followed quickly a minute later by, "Woops! I clicked add photos and found out. That's really neat!"
That is pretty bad interface design. Why does "add photos" add a gallery? A user should never be surprised by a function as seemingly obvious as "add photo". Also, keep in mind, your customer had to waste his or her time emailing you to ask about it. That should be your hint that something is wrong, or could at least be done better. The customers second email is not a hint that something is correct.
I really think smugmug needs to hire a user interface expert. There are a few things that are like this that either have no affordance (the photobar..where is the clue to the user that it even exists) or have an incorrectly labeled affordance (this button).
Personally I don't even use the button - I use the smugbrowser (PROPS DEVBOBO!!)...
Perhaps something like an organizer should be added instead of the simple task that seems to be confusing people...
It seems like the new button has it's strengths but even I think it should have been added as a seperate button, not changing an existing button and how it works - not just for the new comers but for the veterans who obviously liked their "old ways"...
Like I said - I don't even use the button either way... probably never will - but still... I don't see a notice or announcement in my control panel about it either... which could be adding to the confusion, no?
That is pretty bad interface design. Why does "add photos" add a gallery? A user should never be surprised by a function as seemingly obvious as "add photo".
Exactly. So why is it still called "add photos"?
Try coming up with a single name that actually describes the multiple things it does... Anyone?
Marjolein Katsma
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Hi Erik - your traceroutes look fine. I'm now wondering about firewalls, plugins, add-ons or some other type of software that could be degrading things for you. Anything spring to mind?
Andy - no I use IE 7 and FF 2.0.0.4 and both take forever to load my page... I'm not using any plugins or toolsbars at all in IE7. Firewalls turned on or off doesn't change my ping latency.... since other sites work fine that do or don't use java.... I don't think it's anything on my machine (especially since I can use multiple different machines and it behaves the same way on all of them)... anything else?
I guess my concern over the past week or so is the speed...or I should say...lack thereof
Uploading 10 photos at once, even at their highest res in my opinion should not take an hour.....and it does...I'm on dsl so I know it's not my internet connection.
I understand that sm is always developing and designing and trying to stay on top and for that I really appreciate what they do...your base is very solid...however the last few "updates" seem to be very frivilous, and not very astounding and absolutly no wow factor attached...for me anyway.
I guess I am just sore cause my canadian customers have to shop in us dollars.... a request that is cried for by many...users and shoppers a like and has been tossed aside as not a priority......:cry makes me wonder if the techies behind the scenes are really more interested in keeping smugmug cute, than trying to help drive sales........
Well, I can tell you that it's just not the case. I see four or five posters here on Dgrin upset about it (and a few that love it), but we have had an overwhelmingly positive response from help emails. Generally, they have gone something like this, "Where did the new gallery button go?" followed quickly a minute later by, "Woops! I clicked add photos and found out. That's really neat!"
Note that I have no problem with the new button on the home page (except perhaps it could be named better). I think it's great and is a great idea. It's the change to the button in the individual galleries we are talking about.
Let me ask you this: If the feature had no bugs and was quick (thus requiring at most one extra click and a few extra seconds), would it be a big deal?
I'm not aware of any bugs, if there were any they were fixed before I noticed the button had changed. The only "delay" is in having to look for the second "add to this gallery" link, moving the mouse there, then clicking the second time.
Ahhhh semantics. Allow me to show you how it can actually reduce the number of clicks: You take photos and go to your site to upload them to an existing gallery. Before: you have to click through and find the gallery and then click the button (depending on your site set-up, requiring up to four or five clicks). After: you just click "add photos" on your homepage and then click the gallery.
Perhaps if that's how I worked. It seems you are assuming everyone always starts at the homepage, which as I mentioned previously is probably based on the "casual user" support issue of "how to I add photos to my site?". Remember the new button on the home page is a very nice feature!
In reality here is how I work. First I always have a tab opened to my most frequently used sites, including one tab for my Smugmug site. I go to the gallery I'm going to upload to, if I'm not already there. I've got the gallery set to thumbnails so I can review which photos I've already uploaded.
Next I start (or resume) my post processing routine:
1) PP a few photos
2) upload them
3) while #2 is going, repeat #1
So in my "before", I click "add photos" once each time I do #2. "After" I have to click "add photos" twice.
