In My Holy Opinion

It seems as though many people who run or operate web sites are quick to blame their web host if something doesn’t go as expected; usually their site is slow to respond and/or the download speed for files on their site is lower than usual / expected. I’d like to shed some light on the possible reasons and implications of slow-performing sites: IMHO it’s usually not your web host’s server that is responsible for slow download times.

I hope it comes as no surprise to anyone that your web host’s server is not the only factor affecting your download times. As a matter of fact, your web host’s servers are not likely to be the cause for your slow download speeds:
If your server is overloaded, it will take a long time to respond to requests, because it has many other requests queued up. Once it answers your request, however, the actual throughput in kbps is not materially affected by server load. If you get frequent “request timed out” errors when trying to access your site, that could indicate that your server is being swamped with too many requests.

On the other hand, if you see slow download speeds, it could mean that your web host’s upstream bandwidth provider does not provide them with enough bandwidth to serve all sites at the same high speed that you’re used to. This would indicate a problem with the network, not your specific server.

Given that bandwidth is extremely cheap these days when bought in bulk, your web host should not have any trouble serving up your sites at speeds that exceed your average user’s download speed.

This brings me back to my original point: your actual download speed is determined by several factors. The most significant are your web host’s upload bandwidth and your download bandwidth. The lesser value determines your actual download rate.

In order to accurately measure your web host’s upload bandwidth in kbps for your particular site, you must measure the throughput for downloading one specific file simultaneously AND consecutively from several locations that are distributed across a wide physical area, in order to rule out

a)conditions on your machine or your home / corporate network that may affect bandwidth, as described here, and

b)traffic conditions on the Net in general that are specific to your geographical region, and

c)changing network conditions over time (so measure simultaneously from different, distributed computers), as well as

d) the impact on the server’s / network’s upstream bandwidth created by downloading a large file simultaneously from several computers (so measure again immediately, but this time, perform the download consecutively among each computer in order to adjust for this impact).

Any network engineer will tell you that even using the above techniques to rule out other network conditions and zone in on your specific your web host server’s upstream throughput, you still won’t have an exact value, since the Internet, by nature, relies on a network of millions of independent nodes, each of which has different characteristics, and therefore, it is difficult, and often impossible, to assess which node is decreasing or increasing throughput at any given moment.

As a general rule, keep in mind that traffic is usually a lot higher during the day, and cable broadband connections are known to be heavily affected by this factor. Chances are that your speeds dropped so dramatically because your ISP has pooled your neighborhood’s bandwidth with another neighborhood, thereby increasing the load on the network (since your connection was likely “too fast”, and therefore not very cost-efficient).

Lastly, traceroute / ping are not accurate indicators of throughput, they can only be effective in measuring overall network latency, but more importantly, packet loss. If you experience a high rate of packet loss or unusually high ping times, there might be something between your ping utility and your web host’s server that is causing packets to take an unusually long time to get through, such as, for instance highly impacted bandwidth on your machine or your local network due to high-bandwidth file sharing programs that might be active in your household. There are many other reasons for packet loss and high ping times, but on today’s broadband connections, available bandwidth is usually so high that it rarely has a significant impact on your ping times. If you’re in doubt, however, your ISP should be able to quickly tell you if there is a serious impact on your specific connections, and often even which application is causing the delay.

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Washington, Thursday, July 20th 2006.

George W. Bush today signed into law the “No Cat Left Behind Act”, ringing in a new era of state-sponsored animal rights advocacy, unprecedented in modern history. Bush said at the signing ceremony that “each American cat has the right to a future. We oughtta make sure that all cats in the homeland are accounted for and that they receive the proper training to become become successful American citizens.” His decision was welcomed by a standing ovation from his supporters, even after he acknowledged that “… many mistakes have been made. We must be ruthless and ensure that all American cats are trained to meet a certain federal set of standards in order to effectively face the growing threat of terrorism at home and in countries that have large untapped oil reserves.”

When asked as to how Bush intends to facilitate this through the lovingly dubbed ABLCaN (the inverse acronym of “No Cat Left Behind Act”), Bush did not respond. It is evident, however from analyzing the poorly-written text of the new law, that Bush intends to divide the 50 states into arbitrarily determined “zones,” drawn up by infants, which are further subdivided into “districts” according to the density of the cat population.

