Specify loading order of JPGs?

[Jonathan N. Little]

Were you a bully at school?

Seriously though, why does our hit counter on the server report this
statistic if it is false? Why have other programmers, some very respected
in the Google Maps community, agreed with us that JS is off in less than 1%
of browsers. And those who know how to turn it off, also know how to turn
it back on very easily!

Your hit counter may mislead you because those not on broadband will not
stick around. I did finally get the site to load on a 45K dialup
connection and it took a little more than 13 minutes to load. In case
you did not get it the first time I have dialup *not* by choice. Some
countries may have over 50% US is one but that means there is a good
chunk that doesn't. BTW the world percentage of 2005 is about 14.5%.

As to the usefulness of your product, after wading through the pretty
interface clicking on a store, which tries to create a popup
window...(you are relying your users will be using IE), essentially your
product is a listing of other merchant sites. Why would you think they
would go to www.Superhighstreet.com and not what *I* and *millions* of
others would do (and statistics supports me here) Google and find and
find the site directly, quickly and efficiently?

 

[mbstevens]

Seriously though, why does our hit counter on the server report this
statistic if it is false?

As A.F. explained to you already,
the reason you are getting low numbers
is likely that anyone who has visited with JavaScript turned off will not
return to your site again.

Why have other programmers, some very respected
in the Google Maps community, agreed with us that JS is off in less than 1%
of browsers.

Site an actual study.. Your 'other' 'very respected'
programmers' opinions do not a reasonable statistic make.
I have never seen a study that says that.

Totally bizarre you guys. I'm normally able to think laterally but you've
defeated me :-S Quoting exactly what our server counter says, and what
others have agreed with, isn't really a "lie" now is it. Come on.

As I said, your intent does not seem to be to lie. You just don't
understand that a useful statistic takes more than a number.

From Huff's book: "An expressed preference by a 'cross section' of a
magazine's readers for articles on world affairs is no final proof that
they would read the articles if they were published." He might have just
as well have been talking about your "over 80% of a random selection of
people felt it was a good idea in our market research."

That's the kind
of mistake you're making. You keep throwing out number as if they are
actually meaningful and important. What is important is whether the same
80% will actually use your site to buy things. And how did you get
a number that is _exactly_ 80%? It seems likely that your sample size was
small indeed, or that you're rounding. Are you rounding, is it up, or
down? You didn't give us your sample size -- what is it? Is it large
enough to be significant? How were the participants
questioned? How was the question worded?
What kind of _population_ was your 'random sample' taken from?

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

This isn't meant as offence, but the site isn't targeted to the
select group of CSS, HTML, JS, etc. programmers found in this one
group.

Did you see any evidence that the majority of the replies you got were
making any such assumption? Naturally the replied *came* from the
kind of people who frequent this usenet group, but do you really think
they are all devoid of a clue in regard to the behaviour of their end
users?

That is why we did not ask earlier for feedback on the site, and
have never asked in this thread. We only asked "Specify loading
order of JPGs?" :-S

Welcome to Usenet.

In the oft-quoted words of "nobull":

"Get real! This is a discussion group, not a helpdesk. You post
something, we discuss its implications. If the discussion happens to
answer a question you've asked, that's incidental."

Usenet was ever so (at any rate as long as I've known it). If I
decided to censor my own answers to accord with the prejudices of each
questioner, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to the big
picture, because there would still be an ample supply of commentators
willing to give the questioner *their* best advice anyway. The only
result would be that I'd lose any credibility that I had managed to
earn in the groups.

Some folks thrive in this no-holds-barred environment. Others just
get frustrated when the group insists on discussing the restrictions
that they're trying to impose - more or less ignoring the question
that they were trying to ask. Which is where you seem to be
positioned at the moment.

I've made my choice - feel free to make yours.

good luck, regardless

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

Your hit counter may mislead you because those not on broadband will not
stick around. I did finally get the site to load on a 45K dialup
connection and it took a little more than 13 minutes to load. In case you
did not get it the first time I have dialup *not* by choice. Some
countries may have over 50% US is one but that means there is a good chunk
that doesn't. BTW the world percentage of 2005 is about 14.5%.

The hit counter loads on every page including the home page where most
people arrive from (not this thread's link). It also loads pretty fast. I
would agree if other designers we have worked with did not also report less
than 1% with JS disabled. When we researched it, it seemed a hotly debated
topic, with everyone quoting vastly different %s. So, ultimately we can
only go on our own statistics and those of programmers we trust and employ.