I sincerely hope this gives a little bit of insight into how at least one "non-casual" smugmug user works and reveals why the change to the add photos button in the individual galleries is getting a little bit of resistance.
Adding a new button for basically the same functionality just to get rid of a single click is not an option. We are trying to simplify things, not complicate them.
I applaud you for trying to simplify things , unfortunately this change (to the gallery add photos button) does just the opposite and that's what some of us are trying to point out.
By the way, why does the "5 easy ways to add photos" page seem to come almost every time now since the "add photos" button change? It used to come up every once in awhile but now it seems to ask every time, so that's another click...
I havent commented in a while, but im gonna comment on this.
Do I think SM is trying to do too much? Yes, absolutely. Is it affecting their service? Yup. What can they do? FOCUS.
I mean, some of the new stuff is OK, but a lot of it is just unnecessary. It started with the maps. It was an OK idea, but it made our sites run like crap. So anything that makes your site slow & jerky just shouldnt be implemented in the first place, I dont care how cool or modern it is. And it really wasnt that useful for a photo site. Sure, we could have just "turned it off", but thats a cop out. How long before were turning off 10 "features" & keeping only 5 of the good ones on?
I think you guys are great, thats why im posting this. Stop, take a breath for a moment & focus. Innovate, but do it when its needed. Dont just do things because you can. Like themes. There are TONS of themes. Some of them are great, but a lot are corny & mediocre. Why not have a few that are really good & scrap the others?
Choices are good, but too many & it just becomes cluttered. Im not a paying customer anymore, so I cant be too judging. But thats just some of the reasons why I decided to leave. Features are great, just as long as they work properly & are useful for your site content so you dont have a bunch of pissed off photographers trying to be web developers, turning off features they dont want with html coding.
Andy - no I use IE 7 and FF 2.0.0.4 and both take forever to load my page... I'm not using any plugins or toolsbars at all in IE7. Firewalls turned on or off doesn't change my ping latency.... since other sites work fine that do or don't use java.... I don't think it's anything on my machine (especially since I can use multiple different machines and it behaves the same way on all of them)... anything else?
I don't have a ton to add here, other than I've examined both of your traceroutes from/to your home/work networks and they look fine. Your site loads super snappy for me on my Mac with FireFox 2 (our datacenter is 2ms away from my desk).
You asked earlier how we select a path/network back to you and our customers and why they might differ... We don't do anything special, just let Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) select based on its algorithm. Unfortunately if a particular path is having problems, BGP isn't intelligent enough to recognize and avoid it. We have 13 upstream providers, and 7 Gigabit connections, so everyone's mileage may vary.
It started with the maps. It was an OK idea, but it made our sites run like crap. So anything that makes your site slow & jerky just shouldnt be implemented in the first place, I dont care how cool or modern it is. And it really wasnt that useful for a photo site.
Thousands of customers, lots of cool mappers, and The NY Times seem to think otherwise.
Sure, we could have just "turned it off", but thats a cop out. How long before were turning off 10 "features" & keeping only 5 of the good ones on?
Choice is good, and I like how we give folks the choice to have, or not have, a map. Or a featured gallery. Or a bio. Or, or, or. Choice, ahh, that's nice
I hate to say this (since I love smugmug) but did anyone else check out the zenfolio site above? EDIT: on page 8
THAT IS FAST. Instantenous picture changing... it went as fast as I could click my mouse.
What do I have to disable on smugmug to get that kind of speed? I want my customers to have the ability to visit and order and feel safe... I really want smugmug to get fixed - I don't want to leave!!
Andy - I love smugmug for the choices - totally agree. But I need speed first
Can you point me to a thread that has some sort of topological layout of your server setup? I remember reading in the help pages about how the images are stored in three or four different locations and they are all interconnected, etc... is there still only one front end server that redirects all traffic? Or do you have some special router that determines the least traffic to one of those three/four locations and redirects traffic accordingly?
What do I have to disable on smugmug to get that kind of speed? I want my customers to have the ability to visit and order and feel safe... I really want smugmug to get fixed - I don't want to leave!!
Erik, your site is performing instantly for me, in all respects. You don't need to disable anything, IMO. We do need to figure out why your route to SmugMug is not as fast as others though.
Oh, the NYT has an account here? ...I didn't think so! Come on Andy... I'm seeing thru this smoke-n-mirrors. NYT is just reporting what they are told. Without experiencing this from the users POV, it's all just a crock!!!
