Les Jones

RDF is used by movable type (and other trackback-enabled software) to point at your trackback CGI url.

This makes it so that if I reference a post of yours in a post of mine, ie <a href="http://www.lesjones.com/posts/000676.shtml">Les Jones asks</a> about RDF, movable type will know to grab that file and look for the RDF so it can "ping" the trackback on that post automatically.

I wouldn't recommend disabling it, but if you don't care about trackback, go ahead..

But, the RDF in your main index.html only accounts for 24889 bytes of the 116232 bytes total.

If I were you, I would simply cut down on the number of entries you display on the main index.

You've got around 31 right now.. I'm assuming you have it set up (as movable type is by default) to just display all posts within a certain timeframe.

In my experience, this can be problematic because:
a) if you post a lot, you wind up with 8 billion posts on your main index
b) if you don't post at all, you wind up with an empty index

When I install movable type the first thing I do is modify this line in my Main Index template:

<MTEntries>

to be:

<MTEntries lastn="10">

This changes the default behaviour so that when you rebuild, it only puts the last 10 entries on the main index.. period.

I think that would cut down on the size quite a bit.

Agreed. Besides, this is how I read your blog, so don't go and disable it now that I've managed to aggregate 60% of the RTB blogs. :)

Thanks, Chris. I suspected it was Trackback info, but I wasn't sure.

Question: do I really need Trackback info on my main index file? It seems like it would be enough to have it just on the individual archive. Or is it necessary for folks like Dave who are reading via aggregators?

Yesterday I cut my number of days from 12 to 10, and after reading your suggestion I went in just now and cut it again from 10 to 7. That saved another 25% off the download time, which is pretty good. Eventually I'll probably take your advice and set the limit by the number of posts instead of the number of days.

The other thing that you can do is to put stuff into the extended entry once its been up for a couple of days on larger posts. I try to do that, but usually fall off the wagon.

Manish: that's a good idea. The weekly gun links are pretty huge and always have a couple of pics. I could move that to an extended entry after a couple of days.

Lots of good ideas. Keep 'em coming.

BTW, here's a great online tool for checking the size of your web page. It analyzes the HTML, stylesheets, JavaScript, and images to give a total page weight.

One other thing I should mention..

I see that you're using Apache.. mod_gzip will help tremendously if you install it..

Some web browsers will send a header:
ACCEPT_CONTENT: gzip, compress, etc etc

It basically tells the webserver "hey, you can compress this file if you want, I am capable of decompressing it".

Most modern browsers send it, but Apache isn't always configured out of the box to deliver gzipp'ed content.

mod_gzip fixes this. It will dramatically decrease the size of files sent to clients and will save you a ton of bandwidth.

See this page for some instructions or the sourceforge page for mod-gzip.

--Chris

Modgzip is very cool. I use a cheapie web hosting service rather than running my own server, but I'll ask them if they offer it.