Review my site (again) please?

Ok, I read the comments on my site (thanks to those that did!) and was
happy enough with the final result to update my homepage. I'd
appreciate any comments, and I need a bit of help:

http://www.jodi.ws

I've tried to optimize it so it's reasonably viewable for 800x600,
though I'm not going to be able to get *everything* in the prime real
estate. I changed the width back to full (from 800px) and cleaned up
the page a bit, I think. Made the banner longer so it'd fill the top up
to 1280px across... I like the dark background and Rudy the Annoying
Pony, and so do my usual customers, apparently, so those are unchanged.

I had some trouble getting this look, and my styles got a bit messy.
What I wanted was a fixed width (or maximum width, if that's possible)
for the elements on the right, with an adjustable width table on the
left, but even applying divs in a variety of ways around the table and
righthand elements, I kept losing the left nav below the table at
800x600, until I set a fixed width for the table. I have a bad tendency
to over-complicate things, so if someone can remind me how easy it
should be, I'd appreciate it.

I haven't applied the template to all pages, but my newest pictures from
Ireland do use the new template:

http://www.jodi.ws/ireland/ireland09...landsep05.html

Note that I found out that ThumbsPlus does have an option to create a
navigateable .html page for each image, so I've gone and done that,
though I'm not going to apply templates to the result, too much work
(there's 90 pics in Ireland!).

I'd like to see comments and constructive criticism on both the
homepage, and on the new format of the photos pages. Is this an
improvement over my previous effort?

jmc

jmc wrote

> http://www.jodi.ws

Pretty good.

If you are aiming for search engine traffic I would put something
meaningful in the title, like "pictures of..."

I would ditch the weather thing, and the huge ad for Firefox. Your
visitors aren't visiting to get a weather report.

The little animated thing is a distraction, but your not trying to sell
anything, so it's maybe not a big deal.

Your pictures are excellent! I only looked at the Scotland ones,
because that's where I am from! I see you spent some time in
Crianlairch. I spent a night there once in the house next to the
school.

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Suddenly, without warning, Charles Sweeney exclaimed (14-Oct-05 11:25 PM):
> jmc wrote
>
>
>>http://www.jodi.ws
>
>
> Pretty good.
>
> If you are aiming for search engine traffic I would put something
> meaningful in the title, like "pictures of..."
>

I'm not so concerned about search engine traffic just now, but that's a
good idea. It's mostly a hobby site (and a learning experience), though
I've been thinking of selling a subset of my photos, but haven't gotten
around to researching the best way to do this. If I do that, I'll
probably create a whole different site for that project.

> I would ditch the weather thing, and the huge ad for Firefox. Your
> visitors aren't visiting to get a weather report.

Well, I'd rather use a smaller ad for Firefox, but I don't like any of
the smaller ones. I'll look again though. I'm a Firefox advocate, so I
really don't want to ditch it altogether.

Ditto for the weather thing. Many of my visitors are relatives/friends,
and they actually are interested in what the weather is here... but I
might see if there's a smaller one I can use.
>
> The little animated thing is a distraction, but your not trying to sell
> anything, so it's maybe not a big deal.
>
I'm debating retiring Rudy, but he's been there since the very beginning
when I built my very first website, back in 1996. Not that that would
hold water, if this was a commercial site!

> Your pictures are excellent! I only looked at the Scotland ones,
> because that's where I am from! I see you spent some time in
> Crianlairch. I spent a night there once in the house next to the
> school.
>

Thanks for the positive feedback on my pics!

Yup, we go through Crianlairch all the time, on our way up north. We
did have fun there at Hogmanay (stayed two nights), as you can probably
tell from the photos

jmc

jmc wrote:

> Well, I'd rather use a smaller ad for Firefox, but I don't like
> any of the smaller ones. I'll look again though. I'm a Firefox
> advocate, so I really don't want to ditch it altogether.

Don't know what you've looked at. How about this one:

http://blinkynet.net/images/getff.gif

I'd have pointed you to the spreadfirefox page, but the site's down
(being revamped after a couple of hacks) for a few days. They have
a bunch of these; that's where I got that one, which I use.