Hi Seymore, ouch, I'm so sorry that I've upset you by giving a link to the NY Times. The cool thing is, many, many folks love our mapping function. Thousands use it. We get mail about it all the time But I can only think of one, actually two customers that have ever told me that they don't like this feature.
Choice, choice is good.
Again, I'm sorry that I've upset you so much tonight.
Erik, your site is performing instantly for me, in all respects. You don't need to disable anything, IMO. We do need to figure out why your route to SmugMug is not as fast as others though.
Thanks Andy - it's good to know that I don't have to change anything... I haven't changed anything in over a month or two - I like it just how it is... maybe I could update some themes to work with my navbar, but still
I've been to client's homes, and I've tried it from businesses locally too... either my entire community has a bad connection to just smugmug, or something else is directing traffic to us poorly... two of my clients that have similar "downtime" traffic problems use SBCGlobal.net DSL service... I'm on the only massively large cable provider here - and businesses around here (John Deere's headquarters for example - yes they've got massive bandwidth) has issues getting to my site.
Here's something else to consider - when I log into my site, it never shows I'm logged in (after I click the "return to the page you were just viewing" link... I have to refresh the browser for it to use the logged in cookie (or so it seems is the case)... after a refresh - it loads and all my extra options are there... but is that normal? I get that after changing any settings that redirect me to the page I was just viewing too... have to always do a refresh... the reason I ask - it takes forever to do a refresh now
Andy - I love smugmug for the choices - totally agree. But I need speed first
Can you point me to a thread that has some sort of topological layout of your server setup? I remember reading in the help pages about how the images are stored in three or four different locations and they are all interconnected, etc... is there still only one front end server that redirects all traffic? Or do you have some special router that determines the least traffic to one of those three/four locations and redirects traffic accordingly?
Onethumb has blogged about our setup, at least as much as we're going to publicly state for security and/or competitive reasons.
Amazon stores the photos for us in three different geographic locations, in addition to our own local [to our datacenter] caching. We still maintain equipment (that being clusters of web, upload/image processing, storage, and database servers plus all the network goodies to meld it all together and monitor/administer it) of our own to control access and provide the user experience. There is very little "one" of anything still in existence that isn't on a short list to be replaced or bolstered in the next week. The total number of servers are three digits overall, so I always smile when I see "is the server overloaded?"
I've been to client's homes, and I've tried it from businesses locally too... either my entire community has a bad connection to just smugmug, or something else is directing traffic to us poorly... two of my clients that have similar "downtime" traffic problems use SBCGlobal.net DSL service... I'm on the only massively large cable provider here - and businesses around here (John Deere's headquarters for example - yes they've got massive bandwidth) has issues getting to my site.
I have seen an entire geographic location get impacted by one upstream provider. It's very unusual, and it's usually to an area that's not that populated (i.e. Montana once a month or so ago). Massive bandwidth aside (and hey, we have massive bandwidth too! ), if a link in between is bad, it's going to be slow.
Can you get me some sample IP addresses please? I'd love to trace back to them to help identify where the choke point might be. Feel free to email them into support if you aren't comfortable posting them here.
The total number of servers are three digits overall, so I always smile when I see "is the server overloaded?"
:nono
That should be a frown. The reason people are asking that question is the overall performance is not meeting their expectations.
I love the helpful dgrin board and the responsiveness of the staff but the service itself still leaves a LOT to be desired. Google has blazing speed regardless of where I am in the world and how I am conected to the internet (DSL, dial-up, T1, etc.) and smugmug is almost always slow. I have had repeated emails from family asking to verify my site name or if I have taken the site down because they cannot get to the pictures.
The ONLY things I need in a photo hosting site is ROBUST and FAST.
I also agree with some of the other posters that new "features" should be optional. I just get my family trained on the site (e.g how to get originals) and SM goes and messes with it again.
BUT I could live with weird additional content if the site could get and stay functional and stay FAST! It can take 5-10 MINUTES to create a gallery. Never mind looking at photos or uploading. Many days I just start loading the gallery and go to bed. THIS is what needs to be fixed. Stop playing with new code and get this most basic problem addressed.
Thousands of customers, lots of cool mappers, and The NY Times seem to think otherwise.
Choice is good, and I like how we give folks the choice to have, or not have, a map. Or a featured gallery. Or a bio. Or, or, or. Choice, ahh, that's nice
Thanks for replying, Andy.
