Faster Loading Pages
Whew! I finally finished the (very) tedious work of updating the entire website to load faster for those poor souls still using 56k modems. Honestly, it should help out with page load speed for everybody, but what I really want to cut down on is the percent of people I’ve been seeing getting a partial-page-load error (when this happens, most the page loads, but you will often get those crossed out missing-graphic boxes, and this can especially be a pain if the graphic missing is a navigation link). My records show that over the last month almost 15% of my visitors have experienced an error like this, and I really want to get that number way down. I like the overall layout of the site and don’t plan to get rid of the major images, but the sheer number of images on the pages was bogging the site down, due in part to the image-swap navigation I was previously using, which added about 14 gif images to every page load. The new navigation uses plain text with a style rollover effect, which should significantly improve load times. I still don’t know squat about CSS programming, but FrontPage handled the rollover effects for me so I didn’t need to learn much. Most users probably won’t even notice, but I think it looks nice and clean, if a little less unique.
Even my small graphics are larger than those found on most sites, but that’s because Acne-Vitamins is really optimized for a higher resolution than most surfers currently use (c’mon, I’m leading a technological revolution here). The site is best viewed at resolutions of 1280 X 1024 or higher (I myself use 1400 X 1050). It fits pretty much exactly in the window at 1024 X 768, but stretches past the borders on the old 800 X 600 standard. Most of my visitors are viewing in 1024 X 768, but with so many people buying flat screens, it’s only a matter of time until typical resolutions improve. More users are also making the jump to broadband, so I’ve basically just positioned the site to be attractive over the long haul, rather than looking outdated in the near future. Just don’t expect me to start using Flash effects or anything! Search engines like text, and so do I. Plus, I don’t know how…
