Kilt sample Photos

[ConfusedPollock]

[B I was wondering if anybody could tell me why my browser refuses to let me see any of the sample pics of the kilts or tartans on Frugal Corner's page. Is a setting wrong on my computer?[/B]

[McMurdo]

[B I was wondering if anybody could tell me why my browser refuses to let me see any of the sample pics of the kilts or tartans on Frugal Corner's page. Is a setting wrong on my computer?[/B]

It took a while for the photos to load on my computer, so you might have to give it more time.

[Abax]

[B I was wondering if anybody could tell me why my browser refuses to let me see any of the sample pics of the kilts or tartans on Frugal Corner's page. Is a setting wrong on my computer?[/b]

It took my high-speed connection a very long time (about 2 minutes) to load the page. I suspect two things: perhaps a slow server and some silly html designed to prevent a user from downloading pictures off the website. I rarely wait two minutes for a page to load. I figure if an online vendor can't get their website together, they might be having other problems too.

My suggestion to Frugal Corner: Remember that if images are visible, they can be downloaded. Do whatever it takes to speed the page load. A faster page will make a much better impression on customers.

Abax

[Kilted-Marine]

I am sitting here laughing...
First we have no codes protecting the pictures...second if you ever want to get an image off the web you can always screen print it and paste it to paint.

The fact is they are large images.....large images take longer to load

the image you used from our site which you must have built a page for-has a 404 error..you need to redo the page or reload it...

could it be your internet connection-is your high speed really high speed, what is your MTU set at, were you also doing other things on your computer, is it a cable connection on a shared segment?

Of course theh connection I have at home is a 10 Meg Cat 5E running down to a load balancing router with 4 Data T1's.....but what do i know about these computer and network thingies

[Kilted-Marine]

Abax..come on-you said "IF THEY CANT GET THEIR WEBSITE TOGETHER THERE MAY BE OTHER PROBLEMS"

Like what, ---What other problems directly relates to a slow website...drunken driving, fraud, civil unrest, rebellion, WHAT

a faster page may make you happy but it also means having smaller pictures, maybe with lower resolution..there is no way around this issues..LARGER files require longer downloads..more 0's and 1's flowing over the copper wiring that runs from our server to you

[Abax]

Mark,

First off, let me say thank you for supporting XMarks. I appreciate the good work this site does, and your support is appreciated.

I don't usually respond to personal attacks like the ones you posted above, but I don't think you meant to be offensive . . . maybe you were just being defensive. You seem to be sincere about promoting kilts, so there's something good right there. I offer the information below as constructive criticism. Not belittling or demeaning but intended as assistance. Read what I've written below and you'll see I don't insult you even once.

First we have no codes protecting the pictures...second if you ever want to get an image off the web you can always screen print it and paste it to paint.

I stand corrected. It appears to be a fluke of the HTML which I presume you created in Microsoft Word.

The fact is they are large images.....large images take longer to load

Quite so. I count 37 megabytes of PNG images alone on http://www.thefrugalcorner.com/samples.htm. That's far in excess of what's needed for a typical display on a computer monitor.

could it be your Internet connection-is your high speed really high speed, what is your MTU set at, were you also doing other things on your computer, is it a cable connection on a shared segment? Of course theh connection I have at home is a 10 Meg Cat 5E running down to a load balancing router with 4 Data T1's.....but what do i know about these computer and network thingies

My Internet connection works just fine. Boasting about your unusual connection isn't likely to make your customer downloads any faster.

Abax..come on-you said "IF THEY CANT GET THEIR WEBSITE TOGETHER THERE MAY BE OTHER PROBLEMS"

Like what, ---What other problems directly relates to a slow website...drunken driving, fraud, civil unrest, rebellion, WHAT

Offhand, I'd say one symptom would be someone inviting everyone on XMarks to take a look at their new web page, then being demonstrably defensive about some constructive criticism . But seriously, when I consider doing business with a vendor for the first time, I evaluate the presence they project, whether it be a brick-and-mortar store or an Internet web site. Sure, other things will be considered too. But I believe the care and expertise that are evident in a web site may say something about the care and expertise that go into other elements of the business.

a faster page may make you happy but it also means having smaller pictures, maybe with lower resolution..there is no way around this issues..LARGER files require longer downloads..more 0's and 1's flowing over the copper wiring that runs from our server to you

I'm using Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. The comments that follow are based on viewing your web page using that browser. Right now, IE6 and IE7 account for about 57% of all browsers out there, so my browser isn't all that unusual, and it certainly accounts for a very large segment of your viewing audience (Firefox is third with about 34% of the market).

