You've probably all noticed (and suffered
) when RootsChat has outages, "go slows" etc.
This is a typical response:
Has anyone else been having problems accessing RootsChat yesterday (31 December) and today (31 January)?
As you can guess, I've had problems - receiving the "try again in an hour" page, on both days. I have had no problems accessing other popular websites, eg BBC etc.
[...]
And, is there anything we should do as Rootschatters to reduce the risk of this "freeze out" occurring?
Annoying, but we all have to live with it
However . . .
And, is there anything we should do as Rootschatters to reduce the risk of this "freeze out" occurring ?
Yes, there is
1) Images on RootsChatThose of us who use broadband tend to forget how many people there are, who still use slow dial-up connections.
So anything that speeds up page downloads is an improvement. Even on Broadband !
When we call up a page in the browser (i.e. click on a link) then the page, text and graphics, is downloaded to our computer, whereby "graphics" includes avatars, smileys (both in the text and in the signatur), and images attatched to the text
1) On 15 replies to a topic (maximum replies per page), up to 15 profile pics are downloaded.
(that's the worst case: if it's just two people, answering back and forth, then only two profile pics get downloaded)
I downloaded two RootsChat pages, one with just one avatar (profile pic) and one with 10:
The text part of each page was about 100 KB
The graphics part of the 1st. page was 60 KB
The graphics part of the 2nd. page was 250 KB
Doing the maths, nearly 200 KB of the 2nd. page was taken up with avatars and smileys.
Most people have an avatar/profile pic of
10 KB or less, which is reasonable,
but I have noticed some bigger avatars, one even going to 65KB.
(update: I've since seen two, over 150 KB !)
So please keep this in mind when choosing a profile pic, as we can all benefit from faster page loads.
2) Images attached to replies also need download time.
Obviously, for the Photo Restoration board, they need to be big,
so that the restorers have the best 'raw material" to work with,
and some of the "can someone recognise/decipher this ?" images may need to be big,
but images on other boards can be smaller, especially snap-shots
(see replies #2, and #3 about
a voluntary code of conduct.
Please try to keep larger images to a maximum width of 600 - 700 pixels.
This reduces the overall size, improves download times, and also, very important,
avoids 'screen stretching', where we have to keep scrolling right and left to see a picture.
Remember that many of us use use laptops and notebooks with a screen width of 1024 pixels,
or even older computers with a screen width of 800 pixels.
Thanks,
Bob
see Topic: Adding images to Posting & Profiles
1) Resizing and cropping your image file:[/color]
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,130922.0.htmlps:
I've now edited my signature, as the two smileys there were nearly 10 KB (animated GIFs !!)
Author
Logged
