Testing my website: Is the download too slow and any compression suggestions?

[bradyj]

I'm testing my little home page (it will be removed once I have the full site functioning properly because I dislike intro pages) -- It seems a slow download, even for my DSL... what do you guys think? I know that jpeg is just huge for the background image, but compression destroys it and I've already used Photoshops imageready to a low level... maybe just make the height of the image to a simple 800 and that's it? Have a look:
http://www.dotfive.com

Any coding suggestions are welcome, I did hide text and replaced with simple background images. Links I are content, so I left them as image tags -- is this correct?

The image should look like so:

[mindlessLemming]

240Kb worth of images on any page is too much...
240Kb on an intro page is commercial suicide...

[bradyj]

It's that darn background image -- any better compression other than ImageReady and Fireworks? Otherwise, I have to dump it, which may be needed.

[bradyj]

Down to 74kb, jpeg, smaller background:
http://www.dotfive.com

[mindlessLemming]

Much better :)
But still quite large...

[sidvorak]

Why not extend the center image to include the part of the background that has the border effect. Then, cut the background image to something 656px x 2px and repeat it down the page.

Only problem is that the light diagonal lines won't repeat using that method. However, maybe you could compromise and make them horizontal so repeating would be an option. I'm sure you could get the page loading quite fast then.

Cheers,
Simon

[bradyj]

I think that is what I'm going to have to do -- I like the angled lines, but they are not productive.

Maybe I could do one large gif of angled lines (should be small for only two colors), a png over that with the gradient, a png over that with the shadow, and then the center piece? Would be much smaller, but then IE won't be able to view it, eh?

Best to go with the horizontal lines unless we have any other ideas? thanks guys

[sidvorak]

Well, I saw an example today of repeating diagonal lines. I guess if you slice it in just the right spot they are repeatable.

http://jfmselect.com/

Very lightly in the main body section a 32px x 32px gif of diagonal lines is repeated. Might be able to acomplish something similar.

Cheers,
Simon

[bradyj]

Hmmm, maybe I didn't make my 100% even spacing and a solid 45 degree angle... that should do it then. Thank you sidvorak! :)