Over and over I get complaints about the limits we impose on certain programs.

So I thought I would take a couple of minutes to talk to you about why we impose limits and where we have limits.

The most common complaint I get is for uploading images.

We have, and this varies based on the individual program, but in most cases you cannot upload an image over 1MB in size.

The problem is, the new digital cameras can take huge pictures often 10 or 20 times that size.

So when people go to upload those pictures they get an error message telling them it is just too big an needs to be resized before uploading.

Well, why wouldn't we just let people upload huge photos if they want to?

First what most people don't understand is that their computer screen is only between 800 and 1600 pixels wide. But that 20mb image might be 10,000 pixels wide. Great for printing but way too big for digital display.

So they only need a very small version of that picture even to display it full screen.

Secondly, if a person is uploading a 20mb photo on an average connection lets say, 128 Kbps that would take approximately 1 hour and 18 minutes.

Now many of you have high speed connections with 10mb download times but the upload speed is usually a fraction of that.

Further more, when traveling long distances and crossing 30 networks by the time you reach the site, that makes it even slower.

So even with your super high speed connection it can take upwards of 5 or 10 minutes just to upload one photo.

Well, after waiting 5 minutes people usually call us and complain that the site is not working, they are trying to upload a file and it is just sitting there doing nothing.

Hey, guess what, it is still uploading. And it will be for a while.

Here is an even bigger problem.

Some isps will break long connections after 5 minutes.

Not our network, but your ISP. The one you pay big dollars for that high speed connection.

Now with some protocols like FTP or Secure shell the software can recover after those breaks, but when using site builders and http connections though web browsers, it is just not as versatile.

So you lose the connection and then nothing happens.

Again, we get the blame. We get the calls telling us they can't upload the photos to their website.

So the limit we have is not to punish you. It is not to make you do extra work resizing photos, it is to make your life less stressful.

So you don't have to call us and get our long winded explanation as to why you are having trouble uploading files.

And on the flip side, the users that are visiting your website, well they have to download that 20mb image.

Unless they are tethered to a high speed network, they could be waiting several minutes or more for that picture to load.

Are people going to wait 5 minutes for your website to load?

Will they wait several minutes to get to each page?

Not likely.

Users will just assume your website sucks and it is just not working.

They you call me and tell me our network sucks and I suck and you are losing business and so on and on....

So the limits we impose are there to make the pages faster, to make the website more functional.

I can't teach everyone everything I have learned in the last 15 years. But I can place limits on programs that will prevent people from making the most common mistakes.

Another example is the 50 categories we limit you to with the shopping cart.

The reason we do that is because most sites have automated navigation menus and having 50 buttons or links is just as much as any visitor can take.

No one is going to read through hundreds of buttons to find what they want.

So we put limits in place to keep the sites, neat, manageable and usable on the front end and for your users.

Could we lift all the limits? Sure we could.

But part of our responsibility is to make sure your website has value to you and your business.

If I give you enough rope to hang yourself, you probably will.

So why go there? I want to keep you as a customer and you building a website that is dysfunctional won't give you any incentive to stay with pageBuzz.com.

If you make a page that wont load on mobile devices because of the bandwidth limits over cell towers, well, what good is that to either of us?

Or maybe you want to make a page that fits all the way across your screen.

But then the users with smaller screens have to scroll side to side to read each sentence, ultimately making their experience with your business a dreadful one.

So the next time you feel like we are holding you back by limiting a sideshow to 10 photos, or pages to 2000 pixels long, consider why we did it and understand if you stay within those limits, you site will work better, load faster and get you more customers.

And that is my 2 cents.

 

 

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