It turns out my blog’s start page averages about 200KB is size. Over the past few weeks it’s been as high as 225KB and as low as 180KB. I then looked as some blogs I enjoy reading. One has a current page of 525KB. Another is currently over 2MB.

Back to my blog for a moment, at 225KB, a person on a good 33.6 modem needs 78 seconds before the page is loaded. That does not include any network lags, rendering time, script execution, etc. I’ll be honest, if it took well over a minute to view a page, I’d probably give up. I hope my readers on dial-up are more patient than me !

The analysis recommends reducing the amount of HTML and definitely reducing the number of images. I could post with fewer images but as I already optimize the size of those images considerably, I’d rather not give up on them. The easiest way for me to do that is to reduce the number of posts. Currently, I show the past 6 posts. I could reduce that to 4 posts and list the next 4 older ones. On average, that would cut the size down by as much as 1/3 or about 60-75KB.

I’d be interested in how many posts make sense. What do you (the readers) think ?

By the way, if you are curious about sites you own or visit frequently, check out the web page analyzer at WebSiteOptimization.com

 The tipi came complete with cover, liner, door, ropes, lacing pins, and tie-down pebbles.

We sat around for the better part of an hour, catching up and drinking coffee (sweetened with maple syrup). I think the real reason for all the talking and coffee was to avoid starting to read the instructions!

We finally moved all the tipi poles out to the site. Fortunately for me, my friends had already cut the your trees, removed the limbs and bark, dried and coated the poles. I only needed to help transport them to the field. The 15 poles that make up the frame and the smoke flaps are between 16′ and 20′ each.

The instructions were very technical and hard to visualize. This is one of those tasks that is very easy to teach someone by showing them and nearly impossible to teach by writing it all down. The instructions say; “The first time we attempted to put up a tipi, it took us more than five hours before we were satisfied.” It took us about three and a half hours. I’m guessing a 15 minute video would compress that to under and hour.

When we finished, we were quite happy (and a bit surprised) that the results very much looked like a tipi and were solid and stable. BTW - Zen was the first to sleep in the tipi. She settled in as we were tightening up the cover and even before the inner liner was installed <snooze>.

I was impressed with some of the techniques used to fasten parts together. If you remove common “modern” solutions like grommets, zippers, tie-downs, etc. the original tipi used some very ingenious methods. For example, there are small wooden sticks (dowels today) that lace the cover above the door. These lacing pins make a very strong connection and are easy to use and replace if one were to be lost or broken. (You can see the lacing sticks running vertical in the picture of the door.) I was also impressed that there was no need to stand on anything during the process - no ladders here ! The last and perhaps most ingenious trick was how to anchor the liner to the ground - pebble ties. Here again, a picture is worth more than a 1000 words. Fortunately, the manufacture supplies a piece of scrap cover already tied with a pebble. (You can see a pebble tie along the bottom of the picture of the door.) The result is stronger than any grommet and does not require a hole in the liner material.

It was great to catch up with old friends and to accomplish something pretty “organic” at the same time.

Thanks guys for extending such warm hospitality. Zen and I had a wonderful time !