2009/7/3 Christian Fazzini <[email protected]>: > > Currently, we are saving the images onto our server. If we can hotlink > the images to S3. This would save us storage space. However, the only > drawback is, whenever a user loads a page on our website, it would > have to connect to the S3 servers everytime, to load the images on our > site. > > If, on the other hand, we saved the images on our server, then our > website would only have to load everything locally instead of having > to connect to the S3 servers. > > Which method should be used?
It's completely up to you. FIrst of all you don't quite understand how a browser loads a web page. It's the browser that connects to S3 to get the images not your server, so there is nothing "local" about either option. In fact you might see a small improvement in load time by using S3 due to the pipelining algorithms employed by most browsers. If you cache the images on your servers then you guarantee that they will always work without needing to check the Twitter API for changes. The reason for this is that when someone changes their profile image the S3 URL also changes leading to broken images if you're loading them from S3. The downsides are that you're using a lot more bandwidth. If you use the S3 URLs you'll need to regularly check that the S3 URL still exists or hit the API for each user to see if they've changed their image. Which is best for you really depends on what your application is doing with the API and what service it's providing to its users. -Stuart -- http://stut.net/projects/twitter > On Jul 3, 4:05 pm, Christian Fazzini <[email protected]> > wrote: >> Anyone? >> >> On Jul 1, 4:04 pm, Christian Fazzini <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> > So is this wrong if I save the image and user details locally (on our >> > server) ? >> >> > Also, how would it be possible to get the users profile pic >> > athttp://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method%3A-users%C2%A0show >> > using <profile_image_url> ? >> >> > At current it only returns _normal.jpg, which is set at 43x43. I need >> > the bigger profile image that is set at 73x73 >> >> > On Jun 30, 10:45 pm, Abraham Williams <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > > Twitter has said in the past they are more then willing to take care >> > > of the bandwidth for smaller applications but if you go huge they ask >> > > you to look at local caching. >> >> > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 08:12, Philip Plante<[email protected]> >> > > wrote: >> >> > > > You can cache the user's profile data so API lookups are kept to a >> > > > minimum. Though the profile image should be hotlinked using whatever >> > > > value is stored int he profile_image_url attribute of the user object >> > > > returned from Twitter. By using S3 as a central source Twitter is >> > > > able to help alleviate image sync issues that would arise when third >> > > > party services cache the image locally. Also keep in mind that most >> > > > of the time your user's should already have their cache primed, via >> > > > twitter.com or another service, due the caching rules employed by >> > > > Twitter and S3. >> >> > > > On Jun 30, 6:32 am, Christian Fazzini <[email protected]> >> > > > wrote: >> > > >> Hello, >> >> > > >> We are in the process of developing a website that uses the Twitter >> > > >> API. >> >> > > >> I understand that the Twitter API is capable of retrieving a user's >> > > >> profile photo via: >> >> > > >>http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method%3A-users%C2%A0show >> >> > > >> Other websites that are using the Twitter API are, instead, getting >> > > >> these profile photos from Amazon's S3 storage service >> > > >> (http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/). >> >> > > >> At current when a Twitter user logs onto our website, it will retrieve >> > > >> his information and store it our local db. At the same time it will >> > > >> also grab the profile photo from <profile_image_url> and store it on >> > > >> our server. >> >> > > >> In my opinion, this seems more appropriate instead of having the site >> > > >> quer the Twitters API and / or hotlink to Amazon's S3 storage service >> > > >> whenever a user loads a page. Especially, if it has to load several >> > > >> profile photos on every page load, on our site. I could be wrong >> > > >> here. >> >> > > >> What do you guys think the best approach for this is? >> >> > > >> Hoping to hear from you soon. >> >> > > >> Best regards, >> > > >> Chris >> >> > > -- >> > > Abraham Williams | Community Evangelist |http://web608.org >> > > Hacker |http://abrah.am|http://twitter.com/abraham >> > > Project |http://fireeagle.labs.poseurtech.com >> > > This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private.
