Regarding Graphics During Heavy Free Republic Traffic

[I Am Not A Mod]

Hi all.

Pretty much everyone knows that things are about to get quite busy. Whenever this happens, people make suggestions such as "don't post graphics, so as to help Free Republic handle the traffic".

I wanted to be proactive and explain some misconceptions with this. For images which are not hosted by Free Republic, they do not impact on the response time for Free Republic. All our server has to produce, for a page to have a graphic on it, is a handful of characters in the form of an image tag:

<IMG SRC="http://some.url.for.the.graphic">

As such, NOT posting graphics helps Free Republic handle the load not at all. It does not take much bandwidth, at all, for the server to spit out that small amount of text.

HOWEVER, that is not all that should be said about the matter. First off, people who do post graphics should use the HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes when posting their images. The format of the IMG tag with these is as follows:

<IMG HEIGHT="100" WIDTH="200" SRC="http://some.url.for.the.graphic">

Where the 100 and 200 are replaced with the correct height and width (in pixels) of the image being posted. This is because many browsers, if these attributes are not included, will not load the rest of the thread until it can completely download the image, since the browser does not know how much space to leave for the image. This can cause it to appear as if Free Republic has stalled, if the server providing the image is overloaded or responding slowly. If you do use the HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes, the page will load normally even if the image takes a while.

Further, if you are finding that your browser is responding slowly because of images, the answer is for you to turn off the automatic loading of images within your browser preferences.

Thanks for your time.

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[Adding a few new thoughts]

1) If you find that because of whatever reason, images are slowing down your Freeping to an unacceptable level, you should turn off the loading of graphics within your own web browser. If you don't know how, post a question here and someone will undoubtably answer (a how-to for two common browsers is listed below). Don't let the lack of a fast internet connection cause you to want to deny images to everyone else, especially when you can totally control it within your own browser.

2) That said, those who post graphics should understand that it is unrealistic to think that everyone will get the word, so overdoing the graphics is simply an invitation to tick some people off. Further, even for those who have broadband connections, and even if the HEIGHT and WIDTH tags are specified on all images, a ton of graphics can cause some users' computers to slow to a crawl by using up all the available memory. Be considerate.

3) Here are instructions for how to disable the automatic loading of images (From NonValueAdded, who added value here):

To: Vol2727

In Netscape 7.0 From menu bar choose "Edit" --> "preferences", window pops up. Click on "privacy & security" then "images" choose "Do not load any images"

In Internet Explorer 6.0 From menu bar choose "Tools" --> "Internet Options", window pops up. Choose "Advanced" tab and scroll down to "Multimedia" section. Find the "Show Images" box and uncheck it.

Voila (sorry, I spoke French), enjoy your image free browsing experience while the rest of us groove on the nifty graphics.

Other browsers have similar settings.

201 posted on 03/17/2003 8:00 PM EST by NonValueAdded ("Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." GWB 9/20/01)

[Fixit]

Shame on you both!

Mia T's threads are works of art, and as such should not be constrained but such petty concerns.

(And no, I am not being in any way sarcastic. Her threads are not only graphically stunning, but comprise virtual meme-oceans. To single her out for your complaints, while lacking the cojones to ping her to this thread, well, my thoughts on that aren't appropriate for FR.)

[The Lake City Gar]

You're making a lot out of not much, aren't you???

[Mia T]

Thx , fixit, for everything. ;)

As for the above analysis, while it is true as far as it goes, it fails to consider the applicability of the old (admittedly pre-HTML) adage, p = 1000 w.

Nor does it consider that this multiplier effect is increased exponentially by such HTML enhancements as image maps to the web-friendly Flash file. (It isn't called "Flash" for nothing.) Note that this additional data gain costs virtually nothing in thread download time.

An example:

A few more:

 

NEW AUDIO!

Hear the Bill Bennett epilogue

[Churchillspirit]

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.

[Starrgaizr]

When-we-lose-the-graphics-the-terrorists-have-won bump.

[Consort]

Browsers have the option to NOT load images. Dial-up users can turn off the image option in their preferences.

[Kudsman]

just practicing.

[jwh_Denver]

btt

[Graymatter]

Does this work?

[js1138]

This is because many browsers, if these attributes are not included, will not load the rest of the thread until it can completely download the image, since the browser does not know how much space to leave for the image.

I'm sure these browsers are vastly better than I.E.