Noukiesims2 hosting account suspended

[Lorelei]

Nouk, I'd visited your site a number of times, and never noticed you had a forum. I think that burninating or relocating it might pacify your hoster. *crosses fingers*

Reducing the size of images on your pages can help as well, as your host takes a hit each time someone loads up an image-intensive page. You can do that with Photoshop and ImageReady, make each image as small K-wise as possible. Another trick would be to keep your download preview images on a separate page. The main page would show the generic hairstyle being offered, then a link to the download page with smaller images showing colour variants. Usually a main picture is enough for browsers to determine if they want the hairs being offered. IIRC, you load up all the variations and dl links on the same page as the main "this is what the hair looks like" image. Putting any new things in the beginning of the sort also helps, ditto marking their links with "NEW! [date updated]" information, as people won't load up all the pages again and again browsing to see the new things.

Offering to sep out your DLs pages to reduce server load may also help, as then those pages won't be visitedor loaded unless visitors want those files specifically. That lets browsers and downloaders put different loads on the system. It's only a band-aid, but I suspect you get a lot of visitors who know you from forums and have seen your hairs elsewhere and want to look at your whole body of work or see what's new.

Good luck! Hope this info wasn't too basic and obvious for you.

[Requip]

I wondered what happened too! I seriously have no advice to offer as I don't know a thing about websites but I hope you can get things taken care of in a way that won't screw you over.  :?

[Anouk]

Thank you guys!

To be honest (or obvious) I'm a complete amateur concerning building an efficient website.

A question: will CSS make a difference in loading time and page sizes and such?

If removing the forum si not enough:


* Noukiesims2 will most probably be completely redesigned. Older files will be removed (and maybe moved to mts2?), preview pics will be smaller in size.

* Like Lorelei suggested, the updates will be loaded to a special update page. Brilliant!


Thanks guys this really helps

[Lorelei]

Nouk, the primary benefit of CSS is less work for you. You make your template or templates, and then any files / text can be pointed to within the CSS code.

This way updates require you updating a text file and your new pix and files, rather than redesigning each page and changing info on every other page in your site pointing to that page.

Changing the look of your entire site is also a matter of minutes and editing one (or, at most, a handful) of files.
 
One Fell Swoop design is much easier to maintain, so def. do CSS.

Google "Zen Garden" and CSS for examples of the same info presented 100 different ways. They defined different fonts, different colour sets, different headlines, different backgrounds, different layouts, etc., but as different as each page looks, it has EXACTLY the same content!

The biggest space saver, besides putting the forum elsewhere or foregoing it, will be using the Optimize for Web feature in PShop or Image Ready. Also, and forgive me for not doublechecking, but in January when I DLed my fave Noukie hairs (the cornrows and long pulled-back dreads are faves for my most fabulous Sims Of Colour) there were a bunch of unbinned hairs, and if each colour is kept as a separate file rather than a big file, server load will drop, because chances are some folks will only want the basic colours and the mesh, not every available colour, no matter how awesome. Every K you shave off reduces the server load.

[Hecubus]

Keep us posted on your progress....we miss your site!

[Anouk]

Hey guys!

I put the site back online and removed the forum.
Also, most of the pictures weren't working because my phtobucket pro account had run out, So I placed the pics on the server and linked to those.

So it's back

Thanks for all your help and tips!!

[KikiGo]

I'm glad you got back up again..By the way is that your own hair creation in your latest pic for the earrings update? or did you get from somehwere else?

[Anouk]

That's Hysterical Paroxysm's hair.

[Jojoba]

Glad to see your sites back Nouk!

...I appear to be the only person who ever used your forum...  :oops: o well

[wicked_one]

i'm glad you got your site back up nouk

[capnjacksparrow]

Sounds like you had a crappy host. I've got a high-traffic website myself and have had a heckuva time finding a good, stable host at a fair price. After nearly 6 *years* I found one I mostly love. If you're interested in checking out their plans or whatever IM me.

Sorry your host sucked but it's good to hear you got a new one.

[Pescado]

Sounds like you had a crappy host. I've got a high-traffic website myself and have had a heckuva time finding a good, stable host at a fair price. After nearly 6 *years* I found one I mostly love. If you're interested in checking out their plans or whatever IM me.

Nah, the Malaysians were decently reliable, but their server load management could use some work. They respond fairly well to being screamed at when something weird happens.

[PsychoSimGirl]

I'm so glad you're back. I was wondering what was up when I tried to go there to show my mom a pic of the Streaked Lolita Hairs. I really love your site and I'm glad everything is sorted out. I'd hate to see another Great site move to MTS2 it takes me so long to DL from there because I get the error message like 7 times for each file before it actually downloads. Thanks for all the great stuff and African American type hairs. I find it very hard to find good Dreads or curly hairs and I don't think all Black sims should have stick straight Peggy Hair. Thanks!!

[sherrie]

interesting remark just posted on my guestbook...

I read your terms of use page and the part where you say that atwa used free hair to make her pay clothes look better? if the hair you mean is noukiesims hair then she linked to that on tsr to use bandwidth. she read somewhere that noukiesims is low bandwidth and thought it's time to bring down a pirates site. she has posted the link in a few sites and she is asking other peeps and me to do it too. so your page is wrong where it says her reasons.

so I was wrong ok. All I can say was my page was correct at the time of going to press and I wont be held responsable for my failiure to get inside Atwa's sick little head! and if the poster is reading this, it's a good idea to go direct to the source to complain and not waste your time correcting other peoples policy pages in their guestbooks! (and I know who you are)

seriously though, nouk, you need to look into blocking hits from malicious websites or redirecting them. Unfortunatly when reputable sites like yours get into difficulty, there is always gutter trash waiting to take advantage of the situation. Hopefully you will be able to upgrade to a high or unlimited bandwidth site and you can thank her for the free advertisement  

maybe a redirect to here would do the trick?
http://www.atwa.youarelame.com/

[Pescado]

Nouk *IS* on an unlimited bandwidth plan. The host apparently was merely complaining about the CPU drain from the forum, probably because of Atwa's sneaky attempts. Without the forum, it'll be that much harder to run up traffic. If it really gets dire, you can always move in with us, and the Malaysians would transfer your remaining account credit towards the server renewal here, which would mean TSR would get to contend with my 42-pound, allegedly-portable fist.