Re: Attention David F

David,

I had no idea you were on a 33.6 modem, I figured it was at least a 56K. Also, I notice if I use Explorer to check a site it always takes considerably longer to load than Mozilla does. And I notice sites that use Google Analytics (or Serif's analytics for that matter) also seem to take a while longer.

www.stjamesotv.com is one site that has more stuff on the Home page than most the sites I build, although www.tinkscafe.com has a few more images.

One thing Christiaan can do, and I just noticed it now, is to change his preferences so the images are not saved as png files. In WP, if you place a photo as its same size, WP exports it whatever it is named. However, if you resize it and you don't change the defaults it gets converted to the png. Just changing to a jpg would make his site a lot smaller.

I've transplanted all but six (out of 50)hot peppers. I have another dozen or so upstairs in the germinator. If you want to see a plant that produces the world's hottest pepper, see www.valleycat.net/Bhut.jpg Another very hot one is www.valleycat.net/7pod.jpg

My potatoes are doing great - I have six of them that are over three feet tall. Four of them have been growing about eight inches a week in the last two weeks. I'm hoping to get them to at least six feet high and get 40 pounds of spuds from a 4.4 ounce seed potato. I planted 57 cucumbers but very few of them are up yet - it's been mostly cloudy or raining plus chilly the last few days, and the basil has not sprouted either. My lettuce and Mizuna love the weather, though.

I'm waiting for the tomatoes and eggplants to get large enough to transplant. They have not grown as fast as would have like, though I probably should have started them about a month earlier.

Bought a LED light panel yesterday. I had bought a smaller one last week and stuck it over a tomato plant upstairs. The plant thrives under it. Alas, it only covers about two square feet. The one I bought yesterday is supposed to cover 6.5 sq.ft. But get this, it uses only 43 watts of power. I can run it 16 hours a day for a little over $2.00 per month. Plus, it produces only red and blue light which is what plants use in photosynthesis.

It's strange how I hated working in the garden when I lived at home but now am addicted!

Mike

DavidF wrote:
Hiya Mike,

I hoped that you would drop by and see this thread. Christiaan is a happy camper! You are an expert with WP and I have always appreciated and valued your perspective, but it was very interesting getting his perspective.

I am curious though. I connect at 31.2 and my real world results were at least twice as long as indicated by his report. Why do you suppose that is? Also, is Christiaan's load time "typical" of WP sites with comparable number of images, text and page size?

How is the garden going?

DavidF

"Mike Koewler" <wordwiz@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:d249c$4831bb27$42a1fb54$31873@xxxxxxxxxxx

David,

Interesting reading his report. :-)

From websiteoptimization.com:
Download Times*
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 297.46 seconds
28.8K 151.43 seconds
33.6K 130.57 seconds
56K 80.50 seconds
ISDN 128K 28.40 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 7.40 seconds

Mike

DavidF wrote:

Christian,

Thanks for the report. It is interesting and educational to hear the comparison from a person that had built a 200+ page site in Publisher, and then switched to Web Plus.

Don't put much weight on my comment about the African print...that has nothing to do with function, and I was just saying that I did like your old design with that print. It is not saying that your new design is not ok...and perhaps better.

As to the load time, I did notice a lot of errors being thrown on the status bar while it loaded, and it seemed associated with the Google analytics or other scripts running, but that may not have had anything to do with it. I get by with a dial-up connection at my home because I have broadband at my office...too cheap to pay for high speed both places. But this does afford me the opportunity to text how fast my pages load for all those people that have dial-up. Perhaps that is not as important as it used to be. MSFT sure seems to think so, and I think many designers have just given up on the dial-up user. Perhaps you have gotten no comments from the Serif forum because no one is using dial-up? Perhaps you can find someone else with dial-up to test your site.

My estimate of load time was a rough estimate as I just counted in my head as it loaded. However, that is what I always do when I try to assess the relative load speed of pages submitted to this group etc. I did find a site that gives you some more "objective" data on the loading. You might use it to get at least a relative comparison against other pages and sites:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
I don't know how accurate it is, but you can try it.

Thanks again for the report. I think I will stay with Publisher 2000 for my site for now, but I could see why other Publisher users would want to switch. Web Plus does seem to offer a lot of features that you don't find in Publisher. Good luck to you.

