FASTER and FASTER and FASTER!
Monday, August 6, 2001 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Late last week we did a band width analysis to see where the bandwidth goes. Around 20% of it was spent on THUMBNAILS alone.
We made a change in which anonymous users would see the tiny thumbnails (we store 2 sizes of thumbnails - tiny and large) by default instead of the large ones. Sure enough, bandwidth use went down. We also made the change that the default would be the tiny thumbnails as well.
Now, let's say you want to have the larger thumbnails again, you need to have an account (accounts are free and take only 15 seconds to create) and then set your site optimization for DISPLAY rather than SPEED.
Today, we re-optimized the JPEG previews for display (rather than print). The result is that the thumbnails which used to be 30K on average are now falling to less than 10K even though they look the same. On a typical page with 10 previews, this will save nearly a minute of download time for modem users! Not all the thumbnails have been migrated yet but in the next day or so the process should be completed. Hope the site seems faster.
We made a change in which anonymous users would see the tiny thumbnails (we store 2 sizes of thumbnails - tiny and large) by default instead of the large ones. Sure enough, bandwidth use went down. We also made the change that the default would be the tiny thumbnails as well.
Now, let's say you want to have the larger thumbnails again, you need to have an account (accounts are free and take only 15 seconds to create) and then set your site optimization for DISPLAY rather than SPEED.
Today, we re-optimized the JPEG previews for display (rather than print). The result is that the thumbnails which used to be 30K on average are now falling to less than 10K even though they look the same. On a typical page with 10 previews, this will save nearly a minute of download time for modem users! Not all the thumbnails have been migrated yet but in the next day or so the process should be completed. Hope the site seems faster.
berzerka
Reply #5 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 8:30 AM
Reply #5 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 8:30 AM
i agree with everything except for the jpeg optimization - all my wallpapers look awful now!
Buzz_Hog
Reply #6 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 9:45 AM
Reply #6 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 9:45 AM
I agree.... my walls are looking pretty sad as well... 
skinner7892
Reply #7 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 11:03 AM
Reply #7 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 11:03 AM
I have to admit the jpg compression level used create noticeable artifacts. I did some test myself and if we could up the jpg compression to about 30-35% (in PS) which represents approx. 7 to 8K in file size, then most of the artifacts would be gone. On the other hand, do we really need to have high quality thumbs since we still have access to the zoom feature which gives full quality picture... that's something we could debate for some times 
berzerka
Reply #8 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 12:23 PM
Reply #8 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 12:23 PM
true, but a bad thumbnail can cause a skin to be shunned!
craeonics
Reply #9 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 4:06 PM
Reply #9 Tuesday, August 7, 2001 4:06 PM
You could consider using .gifs as thumbnails. At low resolutions as this a .gif can look just as good as a .jpg and be smaller.
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Reply #1 Monday, August 6, 2001 9:27 PM