Make Drupal Run Fast - increase page load speed

What does it mean when someone says "My Site is slow now"? What is page speed? How do you measure it? How can you make it faster? We'll try to answer these questions, provide you with a set of tools to use and explain how this relates to your server load. The focus is on teaching you how to have a conversation about web page speed with your client as well as your system admin. You will walk away with better understanding of page load (not server response or mysql performance) and how to measure this. We will also talk about EASY thing that you can do without hiring a team of experts.

We will cover:

- What is page load speed?
- Tools used to measure performance of your pages and site
- Six Key Improvements to make Drupal "run fast"
++ Performance Module settings and how they work
++ Caching - biggest gainer and how to implement Boost
++ Other quick hits: off loading search, tweaking settings & why running crons is important
++ Ask your host about APC and how to make sure its set up correctly
++ Dare we look at the database? Easy changes that will help a lot!

- Monitoring Best practices - what to set up to make sure you know what is going on with your server

- What if you get slashdoted? Recommendation on how to quickly take cover from a rhino.

This session is based on the sixth most downloaded session I gave in Drupal Con SF last year with updates for D7 (http://bit.ly/gg39Tk).