Speeding up the online MSDN Library

For developers, the MSDN library is a regular place to drop into. Whether you visit the site directly, via the VS IDE or end up there after an enthralling Google excursion, no matter, once arrived I usually find the experience slower than I’d like.

Enter the low bandwidth version. For example:

Standard view: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb384398.aspx

Low bandwidth version: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb384398(loband).aspx

Depending upon the time of day and size of article, the differences in load times are considerable!

Anal URL examiners amongst you will have noticed the word loband in the above link. In fact this “device” name can be added to any of the MSDN library links to render the low bandwidth version of the page in hand.

See Jon Galloway’s original blog entry for further info (including a bookmarklet to make the switching easy) and also Scott Hanselman’s more recent post which delves a little deeper, discussing page size differences, other “devices” (including the up and coming VS 2010 IDE view “dev10ide”) and how the URL routing works behind the scenes.

Clarkey