Neowin.net - New Option: Switch to Neowin Lite

New Option: Switch to Neowin Lite

Posted by Steven Parker on 12 February 2003 - 21:37 · 52 comments & 711 views

Yes its finally here, its been talked about a few times on the forums and amongst Neowin staff but now its a reality. Neowin is proud to announce a "Lite mode" for dial-up users or people that just want a faster main page.

In true nVIDIA style we can now boast up to 30% faster load times :P due to the size of the page and the fact that the browser has less to render.

The Main Page in Full mode is 284kb and the same page using Neowin Lite mode is just 101kb, thats almost 3x less! see for yourself!

We also plan to implement a "Safemode" page for when the server is busy, that will make the Server is busy message obselete on Neowin seeing as the server can handle a cached html document. The safemode document will be a virtual copy of the Neowin Lite mode with a message letting the user know its the safemode kicking in.

A forum theme based on Neowin Lite may also be implemented depending on the popularity of the Lite pages. Thanks Redmak for making this a reality.

View: Switch to Lite mode or Switch to Full mode

With some telcos slapping limits on how much their users can download each day, we have to wonder how they will cope when this technology goes online. We suspect that the new technology will only be available to selected users even when the exchanges are upgraded and it's bound to be expensive at first. But these things have a way of trickling down to the average customer eventually

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Full name: Steven Parker
Forum name: Neobond
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#1 Posted by SidVicious on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:39: Nice!

(3 replies) #2 Posted by MxxCon on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:40: WEEEE!!!! thanx now if you'll enable [b]gzip[/b] compression neowin will be faster than $5 hooker

#3 Posted by nekrosoft13 on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:41: the logo on the lite main page looks better

#4 Posted by MxxCon on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:42: doh. double post. sorry. stupid 'server busy' msg i like original logo better than 'lite' one

#5 Posted by username on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:43: awesome, nice option :thumbup:

#6 Posted by pocket cd-r on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:43: cool

#7 Posted by Demogorgon on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:43: nice idea good work ppl.

#8 Posted by Alex Kelm on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:46: Lite loads slower.. Weird.

#9 Posted by Beast_4thHM on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:50: good idea but the lite is actually slower !!! lol , I'm sure it will be faster once it will be fully installed

#10 Posted by [saint dark] on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:50: wow, that was fast

#11 Posted by Edge on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:52: Pretty sweet.

#12 Posted by =NickJ= on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:55: damn the lite version looks well sweet

#13 Posted by DigitalDude on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:55: nice

#14 Posted by timelimit on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:56: nice. v.fast

#15 Posted by havyn on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:59: lite rules. but the comments #s on the main page are incorrect. also, is the whole site lite or just the main page?

#16 Posted by creamhackered on 12 Feb 2003 - 21:59: Switching to lite version takes a little time as its giving you a cookie for your troubles but it does load faster than normal version for sure.

#17 Posted by Stunod7 on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:02: Very nice. As a bit of a comical side note... As I was going to make my comment on this I got a server busy message.

#18 Posted by bigbear on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:05: Urmm... you guys might want to use a proper stylesheet and have it cached. I think by using proper CSS and HTML code you might end up trimming another 10KB... I think. Anyway, I thought PHP pages should be loading fast since it makes the server do most of the page loading work? Maybe optimising the PHP code?

#19 Posted by Jstphish on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:13: Very nice ... although I won't be using it because I am on a T3 I also like the idea of getting rid of the server is busy message and just making it go to a cached page. I dislike getting it.

#20 Posted by fdiaz2day on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:20: Keep up the good work.

#21 Posted by Darkness2k on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:20: Think I'll stick with the full site

#22 Posted by DrOmango on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:27: now this is something I could appreciate I need fast page loading times

(1 reply) #23 Posted by zzkj7w on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:27: I'm guessing the lite page loads slower because it has to query my neowin settings cookie and report back what page to load. I'm not sure if this is correct, but it looks that way to me. Nice idea, but poor implementation.

#24 Posted by andrewfee on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:34: the biggest change i think you should make is to have the main page the current archive one http://www.neowin.net/archive.php it looks much better, and is easier to see the news for the day/week imho

#25 Posted by divinatum on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:38: so, wheres the forum skin?

#26 Posted by Jerichohol on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:38: nice good job. i'm on dailup now so its a big help but i so miss a fast connection

#27 Posted by nonick on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:40: lol! looks nice

#28 Posted by Groovedude on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:41: nice work guys

#29 Posted by Neb on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:42: nice work, it is faster on 56k

#30 Posted by BroChaos on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:52: mmm, lite is nice. i think you should take the windows flag out of all the backgrounds, don't you guys think it looks a lil tacky? like old-school websites, but it makes stuff harder to read, and doesn't look as clean.

#31 Posted by als345 on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:53: great

#32 Posted by jkuy9 on 12 Feb 2003 - 22:56: Looks nice but i agree with andrewfee I prefer the archive design as it is simple and very fast. Perhaps you could just tweak it a little bit for us and make it an option for the front page?

#33 Posted by tmaxxtigger on 12 Feb 2003 - 23:03: Excellent idea, well done!

#34 Posted by theprotege on 12 Feb 2003 - 23:18: hmm...graphics...or no graphics....graphics is faster...no graphics is slower... hrrrm...i'll take a subscription to the original

#35 Posted by Panorama on 12 Feb 2003 - 23:18: Oh that's nice! I like how it's more flat, 2D like.

#36 Posted by Krome on 12 Feb 2003 - 23:50: 70% fat-free... but still have colesterol

#37 Posted by MaRRo on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:03: Nice and fast Any plans on doing this with the forums?

#38 Posted by Radish™ on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:11: This rocks ! , made my life on 56k alot faster .... Thanx Redmak .... Radish.

#39 Posted by spaceodysseyo2 on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:17: Cool, r we gonna get Neowin Professional Edition soon for those fibre optic users?

Last edited by 16296 on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:27

#40 Posted by Paulnc on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:27: Flushed cache, cookies and history... Seems to load faster, but not a great deal faster. Maybe web is slow, who knows. Although the graphics are familiar, it's the content (news) and help I'm here for. Thanks for offering the option Ladies and Gents! Even if lite doesn't stay, offering a choice is another reason we appreciate, recommend and stay NEOWIN.

#41 Posted by Paulnc on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:30: ewwwww "Ladies and Gents'?.........Sorry Redmak

#42 Posted by Germano on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:31: Neowin Lite... Soon we'll have a subscription service to access Neowin Full... Then we will pay for storing inbox Private Messages, for being alerted about new PM or posts, ... Ah, sorry, was thinking about Hotmail! Great work.

#43 Posted by Germano on 13 Feb 2003 - 00:35: All pages should be affected by the new option (this one included). Looking forward for the Forums Theme.

#44 Posted by lebmike on 13 Feb 2003 - 01:03: this is great, thanks!

#45 Posted by aeons on 13 Feb 2003 - 01:37: WOOO, Like it.

#46 Posted by ike on 13 Feb 2003 - 01:50: the flat logo looks kinda cool. but i think i'll stick with my normal violet

#47 Posted by altezza on 13 Feb 2003 - 02:08: Excellent work! Neowin lite loads much faster on my IE browser! Keep up the great work! Neowin is the best!

#48 Posted by computerchan on 13 Feb 2003 - 02:23: lite but nice

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