Review my website please

Well....after 17 lookers and no review I can only presume the sites perfect !! )

OR

I'm not worthy.....(

Mick

G'day Mick
Nice to come across another Aussie Here's my two cents worth!

Things I Liked:
Nice simple uncluttered background...nothing worse than over patterened backgrounds. Liked the inclusion of your pic - always a nice touch on a personal website. Liked the map and page showing where you live (and nice house whilst I'm at it ) - most people haven't got a clue about where in Oz we live!

Possible Improvements:
Maybe some of the pictures (ie on the page about where you're from etc) could be thumbnails to increase the loading time. Eg. Liked the picture of your house, the interior shots could be thumnails so if surfers are interested they'll take the time to view larger shots, but if they're not they can move on. Not a huge fan of automatic music on websites - but thats just my own personal preference. Maybe you could put the sound controls higher on the page so surfers who aren't partial to music can turn it off at the beginning, and those who do can choose to leave it on. And lastly, animated pics are cool in moderation. I thought the mouse was cute, and the `NEW' image effective, but distracting when placed too close together.

I didn't browse through the entire site and these are just my thoughts on the bits I saw - but a nice `clean-cut' and simple site...well done

Tania

Thank you Tania for your thoughts, and I have acted upon them, I was interested in your thoughts re: thumbnails, personally I dont like them on a homepage I find them time consuming having to load up each one individually to get a decent view, I prefer to have compressed images that lose a bit in quality.

But your opinion has been taken on board and I will experiment over the next week or so. Go the Aussie's )

Mick

As it's a personal site I'll be kind! LOL No really as personal sites go it's certainly not the worst I've seen by a long stretch.

I don't like dark textured backgrounds they tend to make every thing seem very dark and forboding, lighten it & it'll make it seem more welcoming.

The page took an awful long time to open up, primarily because I think of all the animated gifs on the page (I don't like them personally but it is your site) and I'm on adsl so I'd hate to think of the download time on a modem.

I would also say that you don't really need to tell people what program you created the site with and does anyone actually believe counters anymore???

Go back to some of the threads you have read through and give your feedback and I'm sure lots of the others will give you their opinions fo your site.

Hi ickbar! I know what you mean about having a lot of lookers and no critiques. Depressing isn't it? HAHA!!

You have a cute site but I am going to tell you what I wouldn't do. Just my opinion though. It is your site and reflects your personality.

First of all, I would not use textured backgrounds. I feel that they are out of style. They don't look too bad. That is just my preference. Also, when you use textured backgrounds, it is hard to make the graphics that you use look good. Good example are the graphics just above where you have "sign my guestbook" and "view my guestbook".

At the very bottom of the home page there is a slight gap between the next to last and last line. You can get rid of this space by moving your *td* tag up and put it next to the *span* tag.

The Lucida Handwriting font is a little hard to read especially with it being yellow as well as the other yellow text. Again with the textured background....when I went to the 4X4 page it took the background a while to load so I was unable to read the yellow text on the white background. You could add a background color that is similar to color of the background image that you are using and visitors could read the text while they are waiting for the bg image to load. The same applies on the Ford pages....green background with white text. Text doesn't appear until the background image loads.

Those are the main things that I noted. I enjoyed looking at the pics of Australia. I have always wanted to visit down there. It is absolutely beautiful.

Good luck.
disastermaster

Thankyou....I take on board what has been said and I will try a few changes over the next few days,

regards
Mick

6 out of 10

I think you have lots of good information on your site - that's the hardest part for most people! There are two things that I would do differently -

consistency - make sure all of your pages are the same. The same background, the same nav etc. Visitors should always know where they are, where they are going and where they have been.

headers - make each of your headers graphics and not just text - it makes it look so much cleaner!

Good job!

Brooke

Hello & thanks, could you please explain more about the use of graffics for headers rather than text, what background do you suggest, is there an "unwritten rule" about background colours & fonts used. I am not experienced in HTML, I'm just a cut and paste kind of guy, I'm trying to get a consistant layout going but my site is basically 3 in 1 with the Home pages / 4WD pages / and Car pages so I was trying to differentiate between them. I appreciate any comments.

