Announcing SolarWinds Observability

Alerting is the cornerstone of any monitoring tool. When your website goes down, or when there’s a problem, you want to know about it before it affects your customers or business. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the importance of alerting, potential issues with alerts and how to maximize the value of setting up […]

Given that most websites today exceed two megabytes, content optimization is more important than ever. This is particularly true for mobile users who may experience sluggish cellular data speeds due to network limitations or data throttling. As websites grow in size and complexity, developers need to be aware of content optimization tools and methods that help them improve website performance.

We all use personal computers and we all take them for granted in our everyday lives. It’s easy to forget that PCs have only been around for a couple of decades, and initially were nowhere near the powerhouses we have on our desks today.

For example, did you know that the first “portable” computer weighed 25 kg (55 lb) and cost close to $20,000, that the first laser printer was big enough to fill up most of a room, or that you basically had to build the first Apple computer yourself?

Nowadays we are used to having hundreds of gigabytes of storage capacity in our computers. This was pure science fiction only a few decades ago. For example, the first hard disk drive to have gigabyte capacity was as big as a refrigerator, and that was in 1980. Not so long ago.

We computer geeks are a breed of our own, and as with any group of people with mutual references, we often make jokes and observations that are totally incomprehensible to outsiders. So consider this post a litmus test. If you laugh at these jokes, then you are most definitely a computer geek.

We often think of computers as a very modern phenomenon, but there were actually plenty of computers around 50 years ago. They just weren’t an everyman commodity, instead limited to goverment and corporate use. And they certainly weren’t small. Some of them had imaginative names like Whirlwind, Colossus and Pegasus, while others were slightly less poetic with names like Z4, AN/FSQ-7 and ENIAC.

Below we have listed as many as 19 examples of computers from the early days, pioneering efforts that although cutting edge in their day now look lovingly retro.

Out with the old, in with the new, as the saying goes. When you log in to our dashboard, you’ll immediately notice a difference in—after a bit of nip and tuck—a new home screen. The home screen in the SolarWinds® Pingdom® dashboard is now a proper home with a better overview of your account and […]

As web services become more popular in a global environment, the demand for responsive, performant sites have increased. Performance is critical to the success of modern web applications, whether the user is in California or New Zealand. Large companies such as Amazon track their response time, because an increase in response times by one second […]

Uptime checks on the web tell you if a single page is loading correctly and how long it takes. It’s a good start, but users often interact with many pages, going through complete transactions. For example, they might check out in an e-commerce store, book a hotel room, or publish a blog article. A break […]

We thought we’d look back at the highs and lows of 2018 and share with you some stats about last year’s internet performance, and discuss a potential trend for this year. Browser Usage First, we’ll look at which browsers were most popular in 2018. Chrome remained on top of the market and has grown even […]

As many retailers earn more during the holidays, web and application performance should be a top priority. Surges in traffic and transactions coupled with a rise in fraud and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks during the holiday season puts tremendous pressure on a retailer’s digital infrastructure. Even an extra second in page load time or […]

Google, perhaps more than any other company has realized that information is power. Information about the Internet, information about innumerable trends, and information about its users—YOU.

So how much does Google know about you and your online habits? It’s only when you sit down and actually start listing all of the various Google services you use on a regular basis that you begin to realize how much information you’re handing over to Google.

In the age of high-speed Internet, poor performance can spell disaster for your website. 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than three seconds to load, and 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. An extra one-second delay can result in fewer page […]

At Pingdom, we’re all about speed. You know that already—and you’ve probably tried our speed test? (If not, head over there at once!) Within the Pingdom® interface, we also offer continuous page speed testing so you can track how the page load evolves over time, and how website changes affect page speed. With over 850 […]

In the push to make the web more accessible, performance is key. Websites are becoming bigger and more complex than ever before, placing a toll on both servers and clients. However, website performance is vital to attracting and keeping users engaged. In this article, we’ll explain why web application performance is important and how you […]

We love our page speed test and, considering the amount of traffic coming into tools.pingdom.com, we have a feeling you guys love it, too. Hence, it was with a slight feeling of apprehension that we started working on giving the page, and primarily the back-end functions, a much-needed revamp. After all, if it’s not broken, […]

Have you ever wondered what happens when you type an address into your browser? The first step is the translation of a domain name (such as pingdom.com) to an IP address. Resolving domain names is done through a series of systems and protocols that make up the Domain Name System (DNS). Here we’ll break down […]

Within a few days the login page to my.pingdom.com is getting a completely new look: You know, switching things up for the new season. We’ve heard that Gen Z yellow  is the new “it color”, so we better flaunt it while on trend! Jokes aside, the only real change that’s going to affect you is […]

Web users now have such high expectations for website performance that a few minutes of downtime or a half-second delay in page loading can mean the difference between a sale and lost opportunity. Because so many customer-facing interactions are now conducted through the web, any downtime or subpar performance can lead to brand damage, degraded […]

Slow websites on your mobile device are frustrating when you’re trying to look up something quickly. When a page takes forever to load, it’s often due to a spotty network connection or a website that is overly complicated for a phone. Websites that load many images or videos can also eat up your data plan. […]