Joris Komen wrote:

>
>
> While browsing the web on a reasonably fast 64k leased line via some more
> than adequate ISP bandwidth in Namibia I was particularly disappointed by
> the verrrry slow download times of a great majority of these nominated
> sites.  Admittedly some of these sites are stunning, with incredible
> graphics, animations, Java applets and other exploder/netscape charged
> features, but a lot of these make it difficult, if not altogether
> impossible to browse from out here in the sticks!  My main contention lies
> with museum webmasters who have been lulled into complacency by their local
> 2Mbit fibre-optic traffic;  I suspect that a lot of these folks have
> forgotten about grotty 9600 bps copper wire, 14400 bps modems (yes!) and
> faulty dial-up hunting loops!  My recommendation to museum webmasters is to
> try out some "alter"-benchmark tests - get somebody in Benin or Zambia (or
> Namibia:-)) to download your website and give you an indication of where
> the download slows down or stops altogether.

On the other hand we also have to serve the needs of useres with an 2Mbit Internet
access.We just tried a compromise. All really important information is concentrated
on simple
HTML-pages. Java is only used for ad-ons like virtual museums tours.

Best regards
Helge Rieder
webmaster of the Roscheider Hof open air museum
http://www.fh-trier.de/fb/bw/ri/rhof
and the historical slate mine fell http://www.fh-trier.de/fb/bw/ri/fell