As to the usefulness of your product, after wading through the pretty
interface clicking on a store, which tries to create a popup window...(you
are relying your users will be using IE), essentially your

The windows work on every browser, and open as tabs in most. Don't know
what you mean.

product is a listing of other merchant sites. Why would you think they
would go to www.Superhighstreet.com and not what *I* and *millions* of
others would do (and statistics supports me here) Google and find and find
the site directly, quickly and efficiently?

Have already exhaustively explained it in this thread, but in a nutshell it
is aimed not at you but at the market who hate internet shopping but love
high streets. It is also aimed at the tourism angle for people who may
never get to visit famous streets such as 5th Avenue, but can now walk down
them.
--
Thanks,
Me

Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

As A.F. explained to you already,
the reason you are getting low numbers
is likely that anyone who has visited with JavaScript turned off will not
return to your site again.

We are talking unique hits with JS disabled as being less than 1%, not
repeat hits.

Site an actual study.. Your 'other' 'very respected'
programmers' opinions do not a reasonable statistic make.
I have never seen a study that says that.

It wouldn't be appropriate to name other people here as they may not want to
be, but they are high up. That aside, our own statistics are enough as they
back up what they said.

That's the kind
of mistake you're making. You keep throwing out number as if they are
actually meaningful and important. What is important is whether the same

What is important is that over 99% of people visiting our site -- the site
in question -- have JS enabled. We therefore think it reasonable to make
the site rely on JS, rather than provide a lesser experience for the 99%
just because the <1% want to spoil it.

80% will actually use your site to buy things. And how did you get
a number that is _exactly_ 80%? It seems likely that your sample size was
small indeed, or that you're rounding. Are you rounding, is it up, or
down? You didn't give us your sample size -- what is it? Is it large
enough to be significant? How were the participants
questioned? How was the question worded?
What kind of _population_ was your 'random sample' taken from?

A bit OTT, but for reference from the past month:
JS enabled: 1,796 unique
Total hits: 1,803 unique
--
Thanks,
Me

Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

The hit counter loads on every page including the home page where most
people arrive from (not this thread's link). It also loads pretty
fast. I would agree if other designers we have worked with did not
also report less than 1% with JS disabled. When we researched it, it
seemed a hotly debated topic, with everyone quoting vastly different
%s. So, ultimately we can only go on our own statistics and those of
programmers we trust and employ.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I don't do JavaScript in web pages), but the
'hit counter' code in your main page seems to require JavaScript to ..
well .. record your stats.

So, all your stats are from browsers with JavaScript *enabled*! No
wonder you think 15% is too high... <lol!>

You are using this service:
http://cqcounter.com/

BTW, you have not assigned a background color to your pages, and they
look pretty bad with my default purple as background. Makes some of the
text quite hard to read.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

The hit counter loads on every page including the home page where most
people arrive from (not this thread's link). It also loads pretty fast. I
would agree if other designers we have worked with did not also report less
than 1% with JS disabled. When we researched it, it seemed a hotly debated
topic, with everyone quoting vastly different %s. So, ultimately we can
only go on our own statistics and those of programmers we trust and employ.

It requires JavaScript and Cookies enabled to work, not that will give
you objective data!
Guess you never heard of popup blockers...figures.

The windows work on every browser, and open as tabs in most. Don't know
what you mean.


Have already exhaustively explained it in this thread, but in a nutshell it
is aimed not at you but at the market who hate internet shopping but love
high streets. It is also aimed at the tourism angle for people who may
never get to visit famous streets such as 5th Avenue, but can now walk down
them.

Again, good luck...drop me a line when you make your first million....

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I don't do JavaScript in web pages), but the
'hit counter' code in your main page seems to require JavaScript to ..
well .. record your stats.

No, it has a noscript fallback which also tracks the hits, and therefore
those users with JS disabled.

So, all your stats are from browsers with JavaScript *enabled*! No
wonder you think 15% is too high... <lol!>

Lol indeed, right back at ya

You are using this service:
http://cqcounter.com/

Thanks for the info. We also use our own server's statistics which are
consistent with the public counter. CQ would not provide a JS on/off
tracker if it just plain didn't work. Nor would our hosting company.

BTW, you have not assigned a background color to your pages, and they
look pretty bad with my default purple as background. Makes some of the
text quite hard to read.

Thanks, good tip.
--
Thanks,
Me

Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!

 

[mbstevens]

We are talking unique hits with JS disabled as being less than 1%, not
repeat hits.

Unique hits as opposed to repeat hits are susceptible to A.F.'s
criticism about people not coming back. You _need_ to be able to
determine whether hits are unique to overcome the criticism.

And there is _no_ _way_ for a server log to determine accurately
whether a particular visitor is returning, unless you're also claiming:

to have set cookies
_and_
the visitors all allow cookies
_and_
the cookie uniquely identifies the visitor.