Mick

the mouse and dotted line animations should be first to go, not only do they slow the page up (make it slow to load) it takes away frmo the sites contents

the photo of you and your wife could maybe be cropped (the top and bottom cut shorter as it is only the sky and ground)

I'm from NZ (dont hold this against me i know where in OZ you live but the map you show only shows 1/2 of Australia, if one didnt know what it looked like they may think you live in the middle of the ocean as the "I'm here" isnt on the picture of Australia.

the 4x4 page takes a while to load, if your going to use a dark background image (or any image) ALWAYS use a bgcolor in your body tags to display while the image loads, as the background is usually loaded last

the back and next links dont line up with were you where, i went there from the index page but back goes to the saftey page, i wasnt there, maybe use a javascript link history-1 to go back to the page they came from.

you should use alt tags on the images, the safety bay and motorbike pages takes a little while to load. You've used some alt tags on some images through out the site.
is it 50 klms, or 50 km's ?

Quote: Originally posted by ickbar
Hello & thanks, could you please explain more about the use of graffics for headers rather than text, what background do you suggest, is there an "unwritten rule" about background colours & fonts used. I am not experienced in HTML, I'm just a cut and paste kind of guy, I'm trying to get a consistant layout going but my site is basically 3 in 1 with the Home pages / 4WD pages / and Car pages so I was trying to differentiate between them. I appreciate any comments.

Hi, Mick!

I echo many of the other comments made about your site already, so am just going to address this one issue.

The title on your main page specified the font "Brush Script". I don't have that installed, so I'm seeing it in my default font, which I'm sure is not what you intended.

In order for a font to display in a visitor's screen it has to be installed in their system. Well, I did start to read a tutorial about "embedding" fonts once, but it was waaaay out of my league. For mere mortals like me, it means sticking with system fonts. And the fact is that those vary according to one's platorm (Windows vs. Mac, for example).

So if you want someone to see a specific font for a header, it really needs to be made into a graphic. In a graphics program (like Photoshop or PaintShopPro) you have the option to "antialias" text so that the edges don't look jagged, add drop shadows, borders, other graphic elements, etc.

There are no rules, written/unwritten or otherwise. For simpler headers you might want to just go with a one-color transparent gif. The sky is the limit as far as creating a unique and complex logo for a site. Because it's a graphic, it will add to load time, so optimizing and trying to keep a balance between image quality, style and load time is important.

Once a graphic is downloaded, it's in the browser's cache and will not cause additional load time when used again on a subsequent page.

That animated mouse gif if 73K and, to me, doesn't contribute much to the meaning of your site. (But as mentioned, it's your personal site, so you can do whatever you like.) But ditching it would give you a faster load time and then you could better "afford" some graphics that are more relevant in "branding" your site.

For a commercial site, I'd definitely recommend being consistent throughout the site, but since it's a personal site, I don't see any reason not to "brand" the three areas of interest differently if you want.

Hope this made sense. Good luck with your site!

Ok, thanks to everybody for their help, Iv'e made some changes to my pages http://www.southwest.com.au/~ickbar/
and I must admit I like them better !, just hope they work

I will now look and read about other sites that get posted here and hopefully learn some more.

Thanks again
Mick

Hi Mick,

I just peeked at your site and noticed that you just had to keep that cute little mouse. HAHA!! Oh well, we all have our weaknesses.

It is late (or very early... which ever way you want to look at it) so I will critique your site tomorrow. I just had to give you a hard time about the wittle mouse.

You are getting the idea with your site but it still needs work. I think you will get plenty of advise from this bunch.

Take care,
disastermaster

Alright, I wasn't able to see the original version since it seemed to be down yesterday when I tried so I'll just give you some thoughts on this one.

It's not really too bad. There are still some rather amateur-ish elements to this that should be cleaned up.

1. YOu MUST get rid of that animated gif. Nothing says newbie better than a screaming mouse
2. Get a logo - just search the net for a suitable font - there are tons out there - and write your site name in that. Simple.
3. Do not center paragraphs of text! For paragraphs it's usually best to
4. In fact, get rid of any and all cheesy clip-art like stuff. That includes the arrow at the top of the page (which gives no indiation as to where it's going...), the guestbook buttons (those look particularly bad because the white background doesn't match your page background)
5. Make sure you define your page background colour on every page - or are some of these supposed to be grey?
6. Oh, that's what that arrow was for - lose the back/forward navigation and put your left side menu on every page.

