The Forum of Benfleet Running Club

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Hi Karl,

Firstly I'd like to say well done - this is one of the most thorough club sites that I have seen. It looks like you keep it updated regularly and it has some fantastically useful features. Google likes you (generally a good sign) - if you put 'benfleet', 'running' and 'club' in the search you're top of the list.

icon_biggrin.gif" alt="Very Happy" border="0" />

Being a prospective member (and a professional web-geek) I went through the site to find out the stuff that would be useful to a new member. And I must admit it was very easy to find when and where club runs took place. Can you feel the 'but' coming on? Wink

I'm pretty lucky in that I'm a very proficient Internet user and have a fast connection to the 'net both at home and at work. However accessing the homepage of the site reminded me of when I first used the web (when the Internet was still in nappies). It is slow. Not quite with the costumed fun-runners but not in the front half of the pack either.

To be honest a lot of 'club' sites are the same. It amazes me that people with dial-up connections ever look at these sites as the first page they want to see is usually the slowest of the lot!

If anyone with a slower connection is reading this perhaps they can give a comment as to how long they usually wait for the home page of the site ( www.benfleetrunningclub.com ) to fully load.

I know the general statistic is that people wait 8 seconds and if it hasn't loaded they're off somewhere else. It has taken at least that long to load on my 'fast' connection at work!

Karl - I know that this may seem like it is something that is beyond your control but (see there it is) I think it is possible to get the homepage down to a less bandwidth-busting size. As I have already produced the forum version of War & Peace I'll leave it there and if you want I can discuss it with you in person. I truly believe that it would help everyone (new and old) that was using the site and they would then see what great content actually is there!

Cheers,

JackL (John Small)

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

Hiya John,

thanks for the post ("war and peace" it is not - see Muldoon's Island)

I welcome all feedback on the website, good and bad.

I appreciate that you are a "professional web-geek", and welcome all your comments.

I think the 8 second rule ("only a fool breaks the 8 second rule".) only counts if people have come here by accident, or out of curiosity.

The majority of the 10,000+ hits since February are from members, who might have a quick pace on the track, but are quite happy to wait for the home-page to load.

I would love feedback from our regular viewers to let me their thoughts..

I do have a regular slow-mo connection website contributor, who used to let me know if things got to slowwww. I will wait for his update, Mike.

I think the home page should be full-to-the-brim with stuff to encourage peeps to come back. Again, if people disagree please let me know.

AFTER ALL, THIS IS YOUR WEBSITE GUYS AND GIRLS......

Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

Karl, I'm on a 8MG connection, with my temp internet files deleted the website still loads quickly.
Some of the source code could be optimised for a quicker load but to be honest not sure if this will make alot of difference. Everybody should have broadband by now Wink

mikey · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 6:51 am Post subject:

Blimey so many web geeks in one place

Shouldn't be allowed !!

As Karl has said I do give him regular feedback, mainly on the difference between my top notch aerospace broadband, and the steam powered village dial up I use at home. But have been known to give my opinion on every aspect of the site ( hence it’s superb look !!!!! )

The difference in load time is noticeable, but still within my tolerance band (which can be surprisingly short). Hence the lack of recent feedback.

I do like the current setup, a vast improvement on some of the earlier versions, but as always it's the graphics that slow things up. There's a fine line between getting a visually stimulating home page, and the time to load it. It’s always going to be a difficult balance to strike.

Just about right now (for me), but keep monitoring everybody

What else would you like on the site ?

What doesn’t work for you ?

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

too much triathlon stuff for my liking !

(only joking - honest)

I can quit easily make a non-graphic page for slower connections, but it means I need to update everything twice.
I could just have a plain logoed-up entry page, with links.
Again, and on this I agree with MJ that the front page needs a balance of visual stuff and updates, otherwise people need to click links all over the place to find the updated stuff. I really like to go to the home page and see all the updates, and stuff.

You tell me....

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Wow Muldoon’s Island should be in the Guinness Book of Records (after you’ve had a few jars of the black-stuff anyway).

*** WARNING *** Plain English may have been suspended for what follows. Fluency in Geek may be necessary to get past the halfway mark!

Karl: I take your point that the people you are aiming the site at are the current membership. That being the case you are right – the 8 second rule becomes less of a problem. I don’t know what the sites hosting plan is but generally they charge a set amount up to a maximum download size and charge extra if you go over that amount – depending on that maximum reducing the size of the page/site could save money too.

And though I disagree with your homepage philosophy (that you should put as much as possible on this page to keep people coming back) I can see what you mean. I’m more of a minimalist on the web design front and like the ‘blog’ look that can still show news but (to my mind) looks less busy / distracting.

