Key Points

• Learn how to use Ziff-Davis Publishing's i-Bench to test the new generations of Web appliances as they arrive
• Get the inside scoop on how WebBench's custom workloads can reveal the performance of Web-related, server-side technologies
• See how Winstone's "hot spot" testing orientation can help you distinguish among the flood of ever-faster processors and PCs

Presentation Abstract

The headlong rate of change of technology today presents those of us in the testing business with serious challenges: How can we test these new technologies? Measure their performance? Though we sometimes have to create new tools to meet these challenges, existing tools can often do the job. In this presentation you'll learn how to use the current generation of Ziff Davis Publishing's industry-standard benchmarks to cope with the technologies that are hitting you now and will be hitting you in the months ahead.

Many of us, for example, are trying to sort through the rush of new Internet-access devices. From Web-savvy refrigerators to Internet-linked cell phones, devices of all sorts claim to offer great online capabilities-but how can you determine what each device can really do? i-Bench may well be the answer. We'll discuss how to use it to measure the capabilities and performance of these Internet-access devices as they appear.

On the server side of the Web, technologies are also evolving rapidly. We all want to understand how our sites and servers will perform, but finding tools to apply the right workloads can be tricky. A large number of vendors offer powerful and expensive products to address this problem, and those products are important. You can also, however, get significant data about new technologies from Ziff Davis Publishing's freely available WebBench product by using it to create custom workloads. We'll give you the lowdown on building the workload you need for many types of Web-server tests.

The desktop PC isn't standing still, either. Though we're confident most people would agree that current PCs are fast enough for most business applications, people still waste a lot of time waiting on PCs. Ziff Davis Publishing's Business Winstone and Content Creation Winstone have evolved to address this problem by focusing on what we call "hot spots," computing tasks that leave you twiddling your thumbs. Learn how you can use these tools to determine which of the ever-faster processor, RAM, and system technologies deliver the best performance and the best value.

About the Author

Mark L. Van Name is Vice President and General Manager of ZD Labs, the independent, for-hire testing service of the Ziff Davis Publishing Company. With more than a decade of work as a software developer and an M.S. in Computer Science, he brings extensive experience and a strong academic base to product testing.

The former Editorial Director of Ziff Davis' Windows Sources Magazine, he is also, with Bill Catchings, the author of over a thousand articles and has been a columnist for Windows Sources, PC Week, and Computer Shopper.