and Google have locked application discovery and distribution within their app stores. VisionMobile's Andreas Constantinou explains how Facebook is using the web to disintermediate Apple/Google and why the web needs a new leader].The platform duopoly.In just the space of 3 years, the mobile platforms landscape has changed from an election race to an oligarchy. The network effects at the heart of the Apple and Google business models have created formidable barriers to entry. The growth in device shipments and apps created seems to continue a relentless climb, showing no signs of develope...

Getting started with web development isn’t easy. Looking back to when I started, the first few weeks were the toughest to stick with it. For someone who is new to text editors and the terminal – the installation process can be really overwhelming. I recently went through the process of helping some of my friends get set up with Ruby on Rails and after doing it a few times, I realized it would be helpful to write a post that others looking to get started could refer to.The following is not going to fully explain the steps (which at some point will be important to understand). Inst...

We've always put a heavy emphasis on performance at Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange. Not just because we're performance wonks (guilty!), but because we think speed is a competitive advantage. There's plenty of experimental data proving that the slower your website loads and displays, the less people will use it.[Google found that] the page with 10 results took 0.4 seconds to generate. The page with 30 results took 0.9 seconds. Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction.In A/B tests, [Amazon] tried delaying the page in increments of 100 mill...

Ever wanted to give your readers, or your client’s readers a chance to share the post quickly on Twitter?The code is straight forward:<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading http://www.test.com/post-url” title=”Click to share this post on Twitter”>Share on Twitter</a>If you’re using WordPress and want to automate this, simply use the following to insert the link to the current post in the loop into your link:<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading <?php the_permalink(); ?>” title=”C...