OT - Internet question, part II

[Jay Honeck]

Okay, here's the newly refurb'd site:

www.AlexisParkInn.com

I haven't had time to do all the text editor clean-up, but:

a) The counter is gone.
b) The main picture is smaller on the flash page.
c) I've eliminated a bunch of superfluous pictures on the second page (which
used to be the home page...)

It appears to be loading MUCH faster now, but the second page is still going
to choke most dial-up connections, I fear...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[G.R. Patterson III]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> It appears to be loading MUCH faster now, but the second page is still going
> to choke most dial-up connections, I fear...

I think you've got it pretty well. It took about 2 seconds on my DSL to load
completely, and things were appearing immediately (no wondering if something was
happening). When I hit the second page, the important stuff (the text) loaded
immediately, with the photos and menu items showing up one at a time. Back when
I used dialup for access, I would be reading the text while waiting on other
stuff to load, and probably would be picking one of the menu items as soon as it
appeared.

With that in mind, you might give some thought to the order in which the menu
items appear. Put the ones that most potential customers would want to select
high in the list. To me, the first ones would be rates, floor plans, directions
to the inn, floor plans, and the theme suites. I would redo the "cool stuff"
page somehow. There are things in there (like the mention of high speed internet
access and a courtesy car) that really should be mentioned elsewhere, mixed up
with stuff that only interests pilots and other things that really don't belong
on a business web site.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

[Jose]

> a) The counter is gone.

Yay!

> b) The main picture is smaller on the flash page.

Not smaller enough. It still demands half of a twenty one inch
monitor set for 1600 bits of width. I would smallify (I like the word
too!) it more, and center it, which means getting rid of the
navigation bar and other stuff to the left, and putting it on top or
on the bottom, so that the full width of the browser can be used for
the smaller picture.

> c) I've eliminated a bunch of superfluous pictures on the second page (which
> used to be the home page...)

I don't notice the difference. What will make a difference here is
supercompressing the little pictures.

Jose
--
Freedom. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

> I don't notice the difference. What will make a difference here is
> supercompressing the little pictures.

I've tried that, and lost too much resolution.

What's the trick to compressing pix without losing clarity?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Ash Wyllie]

Jay Honeck opined

>> I don't notice the difference. What will make a difference here is
>> supercompressing the little pictures.

>I've tried that, and lost too much resolution.

>What's the trick to compressing pix without losing clarity?

I took your floor plan Suite%20102.jpg, 135453 bytes in size, and converted it
to a single bit (two color) gif of 13787 bytes. If I had used the original
drawing the file would be smaller still, as the jpg artifacts would be
missing.



-ash
Cthulhu in 2005!
Why wait for nature?

[Jose]

> I've tried that, and lost too much resolution.
>
> What's the trick to compressing pix without losing clarity?

How much is "too much"? Send me a sample of what you consider "too
much loss". (for Email, use teacher, follow it with jh, the snail,
and the domain of that place in Vienna VA.)

Yes, you lose some, but in the context of that particular page, it
doesn't really matter. You can have a prettier picture on the page
the thumbnail links to, and I think people would rather have the page
load fast than load pretty.

I compressed it to 2K and it looked fine (though not quite as good as
the one that takes up five times as many bytes).

The "trick" might be different software. Some does a better job. I
use iphoto+ 4.0, which came with my (cheap) scanner and it works fine.

Jose
--
Freedom. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[[email protected]]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> Okay, here's the newly refurb'd site:
>
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
>
> I haven't had time to do all the text editor clean-up, but:
>
> a) The counter is gone.
> b) The main picture is smaller on the flash page.
> c) I've eliminated a bunch of superfluous pictures on the second page
(which
> used to be the home page...)
>
> It appears to be loading MUCH faster now, but the second page is
still going
> to choke most dial-up connections, I fear...
It looks good from here and loaded okay .
I'm on dailup and the loading speed was as well as can be expected...

[Blanche]

Doesn't matter what quality the image was scanned at, monitors do not
display well. For web stuff, I don't scan at anything higher than
150 dpi since most monitors only display 72 dpi.

Now, if you're going to need the high quality for other things, go
ahead and use the disk space....

[Jay Masino]

Jay Honeck > wrote:
> Okay, here's the newly refurb'd site:
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
<SNIP>
> It appears to be loading MUCH faster now, but the second page is still going
> to choke most dial-up connections, I fear...

I think it's loading pretty good. I tried it at our place at the beach
(dialup, slow windows98 laptop, Netscape) and it loading as quickly as
can be expected for dialup. The "welcome" page is obviously slower than
the first page, but there are more images to load. I don't think it's a
big deal. One thing that might be considered unneccesary is the little
"bracket" shaped thing that shows up when you pass your mouse over the
left hand buttons... it's probably not worth removing/changing.

--- Jay


--
__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

[Jay Masino]

Jay Honeck > wrote:
>> I don't notice the difference. What will make a difference here is
>> supercompressing the little pictures.
> I've tried that, and lost too much resolution.
> What's the trick to compressing pix without losing clarity?

It's always a trade off. On my Mac, I have a utility that allows you to
change the exact percentage of compression/loss in a jpeg. It shows you a
before and after sample of the image, so you can see how bad the image
gets while adjusting the percentage.