But, I didnt see the NY Times saying any positive or negatives things about it either way, so thats a bit of a stretch. Basically they were just reporting that a few sites are experimenting with it with you guys & Flickr being the most prominent ones. And lets face it, Flickr & Smugmug ain't the same thing. Not dissing Flickr, but its geared around the myspace/facebook/blogging crowd who wants to be part of a photo community, which that mapping feature is perfect for. I dont know many high-end people who seriously use it. Not saying everything has to be all serious & professional, but if it sucks it sucks, no matter who you are.
And I clicked on Flickr's map site & also the John Higham site mentioned in the article. Both were DOG SLOW to load & John's was jerky as hell when scrolling around. Im not saying the feature wont be useful someday, but its just not there & not even close to being widely adopted. Especially if its that hard to get the GPS tags in your photos & no real cameras support it yet.
Again, just because you can don't mean you should.
Google has blazing speed regardless of where I am in the world
Last time I checked, Google had a few more data centers, computers, routers, and vaults full of cash than we do.
Not trying to make light of things, just a reality check. Network speed, and system speed, is incredibly important to us. For the most part, far and away most folks experience SmugMug really, really fast. I'm sorry you aren't. Know this: Wireless, our Director of Operations, works incredibly hard day and night to improve things for everyone. It's a constant battle. We'll get there, for you, too.
Here's something else to consider - when I log into my site, it never shows I'm logged in (after I click the "return to the page you were just viewing" link... I have to refresh the browser for it to use the logged in cookie (or so it seems is the case)... after a refresh - it loads and all my extra options are there... but is that normal? I get that after changing any settings that redirect me to the page I was just viewing too... have to always do a refresh... the reason I ask - it takes forever to do a refresh now
I see this all the time (the part about it not showing I'm logged in without a refresh or browsing to a gallery, not the slowness issue). I believe it's a caching issue with Smugmug's setup. I've never said anything about it because it's not a big issue to me.
Last time I checked, Google had a few more data centers, computers, routers, and vaults full of cash than we do.
Good point. Not exactly an apples to oranges comparison.
But it does mean that my connection(s) to the internet are not the bottleneck. My connection at work regularly gets 10-20 Mbps to Seattle, WA from Houston, TX. Home a lot less (2.2 Mbps) but still quite good. Also its not just me - my in-laws in Abilene, TX; my brother-in-law and his wife in the Ukraine; my sister in Ft. Worth, TX; my parents in Beaumont, TX - all using different ISPs BTW. Each has problems with my site being very slow and send me email or call me asking about the site.
Is there a way to measure render speed? The total time it takes for SM to process our request for a page, read the various databases, build the page and return the complete page with all content?
Or an easy way for SM to measure time to create a gallery? Why is this taking so long?
I want to browse galleries quickly and I want to start the upload process quickly. I can deal with uploading pictures taking a long time as I am one of the lazy ones that upload as soon as I download from the camera.
But, I didnt see the NY Times saying any positive or negatives things about it either way, so thats a bit of a stretch. Basically they were just reporting that a few sites are experimenting with it with you guys & Flickr being the most prominent ones. And lets face it, Flickr & Smugmug ain't the same thing. Not dissing Flickr, but its geared around the myspace/facebook/blogging crowd who wants to be part of a photo community, which that mapping feature is perfect for. I dont know many high-end people who seriously use it. Not saying everything has to be all serious & professional, but if it sucks it sucks, no matter who you are.
And I clicked on Flickr's map site & also the John Higham site mentioned in the article. Both were DOG SLOW to load & John's was jerky as hell when scrolling around. Im not saying the feature wont be useful someday, but its just not there & not even close to being widely adopted. Especially if its that hard to get the GPS tags in your photos & no real cameras support it yet.
Again, just because you can don't mean you should.
Just because a feature isn't useful to you, doesn't mean it isn't useful to plenty of other people. You can take away my maps over my dead body. I use them for every trip I take now and love them. It gives so much more depth to my travel.
There are a lot of galleries that are just.... "flat" when they are in gallery form. Add geographical significance and they take on a whole new meaning. I understand that you don't "get" that, but it doesn't mean it is a worthless feature.
I have just recently obtained the ability for all of my photos to be automatically geotagged, which makes it even more awesome. Within months, every major camera on earth will be able to do that. Though currently it is pretty darn easy to stich geo data into your photos automatically using software, and we have plenty of people doing that as well.