More than 10,000 hits since Feb is very good indeed and Steve might be right a lot of members could have access to broadband connections. However web hit counters are notoriously inaccurate and unless they use the webservers log to breakdown the figures are only useful as an approximate guide. For instance you have a lot of ‘Refresh this page for latest update’ code on the page as soon as someone clicks that button a new ‘hit’ is counted.

As much as I like the idea of a minimalist page I don’t think it’s worth making a separate site for ‘text only’ either. As you said that would mean double the effort when it needs updating. The site can still have good looks and be a lot faster by separating the style from the content. But, and it is a big but, this is more difficult to do when using FrontPage as the editor.

Steve: an 8Mb connection (you lucky man) is pretty rare in the UK. You are right; at that speed you probably wouldn’t notice the optimisation of the code behind the page. But it is surprising how much more ‘instant’ optimised webpages are simply because the web browser doesn’t have so much work to do to parse the code once it has downloaded. One of the running sites that I found through Google that has standard ‘optimised’ code is [url] http://www.26point2.co.uk/ [/url]. If you take a look at how fast that appears you should see what I’m getting at.

Unfortunately there are 42% of UK internet users (2005 figures) that are still in the 56K or less connection speed so they will notice the download speed. That could be about 60 club members?

Mikey: You are right the graphics do add to the download time. But I agree they are necessary to give any site some pizzazz. The other bottle-necks are the calls to (especially external) scripts. i.e. the very useful trumba diary code. If you just cut out one of those calls, say have the upcoming dates section and not the calendar itself displayed, that would give visible speed improvement.

Even the fact that FrontPage puts multiple font-styles on the text in the page (given that a lot of peoples systems won’t even have the ‘BankGothic Lt BT’ font) all add up in unnecessary display time.

Granted (as you may have gathered by now) I am a bit anal regarding ‘standard’ (x)html code (the geeky stuff that makes up the page you see) and regularly need to be brought back to the world where normal web-surfers live. In my world ‘FrontPage’ shouldn’t be used for ‘proper’ websites (code produced is non-standard and generally bloated).

But all this is mere banter from someone not putting in the hours to keep the site current! As Karl said it is the members’ site and they should give some indication on which direction it should go (come on people how much coaxing do you need Wink

).

Keep up the good work everyone.

John.

mikey · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:27 am Post subject:

Hi John

Firstly, I must point out I'm not actually a web geek !

Merely a user (of the website), with a passion for the club.

Therefore, unfortunately most of your reply has soared so high over my head, I can barely make out its vapor trail !

On the plus side, I too don't like the Calendar on the home page, but purely for aesthetic reasons !!

Have mentioned this to Karl, but unfortunately he needs it, to tell what day of the week it is !!

Think we should count ourselves lucky there isn’t a link to Google Earth !!

Regards

Mikey

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

Don't worry Mike, I don't think Hockley has made it onto Google Earth yet !

More like Middle Earth !

Calender now coming off - by popular demand (well no, just you and John really)

No problem

Smile

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Hi Mikey,

Apologies, it is really hard to explain this stuff without using techie-terms.

Anyway I'm pretty sure Karl will get my drift and I think he could use the Windows clock to tell what day it is like (nearly) everyone else Wink

Cheers

John.

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Sorry Karl, missed your last post before I put mine on (it's this super fast connection at work that transfers data to the back of a snail at lunch-time).

Thanks for listening.

John.

Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

Karl,

The Clubs home page seems to have quite alot of blank space towards the bottom of the page, is this intentional ?

mikey · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 12:15 pm Post subject:

See Karl

I'm not the only one to use the windows clock !

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

Steve, yes the blanks are supposed to be there.

If I put any more stuff on there I will get even more complaints about the speed the home page loads.

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

Cant you just loose the blank space and shift the information up, its proberly better not to have a home page that scrolls too much Wink

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

That looks great now with out the spaces.
Your doing a good job with the site Karl Cool

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

No worries - all them blank spaces reminded me of Pat, that was all.

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Karl,

Well done. Just those couple of changes have improved the download time by approximately 4 seconds!

See it's easy to make someone happy.

John.

Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

I wish it was as easy to get things changed that quickly at work.

LOL- havent heard much from Pat recently.

1 more post Karl then thats makes your total 100 I've just noticed Smile

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

ah, you've seen thorugh my cunning plan to get to 100 posts.

--hurrah !! ------

icon_biggrin.gif" alt="Very Happy" border="0" /> Laughing

I wish another 4 seconds made everyone happy -
oooh arr Missus (in the style of Kenneth Williams) Rolling Eyes

debbie g · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 266

I would just like to contribute a banal message from a complete and utter computer illiterate. Firstly speed isn't everything (look at my Basildon 5k results !!) and if you don't have a bit of patience and endurance where would you be?? (There speaks a distance runner!).

I like the front page, nice pretty pictures, updates for existing members enough stuff to entice new ones. Regular changes to keep it interesting. And if the cave woman dial up antique I am still using at home can cope well anyone can.

