New website, new photos, new approach

[pumaknight]

Hi all,
I have finally got round to building my website - just like I want it. I would so much welcome everyones feedback and comments.
I hope you like it and the galleries:
www.pumaknight.co.uk (http://www.pumaknight.co.uk)

Thanks,
Michael H

[chauncey]

I just checked my download speed-2000 Kbps.

your images took over 30 seconds to load, got discourged.

[Ultimate CC]

its telling me service unavailable...

[Travisj]

Could not display, don't know what happened.

[azpix]

that flash or your pictures is making the site way to cumbersome to use. it loads the flash strip and you have to wait for that. then you select a picture and you have to weight for that.
may want to check into that.

[pumaknight]

HI,

Thanks all for the feedback- I am very suprised to hear it is very slow - I had it tested by people in New York and Hong Kong and the UK. All reported it ran very quickly. I have noticed in this evening here in the UK that it runs slower - this could be a hosting problem. I will do a bit of research and find out what is happeneing.

If you get a chance, can you try again and see if it works any quicker?

Thanks

[cdifoto]

On my 1.5meg DSL, it took 20 seconds just to show the loading bar. Not acceptable.

[pumaknight]

Totally unacceptable - I have no idea what is causing this.....I might have to pull the site until I get it sorted :-(

The annoying thing is it is working fine sometimes, but not at others...how do you resolve a irratic performance over the internet?

[cdifoto]

If your site is well coded and the files aren't excessively large, it's probably inferior hosting...which is very likely if you're using super cheap hosting. They typically cram a zillion users on the same server. Assuming you're on cheap hosting now, paying a little more for a superior host is well worth the money.

[pumaknight]

I have a call logged with the hosting company - it has always been super quick.

The file sizes are small, typically anything from 30k to 200k.(the main page is only 140k - not exactly huge is it?) Each component has a loader bar put in for those on slower connections, so they could see progress, but this isn't even displaying - I have to conclude that this is the hosting server taking time to process the next script. And that is killing me :-(

[cdifoto]

I wouldn't consider 140k huge, at least on a DSL line. For what it's worth, my home page loads in about 3 seconds after clearing my cache, but it's not pure flash. Any website should display at least something to confirm connection. Unfortunately yours doesn't, and I only waited for it because I was testing it. As a potential client I'd give up...especially on dial up.

[pumaknight]

True, very true - so something is amiss. And I am convinced it is the hosting company as it just sits there with no change, but then flies through. Thanks for taking the time to look - I do hope you will visit again when it is working properly....

[cdifoto]

No problem. I had a $5 a month host several years ago that was fast when it was on, but when it was off it was really off. I had to move away due to inconsistency in service.

[pumaknight]

Do you mind me asking, what do you pay now for a good and consistent service?

[cdifoto]

Well I'm not really on a traditional host...I have some eBay services I'm paying for in addition so it's not a direct comparison.

[pumaknight]

Great news - for me anyway - it is the hosting service. I went onto a temp host to cehck the code was working okay and it was lightening quick. No delay between the click and the loader bar.

So now all I have to do is find a decent hosting service.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to look and comment. I hope you will come and look again once I get it up to a respectable hosting service.

[dekalbSTEEL]

You seem to also have a problem in your code:

When I view one of the photos

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/843/11222007111606jm3.png

and click on the image, it should do one of two things:

1. Enlarge image >or< 2. Advance to the next image

Instead, it takes me back to the main menu

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/3903/11222007111503jx4.png

not good:(

[slimninj4]

It looks good. No option to see larger size as some of those photos are so tiny on my screen. I do like the layout of the gallery. Found a small bug but worked around it.

[pumaknight]

You seem to also have a problem in your code:

When I view one of the photos

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/843/11222007111606jm3.png

and click on the image, it should do one of two things:

1. Enlarge image >or< 2. Advance to the next image

Instead, it takes me back to the main menu



not good:(


Yes, I see what you mean - fyi there is no option to enlarge image(I am woring on that as an option given peoples feedback). but I must look as to why the buttons in the background are still registering clicks when the picutres are open above it. My first flash site, so all good expereince, even ifg I am learnign as I go :-)
Thank you for this - most appreciated.

[pumaknight]

It looks good. No option to see larger size as some of those photos are so tiny on my screen. I do like the layout of the gallery. Found a small bug but worked around it.

Yes, you are not the first to comment on the size of the images - The idea was to have the whole page fit into a screen size of 1024*768 - this is normally the size of most people'sscreen resolution. However, these days, some are viewing at higher res, so the photos will look small. I myself am working at 1280*1024.

I am working on a small improvement where, you can either select the image to show it at 1024*768, or slightly smaller but the menu bar disappears.

Out of interest, what was the bug? I want to know so I can remove everything I can. This is my first Flash site, so I expect there to be issues.

p.s. sorry that you are all being beta testers of sorts :-)

[jnick]

FWIW...the website is running rather quickly on my end. It took no more than 3 seconds to load an album and 1 second to load an actual image...

This is on a 20Mb/s cable connection in NY.

[cdifoto]

Mucho faster now. Near-instant loading. Very good. :cool:

When I check out your gallery though, no image is displayed right of the bat. I have to click a thumb below. The first image in the series should be displayed automatically.

[pumaknight]

Mucho faster now. Near-instant loading. Very good. :cool:

When I check out your gallery though, no image is displayed right of the bat. I have to click a thumb below. The first image in the series should be displayed automatically.

Thank you for taking the time to look - glad it is working at the proper speed now.

Agreed on the image loading on gallery - I am in the process of making that change and hope to have it working by the end of the week.

Thank you again.

[pumaknight]

FWIW...the website is running rather quickly on my end. It took no more than 3 seconds to load an album and 1 second to load an actual image...

This is on a 20Mb/s cable connection in NY.

Cool - Thanks for looking. Glad it is working at a decent speed now.