What do you think of my new site?

Enchantedragon · Dec 21, 2004

Hey, i just started a site not long ago to promote my self before going to university. It's still under construction, so i'm hoping for some suggestions/critisms/recommendations etc, any thing, good or bad ... i dont mind, i'm still a beginner at 16 years of age and still learning. So all comments will be appreciated. Site is still under construction. :tu:
heres the link to my site,
http://astute.f2g.net

Enchantedragon · Jan 5, 2005

reallybites said:
the navigations are simple.maybe you could create icons to replace it? just a suggestions.

and the google ads,maybe you should remove it to the right.put it on your sidebar.

and the home text box,i'm not sure its due to my screen resolution or me using firefox,but it dosent seems to be aligned with the updates box below it.

I tried putting the ads to the side, but it made my site look very cluttered. I'm planning to use rollover images for navigation, i'm trying to keep it simple, and clean. The reason the home text and the undates text box is because their widths are totally differant...

aretee · Jan 5, 2005

have u thought about taking the ad of ur intro page? ? becoz i think google dont allow it ... i took it off mine

Enchantedragon · Jan 5, 2005

thanks for telling me, does anyone know how to make forms ??? because my form doesnt seem to be working, http://astute.f2g.net/signup.html
my form options is

<FORM name="formmail" action="application.asp" METHOD="POST" ENCTYPE="text/plain">

and i have a file called application.asp with the following code:

<%
For Each x In Request.Form
message = message & x & ": " & Request.Form(x) & CHR(10)
Next
set smtp=Server.CreateObject("Bamboo.SMTP")
smtp.Server="mail.astute.f2g.net"
smtp.Rcpt="[email protected]"
smtp.From="[email protected]"
smtp.FromName="Application Form (ASTUTE)"
smtp.Subject="Astute Application"
smtp.Message = message
on error resume next
smtp.Send
if err then
response.Write err.Description
else
Response.redirect ("http://astute.f2g.net")
end if
set smtp = Nothing
%>

Some helpp pleasee..

aretee · Jan 9, 2005

try and go to http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html

for form help ...

i like ur banner.. 10/10

fisicx · Jan 9, 2005

Like the artwork. Looks really good.

The website however needs a little work.

1. Lose the intro/spalash page. How many company websites do you know with an intropage? Not many I bet. Think of it like this: would you use a store that made you wait in the lobby before it let you through the main entrance? I want to walk into your site and be hit, BAM! Give me the real thing straight away.

2. Fix the site. Using Mozilla all I get I a bunch of empty boxes on your portfolio page.

3. You have got some bad links, end up with a 404 page on some of them.

4. Lose to Google ads. you are going to earn about 2 cents so why bother. Lowers the tone of the site so get rid.

5. Simplify the site. Too many tables, lots of JS and a complex design that takes a long time to resolve on dial-up.

There is a lot more that you can do to showcase your talents but think on these for now.

As to the browser issue. IE is the worst. Download Opera, Firefox and Mozilla and test your site on all of them. Find a mate with a Mac and have a look in Safari as well.

dx3k · Jan 9, 2005

8/10 very nice wanna be affiliates with me?? pm me im about to release new design

Enchantedragon · Jan 10, 2005

fisicx said:
Like the artwork. Looks really good.

The website however needs a little work.

1. Lose the intro/spalash page. How many company websites do you know with an intropage? Not many I bet. Think of it like this: would you use a store that made you wait in the lobby before it let you through the main entrance? I want to walk into your site and be hit, BAM! Give me the real thing straight away.

2. Fix the site. Using Mozilla all I get I a bunch of empty boxes on your portfolio page.

3. You have got some bad links, end up with a 404 page on some of them.

4. Lose to Google ads. you are going to earn about 2 cents so why bother. Lowers the tone of the site so get rid.

5. Simplify the site. Too many tables, lots of JS and a complex design that takes a long time to resolve on dial-up.

There is a lot more that you can do to showcase your talents but think on these for now.

As to the browser issue. IE is the worst. Download Opera, Firefox and Mozilla and test your site on all of them. Find a mate with a Mac and have a look in Safari as well.

Good point about the splash, ive removed it. 2-3 pages are still under construction, and i havent uploaded them yet, thats probebly why the 404 error thing came up. And as for the google ads, i'm getting about on average $1.20 a day, thats not bad.

What did u mean by "Resolve in dialup", The whole site itself is only 1 table, if you mean <TD> 's , then, i dont know .. how can i simplify it??