The content of the cookie your site set on my browser was 'y'.
Is that supposed to uniquely identify me? What happens if I
clear my cookies before the next visit? What happens if I have
my cookies set to only last for the session? How do you
quantify the visitors who do not allow cookies?

Doesn't it seem
likely that anyone with JavaScript turned off would also be the kind of
person that might turn off cookies?

It wouldn't be appropriate to name other people here as they may not
want to be, but they are high up.

I didn't ask for endorsements, especially second hand ones without a name.
I asked for real statistics as opposed to just numbers. If you can't give
us that, you shouldn't be using hard numbers. You should learn to modify
your writing habits until you understand what statistics really are.

That aside, our own statistics are
enough as they back up what they said.

Let's get the above sentence straight, because it really amazes me: Are
you claiming that your statistics are right because they back up what
you've said??? That's certainly what the sentence seems to be saying.

What is important is that over 99% of people visiting our site -- the
site in question -- have JS enabled. We therefore think it reasonable
to make the site rely on JS, rather than provide a lesser experience for
the 99% just because the <1% want to spoil it.

We had moved to another of your claims by this point.
Your 80% claim was about people thinking your site design was a good idea.
We were not still on JavaScript visitor percentages.

Are you now saying that your claim about JavaScript was so
important that we should just let the other claim slide right
by us?

It is safe for politicians and the commentators on the evening news
to just throw out bad statistics, but here you have to be responsible for
your statistical claims, or someone is going to challenge them.
That's usenet. That's just the way it is. No one is bullying you, as
you seem to have been claiming a couple of posts ago. We're just pointing
out lapses in your logic.

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

You need to have one at the beginning of your page and the corresponding
end-tag at the bottom of the page. But between these tags there shouldn't
be any other <html>-tag (_It's not even allowed_ to have one there).

Are we being clear? We use Server Side Includes (SSI) to load the top
border. It is a separate file with its own HTML tag. Then the main body is
another separate file with another separate HTML tag. Is your advice to
remove the HTML tag from one of these docs, so one of those htm files has
not HTML tag at all?

Which one did you use? I have not heard yet that a doctype changes the
content or look of a document anyway.

I personally would advise you to take

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

and no XHTML.

Here's an example in Firefox of what happens to our index when we include
that:
http://www.superhighstreet.com/indextest

Yes, you really should. I wonder that Microsoft is still allowed to sell
FrontPage as web-editor

Their new replacesment, Expression looks pretty good.
--
Thanks,
Me

Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

No, it has a noscript fallback which also tracks the hits, and therefore
those users with JS disabled.

I can't find any <noscript> code in your pages.

Did see this, though:
http://cqcounter.com/?_id=superhi&_lo=uk2

"Java Script (99.87%)"

I wonder what triggered the 0.13%?

Lol indeed, right back at ya


Thanks for the info. We also use our own server's statistics which are
consistent with the public counter. CQ would not provide a JS on/off
tracker if it just plain didn't work. Nor would our hosting company.

Please explain how you track (what code) if JavaScript is .. disabled. I
am truly interested in how you do this. I've been searching for a way -
any way - to tell if JS is disabled, without using JS itself. Can't find
a way.

Thanks, good tip.

You're welcome.

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

It requires JavaScript and Cookies enabled to work, not that will give you
objective data!

Our server stats give similar figures. How did it know 36 unique visitors

Guess you never heard of popup blockers...figures.

Wooo-ooo-oooh! (Holds handbag in air.)

We do not know of any popup blocker widely used that prevents links opening
in new windows when they are clicked upon. All good or default blockers
will open our pages in any browser. What popup blocker are you experiencing
problems with? We don't mind constructive criticism, but so far you give us
nothing to go on compared to our actual testing with every browser.

Again, good luck...drop me a line when you make your first million....

Sorry, didn't have your phone number then
--
Thanks,
Me

Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!

 

[mbstevens]

Unique hits as opposed to repeat hits are susceptible to A.F.'s
criticism about people not coming back. You _need_ to be able to
determine whether hits are unique to overcome the criticism.

Errata:
Last line should read
"...determine whether hits are repeat to overcome
the criticism.

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

And there is _no_ _way_ for a server log to determine accurately
whether a particular visitor is returning, unless you're also claiming:

to have set cookies
_and_
the visitors all allow cookies
_and_
the cookie uniquely identifies the visitor.

Yes, and as a backup it tracks the IP address. Come on, that's more than
good enough.

The content of the cookie your site set on my browser was 'y'.
Is that supposed to uniquely identify me? What happens if I
clear my cookies before the next visit? What happens if I have
my cookies set to only last for the session? How do you
quantify the visitors who do not allow cookies?
IP.

