OT - Internet and on-line booking questions for the group

I turn once again to you, the great internet gurus of aviation, for answers
to the mysteries of the web...

Yesterday NPR announced that only a third of internet users are connected at
high speed, using either DSL or cable. This truly surprised me, and I'm
absolutely amazed that so few people have made the jump to high-speed
internet -- I could never, ever go back to dial-up, and have been on cable
modem for years.

Because of this rather shocking statistic I instantly redesigned our webpage
so that the home page is smaller and opens more quickly. (According to what
Frontpage was telling me, it would have taken several minutes to open over a
28.8 modem!) It never dawned on me to design the page for dial-up, because
I thought slow connections were on there way out!

WEBSITE QUESTIONS for the group, if you please:
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1. Does anyone know what the average speed modem is being used by the 70% of
people still using dial-up?

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"?

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?

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?

An ON-LINE BOOKING question for the group, if you please:
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I am about to sign a contract with a company that will provide us with
real-time, on-line reservation and GDS support for hotels. This will
completely change the way we do business, and will add a significant cost to
our operation.

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.

Thanks for your help! (Your reward for helping me is getting to view this
goofy new video, forwarded to me by a British pilot. It's yet another in a
series of bizarre ads for Ford automobiles that apparently works to sell
cars in Britain. See it at:
http://alexisparkinn.com/photogaller...rd_sportka.wmv Here's
another one from the series, almost aviation related:
http://alexisparkinn.com/photogaller...s/BirdGone.mpg )
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"