A question for JohnR about image sizes

[Patrick82]

Hey John, I saw and I note that there was a problem with the size of the images. I'm sorry you had to go back and edit them. Any tips you can give to me about what sizes are more acceptible?

Thanks

[JohnR]

At least half of the people that come here are using analog modem connections between 28K and 50K in speed. For example, a 22k picture would take 7 seconds at 28k - a typical modem speed. The orginal picture of your dog and cat would take near a minute to download to someone without a high speed connection.

Ideally, keep the pictures below 30K and trim out some of the dead space and/or resample the image to a smaller size. An 800/600 image is larger than the entire screen for people with WebTV (there are a few) - So big as to make it difficult for them to pan the screen back and forth... If you take your high res 800/600 image (around 300K) and save as a JPG at around 60% quality at 400/300, the file size would still be pretty clear and around 20K in size - downloading much quicker for those on a cable modem..

Many of us accessing from work and home have high speed service and things load very quickly (well, at least since the board software upgrade ) but for those accessing over a modem, it can be very irritating

Thanks...

[Patrick82]

Thanks John.

Sorry about that. It's hard to tell what is acceptable size now since everything loads at the same speed for me now. At one point I did have a 56k modem so I do know the struggles of slow loading pages.

Lesson learned.

BTW, for anyone who hasn't used a high speed connection, if you have some extra money, and you aren't buying fishing stuff, see if cable or DSL is availible in your area. It might be something you are interested in.

There are tricks on how to get stuff cheaper because these companies can be manipulated if they think they can get a sale.

For example, at the time we got the cable modem, the Wiz was offering a deal. Spend 100 bucks and you can get a free cable modem. One night, the cable company called and my dad loves to toy with telemarketers. He threw out the statement, "Why should I spend 200 bucks for your cable modem when I can go to The Wiz, spend 100 bucks, get the modem for free plus whatever I spent the hundred bucks for?" Well, luckily this telemarketer had some salemanship skills and they started talking. As it turns out after some hardball, we got the cable modem for free if we signed a contract with their company.

Hook up was easy. We have two USB ports. Plug a USB-parrallel port adapter into the USB. Plug the modem to the adapter and change our set ups.

So if you are interested, see what deals you can get.

[TomC]

Patrick, I just got cable internet. A local store was offering a $200.00 rebate on the modem (so it's free after you wait 6 weeks for the rebate). The local cable guys installed it free, including a free ethernet card. I have two USB ports (one is for my scanner), but Windows 98 kept saying there was a conflict between the two ports, so they went for the ethernet card. I told them I wasn't sure I wanted to pay the $35.00 a month fee, so they finally threw in the first two months free. A few months back, I called and bitched about their latest rate hike on their TV service, and said I was thinking about cancelling. They gave me six months of free HBO. These guys can easily afford these freebies, so why not?