You have taken enormous files and then (I presume unknowingly) asked your customer's browser to scale them down, negating any benefit the huge files might have held in the first place. For example the "MacLeod Hunting" image (image021.png) you show on this page - http://www.thefrugalcorner.com/samples.htm - started life as a 1280 x 1024 pixel 24 bit PNG image that consumes 3 MB (PNG include lossless compression, otherwise it would be about 3.75 MB). It took my Internet connection and your server 26 seconds to get just this image on my screen.

Your Word-generated HTML squeezes the original MacLeod Hunting image (image021.png) in to an HTML table cell that resizes it to fit in a custom textbox object that is 225.75 points x 205.5 points. First off, if the image had been scaled proportionately, it would have retained the 1.25 ratio of width to height, so your textbox object (with a ratio of width to height of 1.09) compressed and distorted the width of the image - certainly not something you'd want to do when showing a tartan. Second, if you had resized the image to display at the same width as your HTML forces the image to, it would only consume about 147Kb, about 5% the size of the large file.

Not only is there no point to squeezing a really large image in to a really small table, but asking the browser to resize images often results in less than optimal renderings. Here is a screen shot of another image from http://www.thefrugalcorner.com/samples.htm showing the MacKenzie Modern tartan as squeezed down into your HTML table:



Here is a screen shot of the source image (image023.png) displayed at 100% size:


Look at the first red intersection below the hanger in each photo . . . they are quite different colors (magenta vs red), aren't they? You are much better off resizing images in a graphics program rather than letting a user's unknown browser do it for you. Resizing an image in even a high-end graphics program does induce color shifts, but this effect can be minimized, a much better situation than the uncontrolled environment of a browser.

So here are my recommendations:

1) Stop using Microsoft Word as an HTML editor. It produces some of the worst HTML in existence - it's bloated, unnecessarily complex, difficult to control and difficult to maintain.

2) Resize your images in a graphics editor, adjusting the resulting color as necessary. How big should the image be? If you're happy with the current sizes rendered in a typical browser, then about 300 pixels wide.

3) Consider obtaining information about designing web pages for usability. This is a tough subject for which either a lot of study and practice or professionals are usually required.

These recommendations aren't revolutionary - you'll find much the same information in a lot of other places. Rather than debate with me, here are some references you can consult:

Jakob Nielsen has written several good books on usability:
http://www.useit.com/

There are lots of sites that describe the issues regarding images and their display on monitors. Here's one I found at random searching on "dpi print monitor":
http://www.sphoto.com/homedd/

I sincerely wish you the best of luck with your endeavors.

Abax

[sjrapid]

Interesting and perceptive comments, Abax.

I've just tried loading the pages again using IE 7.0.6 rather than my usual Firefox 2.0.0.5.

The browsing experience is very different indeed. I guess Firefox does some sort of progressive rendering trick on the images, as it loads the whole page in less than 30 seconds (from a cleared cache) as I posted previously.

IE7 on the other hand clearly doesn't do this trick. From a cleared cache, it took 18 minutes to download just 3 of the pictures before IE's timer expired and it gave up trying on the rest.

Best regards

[mbhandy]

Interesting and perceptive comments, Abax.

I've just tried loading the pages again using IE 7.0.6 rather than my usual Firefox 2.0.0.5.

The browsing experience is very different indeed. I guess Firefox does some sort of progressive rendering trick on the images, as it loads the whole page in less than 30 seconds (from a cleared cache) as I posted previously.

IE7 on the other hand clearly doesn't do this trick. From a cleared cache, it took 18 minutes to download just 3 of the pictures before IE's timer expired and it gave up trying on the rest.

Best regards

I never use IE for that reason, but the security IE is having. I to tried IE and found it loading way to long and firefox took no time at all.

MrBill