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| David Biddlecombe 2005-09-05, 7:37 pm |
| Hi
Just uploaded my Photography portfolio site, nothing fancy, just wanted to
make sure everything's working OK with different machines, browsers etc.
Feedback welcome.
The site is here http://www.davidbiddlecombe.com
The contact section originally included a form but my web provider doesn't
provide cgi scripts and I couldn't work out how to set up the free one I found
so I replaced it with a simple mailto. If anyone can help a script adverse
photographer set up a cgi formmail that we be great. I guess it would be nice
to have a guestbook too, if anyone can point me in the direction of any
resources?
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| David Biddlecombe 2005-09-05, 11:38 pm |
| Well thanks for testing it guys. I'm stumped as to why it's not working though.
I've tested it with IE, Firefox and Opera here and it loads fine. I've also
tested it on 3 computers in my office and it loads fine there too (IE). After
the assets load the nav should appear and the first photo should load (the nav
& photo loader are seperate swfs). Anyone any idea why it works on some but not
on on everyone here's computer?
It uses MovieClipLoader to load the component swfs so needs the latest flash
player but the detector should take you to an update page if you don't have it.
Thanks very much for the offer of help with the cgi side of things for the
form dreamx, it's much appreciated. I guess I need to get the basic site
working for everybody first though.
Here's the address if that makes any difference: www.davidbiddlecombe.com
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| David W. 2005-09-05, 11:39 pm |
|
"David Biddlecombe" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:dfijvs$b33$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Well thanks for testing it guys. I'm stumped as to why it's not working
> though.
>
> I've tested it with IE, Firefox and Opera here and it loads fine. I've
> also
> tested it on 3 computers in my office and it loads fine there too (IE).
> After
> the assets load the nav should appear and the first photo should load (the
> nav
> & photo loader are seperate swfs). Anyone any idea why it works on some
> but not
> on on everyone here's computer?
>
> It uses MovieClipLoader to load the component swfs so needs the latest
> flash
> player but the detector should take you to an update page if you don't
> have it.
>
> Thanks very much for the offer of help with the cgi side of things for the
> form dreamx, it's much appreciated. I guess I need to get the basic site
> working for everybody first though.
>
> Here's the address if that makes any difference: www.davidbiddlecombe.com
OK...it does work. It just takes a really long time to load...and there's
no progress bar. But I left it loading and did some errands...and it was up
when I got back. :)
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| Nephthys101 2005-09-06, 7:24 am |
| Okay, you're site is working, but there is something very wrong. I suspect all
these people who've only seen 'loading assets' if they left if for half and
hour they'd get the site. I'm sitting on an extremely high-bandwidth internet
connection, (running XP Pro, IE6, FP7 for what it's worth) and it took a good
minutes or two for the navigation alone to load. That was nothing compared to
the first photo... Ages!... When it finally came (great photo BTW!), I thought
that was at least all the photos finally loaded, but oh no... that was only
one. Clicking the arrow to see the next one brought in a brand new ultra-slow
loading bar. I don't get it, because for the most part the site's very simple.
Yet even for the contacts page the loading bar was up for about half a minute -
just for that email address, and no jpegs!
I wonder if it's your host server being really really slow? Someone more
techie than me may be able to test it properly in some way. For now, I'd say
the very first 'loading assets' page needs a loading bar too, because those
'assets' (although they shouldn't) are taking ages to load.
The site itself is really nice. Navigation is easy to use and well thought out
- bits like the simple distinction between your portfolio links and the other
sections make sense. And the animated squares add a tasteful interesting touch
without being overdone. The unified colour scheme is cool, and I like the
typeface. Photos are (naturally) great as well.
It's all such a shame about the speed problem - that's what needs sorting.
:: Nephthys
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| David Biddlecombe 2005-09-06, 7:22 pm |
| Thanks for your detailed reply Nephthys and I'm glad you liked the site when it
finally loaded!
As you suggest, there must be something wrong, perhaps at the server end as
things like the 'assets' are just the two fonts used on the site and should
load really quickly. Likewise with the contact page which is just a line of
text and a rectangle. I'm sure I could compress the photos a bit more (I only
used jpeg level 10 as I wanted to keeep them reasonable quality as it is a
photography portfolio) but that doesn't explain why the simple things are
taking so long to load. What's strange is that when I test it on different
computers here in Hong Kong (on broadband) it loads pretty fast, 'loading
assets' blinks for a fraction of a second and the photos load pretty smoothly.
It just seems to load really slowly for anyone outside Hong Kong. Do web space
providers buy bandwidth and they haven't got much 'transcontinental' bandwidth?
I don't know how it works but I guess I'll be giving them a call in the morning.
