Web site happenings

[rrinker]

I gave up on getting better bandwidth, it's NEVER going to happen in this neighborhood. So I found an outside host and moved my web site. Should be a lot faster than running on my own server. Nothing really new on the content yet, I REALLY need to take more pictures. And my message board is offline for now, still have to get the database transferred over and all.

--Randy

[selector]

Randy, do you have to (have you had to) wait long to open the threads with many photos? It would be nice to see your layout...I read that you have been doing some work on it.

You must be in a small rural community for your service to be so slow...[%-)]

[loathar]

Looks cool. Maybe it's just my monitor,but those blue high lites are almost impossable to read on that green back ground.

[rrinker]

QUOTE: Originally posted by selector

Randy, do you have to (have you had to) wait long to open the threads with many photos? It would be nice to see your layout...I read that you have been doing some work on it.

You must be in a small rural community for your service to be so slow...[%-)]

Yes, that's why I never look at the "photo fun" threads. It will take forever for me to download all those pictures. Kinda stinks when my cache gets cleared and I open threads where lots of people have pictures in their tag line. I really wish more people would realize that not everyone had 6mb cable modems.

I don't live in that rural an area, at all! Heck, if I did - I'd have high speed service! I am just beyond the distance limit for DSL (actually, not really - but further than Verizon will build out). My neighbors are all doctors and other well respected types, these are not shacks we live in. Yt no one is interested in offering us service. The cable company is probably THE worst cable company in the world, the price is high and the service is not there, even though their name is Service Electric. They claim to be the first cable company in the country, and based on their signal quality and so forth - they are still using the same 1948 equipment. Cable modem? Well, if I want one-way, but then I can't run my own domain. And their one-way service blocks the critical remote access I need to work from home. IF they offered 2-way to my street, it's only 400k!
There's a truly rural town near here that got fiber to the home for every resident! Instead of improving MY service, the cable company is suing the town for violating an exclusive access agreement, which is illegal in this state anyway. And in another town not far away, Verizon is rolling out wireless broadband. Because they say you can't get broadband in that town. Except, the cable company offers 2-way there! Oh and the little 2-square block town that didn;t even exist before the railroad went through? They have phone service from other than Verizon, just some small dinky company. And THEY have DSL! And everyone gets FAST DSL because you can't be more than 2 blocks from the CO!
I'm running out of peopll to complain to. Dunno if it would help to write to my local state representative or not. Based on the patterns I've seen of where they upgrade service first, it's done strictly as a tax writeoff - neighborhoods where peopel would actually sign up, as several of my neighbors have complained as well, do not get upgrade. Places where they can dump thousands of dollars in equipment and then get no customers, they go ahead and upgrade, so they can go back to complainign politicians and say "but we DO upgrade our services, and no one buys it. We just keep wasting money"

[:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]

--Randy

[rrinker]

QUOTE: Originally posted by loathar

Looks cool. Maybe it's just my monitor,but those blue high lites are almost impossable to read on that green back ground.

Guess I have to change the unvisited link color. I had a different green but others said it was hard to read - personally I prefer light text on a dark background, but, whatever. The blue wasn't so bad there.

I don't want to make it black, I want to incorporate the Reading Pullman Green and gold somehow. Might need to go a bit darker yet, of course what looks like a good match on my computer might not match on someone else's, it all depends on the color temperature settings of your monitor.

Note I am talkign about the dark Pullman green, not the ater light green and yellow scheme - I model the 50's, that lighter color didn't come along until the GP30's.

--Randy

[jfugate]

Randy ... great to see your web site. What computer / OS / web browser combination are you using?

I hear you on the lack of consideration people have who post images in their signatures. Being a professional web developer in my day job, I spend a lot of time thinking about optimizing web page performance -- and the single biggest thing people can do is to post really lean photos on the web.

I think anyone who has a signature image that's over 50K is pushing it, and over 100K is being very inconsiderate of others bandwidth.

My signature image is 12K, but I've seen signature images of 500K or more [V] ... c'mon guys that's half a megabyte, for a signature decoration. Sheesh, get a web graphics optimization program (here's a good one that's only $25: http://www.winsoftmagic.com/?ref=g161).

Before you post that cool image in your signature, do us all a favor and check out it's size. If it's over 50K, then be a considerate forum participant and put it on a diet! Get some web image optimization software, and use it!.[2c]

[rrinker]

It WAS running on my local server, Win2K/IIS. The hosting service uses Apache with some Linux. Most of it was done with Dreamweaver, but small bits like the Javascript to run the 'click to enlarge' function for the pictures I coded in by hand.
I got some people who are far better artists than myself to give me some color ideas, I will do some more editing tomorrow or over the weekend and see if the new color suggestions work better.
Oh, and the whole reason for the Javascript to blow up the pictures was bandwidth - with my slow connection I only wanted to host 20k and smaller pictures. Even though I have a business account with my ISP, they offer some web space, so I was putting the big version (still reduced from the actual camera size - I didn't want to go crazy), about 150-250k, there and used the Javascript to link the full version to the thumbnail on my site. I don't need to do that now, but I'm leaving it in place to help visitors with low bandwidth. Eventually of course I will have to archive the construction log since it will get way too big to comfortably load over low bandwidth connections, thumbnail size pictures or not.

--Randy

[loathar]

Before you post that cool image in your signature, do us all a favor and check out it's size. If it's over 50K, then be a considerate forum participant and put it on a diet! Get some web image optimization software, and use it!.[2c]

[rrinker]

Well, I updated the color scheme to that suggested to me by a guy who does graphic design. And has created some successful commercial sites as well. Also changed the font.
Hopefully this will be easier to read for people.

--Randy