"There's no such thing as a dumb question"

[Dan Geiser]

Hi, Dean,

>Having titled the post appropriately, I have a query or two.
>
>1. On many browsers I get feedback that my blog requires the reader to >use 
>the scroll bar to go back and forth.  The margins are screwed up.  >I 
>suspect this is due to the size of some pictures posted, and seek 
> >confirmation of this.

In this case I wouldn't necessarily think of the margins as being screwed 
up.  The margins are working correctly it's just that they can't accomadate 
the width of the content being place inside them.  Large pictures or large 
URLs will do this.  Also, if the viewer has their resolution set too low, 
e.g. 600 x 480, a web page which looks perfectly fine the majority of the 
time could then force a scroll.  This could also be affected by whether you 
are using relative, e.g. percentages, or absolute widths on your web page.

>2. On the same subject, is there a way to shrink the size of pictures using
>the blogging software, or need I do this before I post the picture?

There are 2 points where you could shrink the picture.  Either shrink it 
while it is still on your desktop and not uploaded to the server yet.  You 
could use almost any image editor, e.g. Irfanview, to do this.  Or you could 
upload the image as is and shrink it's display by using image resizing in 
the web page code itself.

>4.  Gee, how come some blogs load in a heartbeat, and others take 
> >something short of forever?

If you are speaking of the weblogs.com server, I too find that very slow 
loading most of the time.  I have a web page on the manilasites server as 
well and that appears to load much quicker.

Web page loading times are a pretty broad category.  Possible points of 
failure (i.e. slowness) could be Your Computer, Your Internet Connection, 
The Internet Connection of the Server and The Server Itself.  And each of 
the points could act differently (except your computer) depending on the 
time of day.  Also, the manner in which  different weblogs are created could 
be a factor.  Some are gadget heavy, i.e. java, graphics, etc., and some are 
just fancily displayed plain text.

Some pages I will wait longer than normal to view if their content is 
particularly good.  Some I'll just click stop and go about my business.  
Just make sure your weblog is one that people like to wait for!

See Ya,
Dan Geiser <dgeiser13@hotmail.com>

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