beta version of my Web Site

denismurphy · 22-03-2003 8:51pm #1

hi i'm testing my web site at the moment so any feedback is welcome

http://homepage.eircom.net/~denismurphycv/

P.S ( I'M ONLY 17 AND THIS IS MY FIRST REAL WEB SITE SO PLEASE BE KIND)

mneylon · 23-03-2003 12:58am

Very nice!
It's only a pity some of the links on the main page don't work.

phaxx · 23-03-2003 1:08am

Pretty, but a little on the slow side. I'd remove your contact details though, only ever give an email address.

Slydice · 23-03-2003 3:27am

I'd recommend removing your phone number. If they really want it they can e-mail you asking for it.

GoneShootin · 23-03-2003 5:01am

sure beats the piss out of my first ever site when i was 16 (all 5 years ago

)

great touch of flair to it, a change of server will prob speed things up

i would however make the text on the TEXT VERSION site a bit smaller. printing that will be a bit on the large size, imo.

great work for first go tho...

/edit

just took a peek at your html course code

<meta name="keywords" content="KERRY IRELAND TRALEE I wish to apply for work experience with your company......

i always thought that keywords were to be seperated by a comma ? somthing like

content="KERRY, IRELAND, TRALEE, Designer, Flash MX

correct me if im wrong...PLEASE

phaxx · 23-03-2003 12:46pm

Originally posted by Gone Shootin
i always thought that keywords were to be seperated by a comma ? somthing like

content="KERRY, IRELAND, TRALEE, Designer, Flash MX

correct me if im wrong...PLEASE

http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/struct/global.html#h-7.4.4.3

I think you're right, the examples there always have a comma, but not always a space.

theciscokid · 23-03-2003 12:48pm

hey i used to live in racecourse lawn

23-03-2003 8:35pm

If you want constructive feedback please read on, if you don't then don't, your choice. I just think negative feedback can often be more useful than positive.

You site really screams 17 year old warez kid. Your designs are very watsedyouth & things of their ilk. e.g. 'nice' photoshop & flash effects that ave come straight from tutorials. They don't look 'designed' per say. Which is pretty normal given you've had no Design training or teaching.

Basically your site is all software and little design.

If you're interested in getting into design you need ot seriously work on that. From a web perspective your usability isn't great. Froma design perspective things like layout typographyc colours could be improved substantially.

If you want to get into design then buy some design books, read about typography and layout, go to an art college.

Having said all that though, given it's your first proper site as you say it's pretty damn good, and the above is all judging it as a professional site.

Good luck with everything you decide to do in the future, you've got alot of potential...

- Kevin

RicardoSmith · 24-03-2003 11:48am

I agree with "P". Though the "look" you are trying to achieve is quite popular with new media type companies and not just warez kids IMO. Not everyone is looking for the corporate look, though in truth I prefer it aswell. I'd definately start looking at other sites and how and why they are constructed in the way that they are. I'd also look into putting a php/mysql backend into it as this will unconciously develop your style as you will code and design the pages to suit the backend and not just to please the eye. This will make the site look more professional too. its also what most people ask for too.

mada999 · 24-03-2003 12:02pm

yeah i think your site is very good, it's frightening that your only 17!! good luck!!

Webmonkey · 26-03-2003 7:30pm

Hey There!,

wow fecking amazing site. Great work I'm jelous hehe, still tho that site you've done gives a lot of inspiration to me. I love inspiration. Hey dont take those comments the wrong way about what p said and stuff - Just advice and stuff, usually when people give me advice I don't know it makes me feel angry because of what i've done is not good but don't worry. Just take the advice and continue your great work.

./Webmonkey

manonthemoon · 27-03-2003 9:09am

Very good!

Just a couple of things

1. By chopping up your large images in Image ready, you can speed up download time

2. I would also look at a redesign. A bit of tweaking and all the page could fit in 1034 resolution screen. No scrolling requires. Might be a bit neater

Best of luck with the work experience

phaxx · 27-03-2003 9:40am

Originally posted by manonthemoon

1. By chopping up your large images in Image ready, you can speed up download time

How is one large image any faster than multiple small images, covering the same area and with the same content?

The only thing I can think of is that it will allow you to use a lower colour depth on some sections, but the gains from doing that is tiny.

Have I missed something?

RicardoSmith · 27-03-2003 9:59am

Originally posted by phaxx
How is one large image any faster than multiple small images, covering the same area and with the same content?

The only thing I can think of is that it will allow you to use a lower colour depth on some sections, but the gains from doing that is tiny.

Have I missed something?

It isn't. But you can design images that contain elements that can be created in code and tiles that would bring down the graphic sizes a lot. Theres lots of scope for using tiles in this website since the pattern is repeated in a few places.

As a last resort Fireworks is really great at optimising any images that can't be chopped up. Its usual practice to have all the images for a single page under 50k. And usually you warn users that the page has lots of heavy graphics on it.

Webmonkey · 27-03-2003 6:30pm

I agree if the images were sliced. Adobe ImageReady is quite good. Well i'm not that up on the downloading part of sites but i presume that when an image is sliced producing more smaller ones is that each small image downloads from another connection to the server, like simultaneous connections instead of have one image big image coming down on one connection.

I've used the wrong terms here but thats my understanding of it. And i must agree they do tend to download quicker sliced.

./Webmonkey

RicardoSmith · 28-03-2003 9:15am

What I'm also saying is that if you have a large graphics that contains repeated elements you can replace those parts of the graphics with code, be it coloured cells or 1 pixel wide graphics that are scaled to fill the space.

Look at this example. The page is a bit crude but it shows what I mean. This is made up like this layout and the these are the graphics used. Hopefully you can see where the large graphic has been replaced with code.

Also it pays to try different image formats as you can see from these example graphics here. In one case the JPG is smaller and in the other the PNG. Even though the graphics are very similar. Theres no golden rule that always works and image compression is a bit of black art, so you go with what works.

tom-thebox · 28-03-2003 9:50am

It loaded very fast for me here in work, its a wicked looking site keep up the good work. The force is strong in this one.

AdMMM · 28-03-2003 6:48pm

While it's nice to look at... I dont think it's worth the loading time on a dial-up connection.

It also looks very similar to other websites... With effects which have come straight outta tutorials.

There's also too many images. With there being only 11 letters on the screen (Text Version).

Your Flash Version is very good... though and I'm sure you'll be employed by a design company very shortly!

imfree · 07-04-2003 3:32am

When you launch email from link on top of page I think you have left out a 't' in your email address.

On the 'Finishing Touches' site in your portfolio there are a lot of spelling and punctuation mistakes - I don't know if this site is live - but you may want to tell your client to check it out.

______________
imfree
www.freehost.ie

beta version of my Web Site

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