Hey jmb2006. that is interesting, you mean the exported jpg or gif should be opened up in ms paint and just save it as it is? You mean it doesnt save on ms-paint format? I will try it, but as of now, I'm reluctant to believe it. About time variations in sites, let's do a test, lets grab a site, say http://www.cucea.udg.mx/inicio/index.php for instance (or propose something else if you like), and see what people find out to be clocking in their own machines... I tryed it with the firefox webdeveloper extension (for this site) and got: 14.4K 128.34 seconds 56K 33.45 seconds T1 1.44Mbps 1.47 seconds And with vertain: Page speed: 6.19 sec Does any one know what are the references for vertain's way? (the link that kvarnerexpress provided at the beggining of this thread: http://www.vertain.com/?sst )

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Another tip is to minimize the use of javascript, especially during onload events and using multiple timers. Having your page to automatic refresh requires javascript to run a timer. This will slow down your site's response and increase your total bandwidth everytime it refreshes.

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A few more tips:
1) Know your audience. Example: If the main people you're trying to get to view your site are college students, then they're going to be on at least a Cable or DSL line, so worrying about how a page will load on a 56k modem is fairly irrelivant. Same with most business users.
2) Pretty much any flash content will bog your site down -- use it sparingly.
3) Keep your images small.
a. Most everything should be saved as a .jpg. If you have photoshop, when you save a file as a .jpg, you should be able to select the quality you want. Usually you shouldn't need over "9"; look at the preview and if you don't see any artifacts then decrease the quality until right before you do see them. Gimp (a free alternative to photoshop) has a similar option. Doing this is essential for webpage content as it will usually halve the filesize.
b. If your image uses only a few colors or especially if it uses clean or simple geometric shapes, then try saving it as a .png (portable network graphic). Pngs use a very nice algorithm to decrease the filesize and unlike .jpgs they're lossless -- when you save something as a .jpg it'll degrade the image quality (sometimes imperceptably), if you save it as a .png it won't.
c. Never save anything as a .bmp or a .tiff, as both are massive and inefficient.
d. Only save something as a .gif if it either needs a transparent layer or it's animated.

 

 

 

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I'd argue that there are many more cases where GIFs are useful. GIFs in most cases produce similar quality and file size images as 8-bit PNGs. 24-bit PNGs are much better quality, especially when reproducing gradients, but they're also much larger in file size.

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that was pretty cool! keep up the posts like this! i love em!

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I recommend against using GIFs for two reasons. First, it only supports a 256 color palette, which means if you want to post something like a photograph, or indeed anything outside of those 256 colors, it has to try to compensate with dithering (basically sticking some of those 256 colors together to try to simulate your color). Secondly, it's a patented format, which doesn't affect the usability that much, but does keep bearing in mind.

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Well obviously if you're talking about a photograph you're not even going to be considering a GIF in the first place. But the vast majority of icons, buttons etc on the web still use GIF format so I find it unusual that someone would recommend not using it.

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Wow thanks for posting all this, it is very, very helpfull especially since i am developing a website and the amount of graphics i am thinking of using may limit the people that can view my site. So i am very glad that you have gone to the trouble and posted this precious information. But an interesting feature of Microsoft Frontpage 2003 is that it can tell you how long your page will take to load and for what speed internet connection. I am not sure whether or not Dreamweaver allows you to do this but i definatly know Frontpage can do this.

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There are free online tools that can do it for you too - don't need to buy software.

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I just ran this site: http://www.jlhaslip.trap17.com/template/index.php through both of them and scored .59 seconds on the first check and 1.77 seconds @ 56k on the second link (.44 sec @ T1), so I'm happy with that. Of course, it is a bare working template with no graphics, so I expected it to to good.

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