--
__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

[Morgans]

"Jay Masino" > wrote

>
> It's always a trade off. On my Mac, I have a utility that allows you to
> change the exact percentage of compression/loss in a jpeg. It shows you a
> before and after sample of the image, so you can see how bad the image
> gets while adjusting the percentage.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

While we are already hopelessly off topic...<g> I have a question along
these lines.

Here is the situation. I have some totally amazing shots of an airshow that
I want to send to Jay to put on his web site. There are movies of really
"stupid" AoA's by a Super Hornet *crawling* across the sky, afterburner
passes at night just off the beach, and pressure/vapor waves were common
that day, as conditions were just right, ect. Most are QuickTime movies,
and some windows media files, and some stills in JPG.

What do I need to do to reduce these to a size that is reasonable for people
to download from his page. What do you (and others) consider to be
reasonable? I realize that the JPG's are do-able for dialup at a reasonable
size, but that the movies will primarily be viewed by people with high speed
connections, or by people that have plenty of time on their hands. <g>

These will be converted on an XP machine, with a 2 megahertz processor, and
a cable modem. I am somewhat competent, but by no means a wiz. What is the
program to use, and how? Would anyone want to take a crack at this one?

Thanks in advance.
--
Jim in NC

[Jose]

> What do I need to do to reduce these [cool movies and pix]
> to a size that is reasonable for people
> to download from his page.

First question is how much... and the answer depends on where on the
site it is. A cool pic that is its own page (with caption maybe), and
the link to it specifies what it is (thumbnail) and how big it is
(text indicating size) can be as huge as necessary to preserve image
quality. Those going to that page will =want= to see the picture in
all its glory and be willing to wait. The problem pics are the ones
that are mere window dressing on a page where people come for information.

For movies, you should offer the big version and a compressed version
(compatible with quality) under similar circumstances (full
disclosure, separate page).

Having said that, to the original question I'm afraid my answer is not
all that helpful. You need "appropriate compression software", which
for pictures can be almost any image processing program (like what
came with a digital camera or scanner), and for movies I can't answer
specifically since I don't do digital movies.

But my point is that not all pictures need to have the life squeezed
out of them. Only gratuitous eye candy does.

Jose
--
Freedom. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Dan B]

FYI from those of us with really slow connections & old PCs (486 w/28.8): it
loaded in just over 20 seconds. However, the text came up in less than 10 with
the picture downloading and painting the rest of the time. The Welcome page
took a minute and a half to completely load. Most of that was waiting for the
little pics and the navigation links. I don't think you have to worry about it
taking too long for anyone if that's all it takes on this old bird. It all
looks good.

I also checked the Theme Suites page (a couple minutes with all the pics)
and noticed that you changed your navigation links to list the Suites. Since
you already have links in the pictures, you might want to keep a standard set of
links on the left so people can get right to those. One other small change I'd
suggest is putting a couple of the Navigation links on the Home Page, maybe
"Theme Suites" and "Rates" (Reservations when you add that online), for those
who may want to jump direct. Lastly, to give a little bit better look, try some
other fonts besides Time Roman.

Now if only I can swing a trip out that way.

Thanks, Dan

Jay Honeck wrote:

> Okay, here's the newly refurb'd site:
>
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
>
> I haven't had time to do all the text editor clean-up, but:
>
> a) The counter is gone.
> b) The main picture is smaller on the flash page.
> c) I've eliminated a bunch of superfluous pictures on the second page (which
> used to be the home page...)
>
> It appears to be loading MUCH faster now, but the second page is still going
> to choke most dial-up connections, I fear...
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"

[Dan Girellini]

"G.R. Patterson III" > writes:

> Jay Honeck wrote:
> >
> > It appears to be loading MUCH faster now, but the second page is still
> > going to choke most dial-up connections, I fear...
>
> With that in mind, you might give some thought to the order in which the menu
> items appear.

Even better, don't use graphics for the menu items at all. Use CSS for the
menu backgrounds and mouse-overs if you really wnat them.

d.

--
PGP key at http://www.longhands.org/drg-pgp.txt Key Id:0x507D93DF

[John Harlow]

> b) The main picture is smaller on the flash page.


Why do you bother with a "splash" page? It doesn't seem to serve a useful
purpose to me.

[Jim Fisher]

"Ash Wyllie" > wrote in message
...
> Cthulhu in 2005!
> Why wait for nature?

Snicker.

[Jay Honeck]

> Why do you bother with a "splash" page? It doesn't seem to serve a useful
> purpose to me.

For the 70% of Americans still cursed with dial-up connections, it gets them
"in the door" before they can get frustrated.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Dan B]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> > Why do you bother with a "splash" page? It doesn't seem to serve a useful
> > purpose to me.
>
> For the 70% of Americans still cursed with dial-up connections, it gets them
> "in the door" before they can get frustrated.
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"

I think the analogy that may be better is that the splash lets one now see
the door. Unless there are a few more links on the splash page, all one can do
is knock and wait for the door to open (click to the real home page to load).

Personally, I don't think there's that much of a problem with the home page
even for dial-ups except it would load quicker with fewer picks. It isn't any
longer than Amazon.com, which is probably a good way to compare speed of loading
to any page you do. People are used to waiting that long or a little more if
they are really interested.

Thanks, Dan