Increase Max Avatar Size?

Even if it was only to 10k-15k? I have a gif image, non animated, and getting it in decent quality made it 7k... 5k just seems way too small. Any chance it could be just a TAD larger?

Not going to happen. Sorry.

Don't want to be a pest on the issue, but is there any specific reason why? 10k isn't really that large.

I take it you don't have dial-up?

Try loading 26 * 10k avatars. Plus the page itself. Approaching 300k. On dialup that will take about 3 minutes, give or take.

Its even longer on a 14.4kbps cellphone connection. 300k would take somewhere around 10 minutes.

Man I hate dialup. I'm glad I've got broadband here at home.
*** Edited 4/5/2005 8:08:19 PM UTC by bholcomb***

Mason said:
I take it you don't have dial-up?

I guess if you look at it in that sense, then so be it. However, Dial-up is fast disappearing and there are very very few sites out there with restrictions on size so tight... and really, 10k is quite small.

Its even longer on a 14.4kbps cellphone connection. 300k would take somewhere around 10 minutes.

Then what it is right now would be 5 minutes, and realistically, no one (save a few people, I imagine) uses cell phones to visit sites like this.

And for those who complain so much about loading times:

My Account > Hide vanity items? (avatars, signatures)

Solved. *** Edited 4/5/2005 8:35:29 PM UTC by Hartley***

Dialup is fast disappearing? Think again. A large number of people still use dialup. Just because you and your friends don't use it doesn't mean it's going away.

And, I've used my cellphone to browse this site before. It's painfully slow already. It's not hard to get an avatar down to 5k without much quality loss. Learn how to use a professional graphics editor.

bholcomb said:
Dialup is fast disappearing? Think again. A large number of people still use dialup. Just because you and your friends don't use it doesn't mean it's going away.

And, I've used my cellphone to browse this site before. It's painfully slow already. It's not hard to get an avatar down to 5k without much quality loss. Learn how to use a professional graphics editor.

1. I've used Photoshop for a while, and got quality down to what I had above, mostly because I tinted it.

2. Cellphones weren't built solely to browse sites, even if they have internet capabilities. My point is if you wish to browse the site:

My Account > Hide vanity items? (avatars, signatures)

You're a web designer, and 10k remains to be a very small size. If you browsed this site with the avatars on as they are now on the phone, which you said you did, then you're still wasting a ton of time with loading when you should just as well disable them.

With scripts that I write I always take into consideration all available possibilities for size, but also keep in mind options available. If they want to keep it to 5k here, I'll just stop complaining now, but allowing up to 10k surely wouldn't hinder performance on most users, and those who it might have the option to remove them.

And I'll do a quick reword: Dialup is disappearing.

I removed the fast, but it's still a fact that more people are switching to broadband, especially with its lower price in many areas. *** Edited 4/5/2005 11:06:26 PM UTC by Hartley***

I will still argue that you are wrong, and more than 1/2 of the population still uses dialup. Broadband may be available in a lot of the bigger cities, but it is still unavailable in a lot of places. Furthermore, many people do not wish to pay the high costs associated with broadband.

As for when I'm working on websites, I still try to make my pages under 40k a piece. That's been the 'standard' for as long as I can remember, and the generally accepted size of a web site.

bholcomb said:
I will still argue that you are wrong, and more than 1/2 of the population still uses dialup. Broadband may be available in a lot of the bigger cities, but it is still unavailable in a lot of places. Furthermore, many people do not wish to pay the high costs associated with broadband.

As for when I'm working on websites, I still try to make my pages under 40k a piece. That's been the 'standard' for as long as I can remember, and the generally accepted size of a web site.

My website at ahartley.net runs low in size, even with the two large images... I understand the importance of small size.

And your numbers on dialup: check sites on google, and you'll see that many statistics show that broadband users surpassed dialup during 2003. Example:

http://csp.netratings.co.jp/nnr/PDF/0526_2003Ranking_e_Final.pdf

As far as costs, I can't say anything for all areas, because many dialup services are cheaper than Broadband. However, not all. Even the lowest level of cable service can get to sites with a decent speed, and costs of those are lower than dialup in some areas.

Even AOL Broadband is $15 (though they're still the devil). ;)

You shouldn’t be quoting a post directly above yours. Everyone knows who you’re talking to. Even 2-5 post up, a quote isn’t necessary. The avators are big enough already, any bigger it starts to get in the way a little as you read the post.

According to Nielson, I am wrong, but only by about 7 months. Broadband usage in the United States broke 50% in August of 2004. I would expect that number to be within 10% of that number now, which would still mean you are screwing 40% of your users.

http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/us082004.cfm

And, as a sidenote, if you're serviced by comcrap, you will pay nothing less than outrageous for broadband service.

Gomez, he was talking about bytes, not actual size. ;)

I quote for emphasis, in the case of the hiding vanities quote... and Gomez, I'm not talking about physical dimensions, I'm talking about filesize.

And Comcast is crap, no argument there.

Nothing left to argue about :p

Oh well, shows you what I know. :)
*** Edited 4/6/2005 2:03:34 AM UTC by Gomez***

Ok, so you increase the filesize, but still cram it into a small physical space, right? And that's going to make it look better? uh huh, sure.

Hartley said:
Don't want to be a pest on the issue, but is there any specific reason why?

Avatars and other forum fluff don't add to the discussion. That's the biggest issue I have. I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not I was going to include them at all when we were working on this site last spring. I still don't have them on CoasterBuzz, and frankly I think the forum is better off for it.

Fortunately, you can turn vanity stuff off in your profile.

JuggaLotus said:
Ok, so you increase the filesize, but still cram it into a small physical space, right? And that's going to make it look better? uh huh, sure.

You clearly don't understand the point I was making, nor much about image quality... but I forgive your ignorance.

And Jeff: fair enough point. I won't beat on this topic anymore.

So what was the point you were making? That a 7k avatar (at this size) would look any different than if you shrunk it a bit more to make it a 5k file?

JuggaLotus said:
So what was the point you were making? That a 7k avatar (at this size) would look any different than if you shrunk it a bit more to make it a 5k file?

I'm not going to argue this any more, but for your knowledge, you can save files in different gif formats that require just a couple more kb than in lower quality settings. Yes, it does make quite a noticable difference. *** Edited 4/7/2005 1:59:29 AM UTC by Hartley***