re: hotcopper expensive .aflatoon
you are correct a graphics free post such as yours is 21.45k
with the graphics it adds 240k comprising of small gifs adverts 65k and an animated gif of 175k "new generation tools"
to avoid this try using the Mozilla Firefox 2 browser with image view options unticked.... you can tick it for viewing my charts....lol
You may also have, refresh full pages, instead of using your cache, Im not sure if the adds will be cached for the next view of the latest posts . Hotcopper is free and survives on these adverts so naturally you will not take my advise......
that 175gif can be reduced easily by optimising it. I have just done it to 105k.. check this 107k