Today I'm launching Zoompf, a new kind of web performance company. We don't deploy sensors, simulate user load, or monitor your application from data centers around the global. We don't try to answer the question "How fast are my web apps?" We answer the next logical and frankly more important question: "How do I make my web applications go faster?"

Zoompf's technology crawls and identifies over 150 specific problems with your web application that impacts web performance. You can learn more by downloading our Optimizing Web Performance presentation. But this post is not about what Zoompf does. It's about why I'm doing Zoompf.

Why on earth would I leave an amazing career in a successful industry and resign from an awesome job in a down economy? A lot of close friends have asked whether I'm crazy or not in the last month. But after I've explained the incredible opportunity behind what I'm doing their outlook completely changes and they become very supportive, offering time, funding, and recommendations.

The business case for performance is obvious. Faster apps increase revenue. Using resources more efficiently reduces operational costs. This is why the performance testing market is huge. But there is a gap in this market when it comes to performance testing of modern web applications. Talk to anyone about web performance and they start talking about the usual suspects:

-Refactoring, optimizing, JITing, caching application code and data
-Database tuning, queries, store procedures, indexes, denormalizing tables
-Reverse proxies, memcached, Varnish, load balancers, SSL accelerators, etc.

But recent research has found generating dynamic content accounts for typically less than 10% of page load times. The vast majority of page load time is spent downloading, parsing, and rendering all the components that make up a modern application. It is on the front end, and not on the back end, where optimizations can be made that drop seconds off load times. JavaScript code, CSS, the inner workings of browsers, HTTP voodoo. I am a thought leader in exactly this space.

The majority of widely known web performance optimization practices today focus on the application tier or the database tier. Traditional performance testings tools do no front end optimization testing. And yet the front end has the biggest impact on web application performance in modern applications. Do you see the disconnect yet?

This is an enormous opportunity.

This is why I created Zoompf.

Zoompf is now a legal corporate entity, incorporated in the state of Georgia.

Hell yeah!

So what is Zoompf? Find on out Friday...

handy

Incorporating in GA: Frequently Asked Questions

Why does it take 3 clicks to change the time in Vista?

1- click the clock in the task bar.
2- click "change date and time settings..."
3- click "change date and time"

I will be giving a peek at the new venture I'm working on, Zoompf, at Phreaknic in Nashville this week with a 1 hour presentation.

.. ... ... Oh.... oh yes.... oh yes indeed....

Jill does not let me watch her use the Wii fit, but she does have a higher rating on the hulahoops then I do.

Why Every Guy Should Buy Their Girlfriend Wii Fit

Got to love a security guy who:

#1:Drops 0day about stupid stuff in JavaScript in the web interface for 65000+ consumer routers

#2:Includes a link to his web startup (conveniently in beta, surprise suprise)

#3:Has stupid/insecure stuff in his own JavaScript, such as 115K of unused JavaScript template code and fun gems like:

var user_data = {"logged_in":0};

Wow! Keep it classy Dave! And you might want to read about Doloto...

Handle Youtube interface when you are using Youtube on a large, low resolution screen.

YouTube XL

Remember: the prospect you’re considering is the client you’ll have.
Five red flags

Years ago, when I first started noticing these signs, I’d often ignore them or say, “They won’t be this way when we start working together.”

Oh yes they will. Bank on it.

Be on the lookout for these classic signs that can lead to Costco-sized bottles of antacid.

Good article.

A List Apart: Articles: Getting to No

Nice and mellow

Sun Kil Moon - Like the River