I usually post from a Mac but I noticed recently that when I access the site from a Windows PC the windows "slide" to the side for every update.
Which browser do you use on your Mac? The slide only works if someone is using Microsoft Internet Explorer. It should do the same in IE's Mac version.
I wonder if some of the problems aren't caused by the site being too graphics intensive with special effects like these
Bandwidth really isn't an issue when it comes to the slide effect because it's actually processed internally by your computer's memory.
The really small file sizes of all the icons that are displayed on the forum pretty much make them a non-issue as well. YaBB designed them so that 95% of them are only 90 to about 500 bytes - and the other 5% are still well under 1KB (1024 bytes). Even 80% of the avatars on the forum are under 1KB
The only graphics that can be large are the daily montages, but even they average around 69KB, and they're confined to only displaying on the BoardIndex. However, even if they were a problem I wouldn't stop doing them because I've been putting them together for almost 4 years now - October 7th will be the 4th anniversary of the opening of the first incarnation of the forum on VantageNet.
Back then the montages displayed on every page of the forum, and VantageNet never once complained that we were using too much bandwidth on their service. But then, we didn't have as many people visiting the VN forums as we do now.
I'd be perfectly willing to do without some of these effects if that would help. Maybe some of the options could simply be eliminated rather than relying on members to voluntarily scale back?
Well, you know what - Midnite and I have discovered some HUGE discrepancies in what different techs at our host's site have told us over the past 8 months. We've also noticed discrepancies in what they've told us and what their own administration center reports about our statistics. I was going to save this as an announcement for tomorrow - but it almost is tomorrow, so...
I recommended this site to an online friend but she was disappointed to learn that no new members could register at this time.
...you can tell your friend that as of this moment, registrations are open again.
Now that doesn't mean that everyone can just ignore all the bandwidth saving measures we've put into place. Far from it. But I want to test a theory I have - and opening registrations again just might do it.