DavidF

"Christiaan" <Christiaan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:E2E78AE8-B778-4301-9A5A-B8E6FF599F32@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Hi David,

I must admit, I am working on three sites at the moment so yes I have been
busy. I also think that the extra green background is killing the African
print a bit so I will rectify that. I have read through the serif forum and
no one is complaining about the loading times and WP does the compresion of
images automatically. My home page has got a lot of code on it but I will see
what I can do about the loading time.

Managing a large site with WP is a hell of a lot easier than with publisher.
You click on publish to the web and you tick the pages you want to upload. If
you are doing an update, you tick the pages that you want to update and then
you click on incremental publish. WP verifies the files and updates the
changes you have made. I updated 4 pages this morning and the file
verification and the update took about 2 minutes.

What do I like best about WP, hell where should I start.

With the drop down menus on my provincial pages, I managed to decrease my
site with about 70 pages. I made the drop down menus with codes that I got

from dynamicdrive.com.

Almost every shape that you create with WP can be reshaped with nodes and
the colour tools for filling, lines and backgrounds are great. You can create
and add your own colours as you wish.

You can decide whether you want to preview a single page or your whole site
in IE or in FF which I installed recently. There is no limitations on form
design and you have access to serif web resources that provides objects like
RSS feeds, e-commerce and blogging that you can insert to your site for free.

WP also provides quite a few website and e-mail templates that really looks
great and insert functions for java script and flash objects. The design and
layout checker is also really great. I can go on and on but for $40 you
should try it. I downloaded the WP10 and it works perfectly. WP also brought
down my site size from 20megs to 1.8 megs.

I did pick up a small problem though, my program crashed soon after I
downloaded it but I downloaded it through a download manager so I could just
repair it and the problem seems solved. I think you will enjoy WP because it
is still a bit of a challenge to work with.

Regards,

Christiaan

"DavidF" wrote:



Hi Christiaan,

Thanks for posting the link. You have been busy...

Nice new design, though I must admit that I really liked the "African print"
that you used in your Publisher built site.

For what it is worth, I would work on the loading time. Your home page took
more than 4 minutes...almost 5, to load on my dial-up connection. If I was a
first time visitor, I doubt that I would have stayed around while it loaded.
You might ask the WP experts in their forum about how to speed it up. Is the
slow loading typical behavior for a Web Plus site?

One of the main reasons you switched was it had become very difficult for
you to manage your large Publisher site. Have you found it easier to manage
with WP? Does WP allow you to do incremental uploading? Having switched from
Publisher, what do you like best about working with Web Plus?

Thanks again.

DavidF

"Christiaan" <Christiaan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BAD9732A-7C20-4588-ADEE-E4EE44CF9275@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


David,

I have downloaded the Serif Web Plus program and rebuilt my site but I am
not finished though. My online booking system isnt working and I have
added
drop down menus when you mouse over the towns. Look for the thin blue line
on
my provincial maps and mouse over them. If I remember correctly I promised
that I will let you know when I have published so have a look please.
Please
allow for the home page to download properly.

www.siyayasa.com

Christiaan




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Attention David F
    ... Connection Rate Download Time ... comparison from a person that had built a 200+ page site in Publisher, ... It is not saying that your new design is not ... Web Plus does seem to offer a lot of features that you don't find ...
    (microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign)
  • Re: Attention David F
    ... the page was loading, especially with Google analytics... ... Connection Rate Download Time ... I think I will stay with Publisher 2000 ... Web Plus does seem to offer a lot of features that you ...
    (microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign)
  • Re: Attention David F
    ... Managing a large site with WP is a hell of a lot easier than with publisher. ... I would work on the loading time. ... what do you like best about working with Web Plus? ... allow for the home page to download properly. ...
    (microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign)
  • Re: Attention David F
    ... It is interesting and educational to hear the comparison from a person that had built a 200+ page site in Publisher, and then switched to Web Plus. ... I get by with a dial-up connection at my home because I have broadband at my office...too cheap to pay for high speed both places. ... allow for the home page to download properly. ...
    (microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign)
  • Re: Attention David F
    ... resampling and resizing images to 96 dpi in Publisher. ... I'm glad my pages load decently. ... Web Plus does seem to offer a lot of features that you ...
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