The purpose of this is, according to the ABLCaN, to institute a “leader” cat for each zone, which oversees “admirals” in each of the zone’s districts who enforce certain performance guidelines for the resident cats, which are universal throughout the nation and cannot be altered. If a certain percentage of cats in a district, according to the admiral’s quarterly report to the leader cat, fall short of the specified requirements, the leader cat “re-zones” that entire district into a federally-controlled “remedial zone,” which is overseen by the “mediator cat” (see picture), which is appointed every 15 years by the leader cats.

In addition, all leader and mediator cats must adhere to a strict dress code, which resembles that of Adolf Hitler and his top-ranking generals. Additional remedial subzones are created should the number of cats increase beyond the zone’s initial capacity. The majority of subzones will be governed by direct descendants of the mediator cat, which may only breed with leader cats. Cats in remedial zones are not allowed to breed as long as they are “in the zone.” They are kept on a stringent diet and are required to perform endurance tasks that are designed to strengthen their morale and loyalty to America, as well as make them physically and mentally ready to defeat terrorists.

Cats who are deemed to be in special need of training are switched to a null diet until their performance improves. Moreover, should a cat remain in a remedial zone for longer than 90 days (or 30 days for kittens), the cat will be castrated. If a cat remains in the zone for longer than one year (or six months for kittens), the cat will be put to death.

Legal experts believe that the Bush administration pushed through this new law in order to strengthen the US cat population, since excess social funding has become available due to the sweeping success of the war on terrorism in Iraq. According to a source close to Bush, he believes that a “purified” cat population will have a “trickle-down” effect, which will result in lower taxes, a stronger economy, as well as an automatic strengthening of our borders, as potential illegal immigrants will likely be deterred by the new generation of American killer cats.

Bush’s new strategy was welcomed almost equally from both sides of the aisle, demonstrating yet another successful bipartisan effort which underscores the efficiency with which the the US government passes anti-terroist legislation after 9/11.

A small minority of extremists, most of whom hold law doctorates, predicted immediately after the new law was announced that Bush’s proposed plan will decimate the cat population to 10% of its 2006 value in the next three years and is guaranteed to eliminate the entire US cat population within seven to ten years. Those enemy combatants are currently being held indefinetely on US Military Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba , on no charges. AP.

Report by Brian Silverstein for the Associated Press. <btsilverstein@inmyholyopinion.com>

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Fair Use??

12-weird_al_yankovic-dont_download_this_song.mp3

Once in a while maybe you will feel the urge
To break international copyright law
By downloading MP3s from file-sharing sites
Like Morpheus or Grokster or Limewire or KaZaA

But deep in your heart you know the guilt would drive you mad
And the shame would leave a permanent scar
‘Cause you start out stealing songs and then you’re robbing liquor stores
And sellin’ crack and runnin’ over school kids with your car

So don’t download this song
The record store’s where you belong
Go and buy the CD like you know that you should
Oh, don’t download this song

Oh, you don’t wanna mess with the R-I-double-A
They’ll sue you if you burn that CD-R
It doesn’t matter if you’re a grandma or a seven year old girl
They’ll treat you like the evil hard-bitten criminal scum you are

So don’t download this song
Don’t go pirating music all day long
Go and buy the CD like you know that you should
Oh, don’t download this song

Don’t take away money from artists just like me
How else can I afford another solid gold Hum-Vee
And diamond-studded swimming pools
These things don’t grow on trees
So all I ask is, “Everybody, please…”

Don’t donwload this song (Don’t do it, no, no)
Even Lars Ulrich knows it’s wrong (You can just ask him)
Go and buy the CD like you know that you should (You really should)
Oh, don’t download this song

Don’t donwload this song (Oh please, don’t you do it)
Or you might wind up in jail like Tommy Chong (Remember Tommy)
Go and buy the CD (Right now) like you know that you should (Go out and buy it)
Oh, don’t download this song

Don’t download this song (No, no, no, no, no, no)
You’ll burn in hell before too long (and you’ll deserve it)
Go and buy the CD (Just buy it) like you know that you should (You cheap bastard)
Oh, don’t download this song

12-weird_al_yankovic-dont_download_this_song.mp3

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