Board bandwidth

[Bob Willson]

I have started using Opera for my internet browser as it is very fast and does not suffer from the same security problems that IE6 does.
As an Opera extra, at the bottom of the page is a little toolbar that tells me how big the page that I am downloading is. All pages from the UBeaut BB are about 200k in size. For some reason I cannot get either IE6 or Opera to just use the cache to see if the page is current and then to just load from the cache. This also means that people on a dial up connection would take quite a while to download the pages and I estimate that the total would add up over a month to at least 60 meg. (Being VERY conservative)

So, the reason for this post. Is there a setting anywhere that will allow me to ONLY download new and/or revised pages so as to keep the bandwidth used down as low as possible.

[kiwigeo]

Im a Mac man usually but luckily for you Im at work and forced to work on a PC.

To change cache settings on IE go to tools menu -> Internet Options -> General -> Settings.

Youll see provisions in the last window to change when IE checks for web page updates and you can also play with cache file size. MS reccommends an optimum cache file setting of 80M.

Dont know much about Opera..Im using Macs browzer Safari.

Hope this helps

Martin

[kiwigeo]

I estimate that the total would add up over a month to at least 60 meg. (Being VERY conservative)

60 meg a month just browzing the forums sounds excessive. You might want to install a download meter and actually measure how much youre using in a month. Most of the ISPs have meters available for download from their home pages.

[simon c]

Bob, I'm not sure if you are talking about caches in general or about this site in particular. If you are talking about this site, then I don't think you can load the pages from a cache as the content is generated dynamically. If it wasn't, then you would never see any new replies to threads as it will always show you what was there before.

You can normally tell a dynamic website as the pages are called .php or .asp and they use code to generate the web page based on parameters that you pass to the website (which is all of ?p=91234 stuff at the end of the URL). The information never really exists as we see it on their servers.

Other websites with .htm etc at the end are real pages and they exist so you can cache them.

However, even if the page is dynamic your computer can cache aspects of the page, particularly graphics, etc.

Hope this helps

Simon

[namtrak]

The quickest thing that could be done to reduce page size here, would be to optimize the Woodwork Forums logo across the top of the page. That sits at just on 40kb, and I reckon it could be optimized down to about 10kb.

I only ever check the 'New Posts' option across the menu line (next to search and quick links), this is handy for keeping up to date with the site.

I haven't checked but you could probably also reduce the number of posts visible on your page, the default is 15 but you could reduce it to 5 say.

200kb does seem high, can you double check that? On any given page, the biggest file is the logo at the head of the page (40kb) and generally the rest of the page is text. This would be consigning some 160kb to text would be a very big page indeed.

Edit: Just checked the avatar sizes from down the left hand side of the page and I suspect therein lies a possible culprit. Some of the avatars range 1kb upto 15kb ( :eek: ) I guess if one of the those bigger avatars gets repeated 15 times on a page things are going to add-up pretty quickly - goes without saying that my avatar is 15kb (soon to be deleted)

As a point of reference the Yahoo homepage is about 40kb in total (this has increased over the years) they have moved from abour 10kb to 20kb and now 40kb - I guess they are making concessions for access speeds.

The other thing to do would be to wander over to the V-Bulletin homepage and have look on their forums for page size and see if it is an issue for other V-Bulletin users.

Cheers

[Grunt]

Up to the previous post thread is 66k in size. The logos and avatar images are only downloaded the first time you look at a page with that image on it. All subsequent downloads will get the images from your cache.

[outback]

I reckon perpetuating this thread is the biggest chewer upper of Bob's download limit.
Everytime some one replies poor old Bob has to check it and download the whole thing again.

So Bob what's it worth for me to shut up and not make you keep checking back in case I add something intelligent?

[vsquizz]

Yeah, what Outback said, don't want to keep adding things that may not be of any help.


Cheers

[kiwigeo]

Yeah, what Outback said, don't want to keep adding things that may not be of any help.


Cheers

True but I still think Bob should check the cache settings on his browzer....if the thing is set not to cache data then changing the setting is about the only practical thing he can do do reduce his download rate.

My second suggestion on getting some concrete figures on how much hes actually downloading using a meter would be useful too. If his download figure is high and hes just doing general surfing then he needs to check for possible unauthorised activity on his machine.

Okay, no more posts from me on this one.

[Grunt]

If you want to reduce your monthly download, stop looking at so much . Simple.

[ozwinner]

So, where do I find this prorn?


Al :confused:

[Grunt]

www.persiankitty.com

Don't ask me how I know this site.

[ozwinner]

Grunt!!:eek: :eek:

Thank you.

Al

[echnidna]

Whose dribbling

[Grunt]

Grunt!!:eek: :eek:

Thank you.

Al

Well thats it. We probably won't see Al for a few weeks.