A website that convinced me NOT to attend.

[Thirdrail]

Although it is quite far away, I would like to attend a National N scale convention one day, so thought I'd look at the website for the one in Denver this August.

Well, it's clear to me that if you don't have Adobe Flash Player on your machine and have a T1 line for your connection, don't even bother to try to look at the website, they're not interested in your attendance.

After waiting five minutes for the site to load on a 56K dial-up line, I clicked on "Radisson Hotel", hoping that would come up a little faster - it did, only took two minutes. By that time, I was thinking "Why am I bothering, it is obvious that if you don't have the latest in computer software and communication lines, this group doesn't care if you attend or not."

I was going to put the address of the hotel in Mapquest and see how many hours driving might be involved, but now I'm not even going to bother.

[Conagher]

Actually, I believe they probably figure everyone has DSL these days. Most current websites are too graphics-intensive for dial-up to handle.

I'm sure they asked their web designer to develop a nice site and never though twice about connection speeds.

It's about 1777 miles from Apalachicola to Denver according to Google Maps from: Apalachicola, FL to: Denver, CO - Google Maps
Cam

[Benny]

The problem is, "Good" webdesign is not really Good webdesign anymore, its Graphics Loaded Junk. nothing has actally really changed Code wise in the last ten years...asside form some additional programming languages, which still take minilmal time.

You might try browsing their site with pictures turned off...which is pointless if they are not labeling their pictures!

[Matthew Roberts]

You might try browsing their site with pictures turned off...which is pointless if they are not labeling their pictures!

or filled in the html <alt> tag!

[Doug A.]

Why would you think that they are trying to exclude you based on your Internet access method?

How about they maybe don't have money for a development team on the payroll sitting around trying to build pages for the least-common-denominator?

FYI, I have cable, and the site is slow for me too. Must be a conspiracy against Trainboard n-scalers instead of dialup users.

[Matthew Roberts]

3rdrail,

what really irritates me about this site is that it seems to have little to no information about much of the convention, and the website isn't laid out very well. The images, which take way too long to download even on my faster than T1 cable connection (300px by 150px in 10 seconds is way too slow.)

Looks like the reason the images are slow to download is that the designer was lazy and just used the <img> tag to resize the view without actually using a smaller image to link to a larger one. You end up with a 1.8MB 300x150 jpg, which isn't good. An image of that size, at that compression, should be less than 350 KB.

[Thirdrail]

Why would you think that they are trying to exclude you based on your Internet access method?

How about they maybe don't have money for a development team on the payroll sitting around trying to build pages for the least-common-denominator?

FYI, I have cable, and the site is slow for me too. Must be a conspiracy against Trainboard n-scalers instead of dialup users.

No, I was just using a little hyperbole to make a point that it could be taken that way. I realize it is a volunteer organization, but it should realize that what folks want from the website is information, not slow loading flash and pizzazz. Perhaps if some of the organizers read this thread they'll do better next year. :shade:

[Doug A.]

There is no next year for the Denver group. They are just trying to put together a show to bring n-scalers together for the purpose of HAVING FUN.

Their website does need work. I have e-mailed them offering my assistance. Hopefully a better solution than "hyperbole".

[doofus]

The site works for me.........................

[Doug A.]

doofus,

The main page is almost 2.7MB in size...not exactly acceptable page size, even if you do have high-speed access.

If not for the delivery, Thirdrail's issue is somewhat a valid one.