Helpful Tips
August 2003

 

How can I turn off HTML zipping?

One of the exciting new features implemented in Timesheet 5.5 is HTML zipping, which is an HTML standard that allows web pages to be "zipped" to improve transfer times between the webserver and the browser, just like WinZip zips files to make them smaller for emailing. Unfortunately, the most recent version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE 6) doesn't work well with zipped HTML files. This can result in a noticable delay in IE6 rendering Timesheet 5.5 pages.

If a significant portion of your user base uses IE 6 to access Timesheet, you might want to disable HTML Zipping in your organization's Timesheet installation. To do this, you will need to edit your config file. Here are the steps for accomplishing this change:

  1. Stop the Timesheet service.
  2. Edit the config file that is located in the Timesheet installation directory.
  3. Change the number at the top of the file by adding 1. (if the number is 30, then change it to 31...)
  4. Add this row to the bottom of the file:
    GZIP_ENCODING=no
  5. Save and close the config file.
  6. Restart the Timesheet service.

How do I adjust my daemons?

Timesheet uses daemons to handle communication between the webserver and database portions of the application. The number of daemons used is configurable and a number of variables determine the optimum number of daemons for a particular Timesheet installation. You can experiment with the number of daemons on your site to try to improve overall performance.

Timesheet 5.5 on Windows defaults to running 2 daemons, while on Unix 3 daemons are used. Feel free to experiment with this configuration to find the ideal number of daemons for your organization. The following criteria will help you determine if you should increase your number of daemons, and if so, how many to use.

  • If you are running Timesheet using the MSDE database on Windows then the maximum number of daemons is 3 - this is a limitation imposed by Microsoft.
  • If you are running Timesheet on a Windows workstation instead of a server then the maximum number of daemons is 5 - again, this is a limitation imposed by Microsoft.
  • If you have a multiple processors on your Timesheet server then add 2 daemons for each additional processor beyond the first.
  • If your Timesheet server is running other applications or websites, reduce the number of daemons by 1.
  • If you see this error (reached MAX_CHILD_REQUESTS 40)in your daemon.log, then increase your number of daemons by 1.
  • If your Timesheet installation is very simple, with few projects and few records, then increase your number of daemons by 1.

In an ideal Windows configuration the maximum number of daemons that you would want to run is approximately 10. An ideal Windows configuration would consist of separate Timesheet application and database servers. The Timesheet application server would be running Windows Server on quad-processors with several gigabytes of RAM and no other applications installed.

In an ideal Unix configuration the maximum number of daemons that you would want to run is approximately 14. An ideal Unix configuration would consist of separate Timesheet application and database servers. The Timesheet application server would have quad-processor with several gigabytes of RAM and no other applications installed.

Once you have decided how many daemons you want to run, you can set your preference using the following instructions.

  1. Stop the Timesheet service.
  2. Edit the config file that is located in the Timesheet installation directory.
  3. Find this row in the file:
    WT_DAEMONS=2
  4. Change this parameter to the number of daemons you want to try.
  5. Save and close the config file.
  6. Restart the Timesheet service.

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