>>(Step 1: Cut image quality) Page load time dropped from 24 to 12 seconds. Wow. I had no idea that could make such a difference. I suppose the issue was with

>>(Step 1: Cut image quality) Page load time dropped from 24 to 12 seconds. Wow. I had no idea that could make such a difference. I suppose the issue was with the low number of threads set in the Apache configuration. The server was spending its time sending out static content when it could have been doing more important things? I signed up with S3 to serve up my static content to keep that load off my server. I should probably be using CloudFront instead though. I'm interested in looking for a backup host just in case. I currently use WebFaction and I love them to death -- but I'm worried that under incredible stress the shared hosting won't hold. With Linode, do you start from scratch with a blank OS and just install everything you need from there (Apache, mod_wsgi, etc. kind of thing) or do they have preset installs? With WebFaction I can select a particular setup and I'm up and running in minutes.