HTTPS Tunneling, also called HTTPS Proxy, SSL proxy, or SSL tunneling, refers to sending HTTPS content via a proxy server. This is a very common usage scenario over the web. Unfortunately, I have not found any Java server that supports this yet. T

Posted: Nov. 15, 2008 12:29 AM

Who Should Be USA’s CTO in the Obama Administration?

Jeremy Geelan is speculating who should be America’s CTO in the Obama administration. He says: As former IAC executive Julius Genachowski was appointed yesterday to President Elect Obama’s transition team, speculation is growing as to th

Posted: Nov. 7, 2008 02:23 PM

Razor Optimizer, a New Approach for Ajax Optimization

I am excited to announce the early beta release of Razor Optimizer, a JavaScript optimization tool for reducing code footprint and increasing runtime performnace. As a cross-browser web application itself, Razor Optimizer can be access either onlin

Posted: Nov. 5, 2008 10:21 PM

JavaScript Optimization Techniques Today

The wild popularity of Ajax fueled widespread usage of JavaScript. Almost every web 2.0 application relies on JavaScript to deliver front end interactivity. A growing list of JavaScript libraries (over 200+) are being created by various Ajax develop

Posted: Oct. 27, 2008 06:18 AM

Yahoo’s Performance Rules

Yahoo’s Performance team summarized their experience in web performance optimization into 14 rules in general (Reference 4, http://stevesouders.com/examples/rules.php): 1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests 2. Use a Content Delivery Network 3. Add an Expires

Posted: Oct. 27, 2008 06:04 AM

Front End Performance and Today’s Typical Web Sites

In order to understand how the front end, especially JavaScript, is impacting web performance today, some typical web pages were studied. The following table shows content composition of the front pages of two representative web sites, American Airli

Posted: Oct. 27, 2008 05:49 AM

Web Peformance Factors

Every web application requires satisfactory performance in order to be functional. Every web application has its own context that different factors influence performance differently. Since the beginning of the web, there have been many performance tu

Posted: Oct. 27, 2008 05:28 AM

Running Toronto Marathon - 9/28/2008

A couple of years ago my friend Kaushal Vyas blogged about his first marathon experience. His blog entry started with some quotes from Lance Armstrong on his first marathon: “the hardest physical thing I have ever done. Even the worst days in the t

Posted: Oct. 1, 2008 12:28 AM

JavaScript Execution Context, Closure, Eval and “this” Keyword

These are a few key concepts of JavaScript language that developers should know: execution context, activation object, variable instantiation, scoping, closure, eval and “this” keyword. Knowing these would help one tremendously in Ajax d

Posted: Sep. 13, 2008 11:36 PM

Ajax-heavy Applications on Google Chrome

“This is the best browser so far” is that I can say after being a Chrome user for one day. First of all, I was glad to find out that I haven’t found Chrome breaking any web application yet, especially Ajax applications. I was a li

Posted: Sep. 3, 2008 09:02 AM