The Tempist's Cloak - Please review my site!

Got the following error.
Microsoft JScript runtime error '800a01ad'

Automation server can't create object

/Default.asp, line 36

JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Center.
Visit: http://www.what-next.com

I got that too - he forgot to put the www. in his url, I think. Is your site called the Tempest Cloak?

1. You have a lot of stuff on here that, well, I find really annoying and useless. This includes the javascript pop-up welcome, that "Come into the shadow" thing, and the autostart music. Nice of you to include a console so I can at least turn it off. HOwever, the console background is white, which doesn't look good against the patterned backgrounds. I don't know if there's a fix for this.

2. Speaking of patterned backgrounds - they kind of went out of style a couple of years ago. If you must use one, keep it subtle and use the same thing on every page.

3. Must there be animated icons? Couldn't you find something a little more tasteful? (and that little animated red spot with the sunglasses seems to show up everywhere). Try to find something that will give you a more coherent look. There are lots of sources for free page sets (including backgrounds, buttons etc.). You can start looking at www.freegraphics.com
You got some of your stuff from a page called "Gif's that don't Suck?" Sorry, they do. Pretty much all gratuitous use of animation sucks.

4. This is just me, but I hate it when websites claim to be "The greatest place..." or "Your source for..." and stuff like that - this is the interent - it's probably not hard to find a site that is better than yours

Okay - enough for me. Too many annoyances here.
Overall I think you need to do some reading on what good design is. Webmonkey (www.webmonkey.com/design/) and Builder.com have some good basic articles.

Rather than concentrate on coding by hand, I suggest that when starting off you use a graphical editor, even the free FrontPage Express that comes with IE5. Some general design principles that are widely accepted today:
- No patterned backgrounds. If using a background, use large solid-colour areas, i.e. a stripe on the left/right, or the site in the middle of the screen (as with the Webmaster Forums).
- Keep animated GIFs to a bare minimum - i.e. ads only.
- No music or sound unless the user clicks on the "Turn on music" button or something.
- Concentrate on ease of reading. Try and make sure that images blend in with the background.
- No Javascript popups unless necessary (i.e. You did not fill in your name in this form).

It's useful to read up on design before really starting to make sites - practice is certainly good, but learning from others is too. I'm a beginner as well, and am currently working on my first site for a paying customer. http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ is a good starting resource, though I find their site hard to use

And, out of interest, what is a Tempist and why does it have a cloak? Sounds like a site about the secret rituals of office workers. Either that or the name of an obscure country pub.

I'm sorry that you have found all those problems on my site. I have changed a few of them. I don't quite have the greatest site on the web because of the fact that I'm writing all the HTML by hand and I can't spend any money on services. Can you tell me where you are finding that error message? I think that my site is alright given the fact that I am just a kid.

Thank you for your help,
Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

The Tempist is just simply a name that I have created. It is all explained in the story that I have posted there. I'm sorry if you don't have the time to read it but I'm pretty proud of it. I realize that not all reviews are good. If they were than they wouldn't help at all. I really have to up date my site and I'll try to do it starting offline with my home page. I'm sorry if the animations are annoying but I use them to pull the site together.

Thank you for your time,
Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

The error seemed to be a server error

This is essentially a beginners site, we all go through this stage

You have to focus primarily on making your site easy to read that will result in a change of bg. You will find that as your skills improve so will your site.

...and don't take any reviews personally, if someone is willing to (like megs did) take the time to review your site, they are trying to help. Often the blunter a comment the more useful it is.

Good luck!
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Center.
Visit: http://www.what-next.com

Hi Tempist,
As JP said, everyone has to start somewhere, I think you've done a great job writing in html, I certainly couldn't have done that. On the other hand what some of the people are saying about the background and animations does make sence. If you want to keep the patterened background you might try putting your text into tables and just have a coordinating solid color in those text areas. (I have several background patterns--not quite published, I would be happy to send you a few if you want to experiment)
Although many web designers don't like the animations and sounds, lots of surfers enjoy them, expecially young people like yourself. Ask your friends what they think .
I think if you eliminate the graphic on the top of your left frame the scroll bar wont be necessary, I really don't care for scroll bars in the center of a page.

I used netscape and had no errors.

take care,
Carolyn

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Asymmetric Designs, unique designs for contemporary minds
http://asymmetric.hypermart.net/sitedesign.html

Thanx, I might try to put it in a table. I do think that on the start page it looks strange. I'm glad that I posted this discusion, it will hopefully help me. The site sure needs work and I realize that. I have worked a lot to find new things to put on my site.

Thank you,
Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

I have redone my page! I have only gotten to the main page but I will continue to change the rest to fit this one. Does this look better?

Thank you,
Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

Yeah, it probably will (quick tip - if your page is very long, and your'e going to put content in a table, divide it up into several large tables for faster loading). I imagine that the browser couldn't figure out what was going on there!

On Netscape 4.5 all that came up was a patterned background, nothing else, along with the web frame bar.

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This is taking a really long time to come up. I still don't like the autostart sound or the javascript alert welcome. But, if you like it then you're welcome to keep it. You're talking to some hard-core purist designers here - your target audience may not have the same opinions as we do.

Jeez, this is taking forever! (and it's not my server), and all that came up was that "Come into the Shadow" thing - I'm looking at the source - you've got some major coding problems in here. There's Table tags in the header!!!!! The only things that go in the header (between the HEAD tags) are meta tags (nice to see that you have some!), title, scripts, style sheets and a couple of less important tags (like Base HREF and <!DOCTYPE....

I didn't find that problem on netscape 4.06 It dosn't seem like they would have more problems with a later version. It does seem to be slow though.

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

Oh, now I see what your saying.. try this address: http://www.angelfire.com/pe/Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

I need to fix those problems in the HTML I was just tryintg to stick the code in there to make ot look better. Do you think that if I fix the table tags it will come in faster? Once I fix this I have to do it to the entire site! Ouch!

Thank you,
Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com

I'm using 4.6 as well and it's not working - I looked at the source again and it looks like the problem is that you haven't closed your all table tags. (I'd really like to know what you're trying to do here - It looks like you have nested tables three deep). Try coding the layout for the page, then copying and pasting all the extra's in after you know that the basic structure works.

IE 5 to the rescue!! Netscape is a lot pickier than IE about how the code is written, while IE can accept unclosed tags.

I still suggest that you break it up into several smaller tables. Browsers usually have to download an entire table before they can display any of it. I would probably lose the nested tables and have one solid background - faster loading. I also suggest that you try some more exciting colours - that grey just reminds me of the default background - boring!

I still think the animated .gifs are really bad - IMO, plain text is always better than bad graphics. Check out the links from www.freegraphics.com/01_Web_Graphics/Families_Themes_Sets/ - these are pages with sets of coordinated graphics, most of which are very well done. All you'll need is a simple graphics editor to add your own text. Their "Online Create Your Own" page (http://www.freegraphics.com/11_Online_Create_Your_Own/) links to services that will automatically create custom graphics for you.

I'm going on vacation and I'll be back in a few weeks. I just wanted that to be known because I won't be changing my site. Maybe when I get back I'll check out that site...

Thank you,
Tempist

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Visit me at
http://tempist.web.com