I also don't really see where we have ever forced anyone to use it. Don't like it? Great... turn it off.
How come after the fasterfox counter gets up to 20+ seconds, the page finally appears and starts to load and it stops counting and lists 0.320s or 0.480s or such... ? Am I missing something? I don't need a stopwatch to get an accurate reading from my end right now It's really slow - definately not hundredths of a second... that normal?
Just because a feature isn't useful to you, doesn't mean it isn't useful to plenty of other people. You can take away my maps over my dead body. I use them for every trip I take now and love them. It gives so much more depth to my travel.
There are a lot of galleries that are just.... "flat" when they are in gallery form. Add geographical significance and they take on a whole new meaning. I understand that you don't "get" that, but it doesn't mean it is a worthless feature.
I have just recently obtained the ability for all of my photos to be automatically geotagged, which makes it even more awesome. Within months, every major camera on earth will be able to do that. Though currently it is pretty darn easy to stich geo data into your photos automatically using software, and we have plenty of people doing that as well.
I also don't really see where we have ever forced anyone to use it. Don't like it? Great... turn it off.
Never said I didnt "get it", I said I think it could be useful some day. But the implementation of it right now is poo poo & brings the site navigation down a few levels in terms of speed & overall responsiveness.
Dont mind that? Great, go for it. All I was saying is that SM should practice a bit of patience when it comes to implementing features like this & exercise more taste. The fact that you can "turn it off" is beside the point. With that logic, they could release 100 new features with 50 of them being crap & that would be just fine. Hey, just turn them off, right? ;-)
Comments
That is pretty bad interface design. Why does "add photos" add a gallery? A user should never be surprised by a function as seemingly obvious as "add photo". Also, keep in mind, your customer had to waste his or her time emailing you to ask about it. That should be your hint that something is wrong, or could at least be done better. The customers second email is not a hint that something is correct.
I really think smugmug needs to hire a user interface expert. There are a few things that are like this that either have no affordance (the photobar..where is the clue to the user that it even exists) or have an incorrectly labeled affordance (this button).
-r
Perhaps something like an organizer should be added instead of the simple task that seems to be confusing people...
It seems like the new button has it's strengths but even I think it should have been added as a seperate button, not changing an existing button and how it works - not just for the new comers but for the veterans who obviously liked their "old ways"...
Like I said - I don't even use the button either way... probably never will - but still... I don't see a notice or announcement in my control panel about it either... which could be adding to the confusion, no?
Try coming up with a single name that actually describes the multiple things it does... Anyone?
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
Andy - no I use IE 7 and FF 2.0.0.4 and both take forever to load my page... I'm not using any plugins or toolsbars at all in IE7. Firewalls turned on or off doesn't change my ping latency.... since other sites work fine that do or don't use java.... I don't think it's anything on my machine (especially since I can use multiple different machines and it behaves the same way on all of them)... anything else?
Uploading 10 photos at once, even at their highest res in my opinion should not take an hour.....and it does...I'm on dsl so I know it's not my internet connection.
I understand that sm is always developing and designing and trying to stay on top and for that I really appreciate what they do...your base is very solid...however the last few "updates" seem to be very frivilous, and not very astounding and absolutly no wow factor attached...for me anyway.
I guess I am just sore cause my canadian customers have to shop in us dollars....
I'm not aware of any bugs, if there were any they were fixed before I noticed the button had changed. The only "delay" is in having to look for the second "add to this gallery" link, moving the mouse there, then clicking the second time.
Perhaps if that's how I worked. It seems you are assuming everyone always starts at the homepage, which as I mentioned previously is probably based on the "casual user" support issue of "how to I add photos to my site?". Remember the new button on the home page is a very nice feature!
In reality here is how I work. First I always have a tab opened to my most frequently used sites, including one tab for my Smugmug site. I go to the gallery I'm going to upload to, if I'm not already there. I've got the gallery set to thumbnails so I can review which photos I've already uploaded.
Next I start (or resume) my post processing routine:
1) PP a few photos
2) upload them
3) while #2 is going, repeat #1
So in my "before", I click "add photos" once each time I do #2. "After" I have to click "add photos" twice.
I sincerely hope this gives a little bit of insight into how at least one "non-casual" smugmug user works and reveals why the change to the add photos button in the individual galleries is getting a little bit of resistance.
