1726's New Website

[TheOtherGuy]

Here it is: project1726.org

Anything you like? Dislike?
Any improvements we can make?
Any constructive criticism?

Feedback is greatly appreciated!


Kevin

[EHaskins]

I like the design/layout of the site, but you use a lot of jpeg images. These take way too long to load. On my 1.5 mbps DSL connections some pages took as long as 15 secs to load.

I like the layout and info is easy to find, but it is too slow.

[TheOtherGuy]

Are you sure it wasn't just the home page? There's an embedded video on one of the updates. The jpg images shouldn't be too much of a problem (The largest image is 88 kb, which isn't too bad)

[GRaduns340]

I've been noticing a lot of slow loads tonight. I'm not sure this one's entirely the fault of the site. There could be a problem with some upper DNS somewhere, because I've heard a lot of complaints tonight about things like that.

[EHaskins]

It was other pages also. I cleared my cache it check. Also I don't even have QuickTime installed, just did a clean install, so I don't think it should have even tried to download the video.

The home page was one of the longest, but most other pages were taking 4-5 secs to load if I clear my cache. If I use the site normally it isn't bad, once I get the images cached.

Who are you using to host your site?

[TheOtherGuy]

We have globat.com, 1000GB of space, 1000GB of transfer/mo. I just got some ftp software installed, and it is much easier to use than the browser (If that was a duh, sorry, I'm new to the world of webmaster-ing)

What images can I use that are quicker to load than .jpg's but still have good quality and are supported by almost all browsers?

[EHaskins]

If you created the graphics in Fireworks(or similar vector graphics editor) the png/gif files will be smaller.

Edit: my sig has png and gif files.

[GRaduns340]

As a general rule of thumb, for basic images or anything that can be based on the 256 color scheme, use GIFs. PNG's are good for what they are, but they have some difficulty rendering properly in older versions of some browsers. JPGs are a good bet, but avoid them unless you need the depth.

For example, a team picture would be a bad idea of where to use a gif because it would come out extremely grainy and with very little texture, but for a menu image, they do well because you can get by with just a few colors.

[MrForbes]

Graphics work well with gifs, most photos are better as jpg

the embedded videos need to be done differently so you have to click to load them....having embedded video is a sure way to stop a dial up user from viewing your web page.

oh, maybe I should wander into the kitchen and tell Kevin in person

(I'm really glad to see him do this web stuff, so I don't have to mess with robot web pages any more! yeah...)

[falconmaster]

Very cool guys!! It looks awesome!!