Thanks for your comment,

Enchantedragon · Jan 10, 2005

dx3k said:
8/10 very nice wanna be affiliates with me?? pm me im about to release new design

Ok then, by the way, any one else wanna exchange links, pm me
note: Prefer sites in the design catorgory.

fisicx · Jan 10, 2005

May only be one table but there is a lot of it as well as a bunch of images to make it look pretty.

When I was using a dial-up connection to test the site It took ages to load all the images. And at least Mozilla showed me what was happening. IE didn't show a thing until the whole lot had loaded (which is why IE is crap, but that's another story).

Split the table if you feel you really need to use them: one table for the header, another for body and one for the footer and use CSS to style the tables. This means you can use the 'background' style to add colour to individual cells and borders and get rid of loads of mark up and images.

Also noted that the site spils over on a 800x640 screen - you get horizontal scrolling which is a big design no-no. To make it work you need to have a max width of 760px or better still, make your table a percentage width.

Reccoment you get to grips with CSS, it is an amazing tool, take a look here: CSS Zen Garden. No tables anywhere!

Enchantedragon · Jan 13, 2005

Reply to fisicx

fisicx said:
May only be one table but there is a lot of it as well as a bunch of images to make it look pretty.

When I was using a dial-up connection to test the site It took ages to load all the images. And at least Mozilla showed me what was happening. IE didn't show a thing until the whole lot had loaded (which is why IE is crap, but that's another story).

Split the table if you feel you really need to use them: one table for the header, another for body and one for the footer and use CSS to style the tables. This means you can use the 'background' style to add colour to individual cells and borders and get rid of loads of mark up and images.

Also noted that the site spils over on a 800x640 screen - you get horizontal scrolling which is a big design no-no. To make it work you need to have a max width of 760px or better still, make your table a percentage width.

Reccoment you get to grips with CSS, it is an amazing tool, take a look here: CSS Zen Garden. No tables anywhere!

Most of the tables with content are just background colors, and the borders , they arent images, its a style , not sure if it's css. I also made some of the images tile as background. The images for the template are reasonably small... I think it's just the banner that takes up the loading time. I tried using SSI to split my table but it seems to mess everything up.

I only made the table a percentage in height. I havent tried making the table percentage in width, wouldnt that stretch my banner? or will it be kept the same?

Thanks for your comment, I'll try some tutorials for css and see how it goes.

fisicx · Jan 13, 2005

Nice to actually have someone come back on a topic, it is what makes posting worthwhile.

I don't know how you build your site, if you WYSIWYG then you can end up adding loads of guff without realizing it. If you hand code you are building from the bottom up and will end up with clean usable code.

Take a look at the code for your site. There are 8 images in the table, you really do not need them. If you are serious about web design then PM and we can work on this one together - I promise that you will be amazed at what you can do with very little effort.

As to the CSS issue - you do use styles, but within the HTML. It is far better to sperate style from content. This means putting some text on the page but getting the font/color/size/position information from a seperate file. This means that you can call up this information each time you need it without having to change the webpage itself. Later on if you want to change the color, just amend the style sheet and the whole site is updated.

Last bit before I go: you can make your banner a percentage width. If your header is 80% of the window width then all you need do is set your banner to be 80% width as well. This way, it does not matter how big the browser window is, the site will stretch to fit. It is called a fluid layout and one of the indicators of a well designed site.

Did you take a look at the csszengarden site?

Enchantedragon · Jan 15, 2005

re:

fisicx said:
Nice to actually have someone come back on a topic, it is what makes posting worthwhile.

I don't know how you build your site, if you WYSIWYG then you can end up adding loads of guff without realizing it. If you hand code you are building from the bottom up and will end up with clean usable code.

Take a look at the code for your site. There are 8 images in the table, you really do not need them. If you are serious about web design then PM and we can work on this one together - I promise that you will be amazed at what you can do with very little effort.

As to the CSS issue - you do use styles, but within the HTML. It is far better to sperate style from content. This means putting some text on the page but getting the font/color/size/position information from a seperate file. This means that you can call up this information each time you need it without having to change the webpage itself. Later on if you want to change the color, just amend the style sheet and the whole site is updated.

Last bit before I go: you can make your banner a percentage width. If your header is 80% of the window width then all you need do is set your banner to be 80% width as well. This way, it does not matter how big the browser window is, the site will stretch to fit. It is called a fluid layout and one of the indicators of a well designed site.

Did you take a look at the csszengarden site?

hey, whats WYSIWYG??
I used photoshop to draw out a simple template saved it as html code with pics, using the "save for web" option. i think thats what it's called. If i was to change my website into a css type website, will i need to redo everything ?? or is it a matter of applying a style and just remove the font tags on every page.

yes i did take a look at csszengarden, very nice site. Couldnt find any tutorials tho, But i know what css is now. Thanks for introducing css to me.

fisicx · Jan 17, 2005

WYSIWYG is an acronym for ‘What You See Is What You Get’. It was used in the early years of the Windows GUI when for the first time you could see on the screen exactly how the file would appear when you printed it out.

