[DM-MUG] Networking and web access

[Arne Quanbeck]

--- jim Lagnese <jlagnese@mac.com> wrote:
> You could also use a RAM Disk on the OS 8 Mac and
> have the browser cache in
> that. 

I have tried that trick as well, and while it is
faster than your hard drive, you will get better
performance by simply turning the disk cache OFF in
most web browsers on OS 8. The reason is that the OS 8
takes long enough to access the cache files that it
can seriously slow down your browser. Using a RAM disk
eliminates only part of the bottleneck with OS 9 web
browsers. Web browsers generally have a built-in
memory cache, so a RAM disk cache is somewhat (but not
completely) redundant. The disk cache is most useful
to store pages from session to session, or to store
large objects that won't fit in memory. If you are
going to store them in RAM anyway, you might as well
use your web browser's internal memory cache.

> Let's not mince words: Dialup is slow. I have
> a cable modem, and
> compared to the cable I had in NY, it's slow.
...
dialup is slower than broadband. There is no question
about that. If all of the items that make up the page
are in a cache so the browser only downloads one or
two images with the Web page, a 56k dialup can be
perfectly usable. Sometimes I have even forgotten I am
using a dialup connection. I notice the dialup as soon
as I download something big that is not in the cache. 
Arne

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