Ralph,
I got on just before you left. I like your idea of having another option...avatars off. None of the rest of us had the problem you are descibing...and since the avatars were new to chat, lots of folks were changing them...and one was changing from one animated GIF to another. I noticed that you can load a HUGE photo as an avatar and, somewhere, it's converted to a much smaller display....maybe 60x60 pixels. It could be that the BIG file is being sent to each computer, and the chat software is resizing it locally. Perhaps, another solution is for the chat program to limit the pixel INPUT size of an avatar. None-the-less, an avatars OFF option would help IF it keeps the avatars from being sent at all. I don't see it doing much good if they're sent, but not displayed.
Please find time to get on chat again with us...and we'll see if we can find out where the "blockage" is.
Secondly, would someone out there who uses a dialup please log into chat tonight...and help us find out how chat works in the very low bandwidth case.
I got on just before you left. I like your idea of having another option...avatars off. None of the rest of us had the problem you are descibing...and since the avatars were new to chat, lots of folks were changing them...and one was changing from one animated GIF to another. I noticed that you can load a HUGE photo as an avatar and, somewhere, it's converted to a much smaller display....maybe 60x60 pixels. It could be that the BIG file is being sent to each computer, and the chat software is resizing it locally. Perhaps, another solution is for the chat program to limit the pixel INPUT size of an avatar. None-the-less, an avatars OFF option would help IF it keeps the avatars from being sent at all. I don't see it doing much good if they're sent, but not displayed.
Please find time to get on chat again with us...and we'll see if we can find out where the "blockage" is.
Secondly, would someone out there who uses a dialup please log into chat tonight...and help us find out how chat works in the very low bandwidth case.