Browser Problems ??

This page last modified on 04 September, 2006  

Please Read
     1. if you have problems viewing the photos with Microsoft's Internet Explorer
     2. this note  if some photos exceed your display screen size, or if the large "slide show" image size varies from one species to the next. 
     3. if they display too slowly off the Internet, especially if there are long halts between showing thumbnail images on one of my matrix index pages. 

This website is designed to work on most WWW browsers installed on home computers during the last 5 or more years. Unfortunately, recent browser models installed by major computer manufacturers and Internet Service companies (e.g AOL, Yahoo, ...) often come with preferences (switch settings) adjusted to favor specialized advertising oriented Web pages. Some of those settings prevent Web pages, developed using Internet-wide Standards such as JavaScript and HTML, from working as intended.

If you suspect you are having problems of the first 2 kinds, please read either of the two technical notes linked in items 1. and 2. above. If that doesn't solve the problems, please contact me as explained at the end of my About this Website notes.

If you are experiencing long halts in loading a page from the Internet, as in item 3 above, AND if you are using a Broadband (DSL, Cable, or other "high-speed") connection, then again I'd like to hear from you. Here are two test pages you can use to check how your browser and Web connection are doing:

• SDNHM Plant Atlas Homepage thumbnail images. 
  This is a matrix index page with 100 thumbnail images totalling about 3 MegaBytes. Using a well adjusted Windows XP system, the total time to load the complete page should be about 16 seconds on a 1500 kbps DSL connection (the kind most people use) during periods when the Internet is not heavily loaded (e.g. late evenings, weekend mornings). Even during the times of day when the net is more heavily loaded this time should rarely exceed about 35 seconds. (My times had stretched at times to 5 minutes before I learned how to fix the problem [see below].!!)
•  
• BIG Test Photo (3 MegaBytes, 3008 x 2000 pixels)
  This is one photograph as taken directly from my camera. Whereas the first test can take advantage of multiple persistent Web connections while downloading, this single file must depend on just a single connection. Thus continuous transmission is slowed slightly because your system must periodically send a short confirming message to the server computer running my website. Using Windows XP (again well adjusted) this download should complete in about 23 seconds when the net is not heavily loaded -- even though the total file size downloaded is about the same as for the first test.

Important re. these tests:

Each time you download one of these test pages, your browser will store a copy in the Cache (Firefox, Netscape, ...) a.k.a. Temporary Internet Files (Internet Explorer) file storage for later use (possibly Offline). Until you manually remove these files from your disk (or until it's done automatically after some number of days you can set), they will appear instantly on your screen when you click one of the links above. Using Firefox or Internet Explorer, use the Tools Menu >> (Internet or Privacy) Options to clear out the Cache before making a repeat of either download test linked above.

Whereas the halts during downloading were relatively unusual up until about mid 2005, they have become a lot more annoying since then. I've spent quite a lot of time trying to track down the causes of the problem. The functioning of the Internet depends upon the actions of so many different independent companies (no matter who provides your Internet Service - your "ISP") that inquiries about the halting to any company involved generally result in "Finger Pointing". In other words, everyone points a finger to someone else as the probable origin of the problem!!

In fact the reasons for the halting I've observed (when downloading, at my home near San Diego, pages from my website server in Boston) have been multiple and technically complex. I thought of posting notes here detailing the adjustments to Windows XP, and to the Firefox browser, which allowed me to halve my download times while eliminating most of the downloading halts. But the "bottom line" conclusions are:

• The root cause of the halting problems experienced with this website is that every message is broken up into little component packets which pass through a dozen routers (switching computers which re-send packets) along the route from Boston to San Diego. To make up for the delay when my computer ACKnowledges receipt of a small group of packets from Boston, the server sends out a stream of packets - anticipating that the ACK message will eventually come back saying those packets were all received OK. But packets do get lost, especially when those routers are loaded up handling packets for many thousands of different connections simultaneously!  The halts come about because my computer has to tell the server which group of packets has to be re-transmitted, since all of those sent after a lost packet have to be sent all over again!!. 
• While there are ways to adjust your computer's operating system (typically Windows XP these days) and browser (Firefox can more easily be adjusted than Internet Explorer), to reduce these halts when using a specific website -- it is quite unrealistic to think that most users of my website will care to do this.
• From test measurements involving websites at server computers on the East Coast, and near San Diego, it's clear that the halting and slow downloads problems could be substantially reduced for users in the San Diego area by moving my website to a server in California!!  This is what I intend to do. Watch this space for more on this ...

Thanks ... Ken Bowles