New design up

yawn.

this site is veeeerrrrryy sloooow.
It loads forever.
I'll leave my system on and take a look tomorrow.

It did not load too slowly for me. I think it's a really great looking site. I like how the different sections have a different color scheme. At this point I really don't have any complaints about it.

Great job.

Brooke

Anti,

The site only loads slowly for evil people (see thread in General discussion forum). You must be on a modem, it was decided that since less than 5% of our visitors used a modem to connect to our site that we would take advantage of the higher bandwidth. Having said that, I don't believe there are any pages larger than 100k, with most being under 50k.

Don't forget to take a look at it tomorrow after it's loaded

Brooke,

Thanks!

I know it's gonna sound ignorant, but I don't like sites that insist I accept cookies - can you allow me to visit your site, but with an explanation of the limitations that follow from my refusals?

mmi,

Unfortunately, I need to use cookies (and sessions) throughout most of the site. Once again it's only a very small percentage (less than 1% of visitors to our site) that disable their cookies.

How did you like my error page, I look like that guy on my good days...

Nope,
I'm not on a modem.
In fact I have a direct connection to the backbone, which is only limited by my 16MB TokenRing, but to good sites I usually get over 900KB/s and around 10-15KB/s to normal ones.
Yours doesn't get above 5KB/s, which will make it load in 20s or more.

But anyway, back to the topic.
1. nice and clean layout
2. the lighter blue isn't readable (in my "vision slightly impaired mode")
3. different color on each area. only do this if the color is connected to the topic in some way, otherwise choose one and stick with it.
3a. This forces me to load the nav-pics for every new area.
4. you navmenu is not readable on some colors
5. ever tried your site with javascript turned off ?
That's the default for many people out there,
blame the "pop-up-artists".
5a. The pages show up much faster with js off. Maybe you should rework your scripts.
6. you stick to you basic layout, that's a big plus

just my personal thoughts on this

ciao
anti

actually, I don't disable 'em , I just refuse 'em unless I'm provided with a reason to accept - when I register a username and password that requires me to accept (with, e.g., the NYT), I can see a clear viewer benefit - if you explain to me why I should accept your cookies, I'll take 'em - I understand what you're saying about viewer profiles - but I think a reasoned explanation would only help pull in more - I don't know anything about these site stats - are you able to measure how many people visit with cookies enabled but refuse to accept? - is it simply total views on the "error" page? - also, could that stat you cited be misleading? - does it record total visits? - someone in my position would likely not come back - the percentage you gave could be biased downward in terms of total potential visits - I'm sure this effect would be fairly small, but it might be, say, two or three percent

I only have one thing to say:
! WAY TO GO !

Anti,

I'm not sure why it's so slow for you ... would you happen to be using a UNIS/LINUX or BeOS system? I haven't been able to test using those platforms. Thanks for the suggestions.

mmi,

Yes I'm able to record (and do) users that don't have cookie capability as well as user's that do, but disable them, as well as total visitors. Before users visit the site I have an ASP file that runs (detect_browser.asp) where I do ALOT of stuff. I detect the client's environment (OS,browser,plugins,res,etc), detect the client's connection speed to my site and a bunch of other stuff and save all that to a database. This helps me build a better site since I know what the majority of browsers to my site are using. I never said these stats were appropriate for the Internet in general, these are stats for my site only.

Jack,

Thanks!

i tryed getting on your site but all i got was a
:: d e t e c t i n g b r o w s e r ::
it just stays there . . . . .

<<<>>>

I knew at the time I wasn't expressing this clearly - I realize this isn't of earth-shattering importance, but you know what they say about stats - if I were a "normal" person (i.e., one who had not been driven to distraction by the obscenity of American marketing non-culture) and accepted your cookies, I'd keep on visiting (hopefully ) and piling up visits - these would go into the denominator in the stat in question - as an anti-commercialism crusader , I suppose I'd stay away - THEREFORE (I may have it this time), I would not be in a position to keep adding to the numerator - is that making any sense? - I hear people talking about "unique visits - but that's not unique VISITORS in the strictest sense is it - I guess I mean something like that alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies my computer - if I visit your site every day for a week, that's seven unique visits, right? - these are "sessions?" - anyway, lemme throw out an idea - if you explain on your "error" page what you put up in that post about why you're detecting and collecting, that might persuade me - remember, I'm being irrational here - info might relieve my anxiety - even better you might detect, then let me see, say, your front page or something to find out if I'm interested and THEN let me agree to have this stuff collected in the cookie - sorry to be so picayune about this - as you can see, I'm no "baker" - I suppose I'm asking about this because I'm looking to learn about it, certainly not to lecture you on the subject

Arryob,

Were you using AOL? I seem to be having a problem with my detection script and AOL users.

mmi,

You're right I should have a better explanation on the error page detailing why they should enable cookies for my site. I'll make a point of updating that when I get a chance.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have to "send" you some cookies

Very Nice...
Only thing is I looked at the hosting part but couldn't find any specs on it... size, price, bandwidth

Maybe I just missed it.
Very nice looking nice work!

some 'a my favorites are right here - just click on "cookies"

I, too, am stuck on the ::detecting browser:: page.

I use IE 4.0 on a PC, Windows 98. I've got Javascript enabled and I've got Flash, though not the latest version.

Seems to be an error in the browser detection script. Even if the script can't recognize the browser version the visitor should be taken somewhere.

