CustomerCentrix

What is the difference between load testing and performance testing? Many web developers (and even testers) use them interchangeably. There is much confusion about when we are doing one or the other.

This blog post takes a comprehensive look at industry definitions and the thoughts of web development leaders regarding load testing vs performance testing.

It draws some concise conclusions that should be helpful in understanding and communicating the contrasting aspects of both types of testing.

2010 starts off with a bang or a wimper? That probably depends on your resolutions. Performance testing resolutions are discussed in this blog post. Mike Hawkins makes a significant contribution to this article in which frequency is the main point, and there are also Mike's 8 excellent principles to help you make your resolutions successful.

LoadStorm is a cloud-based performance testing tool that solves the key problems faced by web developers:

• Cost - least expensive tool on the planet
• Easy UI - designed to be simple, limited features
• Hardware - hosted solution, you don't need servers for load
• Install - no download, no install, no configuration

Just performance testing at it's core. No new scripting language to learn.

Anyone can get a free account to see if it solves their web performance testing problems. Give it a try!

There have been several good studies done by Aberdeen that correlate the performance of websites to real dollars. Google, Microsoft, Shopzilla, and others have empirical evidence that web performance testing can make a very large difference in a company's bottom line.

There is a new site with excellent links, blogs, downloads, and other resources relative to performance testing. It does not contain advertisements or sponsorships.

We have launched our new site to prepare for the coming load testing product. Get ready for LoadStorm!

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Here are a few notes about using Performancing For Firefox with Drupal.  When I first installed it, it only worked with the admin user (1st user added) which has special privileges.  I thought at first that other users would not work because we generally have a space in the user name "Firstname Last", but this was not the problem.  The problem was with enabled modules and permissions.  Both the blog and blogapi modules must be enabled.  Then, using administer >> access control >> blog module >> edit own blog >> check this for users who will be using performancing.  The last thing to do is in administer >> settings >> blogapi >> Blog types >> choose one or more type.  We haven't used personal blog (or any blog) for our business sites.  Even though we are really blogging, it is just called other things in Drupal (like stories and pages).

Here is a news story about our largest customer, Alltel. Not sure what effect that it will have on us, but likely there will be some contract adjustments next year.

Although not new, two web tools are now available that solve problems and change the way that we think about the internet. Del.icio.us is a free web service that now has a broad following and good support from 3rd party software and services. Its purpose is very simple: social bookmarking. The basics is that your bookmarks or favorites (internet addresses) are saved to the web site and available to the rest of the world. You categorize them as you wish with tags. Tags are similar to folders except that they are not hierarchical, so a bookmark can have multiple tags and tags have no specific relation to one another.