Site critique & a couple questions...

Deliverance XXV

Right, quick intro...

I wanted to get my .ie name.
I wanted a blog.
I wanted a photo blog.
I wanted a project that would house all my other projects.

So I put 2 + 2 together and this website is the bastard child of my projects.
I wanted the website to be a portal for all of above.

I don't intend or want to make money from this site. It's entirely a personal site.

Please let me know what you think. What areas could be improved? Constructive criticism?

Questions:

* in IE, the div on the websites.html page appears kinda white around the div? Why's that?

* Would it be more important to have a seperate .css file opposed to css info in the same html file? What are the benefits?

* Is there any issues on platforms/browsers other than XP/Vista/IE/FF/Opera?

www.jmcdermott.ie

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

cgarvey

King Nothing wrote: »

* Would it be more important to have a seperate .css file opposed to css info in the same html file? What are the benefits?

Reasonably important, yes. The reason being that subsequent requests (visitors to multiple pages of your site, or return visitors) will usually cache that external CSS saving download time, their bandwidth and your bandwidth. The bigger the CSS content, the more noticeable the difference.

The site looks fine. Not blown away or anything, but it's concise and to the point. It, maybe, lacks details about who you are (intentional?). Photography thumbnails should be just that; thumbnails. Right now they are the full size image (slow to download, especially when there's a good few of 'em) just resized in HTML as against proper thumbnails.

Other than that, you might want to reconsider info@ email address as it's a commonly spammed address. You really should consider not using a mailto link to the address as well (as that's ripe for harvesting by spammers).

Deliverance XXV

cgarvey wrote: »

Reasonably important, yes. The reason being that subsequent requests (visitors to multiple pages of your site, or return visitors) will usually cache that external CSS saving download time, their bandwidth and your bandwidth. The bigger the CSS content, the more noticeable the difference.

I will definitely be implementing an external CSS file within the next few days if it means saving on loading time.

cgarvey wrote: »

The site looks fine. Not blown away or anything, but it's concise and to the point. It, maybe, lacks details about who you are (intentional?). Photography thumbnails should be just that; thumbnails. Right now they are the full size image (slow to download, especially when there's a good few of 'em) just resized in HTML as against proper thumbnails.

Lack of detail is definitely intentional. How slow was that page in loading? I will consider resizing if it's really slow.
I never intended the site to be in-your-face clever designing. I don't have that kind of experience in coding to provide that level of design. So I settled for a very basic and clean site.

cgarvey wrote: »

Other than that, you might want to reconsider info@ email address as it's a commonly spammed address. You really should consider not using a mailto link to the address as well (as that's ripe for harvesting by spammers).

What's the alternative? I remember seeing some javascript code somewhere that hides your email while providing the mailto. How effective would this be? How effective would be changing the email to unusual terms like ihaveaquestion@.....

Cheers

Hrm, the bottom bits of the 'welcome to jmcdermott.ie' look very rough.

Is there a tab missing? Seems to be a space blank.

And I'm not sure if I like the pure B&W image/logo and then have colours throughout, it doesn't go together very well. But maybe that's just me.

Deliverance XXV

Myth wrote: »

Hrm, the bottom bits of the 'welcome to jmcdermott.ie' look very rough.

I just noticed it there as you said it. It must be the font when it gets bigger? I will give it a "smooth" later

Myth wrote: »

Is there a tab missing? Seems to be a space blank.

I did that to seperate the wordpress installations from the ordinary HTMLpages. Is it too unsettling?

Myth wrote: »

And I'm not sure if I like the pure B&W image/logo and then have colours throughout, it doesn't go together very well. But maybe that's just me.

I will eventually change it later down the line. It was just there until I think of something else to stick in there.

cgarvey

King Nothing wrote: »

What's the alternative?

In order of complexity, I usually recommend:

1) Remove the <a>/mailto link (so the address is just plain text)
2) Don't display the email address in regular format (e.g.: info -at- mydomain.com), with a link to an explanation if needs be.
3) Use the JavaScript to obfuscate the address, like you mention. Probably the most effective, but I've no evidence to support that

They are effective methods, but only if you get in before an address has been harvested. The non-generic ihaveaquestion@ rules out the random spam that you get to info@ sales@, etc.

stevire

If you put your email address as an image and you can include the mailto, it generally stops spam. Its the method I use and have to be proven wrong!

I'd recommend some consistency in the menus between the blog and the website. They both have different styles and different order... I think the blog menu is more appealing and should look into implementing or mimicking that menu style imo!!