Re: hwg-techniques-digest V1 #1552

If you want your image to be viewed in its original quality every time, you
could serve it from a CGI script.

You could use the following HTML tag to include that image in the browser:

<img src="/cgi-bin/image.pl?1234" />

If another CGI script generates the HTML code of this page, you can use a
different number after the ? sign and AOL will think that that is another
file, even though it is the same image served.
The same approach is used for commercial advertising banners.

Teddy,
Teddy's Center: http://teddy.fcc.ro/
Email: orasnita(at)home.ro

----- Original Message -----
From: "Davies, Elizabeth H." <EHDavies(at)West.com>
To: "David Jones" <dvjones(at)ksbe.edu>; <hwg-techniques(at)mail.hwg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 4:33 PM
Subject: RE: hwg-techniques-digest V1 #1552


>>Well, here's why I say it. My family's personal web
>>page has a nice JPG file as a background graphic.
>>When viewed through the AOL browser, the background
>>looks chunky and ugly, because AOL's caching stuff is
>>re-compressing cached JPGs at much lower image
>>quality (to save bandwidth and make people think that
<snip>
>>Now I don't know if AOL is caching both versions of the
>>graphic, maybe they are ...

Short answer: YES. AOL caches all images. If I get 5,000 webhits from AOL
readers, our web servers serve up images on the first two or three views...
Then the images are cached for all users in the future, often for up to a
month. AOL will touch your server to see if there is a "new" image. If not,
it serves up it's cached one. (this can create issues if you do not rename
new images, but put a new image with an old name... you can't predict when
AOL will decided it's a new image and re-cache) It makes life simpler when
you know that if your site is a "keyword" site or featured on one of the
sidebars, your images will only get hit a limited number of times. Makes
load planning a bit less stressful.

The downside is that you'd better think Very carefully about your graphics.

They "optimize" and compress all images into .art files. To reduce
distortion, make sure your images are fully optimized for the web. If you
think a bulk of viewers will be on AOL, don't try to get subtle on your
image color shifts. A .art file uses .gif type compression and a reduced
palette. So often the subtle off whites are lost to the nearest neighbor or
turned white. There is a reason why AOL websites and popups tend to have
saturated colors. The compression is also kinder on blues, so when you see
fine detail and gradation, it's likely to be in the blue family.

Elizabeth Davies
Web Designer
West Interactive Corporation

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