Anyway, I guess it's strangely appropriate that as displaying images within
the context in which they were shot is an important part of my photography that
my website is refusing to reveal itself to anyone outside Hong Kong. Perhaps
it's trying to tell me something.
Thanks again for taking the time to wait for it to load, your feedback has
beeen really useful.
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| NetGeek911 2005-09-06, 7:22 pm |
| Hello, I'm on a really,really faast DSL line. It still won't load. The loading Assets defintly needs a loading bar!
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| NetGeek911 2005-09-06, 7:22 pm |
| Ok i'm going to let it sit there until it loads!!!
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| NetGeek911 2005-09-06, 11:18 pm |
| yeah, I got it!!!!! (After a loooooong time.!!!) Really nice site. I think its your host. Try a diffrent one and see if it works better.
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| David Biddlecombe 2005-09-07, 4:17 am |
| Yes, apparently it's a problem with my web space host, I phoned this morning
and they admitted that they're having bandwidth problems outside HK. I'll give
them a few days to sort it out and if not change to a different host.
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| David Biddlecombe 2005-09-14, 4:21 am |
| My web host says they're working on the bandwidth problems, would anyone like to try and see if the loading speed has improved?
http://www.davidbiddlecombe.com
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| David W. 2005-09-14, 4:21 am |
|
"David Biddlecombe" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:dg85oh$c05$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> My web host says they're working on the bandwidth problems, would anyone
> like to try and see if the loading speed has improved?
> http://www.davidbiddlecombe.com
still unbelievably slow...for me at least. Sorry... :(
Good luck with it!
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| Nephthys101 2005-09-14, 7:37 pm |
| Hi again David.
Just had a quick look (and it was quicker this time!) It's soooo much better
than it was, Loading assets near instant, and flash-content pages like your
biog and contact all come up nicely. The images do still take a while. I know
that's to be expected, but it may still be longer than I'd fear many casual
visitors would be prepared wait - the first still life was just under 30
seconds. Don't know if the host will be able to bring speeds up further, but it
my be worth investigating the size of your photos...? Obviously you're going to
want them very high, but it's worth remembering that your flash movie is only a
few hundred pixels each way, and computer screens only display around 72-90 odd
dpi. Importing higher res images will only be shrunk, you're not gonna see any
more visual data...
:: Nephthys
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| NetGeek911 2005-09-14, 7:37 pm |
| Ok:
Your site loads much faster. The loading assets took a second.The pictures
still took a little time but we should expect that. Also the contact page still
takes a long time to load. And it should't. All it is is one email address.
Your host defintely has alot of bandwith problems!!
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| Dragonusthei 2005-09-14, 7:37 pm |
| the site told me i didnt have flash mx player even tho i clearly do then when i finally got in it its just loads of sep loading bars for agers at a time on 1mb connection
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|
| Yup very slow for me as well
Tony uk
"David W." <david@NOSPAMdiavi.com> wrote in message
news:OoNVe.7512$w46.5797@tornado.texas.rr.com...
>
> "David Biddlecombe" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
> news:dg85oh$c05$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>
> still unbelievably slow...for me at least. Sorry... :(
>
> Good luck with it!
>
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| David Biddlecombe 2005-09-15, 4:22 am |
| Thanks for more feedback.
Regarding the images, I understand that there is no point bringing in images
larger than the pixel size of the stage, so they have all been bicubic sharper
downsampled to the stage size (max 625px x 500 px if I remember correctly)
Bringing them in any larger will just mean they would have to be resized in
flash which would be lower quality than resizing beforehand in Photoshop.
Therefore the only way to make the file size smaller than they are now is to
increase the compression (currently at level 10). I guess I'l fire up Fireworks
and try playing compressing to 8 or 6 and see what effect it has on the images.
That said, people who've tested it here in HK say each pic loads in about a
second the first time so I guess there are still bandwidth issues.
It is amazing how different the speed is now as I have done nothing to the
files, it's just the web host dealing with things at their end. I didn't
realise how much differenc the hosting could make, people usually just talk
about efficient coding, compression etc. It seems that the host server and
bandwidth are much more significant here.
Dragonusthei, if you only have the player that ships with MX, that's why it's
asking you to update to the latest player as the site uses some of the newer
loading coding in MX2004 so you need the latest player. If you already have the
latest player then I guess there's a problem with the detector.
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| NetGeek911 2005-09-15, 7:30 pm |
| O that happened to me. Just type www. davidbiddlecombe.com/index_content.htm
This will bypass the detector. But like david said you should get the newest version.
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| Dragonusthei 2005-09-15, 7:30 pm |
| i have the most uptodate player you can get and it did work after a few refreshes
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