And this is from someone who can't even watch her bids on ebay when she's at home because her computer is so rubbish!

I think I speak for the rest of us mere mortals who wouldn't know what a ram was if it butted us in the butt - the website is brilliant, it's not only attracting the existing members but new ones and it's got something for everyone.

It's better PR for Benfleet than I could ever provide!

Keep it up Karl.

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Debbie,

Good to hear you’re enjoying the site – there are a lot of good things about it – Karl is obviously a very committed webmaster. But I’m commenting on something else you mentioned.

You may be surprised to hear that the majority of treacle-slow PCs are pretty easily (if you’re a geek) speeded up to at least as fast as they were when new. If like me you have a PC that is over 3 years old most people tend to save for a new one and not bother about keeping the old one ‘serviced’. This is a common mistake and can lead to nasty stuff like adware (pop-up boxes appearing even when you’re not connected to the net) and other more covert nasties like viruses and trojans (even if you have an anti-virus program installed – as most people forget to update their anti-virus after the initial 6 months).

You can get this sort of service from most PC doctors and repairers and they generally charge around £40.

Unfortunately I have no recommendations as I do this sort of stuff for a living anyway (and I don’t tend to use the common MS Windows system at home anyway) so I’ve never needed to pay out but if you’re interested I could take a look at it and say whether it would be worth ‘cleaning up’.

To be honest I’d be surprised if general stuff like defragging your hard disk and running a recent anti-virus / spyware program on your system wouldn’t make a big difference.

Cheers,

John.

Mike Mason · Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 900 Location: Hockley

Karl, I think the site is excellent....now please hand over the fiver. The only concern I have is forgetting my login details - is there something that could make it easier for me?
rgds
Mike
_________________
'sometimes I am running so fast it appears that rocks and trees are standing still......' 'I may be slow, but you are ugly and I can train harder.' '90% is mental, the other half is physical'it's going to get a lot worse, before it gets worse'.

Karl C · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 1577 Location: Rayleigh

Mike, thanks (the cheque is in the post).

I feel the only way to make your login any easier would be to pop down Southend and get a tattoo on your forehead.

John, if you and Debs want to go off and defrag somewhere a little more private please feel free. You are both consenting adults I guess.

Pat M · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 215 Location: Canvey Island

I'll keep my complaint small as i don't wish to offend anyone. BUT! I don't like the 'improved' homepage. I didn't realize the 'big white space' at the bottom was a 'big white space'. I thought it was a white cat in the snow and i used to enjoy trying to find it. Also with its improves speed i've now got four seconds less to watch the little bits of the jig-saw come together into a wonderous homepage that fills me with delight. In short...I don't like it! Change it back.....Now!!!............or else.

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

debbie g · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 266

Thank you John but I fear defragging won't be enough to cure my computer's ills. I am of the view that chucking it out the window jumping up and down on it and getting something from this century and broadband is the only cure. Luckily my office computer has heard of Bill Gates and doesn't require a crank start and little man waving a red flag in front of it so I just about manage when I'm here.

Hello Mike, how was Scotland?

Mike Mason · Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 900 Location: Hockley

Debbie, hi - Scotland was great. Almost ran up Goat Fell on Arran but the mist came down and got lost on descent (this is usual for me by the way). Got egged into entering Skye Highland Games Hill Race - 2.5 miles of hell - basically a lung busting ascent and a frightening descent. Apart from that, midges were about but weather held up. Like to point out though that we saw no Otters - this is a Scottish marketing ploy - there are none they must have died out years ago. See you in a few weeks..by which time hopefully Karl will have sorted out this pigs ear of a website (the cheque never arrived).....

rgs
Mike
_________________
'sometimes I am running so fast it appears that rocks and trees are standing still......' 'I may be slow, but you are ugly and I can train harder.' '90% is mental, the other half is physical'it's going to get a lot worse, before it gets worse'.

jacklarge · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 239 Location: Rayleigh, Essex

No worries Debbie - new stuff (and broadband) is always better (if you can afford it).

Mike: the Otters have indeed left Scotland (about a fortnight ago) something about too many tourists, a spokes-otter was heard to say "so long and thanks for all the fish" or was that a dolphin?

Cheers,

John.

Terry T · Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 32 Location: Hockley

What can these new members get up to in 8 seconds?
A quick defrag and a fag?

Steffan · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 540 Location: Basildon

I love it here!
Go out running, come home and talk about running on the club website!
88 posts can not be wrong!!!!!

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Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

LOL - sounds good to me Laughing

Steffan · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 540 Location: Basildon

LOL Terry!!!!!

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Stevie · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 402 Location: Benfleet

Dont tell me that Karl has something better to do on a Wednesday evening, what can be more important than getting our 5km times up on the site - LOL