NCSA Mosaic for MS Windows User Guide: Tips and Tricks

Modem Optimization

Using a modem to connect to the Internet is fairly common, and the speed of your modem is important. NCSA recommends you use a minimum of a 14.4 modem, which is fast but has performance limitations. A 14.4 modem can only transfer 14,400 bits or 1,800 bytes of data per second.

To improve your modems performance optimize it according to the modem manufacture's instructions and use the modem's built-in data compression.

Because most hypertext documents contain inline images that tend to be larger files, you must choose between images and speed:

You can use Mosaic options help improve performance. Select Preferences... on the Options menu; then choose the menu indicated below.

Document Menu

Display Text While Loading
Displays the HTML or ASCII data as it is being downloaded.
Display Images While Loading
Displays the inline images as soon as they are received.
Display inline images
Turns off display of inline images. (Excessive time to download and display large or multiple inline images is sometimes blamed on NCSA Mosaic; however, the long delays are actually due to modem limitations.)

Cache Menu

The disk cache caches multiple documents and images to disk. Select the various options as shown below to maximize your performance while using a modem. See "Viewers" on page 4-19 for more information.

Enable
Check this option
Fast Image Caching
Check this option
Check Modification Date from Server
Select Once per session
Size (KB)
Enter the amount of disk space you want Mosaic to use for disk caching (1024 KB = 1 MB)
Disk Cache
Caches multiple documents and images to disk.