I applaud you for trying to simplify things
By the way, why does the "5 easy ways to add photos" page seem to come almost every time now since the "add photos" button change? It used to come up every once in awhile but now it seems to ask every time, so that's another click...
Do I think SM is trying to do too much? Yes, absolutely. Is it affecting their service? Yup. What can they do? FOCUS.
I mean, some of the new stuff is OK, but a lot of it is just unnecessary. It started with the maps. It was an OK idea, but it made our sites run like crap. So anything that makes your site slow & jerky just shouldnt be implemented in the first place, I dont care how cool or modern it is. And it really wasnt that useful for a photo site. Sure, we could have just "turned it off", but thats a cop out. How long before were turning off 10 "features" & keeping only 5 of the good ones on?
I think you guys are great, thats why im posting this. Stop, take a breath for a moment & focus. Innovate, but do it when its needed. Dont just do things because you can. Like themes. There are TONS of themes. Some of them are great, but a lot are corny & mediocre. Why not have a few that are really good & scrap the others?
Choices are good, but too many & it just becomes cluttered. Im not a paying customer anymore, so I cant be too judging. But thats just some of the reasons why I decided to leave. Features are great, just as long as they work properly & are useful for your site content so you dont have a bunch of pissed off photographers trying to be web developers, turning off features they dont want with html coding.
You asked earlier how we select a path/network back to you and our customers and why they might differ... We don't do anything special, just let Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) select based on its algorithm. Unfortunately if a particular path is having problems, BGP isn't intelligent enough to recognize and avoid it. We have 13 upstream providers, and 7 Gigabit connections, so everyone's mileage may vary.
The NY Times seem to think otherwise. Choice is good, and I like how we give folks the choice to have, or not have, a map. Or a featured gallery. Or a bio. Or, or, or. Choice, ahh, that's nice
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
THAT IS FAST. Instantenous picture changing... it went as fast as I could click my mouse.
What do I have to disable on smugmug to get that kind of speed? I want my customers to have the ability to visit and order and feel safe... I really want smugmug to get fixed - I don't want to leave!!
Can you point me to a thread that has some sort of topological layout of your server setup? I remember reading in the help pages about how the images are stored in three or four different locations and they are all interconnected, etc... is there still only one front end server that redirects all traffic? Or do you have some special router that determines the least traffic to one of those three/four locations and redirects traffic accordingly?
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Choice, choice is good.
Again, I'm sorry that I've upset you so much tonight.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Thanks Andy - it's good to know that I don't have to change anything... I haven't changed anything in over a month or two - I like it just how it is... maybe I could update some themes to work with my navbar, but still
I've been to client's homes, and I've tried it from businesses locally too... either my entire community has a bad connection to just smugmug, or something else is directing traffic to us poorly... two of my clients that have similar "downtime" traffic problems use SBCGlobal.net DSL service... I'm on the only massively large cable provider here - and businesses around here (John Deere's headquarters for example - yes they've got massive bandwidth) has issues getting to my site.
Here's something else to consider - when I log into my site, it never shows I'm logged in (after I click the "return to the page you were just viewing" link... I have to refresh the browser for it to use the logged in cookie (or so it seems is the case)... after a refresh - it loads and all my extra options are there... but is that normal? I get that after changing any settings that redirect me to the page I was just viewing too... have to always do a refresh... the reason I ask - it takes forever to do a refresh now
Amazon stores the photos for us in three different geographic locations, in addition to our own local [to our datacenter] caching. We still maintain equipment (that being clusters of web, upload/image processing, storage, and database servers plus all the network goodies to meld it all together and monitor/administer it) of our own to control access and provide the user experience. There is very little "one" of anything still in existence that isn't on a short list to be replaced or bolstered in the next week. The total number of servers are three digits overall, so I always smile when I see "is the server overloaded?"
Can you get me some sample IP addresses please? I'd love to trace back to them to help identify where the choke point might be. Feel free to email them into support if you aren't comfortable posting them here.
Thanks.
That should be a frown. The reason people are asking that question is the overall performance is not meeting their expectations.
I love the helpful dgrin board and the responsiveness of the staff but the service itself still leaves a LOT to be desired. Google has blazing speed regardless of where I am in the world and how I am conected to the internet (DSL, dial-up, T1, etc.) and smugmug is almost always slow. I have had repeated emails from family asking to verify my site name or if I have taken the site down because they cannot get to the pictures.
