Post by SpaceCadet on Apr 28, 2004 12:43:53 GMT
I sent this in reply to one of the mailing list messages, but thought I would post it here as well.
Just as a small side to what Andy has said about pictures. The "little" pictures that show up beside a member may look small but can in fact physically be any size. The forum software tells your browser to display them as pictures 65 pixles square. However your browser will first have to download the whole picture then resize it to this size. This is a huge waste of bandwith and people with dial up connections will find the site VERY slow.
As an example, our 'onourable leader, Andy Clark, has a little Thomas the tank picture which is 32 pixels square and is 1.2 KB in size. This would take around 1 second to download over a 56k dial up connection. Tel on the other hand has a picture that is in fact 286 pixels square and is 25 KB in size. This will take around 5-6 seconds to download over the same line. If Tel was to resize his picture to be the max allowed by the forum (65 pixels square) then it's size would also me around 1.2 KB. 20 times smaller in size and download in around 1 second. The same face for a smaller price
Puffernutter is an even worse offender with a signature image 800 x 600 pixels and 53KB in size
As a comparison, the large "full frontal" image of Stumpy that tell posted is also the same size as puffernutter's signature image, although slightly larger size at 66KB.
The moral of this story is, just because it looks small, does not mean that it actually is small !!!!.
If you are going to put up a signature picture, make sure it is no bigger than 65 pixels square, and preferably if you know how, use the highest JPG compression settings.
Happy surfing
/Ian
Just as a small side to what Andy has said about pictures. The "little" pictures that show up beside a member may look small but can in fact physically be any size. The forum software tells your browser to display them as pictures 65 pixles square. However your browser will first have to download the whole picture then resize it to this size. This is a huge waste of bandwith and people with dial up connections will find the site VERY slow.
As an example, our 'onourable leader, Andy Clark, has a little Thomas the tank picture which is 32 pixels square and is 1.2 KB in size. This would take around 1 second to download over a 56k dial up connection. Tel on the other hand has a picture that is in fact 286 pixels square and is 25 KB in size. This will take around 5-6 seconds to download over the same line. If Tel was to resize his picture to be the max allowed by the forum (65 pixels square) then it's size would also me around 1.2 KB. 20 times smaller in size and download in around 1 second. The same face for a smaller price
Puffernutter is an even worse offender with a signature image 800 x 600 pixels and 53KB in size
As a comparison, the large "full frontal" image of Stumpy that tell posted is also the same size as puffernutter's signature image, although slightly larger size at 66KB.The moral of this story is, just because it looks small, does not mean that it actually is small !!!!.
If you are going to put up a signature picture, make sure it is no bigger than 65 pixels square, and preferably if you know how, use the highest JPG compression settings.
Happy surfing
/Ian
