"People cut themselves off from their ties of the old life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn't do anywhere else."
Article Syndication - A New Vehicle for King Content Creating Content New websites are being launched daily. In order to compete, webmasters need to find alternative ways of producing themed websites. Highly focused articles are often sought by wembasters. Why? Because content on the web is still king! In ... Evaluating E-commerce Hosting Plans Besides the requirements of standard web hosting plans, Web hosting for e-commerce operation needs a shopping cart that supports online catalog and online payment processing. Standard Web Hosting Plans Standard hosting plans varies in terms of ... Web Development Terminology - or How to Know What Your Design Team is Talking About Hosting and Domain: Most people do know about web hosting and domain names are these days, but every now and then some confusion might arise as to whether they are independent or one in the same. Basically, your web hosting is the space you "rent" on the ...
"Mosaic Layouts": How and why to avoid creating puzzle-looking websites.
When your visitors browse a webpage, their browsing experience depends on many things that you already know - connection speed, computer hardware and software, internet provider are just a few. However, the role that good web design plays in browsing speed is often under-recognized. Pictures and graphics as a navigation aid are often a powerful 'hook' for customers, and can easily enhance a browsing session. When incorrectly used, they can create bottlenecks that hamper the message your site needs to send.
Basically, if you are making an image mosaic, you need to remember a pair of important rules:
Rule 1: The page load time increases together with the number of page elements, even if their total size remains the same.
Rule 2: However, merging page elements will lead to a longer wait until you visitor sees the first portion of your webpage. You need to keep a balance.
In designing a webpage, you have to set priorities. Is your goal a fast browsing experience or maximum visual impact? Will your customers wait for long enough or will they go elsewhere?
Web designers using graphical navigation have many choices - to include graphics and text, to just work from one large image with several navigation elements, or to load many small ones. The latter is a popular method today, but can lead to slow access times. This slowdown is particularly noticeable on dialup connections, but because server requests are less affected by download speed, if you have a bottleneck in this area it can affect all of your users.
Let us examine the server request process:
Step 1: User clicks a link, and the browser sends an HTTP request to the server;
Step 2: The request goes through Internet hosts and routers, and then reaches the server;
Step 3: The server processes the request and sends the HTTP response and data back;
Step 4: The response goes through the Internet, usually on a different route, and then reaches the browser and the element rendered by your browser, and displayed on your screen.
How can you calculate the effect of this complex process on the customer experience? There are two main factors involved: the "Internet latency time" and the "HTTP request".
The typical minimum size of an HTTP request is 256 bytes. This means that when browsers request an image of one byte in size, the browser needs to send a 256 byte HTTP request on both of its server connections, and the server has to send back an HTTP response of the same size, along with the one byte of content. You can use the following formula when calculating the contribution of HTTP request delays:
HTTP Time Loss = (4 kilobits) * Elements / Bandwidth in kilobits per second
In essence this means that on a regular website, where the number of page elements is between 10 and 30, HTTP overheads will add significantly to your load time. For example, in a page with 50 elements, and a 56kbps connection speed, 3.57 seconds of page load time is wasted. Let's say the page size is 100KB. It means that the 'expected load time' is 14.28 seconds but actual time is 25% greater.
Internet latency time involves how the packet (request) gets to the server and back (steps 2 and 4). The amount of time this journey takes is known as "ping time". The shortest possible ping time to the other side of the world is 85 milliseconds. That is because 85ms is the time the electrical signal needs to travel to the other side and back in a straight line through the Earth. Of course, the shortest possible ping across the world is 133ms, as we cannot cut through the Earth. In practice on overseas websites, the actual ping is often higher, over 300ms not being unusual. To local sites inside the USA and Europe, typical ping time can be 100ms or lower (Source: http://www.internettrafficreport.com).
Internet latency time loss = Elements * (PING in milliseconds / 1000) / 2
In the above formula, "2" is the necessary correction factor given that browsers usually make more than one connection to the server.
It is possible to incorporate ping delay time and HTTP header request delays, described above, into a final formula:
Total loss of time = Elements * (4 kilobits / Bandwidth + PING / 2000)
Despite the growing penetration of broadband in the world - according to Nielsen NetRatings, over 60% of US households and 85% of US work users are now broadband equipped - many users still suffer from slow page load time. This can drive users away and does not encourage return visits.
Remember that just decreasing the size of the smaller images on your site doesn't help significantly if they are already less than 500 bytes. Try to decrease the number of images by combining them into one or more large images. You can use image maps for this purpose, which work from the position of the mouse on the image, and are a good way of cutting down on the problems caused by fragmented images.
The quickest way in grasping the "Mosaic Layouts" concept is that every ten elements you add to your site - no matter what their size - will commonly add an extra second to your load time.
Jonathan Tunn is a staff writer for SoftLogica covering personal technology. He studied Journalism at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and acquired his IT background at a transnational telecommunications company.
Alexander Grasmik is a marketing manager for SoftLogica. He specializes in web development and p
Web Development News
Publicis Buys Brazilian Agency Tribal - ClickZ Publicis Groupe announced today it has acquired Sao-Paulo-based digital agency, Tribal, as it further expands its global operations. The agency, which offers digital services including planning and buying, campaign management and Web development ...
Adobe pushes Flash platform for business apps - Computerworld Australia Adobe Systems, whose roots are in the media and publishing industries, is pushing deeper into the enterprise by promoting its Flash platform as a way to improve the stodgy user interfaces that come with most business applications. At its Adobe Max ...
Bloochip develops content management system - PR Inside 2008-11-20 08:01:52 - Bloochip Infoline Pvt Ltd is a web site design firm and a sister concern of AABSyS. Bloochip has recently developed a web-based content management system. Bhubaneswar, November 11, 2008: Web site design firm Bloochip Infoline ...
Newsroom Staff - Kingston Whig City editor Claude Scilley, a lifelong Kingston resident, first worked for the Whig in the sports department of 35 years ago. He’s held a variety of portfolios, including city editor and editorial page writer and sports editor. In the sports ...
Senior Web Designer - New Media Age Senior Web Designer - design agency - Central London - £200 - £300 per day I am currently looking for a confident and outgoing Senior Web Designer to join a vibrant, funky and entertaining Design Agency based in Central London. As Senior Web ...
Microsoft, Novell eye Moonlight beta, system management - Computerworld Recommended November 19, 2008 (InfoWorld) Marking the two-year anniversary of their controversial interoperability agreement, Microsoft and Novell this week are announcing upcoming availability of both the beta version of Moonlight, which puts ...
RSS feeds from ecb.co.uk - ECB ecb.co.uk now has multiple cricket RSS feeds available for cricket news, cricket scores from all matches, and cricket blogs. See below for links to the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, and how you can use these to keep you up to date with the ...
Getting started with iPhone development - ZDNet Blogs I’ve been doing Android development for some time, and before that I experimented with Palm and Blackberry, so I figured it was time for some hands-on iPhone programming as well. In this article I’d like to share a few of my initial experiences ...
Investigation probes discovery of body near Aloha trail - Portland Tribune Washington County’s Major Crimes Team is investigating the discovery of a body along an Aloha hiking trail. According to the sheriff’s office, a construction worker walking in the area at about 1 p.m. Tuesday discovered a human foot lying in the ...
