RIOT - Radical Image Optimisation Tool

Image Optimisation

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Image OptimisationWhen it comes to managing your own website, many people upload images at the largest size and highest resolution, which results is slower page loads and that creates a large website that becomes problematic to backup, and restore if necessary.

Backups become very large and can time-out, and restoring the website from a backup is a drama too.

So what should you be doing?

Image Resizing

First of all, you should resize all images, and I usually recommend making the longest side around 1024px.

Why 1024px and not 1000px or 1100px? Well that’s just me and a hangover from the early days.

1024 bytes = 1kb, 1024kb = 1MB and so on.

So you can use whatever size you like, but around that pixel number is fine.

That will make the image large enough to show details without being overly big.

Of course, you may well have a requirement for larger images, say those for a full width Slider, so you would resize them accordingly.

Image Optimisation

In addition to resizing your images, you also need to optimise them for web use.

I use Photoshop for this task, but many if not most people do not have access to Photoshop.

Optimising your images reduces their physical size.

So for example, you might have an image that is a couple of Megabytes in size, and optimising it will reduce it to several hundred kilobytes instead, without a visible reduction in quality.

There are many tools available, but I’ve just stumbled across a free tool called RIOT (Radical Image Optimisation Tool).

What is RIOT?

RIOT is short for Radical Image Optimisation Tool, and it is a free Image Optimiser that allows you to adjust compression parameters “visually” and allowing you to monitor the file size whilst doing it.

RIOT - Radical Image Optimisation ToolIt uses a side by side (dual view – shown to the left), or a single view interface that lets you compare the original with the optimised image in real time, and instantly see the resulting file size.

You can control the compression level, the number of colours, metadata and more, and you can select the image output file formats to .JPG, .GIF or .PNG.

RIOT can also be integrated as plug-in in programs like The GIMP, IrfanView and XnView.

Shared Hosting vs a VPS

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Shared Hosting vs a VPSIt’s been a tough couple of weeks for my customers on Shared Hosting, with Server issues and a percentage of downtime that I just wasn’t comfortable with. Not the ideal situation for a Website Owner. So this has prompted me to write this Blog Post.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that Budget Shared Hosting is really only for small websites, with an average amount of pages and images, and average traffic, and if you have a website that needs to be fast and reliable, then you really need to start thinking about a VPS (Virtual Private Server).

But first, a quick recap of what a Shared Hosting Server is.

By far and away the most common Hosting out there is Shared Hosting. What does that mean? Well it means that your website is on a Server with potentially hundreds of other websites. All of these websites are vying for the Server resources, predominantly Memory (RAM). And there are set limits on how much your website is allowed to use in terms of Bandwidth and to a lesser extent, Disk Space.

So what happens if you exceed these limits? Well basically your website is shut down, and as one of my customers is experiencing right now, you will see a message displayed that reads, “Resource Limit Exceeded”, and no one can see your website.

The other problem with Shared Hosting is that generally speaking, page load speeds are slower due to the number of websites on the Server and the lack of available Memory (RAM). The Hosting Market Space has become very competitive, and Vendors are keen to extract the most out of their investments. So rather than have more RAM available than is absolutely necessary, they will allocate just enough to do the job. This means that if something goes wrong with one or more websites on the Shared Server, it can start using more RAM than is ideal, and it can drag the whole Server down.

So how is a VPS different?

A VPS is your own Server. That is to say, only your website, or websites (yes, you can have multiple website on your VPS), is on that Server, and ALL the resources that you purchase with the VPS are at your website’s disposal. You are not at the mercy of any other website or the imposed resources limits. You can purchase and allocate as much RAM and assign as much bandwidth as you like. The side effect of this is that your page load speeds are significantly faster because you have plenty of these resources available.

A VPS is relatively expensive, are there any other options?

The short answer is yes. All of the preceding issues has prompted me to rethink what I offer customers.

The problem has been that Shared Hosting is attractive because it is so cheap. But the results can be frustrating for someone who really needs a reliable and fast website, but can’t afford a VPS.

So this led me to look into what was required to offer customers a place on my own VPS, with a long term view to setting up multiple VPSs to host customers websites on something that I have more control over and can purchase more RAM and Disk space as I add more customers websites. In this way I can offer a more affordable VPS solution.

Earlier this year I wrote another Blog post about the advantages of a VPS. You can read it here.

I won’t go into pricing here, but if you are interested, give me a call on (07) 5428-7905, or fill in the Contact Form below and we will be in touch.

 

Is it time to step up to a VPS in 2016?

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VPSAt some stage in the hosting life cycle for Mission Critical websites, a time comes where a site owner can no longer accept the occasional ups and downs of a Shared Hosting platform. A fast, reliable and robust Hosting solution is required.

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is the next step up from Shared Hosting and is the perfect answer to those who require dedicated resources, uptime guarantees, and more control without being affected by their hosting neighbours. While a VPS is also technically hosted on a shared platform, a portion of the server has resources that are assigned to only the one user, which means no fighting for this resource allocation. The user also has the ability to gain full control over the server and make use of it however they’d like.

Shared hosting, while it is the most popular due to it’s low cost, uses the same resources as their hosting neighbours. Websites hosted on a Shared Hosting platform are much more susceptible to their site going down as it pulls these resources in a “first come, first served” basis.

If your intention is to host multiple or even one website with reliability and speed, a VPS is a must for you. There is a higher guarantee that your website will run efficiently and handle high spikes of traffic than if it were to run on basic Shared Hosting Server.

If you would like to know more about our VPS Hosting Plans, please contact us on (07) 5428-7905 0r via email at info@spottydog.com.au