A couple of suggestions to possibly make your pages load faster [UPDATED]

Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

Very sorry about the problems with our servers causing FR to fail under heavy traffic loads. Praying that John finds a solution or workaround soon.

In the meantime, here are a couple suggestion you can use to possibly make your pages load faster:

1. Configure your sidebars to display fewer items. I've temporarily disabled all sidebars but breaking news on mine.

   Select "Disabled" in the "Region" pulldown for each sidebar block you wish to temporarily disable then click "Modify":

   http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/manage-blocks

2. Reduce the number of threads and replies downloaded on each click. Go to personal preferences and reduce the "Thread Pagination" to 20 messages per page and "Browsing" to 20 results per page.

   http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/settings

3. Update: And a suggestion (made by metmom) is to set your "Brevity" preference to "Headers." This will definitely make your index pages (latest posts, etc) load faster.

   And it’s simply a click to toggle "Brevity" from "Text" to "Headers" or back the other way when needed: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/news-forum/index

4. And for firefox users: KoRn has posted a useful tip to make firefox load pages faster: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts

If enough of us did this we would reduce the amount of data downloaded on each click, reducing the load on the database and the server and possibly increasing overall systems performance.

To reset your preferences later, click on "Account" at the top of any of the main index pages and then "Manage Blocks" to configure your sidebars and "My Preferences" to set your number of threads and replies per thread preferences.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/my/

Thank you all very much and good luck.

[Billthedrill]

Self-ping for use at the cabin.

[right way right]

Done and works better.

[little jeremiah]

placemark.

[Lakeshark]

Mark for later

[Leo58]

Helpful, thanks!

[Tom_Busch]

I did it, and it does seem to be helping. It’s not quite the same, but much better than no FR at all.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[LurkingSince1943]

As the Staples button proclaims:

“THAT WAS EASY!”

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

BMFL

[21stCenturion]

...

[PROCON]

Wow, makes a world of difference, thanks JimRob!

[BuckeyeTexan]

Yea! That helps a lot. I’m getting pretty fast page loads now. Awesome.

[Excellence]

It’s your website. Make the settings global when things get rough. It’s going to get worse in the next few days. I’d rather have a minimalist ham radio of a website up and running than a website with all the bells and whistles that crashes.

[campaignPete R-CT]

ping to self .... page loading suggestions

[Rightly Biased]

Fer later when I put it all back

thanks JR

I hope this helps us get thru 11/6

[onyx]

B T T T ! ! ! ©

Good information from Jim here!

[sport]

Thanks!

[tubebender]

I am not techie, just a old man but I have noticed my cable supplied Cisco Modem isn’t pinging 2 of the 5 lights like it is in a black hole in outer space while other sites light up all 5

[tubebender]

Tech ping

[tweakDU]

Thanks for all you’ve done to keep this site operating Jim.