this is my first site i have ever made hand-coded and tableless in html/css!!im pretty happy with it. thanks to chrishirst and ladynred for helping me with it. but the image load times seem to be too slow, does anyone else think so. and any advice on it greatly appreciated. thank you. derek

http://derekvanderven.com/new_doctor_site/home.html

well, your bg images are pretty big...
a 800x560px jpg that weights 211 kb, you will always notice a lag between the text and the image.
I do, with an 5Mb connection (from Europe, depend where your server is, my lag time will be worst than other that are closer)

Right now, I'd say that the bg picture loaded around 1 second 1/2 after the text.

edit:
look at pingdom tool to analyze it, it seems that my location has not much to do: http://tools.pingdom.com/?url=http:/...pe=0&save=true
it looks like your server is taking way too much time before sending a reply to the request.
It's not the transfer that is slow, it's the time between the browser makes the request, and the first bytes comes to the browser

Maybe you should cut the image in to half or quaters then put it on. Not sure though

Cutting image in parts is something you really should NOT do, because it will only make more requests to server and slow everything down even more.

229 KB for background jpg is too much.

Try this: http://blocins.lv/files/temp/Untitled-1.jpg quality is lower, but I think it's still ok for background.

Not *really* relating to the message, but cutting an image into parts makes it still the same file size correct? I don't see the point in doing that unless it's a certain design effect you trying to achieve. But as far as saving space, it still uses the same space (over-all), so I don't see the point in letting one piece load then another then another etc..etc..Still the same weight. But I could be wrong, just using a bit of cs

-Brian

Try hosting the image on a really fast site (imageshack,photobucket, ect...) and see if it is your hosters fault.

The main problem here is not the image.
Look at the pingdom report http://tools.pingdom.com/default.asp...html&id=643474
, the server waits more than 1.5 seconds between the moment he says "I'm here" to the request and the moment he sends the datas of the image.
For non techies out here, there are 3 states in the transfer of a file
1)The connection: creating the channel between the source and target and both acknowledging
2)The transmission start: where the first byte of the data arrives at the detination
3)The transmission closing: where the sources tells the destination it's over

Here, the first point is huge already (3 seconds !), but the time between point 1 and 2 is relatively long (more than 1 second).
The transfer time itself (the blue bar) is almost null, less than 0.2 seconds.
This looks like an overselled server, that tries to answer to so many requests at the same time that it cannot sustain the pace...

thanks for the help everyone. should i make the background image smaller and use that background image, or should i look for a faster hosting provider? any suggestions for a fast host greatly appreciated. my monthly cost for this host (Aplus.net) is $9.95 per month. also, when i shrink the background image size (in kb) it doesnt look good enough. that was the best i could shrink it in photoshop. are there any better image compressors out there than photoshop? derek
ps- i need the host to provide an automated message board for me to use. like phpbb.because my board is at the top of the search engine and gets people to my site.

Make it ro smaller size. Try to make your website homepage less than 40k to avoid the loading speed slow down

this is the site i based my sample site on. it loads fine with large background image. does anyone know why mine wont? here is the original site that loads fast. any help greatly appreciated. thank you. derek

http://www.drmcmeeking.com/

and here is my site that i based it on that is loading slower.

http://derekvanderven.com/new_doctor_site/home.html

for god's sake....
the problem is at the server level, not at the image level.
Of course the site is faster on another server!

thank you tripy. does anyone know of a good fast hosting provider that would be faster than mine? it has to have a message board too, because mine is at the top of Google search for a subject. please , if anyone can direct me to a new host id GREATLY appreciate it, because there are a lot of them. i live in new jersey, usa. thank you. derek

Originally Posted by silverglade

thank you tripy. does anyone know of a good fast hosting provider that would be faster than mine? it has to have a message board too, because mine is at the top of Google search for a subject. please , if anyone can direct me to a new host id GREATLY appreciate it, because there are a lot of them. i live in new jersey, usa. thank you. derek

Upload the image here, here, here, or here. Then see if the speed increases.

Whatever server you choose the image is still too large. A better option is to reduce the size of the image. You can at least use Mad182's reduced image, although it is still not small enough for a background.
In general try to come up with a design that uses less large size images.

The image is NOT to big, ive seen sites use images twice that size as backgrounds. The issue is with where the image is loaded from.

Originally Posted by Decaf

The image is NOT to big, ive seen sites use images twice that size as backgrounds.

Try to say it to dial-up users

Problem here may be not caused by size of image, but it's anyway much to large.

Reducing the image will help you, but if others are running ping tests on your server(which i have not done), and its slow that will help you also, should take both bits of advice.

For each image I believe the server has to be requested (pinged) to send the information.

I can see when its loading it is taking a while I would also use the Image provided already by a previous poster.

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