I didn't ask for endorsements, especially second hand ones without a name.
I asked for real statistics as opposed to just numbers. If you can't give
us that, you shouldn't be using hard numbers. You should learn to modify
your writing habits until you understand what statistics really are.

Have already given our stats in this thread. The only stats relevant to
this site are the stats from this site. Other users go for other things,
but we are targetting a niche and in that niche we get the stats reported.

Let's get the above sentence straight, because it really amazes me: Are
you claiming that your statistics are right because they back up what
you've said??? That's certainly what the sentence seems to be saying.

Sorry for not running that through the grammar checker! What that means is
we don't need to back up the source of our statistics, as the source is
itself. The numbers are right there in front of us in other words, and
therefore that is enough. The fact other high end programmers have
concurred with the <1% figure only served to reassure us.

We had moved to another of your claims by this point.
Your 80% claim was about people thinking your site design was a good idea.
We were not still on JavaScript visitor percentages.

Are you now saying that your claim about JavaScript was so
important that we should just let the other claim slide right
by us?

Nope, just didn't understand that you had changed the subject. But we're
not hear to qualify confidential market research, we were here to learn
about image load order.
--
Thanks,
Me

Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Our server stats give similar figures. How did it know 36 unique visitors
had JS disabed? Are you missing out the <noscript> part of the counter's
code? That is what tracks non-JS visitors surely.

You seem to forget that you are 'talking' to folk who actually know what
they are doing. You have 2 'NOSCRIPT' elements on your
http://www.superhighstreet.com/home page and neither is associated with
your free counter service at uk.2.cqcounter.com. The first is an invalid
meta refresh write in withing the BODY element, big no-no. And the other
inserted a link for a missing banner advert at news.bbc.co.uk.


Ill give you another free tip, off-site counters that utilizes the
http_referrer are going to be increasingly useless and evermore popular
firewalls (Norton's Internet Security is one example) block such
information...

Wooo-ooo-oooh! (Holds handbag in air.)

We do not know of any popup blocker widely used that prevents links opening
in new windows when they are clicked upon. All good or default blockers
will open our pages in any browser. What popup blocker are you experiencing
problems with? We don't mind constructive criticism, but so far you give us
nothing to go on compared to our actual testing with every browser.


Sorry, didn't have your phone number then

Line usually means writing and my identity is far from a secret, also
(cannot resist) if you were web savvy the info is readily available...

Well, pearls before swine, got to go do something useful been
entertaining though.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Are we being clear? We use Server Side Includes (SSI) to load the top
border. It is a separate file with its own HTML tag. Then the main body is
another separate file with another separate HTML tag. Is your advice to
remove the HTML tag from one of these docs, so one of those htm files has
not HTML tag at all?

Okay not that you deserve this but jojo *is correct!* You include are
*not* supposed to be complete html documents, just that part you
*include*. So absolutely no, you are not supposed to have the HTML and
BODY elements in your include files else you create invalid html
documents, damn FP-ers!

 

[mbstevens]

Yes, and as a backup it tracks the IP address. Come on, that's more than
good enough.

It leaves you still susceptible to the argument that those with
JavaScript turned off do not return. You still don't know how many
JavaScript disabled browsers would be hitting your site if
it didn't require JavaScript. You have no way
of knowing how many refuse to return because they find your site
unusable. Further, I doubt your site_in_construction has been
around long enough to get a decent sample size. And,
visitors who might actually buy something from your site are not at all
clearly the same as those who have visited so far. So the so-called
statistic you have cited is without any significant value to anyone, not
even you in any way that I can imagine.

.......
Nope, just didn't understand that you had changed the subject.
.........

But we're
not hear to qualify confidential market research, we were here to learn
about image load order.

But you did respond to many people's comments about many other things,
indicating some interest in investigating them. Are we now to let those
responses just slide?

 

[dorayme]

"Get real! This is a discussion group, not a helpdesk. You post
something, we discuss its implications. If the discussion happens to
answer a question you've asked, that's incidental."

Just remember when making this type of comment that if the OP
lies down all friendly like a puppy, this would be incidental
too...

 

[mbstevens]

Just remember when making this type of comment that if the OP
lies down all friendly like a puppy, this would be incidental
too...

<Chuckle>
What would Bud White do?

 

[dorayme]

We are talking unique hits with JS disabled as being less than 1%, not
repeat hits.

How are folk finding you? Are there links to you that have any
advice... like "Don't bother to go there unless you have JS
enabled and very good broadband" or any equivalent such path that
skews the statistics?

Just btw, your site does not behave well on my Mac on
broadband... But I won't detail it unless you specifically give
me names of the different parts of your page so I can easily
describe to you what is happening. And also repeat the url so i
don't have to look it up again...