Why, on Dial up, would webpages containing images look pixelated?

[Doug]

First Question:
Why, on Dial up, would certain webpages containing images look pixelated yet
on a high speed connection they look fine. Does anyone have dial up &
highspeed to view the below page on both and tell me if it looks different
and how I can fix the problem.

This is one of the pages I noticed it on:
http://mikaylasolutions.com/_m_home.htm

In a nutshell, this website was created in Frontpage using Photoshop 6.0
background images within each table.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Doug

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Are sure that the image has completely loaded when you are looking at it on dial up? Hopefully you
are not using AOL for dialup, as they do additional image compression.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
If you feel your current issue is a results of installing
a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
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If the problem can be shown to have been caused by a
security update, then there is usually no charge for the call.
==============================================

 

[Doug]

It's actually not my computer I witnessed this on. But indeed it was through
an AOL connection. It did appear to be completely loaded but your second
comment...image compression seems to be what happened, and only one some of
the images and not others. Is there a way around this so AOL users can view
clean or what do most people to in this case? Also, how do you know when it
will happen and when it won't?
Thanks!!!
D

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

See:
http://webmaster.info.aol.com/compgraphics.html

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
If you feel your current issue is a results of installing
a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
http://support.microsoft.com
If the problem can be shown to have been caused by a
security update, then there is usually no charge for the call.
==============================================

 

[E. T. Culling]

On my home page:
These pages were constructed to be
viewed with Internet Explorer or FireFox.
Netscape may not deliver them correctly!
And Opera truly makes a mess of it all!
AOL does the worst damage if the photos are
passed through their graphics compressor.
Eleanor

 

[Doug]

Does anyone know if there is a way to have your graphics be stable accross
all the browsers? Or is it such a small percentage of users that enable the
AOL compression feature and use AOL browsers with dial up that no one worries
about it? For you web designers out there, how do you go about educating
your clients in advance about things like this without making them think that
you are basing your product on your limited capabilities as opposed to the
hard facts of the world wide web. Just curious? Thanks to all who have
responded thus far....very helpful info!!!!

 

[Tom Pepper Willett]

The AOL compression feature (as well as many other providers who provide the
"web accelorator" feature, is on my default. The user has to turn it off,
and know that it can be turned off. In my experience, the average user
doesn't know anything about it.
--
===
Tom "Pepper" Willett
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
---
FrontPage Support:
http://www.frontpagemvps.com/

About FrontPage 2003:
http://office.microsoft.com/home/office.aspx?assetid=FX01085802
===
| Does anyone know if there is a way to have your graphics be stable accross
| all the browsers? Or is it such a small percentage of users that enable
the
| AOL compression feature and use AOL browsers with dial up that no one
worries
| about it? For you web designers out there, how do you go about educating
| your clients in advance about things like this without making them think
that
| you are basing your product on your limited capabilities as opposed to the
| hard facts of the world wide web. Just curious? Thanks to all who have
| responded thus far....very helpful info!!!!
|
| "E. T. Culling" wrote:
|
| > On my home page:
| > These pages were constructed to be
| > viewed with Internet Explorer or FireFox.
| > Netscape may not deliver them correctly!
| > And Opera truly makes a mess of it all!
| > AOL does the worst damage if the photos are
| > passed through their graphics compressor.
| > Eleanor
| >
| > | > > First Question:
| > > Why, on Dial up, would certain webpages containing images look
pixelated
| > > yet
| > > on a high speed connection they look fine. Does anyone have dial up &
| > > highspeed to view the below page on both and tell me if it looks
different
| > > and how I can fix the problem.
| > >
| > > This is one of the pages I noticed it on:
| > > http://mikaylasolutions.com/_m_home.htm
| > >
| > > In a nutshell, this website was created in Frontpage using Photoshop
6.0
| > > background images within each table.
| > >
| > > Any help is greatly appreciated.
| > > Doug
| >
| >
| >

 

[Murray]

The average user doesn't know what a browser is.... 8)

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

The AOL compression is on by default, AOL user have to be concerned or know to disable it.

Why worry about it, as the images from all sites will be compressed, so the AOL user wouldn't know
the difference.

Do you really think that are folks are going to change their browser's setting just to visit a web
site?



--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
If you feel your current issue is a results of installing
a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
http://support.microsoft.com
If the problem can be shown to have been caused by a
security update, then there is usually no charge for the call.
==============================================

 

[Doug]

I guess I'm just trying to figure out how to accomodate as many viewers as
possible...especially if this is a default setting on mainstream browsers.
So my question, which I'm still don't feel I have a clear answer is, what do
you all feel is the happy median to reach as many people as possible but
still have clear images....i.e. keep your page size under a certain memory
size, compress or optimize using a particular technique etc. If so, what is
the technique. In my website I built all the backgound files in Adobe 72
resolution because I was told that was the max the wwweb can handle assuming
any surprises in images would happen at the design phase...as opposed to the
visitor phase. Hopefully you know what my goal is. Again, to build sites as
dummy-proof as possible and keep any tricks of the trade at my side while
building the sites and how they will interact with "all" users.
Thanks again and keep the feedback coming....it helps tremendously.

 

[Ronx]

I design my pages to look good in IE6 and FireFox.and to be useable in
Netscape 4. The resulting pages are a disaster in Opera 4, and have
problems in Opera 5 and 6, but are at least useable in IE5+, Lynx, Netscape
3 and 4, all Gecko based browsers (Konqueror, Netscape 6+, Mozilla, FireFox,
etc), though I have not tested Safari but screen dumps look OK.

Image Compression is a default setting on AOL. I know other ISPs that offer
the setting, but I do not know of any (other than AOL) that use it as a
default - I do not know every ISP

For AOL users I have the following on image intensive pages:

Attention AOL users:
If any of the graphics you see on these pages are blurry in any way (apart
from out-of-focus 'photos), it's because AOL's default is to automatically
compress graphics - frequently to oblivion!
To turn this off, go to My AOL, preferences, www. Then click on the graphics
tab and uncheck the box that says to compress graphics. Clear your cache
then go surf and enjoy the view!

 

[Ratatooie]

Are sure that the image has completely loaded when you are looking at it
on dial up? Hopefully you are not using AOL for dialup, as they do
additional image compression.

Also note,

"Web Accellerator" services do this as well. To a certain degree, moreso
than AOL does by default.

So "NetZero", "Netscape" and any other dial up accelerator using service
will look like crud too.

The user is used to it (or they turned it off) so don't worry about it.