Jay Honeck wrote:

1. Does anyone know what the average speed modem is being used by the 70% of
people still using dial-up?

56K is generally the modem speed. Line speed is usually slower.

2. I hear people say that Java is "evil" all the time -- yet it seems that
every cool effect on a webpage requires Java. What is bad about Java
scripting? How about "Flashmedia"?

Java is an interpreter (as opposed to a compiled language like C), so execution
is relatively slow. Applets run faster than scripts, but each applet also has to
be downloaded, as is any file or other resource the applet needs. From *your*
viewpoint, you should be using Java applets for anything that requires input
from the customer or display of items that you do not want automated snoopers to
be able to see. You should be using *well written* HTML for anything that you
want web crawlers to pick up and store for search engines. You also should use
HTML for the links to other pages you want web crawlers to read (and you have
this on your home page). A good crawler will also pick stuff out of Java script,
but not all do.

Photos are another thing that slows a page down, and they also hide information
from automated snoopers. Java is preferable to Flash, since many people either
can't or won't put Flash on their computers.

3. I have pared our opening page back to practically nothing, yet it STILL
seems to be taking too long to open. I added a new "hit" counter
yesterday -- could that be slowing it down so much? (It's
www.AlexisParkInn.com if you want to take a gander at it.) How long is it
taking to open on your computer?

I have a DSL line, but it takes 10 seconds or so with IE. Surprisingly, it loads
in about 4 seconds with a obsolete version of Netscape but doesn't display
perfectly. The difference *does* seem to be the counter. Looking at the page
source, you're accessing another web site to get that counter. That's going to
slow things down a lot, and the amount of the delay is not going to be
predictable.

4. I tried to look at the page from Mary's computer (which has the screen
resolution set to "Mr. Magoo" settings) -- and it locked up her computer. I
re-booted and checked on the Microsoft website, which showed that she had,
like, ten "critical updates" to Win XP that she had not installed -- so I
installed them for her.

Now the page runs normally, but I'm worried about having a website that
might actually freeze someone's computer. Can anyone see anything on the
page that could have caused that? Or was it just a glitch in Mary's PC?

I don't see anything offhand.

How many of you guys actually make real-time, on-line hotel reservations?
My gut feel has always been that we would eventually have to jump on this
band-wagon, because more and more people are booking on-line. However, this
newly released figure, showing such low high-speed internet usage, really
makes me wonder if people are actually using on-line bookings much, or if
this is a tiny minority using it only occasionally.

I never do. My wife did so one time about 4 years ago through one of those web
sites that claims to (and in our case, did) get you sizeable discounts at
hotels. We stay in hotels perhaps five nights a year. Sometimes we don't get
reservations at all -- just stop when we get tired.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.