DaveC’s Tech Tip #1: Net Speed

Why is it that some videos load so slowly? Why is it that one specific video-website never works for you?

 

This is something that happens to a lot of us QSSers, a video that loads quite slowly or seems to not load at all. You might ask yourself why it was uploaded to that specific site if it wasn’t going to work anyway. Well let me answer that question for you.

 

I’ll begin with answering the question why does it load so slowly?

 

This depends on several factors: your location, the location of the website, the amount of visitors on the route to that website, and I could go on. Most importantly, is the website located far from you, geographically speaking? Just like any other way of transportation, it takes time for the website to go from one point (the server) to another point (your computer); the farther the server is from you, the longer it takes to load.

Second factor is, how much visitors are using both that website, or websites that are on the same “route” as that website. To understand this better, I need to explain a bit how the internet works.

 

The internet essentially is a lot of computers connected to each other using a bunch of wires. When surfing or visiting a site, your computer looks for the best way to get to that site; this could be seen as a taxi-driver who wants to get from the bar to the customer’s home.

 

For example the bar (your computer) is located at 5th Robert St (localhost), and the customers home (the website) islocated at 8th Bedford Ct (qssblog.net). To get from the bar to the customers house the taxidriver has to go via York Buildings (some computer) to George Ct (another computer), through Agar St to Chandos Pl, to the final destination

Bedford Ct (qssblog.net).

 

Knowing that it pretty much works like traffic, you can see why sometimes a site loads slowly and sometimes it loads fast. When a site loads slowly, there is a traffic-jam, too much people using that specific piece of road at the same time.

 

These two factors are tied together by the fact that the route used depends on the location of you, and the website you’re trying to visit.

 

A third factor would be how fast your internet connection is; you could translate this to how fast the cab is. And how fast the internet connection of the server is, which could translate in the speed limits on the roads.

 

Hints and tips:

– Start loading a video, and before you watch it, go drink a cup of coffee, do some work, join us at QSSchat or something! That way, when you get back, the video will be loaded far enough to watch it.

– Get a faster internet-connection, the faster your car can drive, the faster it will get from here to there.

– Look for another website that hosts the same video, maybe it loads faster from this one.

– Check back on this link another time, maybe there is less traffic, and it will load at higher speeds.

 

Next week’s article will feature why uploaders have their reason to pick the sites they use to upload the video’s to.

 

Don’t forget, if you have a question about something tech-related, send me a message, and I will answer it in the blog.

 

“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” - Mitchell Kapor

 

 

 

Related posts:

1. DaveC’s Tech Tips #2: Bad Video Hosts?