--
Blinky
Killing all Google Groups posts.
http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

jmc wrote:
> Ok, I read the comments on my site (thanks to those that did!) and was
> happy enough with the final result to update my homepage. I'd
> appreciate any comments, and I need a bit of help:
>
> http://www.jodi.ws
>
> I've tried to optimize it so it's reasonably viewable for 800x600,
> though I'm not going to be able to get *everything* in the prime real
> estate. I changed the width back to full (from 800px) and cleaned up
> the page a bit, I think. Made the banner longer so it'd fill the top up
> to 1280px across... I like the dark background and Rudy the Annoying
> Pony, and so do my usual customers, apparently, so those are unchanged.
>
> I had some trouble getting this look, and my styles got a bit messy.
> What I wanted was a fixed width (or maximum width, if that's possible)
Hmm. yes. That is something you could do. You just set the with to
something like 800 PX wide. But I personally would rather use % as that
means that people should be able to view your site properly no matter
what sort of a resolution they are running.
I have my table set at 100% which means it fills the entire screne /
browser window even at 800x600.
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc
> for the elements on the right, with an adjustable width table on the
> left, but even applying divs in a variety of ways around the table and
> righthand elements, I kept losing the left nav below the table at
> 800x600, until I set a fixed width for the table. I have a bad tendency
> to over-complicate things, so if someone can remind me how easy it
> should be, I'd appreciate it.
>
> I haven't applied the template to all pages, but my newest pictures from
> Ireland do use the new template:
>
> http://www.jodi.ws/ireland/ireland09...landsep05.html
>
> Note that I found out that ThumbsPlus does have an option to create a
> navigateable .html page for each image, so I've gone and done that,
> though I'm not going to apply templates to the result, too much work
> (there's 90 pics in Ireland!).
>
> I'd like to see comments and constructive criticism on both the
> homepage, and on the new format of the photos pages. Is this an
> improvement over my previous effort?
>
> jmc

Suddenly, without warning, Blinky the Shark exclaimed (15-Oct-05 4:31 AM):
> jmc wrote:
>
>
>>Well, I'd rather use a smaller ad for Firefox, but I don't like
>>any of the smaller ones. I'll look again though. I'm a Firefox
>>advocate, so I really don't want to ditch it altogether.
>
>
> Don't know what you've looked at. How about this one:
>
> http://blinkynet.net/images/getff.gif
>
> I'd have pointed you to the spreadfirefox page, but the site's down
> (being revamped after a couple of hacks) for a few days. They have
> a bunch of these; that's where I got that one, which I use.
>
>
That's where I got mine too, and why I haven't gone for a smaller one
recently.

jmc

jmc wrote:
> Ok, I read the comments on my site (thanks to those that did!) and was
> happy enough with the final result to update my homepage. I'd
> appreciate any comments, and I need a bit of help:
>
> http://www.jodi.ws
>
> I've tried to optimize it so it's reasonably viewable for 800x600,
> though I'm not going to be able to get *everything* in the prime real
> estate. I changed the width back to full (from 800px) and cleaned up
> the page a bit, I think. Made the banner longer so it'd fill the top
> up to 1280px across... I like the dark background and Rudy the
> Annoying Pony, and so do my usual customers, apparently, so those are
> unchanged.
> I had some trouble getting this look, and my styles got a bit messy.
> What I wanted was a fixed width (or maximum width, if that's possible)
> for the elements on the right, with an adjustable width table on the
> left, but even applying divs in a variety of ways around the table and
> righthand elements, I kept losing the left nav below the table at
> 800x600, until I set a fixed width for the table. I have a bad
> tendency to over-complicate things, so if someone can remind me how
> easy it should be, I'd appreciate it.
>
> I haven't applied the template to all pages, but my newest pictures
> from Ireland do use the new template:
>
> http://www.jodi.ws/ireland/ireland09...landsep05.html
>
> Note that I found out that ThumbsPlus does have an option to create a
> navigateable .html page for each image, so I've gone and done that,
> though I'm not going to apply templates to the result, too much work
> (there's 90 pics in Ireland!).
>
> I'd like to see comments and constructive criticism on both the
> homepage, and on the new format of the photos pages. Is this an
> improvement over my previous effort?
>
> jmc

Site looks good! The yellow links are a little hard on the eyes.

I love your pictures. Especially the ones of Scotland. My best friend had
been bugging me to take a trip there forever. Now I've decided I have to
go.

--
Lori
http://www.eYardsale.com