For immediate release
October 19, 1998

Faster, faster, faster...Web Performance Tuning

Sebastopol, CA--"When I told people I was writing a book called 'Web
Performance Tuning', the usual response I got was that the title should be
'Web Server Performance Tuning'", explains author Patrick Killelea, "But
when you're desperate to improve performance, you can become much more
creative about finding other parts of the web that you can tune."
Killelea's just-released book, "Web Performance Tuning" (O'Reilly, $32.95)
thoroughly covers tuning web server software, but it goes beyond the
server, uncovering ways to get optimal performance from a browser, tuning
the hardware (on both the server and browser ends) and maximizing the
capacity of the network itself.

As the World Wide Web (also jokingly referred to as the World Wide Wait)
matures, more users, more data, and more features have slowed down servers
and the loading of web pages to a crawl. Increased traffic has
unfortunately coincided with increased expectations, and improved
performance has never been more critical.

"Web Performance Tuning" shows you how to get the best possible performance
from the Web. This valuable new book hits the ground running, giving
concrete advice for quick results. After improving crippled performance,
you can then turn to the second half of "Web Performance Tuning" for an
examination of each element of a web transaction to fine tune your
performance--discovering the weak links in the chain, and strengthening
them.

From using simultaneous downloads to locate bottlenecks, to upgrading
device drivers to locating the web server strategically to adjusting TCP,
"Web Performance Tuning" offers practical, "I'll try it right now" kind of
tips.

If you want your Web site to run faster and more efficiently (and who
doesn't ?) you need this book. "In the end," says Killelea, "performance
tuning is about spending money and time wisely to get the most out of your
resources. A lot of life is like that."

About the Author:

Patrick Killelea currently works for Sun Microsystems Professional
Services. Before that, he was a Web site developer with a small Internet
development company in Chicago. He has worked on many well-known web sites,
designing systems and writing software to do useful things such as locating
freight trains, selecting the right shampoo for your hair, finding movie
reviews, and reporting where your overnight package is. In a previous life,
he was an embedded systems programmer, working at Motorola, Intel, and
British Telecom. He attended the University of Michigan for much too long
and ended up with three undergraduate degrees. He was also a book clerk at
the original Borders Book Shop in Ann Arbor for several years, where he
first started reading the O'Reilly series. He lives in Palo Alto, CA with
his wife and son.

Web Performance Tuning
By Patrick Killelea
1st Edition October (US)
374 pages, 1-56592-379-0, $32.95 (US$)
http://www.oreilly.com

For more information, or a review copy (media only) contact:
Lisa Mann (707) 829-0515 ext. 230 lisam@oreilly.com