[msinger]

i posted this on craigslist:

====================
Hi there,

I need someone to look over my professional site: margaretsinger.com and teach me (or do it for me) how to make it load and run faster. It's a bit sluggish. I built it myself using Photoshop, then I sliced it up, and then I put it into Dreamweaver.

Help!
====================

and got this response:

====================
> Hi,
>
> I ran over your post on Craigslist and visited your website
> briefly. I would suggest 2 things: Either
> convert some (if not most) of the content to flash for better
> compression, or (and this is the one
> I'm leaning towards) use Ajax to load all the images even when a
> visitor is not clicking on them
> (ie. cache them on their computers). If you're interested I could
> help with the Ajax part. Should take
> about 10 hours to complete @ $30/h.
>
>Cheers,
====================

to which i replied:

====================
Thanks for the reply. I think Ajax sounds like a great idea. But 10
hrs? There are only 9 pages on the site, total. Then again, I don't
know that much about Ajax. Could explain to me a little bit about why/
how it would take that long? I just want to make sure that I have a
sense of what's going on. After that, I'm happy to get started when
you are!

Thanks again!
====================

to which he replied:

====================
I'm sorry, I really don't know what i was thinking when i said 10. Gosh. Now that I think about it.

The fact that your website has 9 pages (even if it had 1k) shouldn't influence much the development time. After all, it's just a matter of writing javascript code (~1 to 1.5 hrs max) and then copying/tweaking it for each page (< 5min). So it shouldn't take longer than 2hrs.

If you're still interested i can download your website and get started tonight, should have it by tomorrow morning. Let me know.

Cheers,
====================

i don't know enough to know whether or not this guy is BS or not...

thoughts??

thanks!
margaret

[shwizle]

i'm interested to see what people say.... but unfortunately i don't know anything about ajax...

[pat]

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials...le.php/3480001

Same thing, that above's a simple tutorial.

[steveb]

Assuming he'll take your code and modify it, then submit it to you for your approval before you pay anything, what have you got to lose?

I checked out your site and although I love your photographic work, viewing it was a little slow and clunky, so I really do think you should do something to speed it up.

I think the homepage itself is a bit drab - maybe the buttons could be 100% and the rollovers 50% instead of the other way round. The tall bars are also unnecessarily tall so your green text at the bottom is hidden unless I scroll my screen.

[pgo]

I see no reason for Ajax to be used on something like this - just compress the images more.

Loads pretty quickly for me - even for a 500KB web page (big!).

[e.boal]

I agree..it loaded pretty fast on my computer! Ajax is not overly hardcore but for a 9 page portfolio site? The guy could GIMP your images and it would make a huge difference!

[theantidote]

Yeah I think he meant Javascript but said Ajax to try and impress you. You don't need any of that really though because everything on your site could be done in CSS and it would make it much lighter.

[Scott]

aye, what pgo said.

[Devastated]

Hi, there is no need at all to use *buzzword alert* ajax... notice in your code (dreamweaver has done it) you are already preloading images i.e.

for page http://www.margaretsinger.com/engaged.html#

this code is in the body tag:-

onLoad="MM_preloadImages('images/info_02a.jpg','images/info_03a.jpg','images/wedding_a_04.jpg','images/wedding_a_04b.jpg','images/wedding_a_04r.jpg')"

you may wish to add all of the images for this page into this section to aid in speed... but as already noted above, if you don't want to compromise quality / size then use flash as it will compress the images in a lossless fashion... i personally would suggest making things slightly smaller in height /width and compressing them a little... checkout Ulead SmartSaver for a very good compression program.

[mx]

what pgo said...

[Mr Fred]

$300 dollars.

£150 - seems cheap as shit if ou ask me.

[pgo]

Originally Posted by Mr Fred

$300 dollars.

£150 - seems cheap as shit if ou ask me.

Of course, if the service is unnecessary...

[jem]

I've taken a look at your site and can see no need for ajax or anything *fancy* at all. In agreement with other comments, the images can all be reduced a lot in size. Try opening each image in Photoshop then choosing the save for web option to export them at a much smaller size. Your keywords look good, but the markup is old, using tables instead of css - although this isn't necessarily going to make it slower, you might find it's not as accessible to some users. Definitely no sign of Ajax being needed. Good luck!