The ONLY things I need in a photo hosting site is ROBUST and FAST.
I also agree with some of the other posters that new "features" should be optional. I just get my family trained on the site (e.g how to get originals) and SM goes and messes with it again.
BUT I could live with weird additional content if the site could get and stay functional and stay FAST! It can take 5-10 MINUTES to create a gallery. Never mind looking at photos or uploading. Many days I just start loading the gallery and go to bed. THIS is what needs to be fixed. Stop playing with new code and get this most basic problem addressed.
smugmug nickname: mpmcleod
http://www.michaelmcleod.com/
But, I didnt see the NY Times saying any positive or negatives things about it either way, so thats a bit of a stretch. Basically they were just reporting that a few sites are experimenting with it with you guys & Flickr being the most prominent ones. And lets face it, Flickr & Smugmug ain't the same thing. Not dissing Flickr, but its geared around the myspace/facebook/blogging crowd who wants to be part of a photo community, which that mapping feature is perfect for. I dont know many high-end people who seriously use it. Not saying everything has to be all serious & professional, but if it sucks it sucks, no matter who you are.
And I clicked on Flickr's map site & also the John Higham site mentioned in the article. Both were DOG SLOW to load & John's was jerky as hell when scrolling around. Im not saying the feature wont be useful someday, but its just not there & not even close to being widely adopted. Especially if its that hard to get the GPS tags in your photos & no real cameras support it yet.
Again, just because you can don't mean you should.
OK Seymore. We are listening and we are all following this thread, as we do always on Dgrin. Thanks so much for your input, we truly do value it.
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Last time I checked, Google had a few more data centers, computers, routers, and vaults full of cash than we do.
Not trying to make light of things, just a reality check. Network speed, and system speed, is incredibly important to us. For the most part, far and away most folks experience SmugMug really, really fast. I'm sorry you aren't. Know this: Wireless, our Director of Operations, works incredibly hard day and night to improve things for everyone. It's a constant battle. We'll get there, for you, too.
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/05/15/speed-matters/
Thanks for posting!
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I see this all the time (the part about it not showing I'm logged in without a refresh or browsing to a gallery, not the slowness issue). I believe it's a caching issue with Smugmug's setup. I've never said anything about it because it's not a big issue to me.
But it does mean that my connection(s) to the internet are not the bottleneck. My connection at work regularly gets 10-20 Mbps to Seattle, WA from Houston, TX. Home a lot less (2.2 Mbps) but still quite good. Also its not just me - my in-laws in Abilene, TX; my brother-in-law and his wife in the Ukraine; my sister in Ft. Worth, TX; my parents in Beaumont, TX - all using different ISPs BTW. Each has problems with my site being very slow and send me email or call me asking about the site.
Is there a way to measure render speed? The total time it takes for SM to process our request for a page, read the various databases, build the page and return the complete page with all content?
Or an easy way for SM to measure time to create a gallery? Why is this taking so long?
I want to browse galleries quickly and I want to start the upload process quickly. I can deal with uploading pictures taking a long time as I am one of the lazy ones that upload as soon as I download from the camera.
Maybe something is wrong with my site?
thanks again
smugmug nickname: mpmcleod
http://www.michaelmcleod.com/
Just because a feature isn't useful to you, doesn't mean it isn't useful to plenty of other people. You can take away my maps over my dead body. I use them for every trip I take now and love them. It gives so much more depth to my travel.
There are a lot of galleries that are just.... "flat" when they are in gallery form. Add geographical significance and they take on a whole new meaning. I understand that you don't "get" that, but it doesn't mean it is a worthless feature.
I have just recently obtained the ability for all of my photos to be automatically geotagged, which makes it even more awesome. Within months, every major camera on earth will be able to do that. Though currently it is pretty darn easy to stich geo data into your photos automatically using software, and we have plenty of people doing that as well.
I also don't really see where we have ever forced anyone to use it. Don't like it? Great... turn it off.
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Dont mind that? Great, go for it. All I was saying is that SM should practice a bit of patience when it comes to implementing features like this & exercise more taste. The fact that you can "turn it off" is beside the point. With that logic, they could release 100 new features with 50 of them being crap & that would be just fine. Hey, just turn them off, right? ;-)