I agree with everything that Megan said. I am not crazy about the orange color you have chosen for the nav bar. Try a more neutral color that will compliment your photographs and use white for the background. The tan and silver doesn't do much for me.

If you don't have a graphics program that you can make a logo with, go to http://www.3dtextmaker.com/. You can make a logo any color, size, and font. You even have the option to make your logo spin but don't do this. Make it stationary.

The table at the bottom of the home page isn't aligned or something. I don't really see the need for the statement that you have there either ("I cannot accept any responsibility whatsoever....") Put some text navigation there instead in a smaller font and carry the left nav bar and nav at the bottom of the page throughout the site. Consistency is good.

Boy that is some nasty trauma to that foot on the "Boys and their toys" page. OUCH! That kinda stuff is right up my alley considering I am a medic but I'll bet it will probably gross most folks out. Good idea putting it at the bottom.

The white bar at the top of the pages that are silver looks bad. But if you make your background WHITE that little problem will go away.

It is obvious that you have put a great deal of thought and time into this site and I think it is coming along nicely. I love the photos that you have of the scenery.

oh, have you considered using thumbnails for the photo pages? This would decrease the load time and also let your visitors choose which images they want to wait to load. Just a thought.

DM

Thanks Megan, DM & others

Ok, the plan goes like this....I will try white BG and carry the nav bar through to the rest of the site, I will also look at the site DM sent and try and make a graffics heading...Not so sure about kicking my mouse in the butt, he's been around a while the little fella and I have grown accustomed to him.. Thumbnails is going to be a big job [time] but again, I'm listening to you all and appreciate the help.

Mick

ickbar,
there are freeware and shareware programs out there for making thumbnails, go to tucows.com or download.com etc and search for thumbnails or graphics or something lol, another one if you cant afford a paint program like paint shop pro, or photo shop (paint shop pro can do anything photo shop can do for half the price) is iranview (http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e9227474/english.htm) freeware, this can also be used to make thumbnails but they add a grey top and bottom or sides to the image.

another option (and this can be used at any time) is http://www.spinwave.com for compressing images, it compresses .gifs better than .jpgs but thats life, and best of all its free

Thanks Busy.....In fact iv'e been just that another day spent looking learning and making changes, I know I'm still not there, but I feel it coming together, Iv'e yet to make all my pages in a consistant design but I will get there, I did manage to make a 3D gif header and am still playing with tables trying to get a good look,

Thanks again all, hopefully within the next week I will get it done, in the mean time I will have to cast my eye over some sites that have been submitted to do my part.

mick

Wow! Great stuff. I was one of the lookers but not critiquers early on in the story, so am blown away by the changes you have made. Looks great - clean, fresh, easy to read.

Love the photos - Just love travelling. I'm in Queensland and occasionally check out places like Moreton Island and Fraser Island. Makes you glad to be alive. However will have to check out WA one of these days.

The only two comments I can make -

1) Thumbnails of the photos would be good - they take a long time to load and probably can't be optimised anymore without losing quality. Though I daresay the people who are well into 4WD's will stay around for the photos to load.
2) Where's the mouse I keep hearing about?
Actually I have a third -
3) Do you have a sitemap? I tend to use these to find where I want to go on sites. Plain text links all on one page with no extra stuff - a real quick loading page to help you find your way around a site.

Again, great stuff. Fantastic changes in such a short time. It's a really steep learning curve isn't it?

Annette

Thanks Annette, Iv'e been busy and am pleased you appreciate the changes and effort that I have done, I'm still not there yet and am busy re-scanning photo's to get the thumbs, but as you realise it takes time.

The mouse...well he has gone on a holiday temporarily, he will be back after he gets compressed a tiny bit, Iv'e tried to explain it wont hurt much but he has gone all sulky on me..

Sitemap? ok I guess by that your suggesting I have a link to a seperate page with links of all my pages and a description of each all in plain text etc.

Thanks again for your comments

mick