Hello Tip.It users!

 

At Tip.it we're always trying to improve the user experience for you guys and as the next step in this we're going to be trialling the use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) on our website and forums.

 

The trial will start with the forum and then a little while after, the website. We haven't decided how long the trial will last yet and we'll make a decision about whether to keep it or not after the trial.

 

What does a CDN do?

Basically it should speed up the website and forums to be even quicker than they already are! Currently we have one server in the USA which handles the forums, and all of the images, styling, javascript etc. is passed to you from that server. When the CDN is implemented, this content will be copied to many servers all over the world, and will be sent to you from the nearest server, which should speed up the loading of pages. While the saving is only milliseconds per element served, this soon builds up and creates a faster experience for you.

 

What will this change?

For now, if you upload a new profile photo, it may take up to 3 hours before the photo is updated, so don't worry if it doesn't display immediately. We'll be looking at a way to rectify this if we decide to keep the system full time.

 

This topic will be left open for you to leave your comments and questions, or report any faults if you find them.

 

Thanks!

Any improvement is always good :thumbup: Forums can be quite laggy sometimes, so this is great to see

Does this apply to just the forums, website, or both? edit: Ah didn't see that bit :P

Any improvement is always good :thumbup:

Does this apply to just the forums, website, or both?

The trial will start with the forum and then a little while after, the website.

 

Sounds good to me. :)

Edit: Sniped by Mirror <_<

 

Any improvement is always good :thumbup:

Does this apply to just the forums, website, or both?

 

The trial will start with the forum and then a little while after, the website. We haven't decided how long the trial will last yet and we'll make a decision about whether to keep it or not after the trial.

 

Never had an issue with forum speeds, but any update to improve them can only be a good thing! Now I know very little about this but will it help to improve the forum uptime at all?

This should definitely improve the site if it works :) My main qualm with the site is that, the main site in particular, can be fairly slow to load pages (not seriously slow, but a good second or so more than other sites).

Thanks Peter! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

:thumbup:

 

(I actually just looked behind me.)

Mucho bueno!

Gracias.

Can't say no to faster speeds. :thumbup:

<<<Quote Snip>>>

 

For now, if you upload a new profile photo, it may take up to 3 hours before the photo is updated, so don't worry if it doesn't display immediately.

I can understand hosting the background images, rank images, and button images for the themes out on some content delivery network. But, doesn't hosting profile photos out there sound a little ludicrous, and doesn't it also carry the risk of that CDN possibly spilling out stuff (thereby causing privacy violations) to unwanted 3rd/4th parties? :blink:

 

I trust you and the rest of the Tip.It Staff to not go spilling out stuff. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's to never trust a CDN with Profile-specific stuff. (I've even ABP'd a few CDNs due to their linkage to bad tracking-loaded advertising. My web history is mine, and not for Advertisers to be poking in.) So, I seriously recommend keeping the Profile Photo functions retained on the Forums themselves. Well, unless you wouldn't mind letting people link those in from their PhotoBucket/ImageShack/etc. Accounts finally? :huh:

 

~D. V. "Really, there's privacy concerns to be considered here..." Devnull

 

 

 

(p.s.: Right now, I'm severely tilted towards pulling down my Profile Photo during this test...)

~D. V. "Really, there's privacy concerns to be considered here..." Devnull

 

(p.s.: Right now, I'm severely tilted towards pulling down my Profile Photo during this test...)

As for the Non-Technical aspect.

 

We here at Tip.it strive to provide the best user experience possible while not sacrificing our users privacy and security. We have two IT Professionals on staff with degrees from university's and industry experience - we would not put our users into danger to speed up our website.

 

Our CDN handles very respectable clients like Mashable, Garmin, Readwriteweb and Earthday.org.

 

As far as your profile image - you are aware currently if you Google your display name and go to images - two results come up already from this forum and another. You can google your display name and see multiple other communities and forums, infact just to prove a point, I found your email publicly posted on one of those sites. I don't know why you're worried with a CDN's privacy on tip.it when you can find out your email you put on public record on another site.

 

I'll pm you the link.

<<<Quote Snip>>>

 

For now, if you upload a new profile photo, it may take up to 3 hours before the photo is updated, so don't worry if it doesn't display immediately.

I can understand hosting the background images, rank images, and button images for the themes out on some content delivery network. But, doesn't hosting profile photos out there sound a little ludicrous, and doesn't it also carry the risk of that CDN possibly spilling out stuff (thereby causing privacy violations) to unwanted 3rd/4th parties? :blink:

 

I trust you and the rest of the Tip.It Staff to not go spilling out stuff. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's to never trust a CDN with Profile-specific stuff. (I've even ABP'd a few CDNs due to their linkage to bad tracking-loaded advertising. My web history is mine, and not for Advertisers to be poking in.) So, I seriously recommend keeping the Profile Photo functions retained on the Forums themselves. Well, unless you wouldn't mind letting people link those in from their PhotoBucket/ImageShack/etc. Accounts finally? :huh:

 

~D. V. "Really, there's privacy concerns to be considered here..." Devnull

 

 

 

(p.s.: Right now, I'm severely tilted towards pulling down my Profile Photo during this test...)

 

The only thing that will be copied there are profile photos which are freely available for anyone to grab just by visiting your profile anyway (all profiles on TIF are public and don't require a login). The CDN doesn't do anything with the images other than store them, and it will get purge them after 3 hours and grab them from our server again.

The CDN is now fully operational on the forum.

:) YEY

Does actually seem to be a little faster (Canada here). Good stuff.

Does actually seem to be a little faster (Canada here). Good stuff.

 

Same here. :thumbup:

Improvement here too. :)

 

The biggest improvements are likely to be outside of the USA as the forum server is located in the USA anyway. However people in the USA are still likely to see some small improvements as the CDN has North America extremely well covered.

Never really had any problems, but can't refuse faster speeds :thumbup:

Ah, that's the reason I haven't noticed much of a difference; I'm in the US. Tbh, on image-heavy pages (screenshot thread) it seems to be much slower; it may just be me though.

Ah, that's the reason I haven't noticed much of a difference; I'm in the US. Tbh, on image-heavy pages (screenshot thread) it seems to be much slower; it may just be me though.

 

That's psychological given that none of the screenshots are on the CDN. :)

 

Only images which are on the CDN are images we host (ie. buttons, logos, profile photos, gallery images).

Makes perfect sense now.

Although by their nature image-heavy threads will be much slower to load (the images) because of the file size.

Sounds interesting. :thumbup:

Ah, that's the reason I haven't noticed much of a difference; I'm in the US. Tbh, on image-heavy pages (screenshot thread) it seems to be much slower; it may just be me though.

CDN wouldn't effect images that much on the forum; after all tip.it and thus the CDN aren't hosting the screenshots are they? Heck even msot of the signatures won't be effected by the CDN. They are all loaded from their own source like imageshack or w/e