IE5/NT/1024px/56kb - took longer than I would wait for any site unless I really, really wanted to be there (or was there for a critique:)).

The opening is a little disconcerting (regardless of connection speed). Most visitors would expect something a little more related to your product than looking at a page that only says 'browser detection'.

And the only other thing I noticed in a quick visit was that the window of text directions to your real site opens in a pop-up window that isn't big enough for the width of the content and it isn't resizable.

Quote: George Costanza: AHA !!

well, I appreciate the effort you're making to do this detection but as you can see from the posts in this thread, it gets complicated - again, I won't preach to you about "keep it simple" ("sorry, I'm not stupid" ), esp. since I'd say most of the small amount of worthwhile things I do on my site grew out of ideas I fought to implement across this maze of download speeds and platforms and browsers (and their versions ) and viewer preferences, etc. - but I want to suggest to you that you keep an open mind on the whole concept of how viewers are delivered to your site - it may be that in the short term, you should keep the detection set up largely the way you have it now and try to troubleshoot it - but if it turns out that in the medium term you go to a different way to handle this, you might want to try to anticipate that now - I guess the problem there is that the tech environment will be so different then that you can only work on this in the short term - if I have a valid point at all it may be that old "forest and the trees" thing about making the correct strategic decision and not simply disposing of technical problems - I suppose I'll hafta pour a glass of milk, grab a plate so I won't get any crumbs in the keyboard, and try a few cookies
-------------
can't get your site right now even after 30-40 seconds, but this hour in the week is not a good one traffic-wise from my experience - still, I've got a cable line, so I'd say that might be a sign of a problem

MMI, If your cable can get it in 30-40 seconds, maybe his server is SLOW.

good transfer news this time - like I said, I've had problems late Sat night before - with "cookie warning" in force, only a few seconds to say to "cancel" to about 15 - accepting cookies, about two seconds - I'm not very familiar with using audio files, but can ya loop this thing a few times and STOP IT !! - okay, I found the sound button - is the "on/off" prompt reversed? - I realize this is imaged text, but I'd say just "connecting to their clients and employees." - I'd think about hyphenating "web based" but, as I say so often in these cases, the problem with that advice is it's not a word - you capitalize "internet" the first time but not the second? - "cost effective" is typically hyphenated - by mentioning clients and employees at first and then saying you "help clients" it sounds like you're leaving ther poor employees behind - how 'bout "UL can help you realize..."? - I know people will say "can" isn't as "strong" but to me it's more accurate - in the blurbs on your press releases, I'd take the periods off since they're not all sentences - and I think I'd go with "Technology IS converging..." and "...THE same legal weight..." - maybe drop "newly" in "newly redesigned" - in the News headings, I'd take "Provide" and "Expands" out of caps like "celebrates" - I looked at hosting and a two-second scan led me to "A series of options are available in order to tailor" - you may want "...is available to tailor..." - for some reason, I just don't have the spirit in me right now to work on a site like this where the copy is real clean to begin with and suggested edits are all judgement calls - I know little if any of this will be of use to you but I may come back later to annoy you further

hmmm, can't seem to get that paragraph up again - is this a "cookie consequence?" - I tried looking in History and I can get the error page but not that first look - shoulda taken a screenshot - well then I guess I'll just hafta obnoxiously edit the copy on this highly complex image - I'd draw an analogy here - (you think my editing style is a little what? ) - when you open the sentence "technology and business", my brain (old software, I'll admit) lays out "space" for two ideas - then it turns out that these are adjectives qualifying "expertise" and, of course, you do correctly use the singular verb form "has helped" - but the damage is done - I've stopped reading with you - my browser has "gagged" on the code a little - I'd look to say UL's "expertise in technology and business has helped companies..." - if you were writing / publishing / selling software or manufacturing hardware or something, I could see wanting to put the company name right next to "technology" - but since you're selling these business services, I guess it's expertise you're selling - (btw, should I have a clearer idea by now of what these services are? - I guess a click on "pro services" will reveal, but...) - I know, like I keep saying, that people don't edit imaged text willingly, esp. an image like this where each line break can be critical - but I guess the point I'd make is that when you get "used to" a sentence, esp. a thoughtful one like this, it can start soundin' a lot better - in fact, this sentence is kinda growin' on me and I do like it better now - but that's my point - you can lose your perspective very quickly - of course the way I reacted to this sentence may be peculiar (wouldn't be the first time) - but these browser stats are harder to collect, so I think you just need to err on the side of being EXTREMELY demanding of your imaged copy exactly because you won't want to change it - anyway, let me give you maybe one useful idea at least - how about a button that allows me to view the film and hear the sound instead of the autoplay setup - I was scanning the page at first (hoping the audio would stop - couldn't turn it off because I wanted to hear if it would stop) and I didn't really experience the video and audio the way you want - the film seems a lot better when you listen to the sound and experience it as one event and that didn't happen for me - of course this is only a first-time viewer concern but...
------------
I meant to say I'd leave out the "major" in "major companies" to make sure non-majors feel welcome - the impressive nature of your client list will be self-evident

[Edited by mmi on Feb. 11, 2001 at 03:30 PM]

mmi,

I haven't been online in a few days, so I was very suprised when I saw all the comments you left! I don't handle most of the website content but I'll be sure to pass on your comments.

Once again, thanks for the comments & suggestions!