For a webpage, WYSIWYG means you use an application that builds the page as you would expect to see in a browser. The application therefore sorts out all the HTML in the background. This in itself is a problem because the application ends up adding all sorts of rubbish to make your template work.

Photoshop is an image editor. And like many applications will allow you to save a file as a webpage. This does not means that the application is an HTML editor – all it means is that can convert from one file type to the other. If you want to design a webpage then you really need to use an HTML editor. Use FrontPage is you must but if possible, get hold of Dreamweaver 4 – not MX- it is too complicated as a newbie tool.

And as to your CSS question – you cannot just add CSS to make a site work. You need to learn the basics of web design (including HTML) first. It has taken me about 6 years to learn enough HTML/CSS in order to be able to teach the subject. It is not something you can do overnight. My suggestion therefore is to Google for 'HTML tutorial' or 'CSS tutorial'.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but web design is not easy (do not confuse building a web page with web design, they are two differnet things).

Enchantedragon · Jan 17, 2005

fisicx said:
WYSIWYG is an acronym for ‘What You See Is What You Get’. It was used in the early years of the Windows GUI when for the first time you could see on the screen exactly how the file would appear when you printed it out.

For a webpage, WYSIWYG means you use an application that builds the page as you would expect to see in a browser. The application therefore sorts out all the HTML in the background. This in itself is a problem because the application ends up adding all sorts of rubbish to make your template work.

Photoshop is an image editor. And like many applications will allow you to save a file as a webpage. This does not means that the application is an HTML editor – all it means is that can convert from one file type to the other. If you want to design a webpage then you really need to use an HTML editor. Use FrontPage is you must but if possible, get hold of Dreamweaver 4 – not MX- it is too complicated as a newbie tool.

And as to your CSS question – you cannot just add CSS to make a site work. You need to learn the basics of web design (including HTML) first. It has taken me about 6 years to learn enough HTML/CSS in order to be able to teach the subject. It is not something you can do overnight. My suggestion therefore is to Google for 'HTML tutorial' or 'CSS tutorial'.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but web design is not easy (do not confuse building a web page with web design, they are two differnet things).

I aint no newbie, i got dreamweaver MX and i've been using it for quite a while now, Very easy program to use, and i have 6 years experience in html, so thats not bad. I dont intirely create the website on photoshop, i mostly rely on html codes to do most of the work. I only use photoshop to do the simple template, then i slice the image and save as web, so when i open it up on dreamweaver, i'll have a template to work on.

I know all the html i need to know, But as for the css, i'm sure i can learn in a week or so. I'm a fast learner, Another thing i wanna know, if i do use css on my current design, would it make my site load faster and have that "fluid layout" effect. Are there any more advantages of using css?

By the way, thanks for all your help so far, its' been a real big help to me lately, still can't believe your still sticking around to help. Thanks alot :tu:

fisicx · Jan 17, 2005

Sorry if I misrerad your experience.

Still think that using photoshop is a bad idea. You have ended up with a really crappy table layout with a bunch of images as backgrounds.

I use DW4 myslef, does everything I want so couldn't be bothered to upgrade. Can I suggest you do your template in DW, that way you will be able to take full advantage of the CSS editor.

Search google for CSS tutorial, there is a really good one by a bloke called Mulder that is an excellent introduction.

Also have a look at www.alistapart.com. You will realized that even the experts have problems with CSS!

And no problem with sticking around, on another forum I frequent there are some topics that keep going for minths!

go to go now - work calls!

Ben42 · Jan 20, 2005

Looks Good...one Suggestion

I think the header image is way too big. I would make it a third of what it is or less and then you have more of your content visible to visitors without scrolling.

Enchantedragon · Jan 26, 2005

I like the Banner big.. i think it looks better big from my point of view. Thanks for your comment

scrot · Feb 4, 2005

I like your site. It's very frameish. I like frames. =]

Except.. it's too plain. On each page, add something, from a picture, to a different font. Make something interesting on a page. A GIF would be cool or some flash. You use dreamweaver, take advantage of it. I'm just learning it.

aretee · Feb 5, 2005

indeed i do say

zaros64 · Feb 5, 2005

hey you live in New zealand...i do ...im in christchurch....what about you...

anyway its a nice site ,I like the logo, the template and everything....even the google ads look like part of the site

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What do you think of my new site?

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