Just spent a couple of hours getting my web site up. This is just a start on the first page – I’m looking for suggestions, thanks.
http://www.grantlogan.net/index.html
Birth, school, work, death…………………
Just spent a couple of hours getting my web site up. This is just a start on the first page – I’m looking for suggestions, thanks.
http://www.grantlogan.net/index.html
Birth, school, work, death…………………
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Replies
That sure is one heck of a place to start.
Beautiful picture. Keep up the good work and the rest will be just fine I'm sure!
Eric
It's Never Too Late
To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
I think you need to tweak the pic a bit, or even go with something else.
It's a bit dark, and can use some "gamma" correction, opening up the shadows. (I've attached a quick modification with the gamma moderately adjusted.)
The colors are a bit washed out to my eye, and since you're a copper guy, I think your lead pic should be more obviously about copper.
And the major "subject" of the photo seems to be stone construction, not copper.
Looks pretty good. Those are unusual chimneys, flush with the walls. U do dat? Agree with Bob that the copper is not as present as the stone, and it's not bright either, which I would expect on a copper craft site.
My guess is that it's going to be a pretty large image for a front page. You will need to image to download in a few seconds, so that all the other stuff, your buttons and other graphics, can download too, and the whole page open up within maybe 15 seconds. Don't forget that a lot of us cavemen are still on dialup. I would keep the entire front page in the 100K or less range if you can.
Needs some good porn links.
Expert since 10:00 a.m.
Needs some good porn links.
How 'bout some pics of Sphere with his shirt off?Birth, school, work, death.....................
Yea! That's hot!
Expert since 10:00 a.m.
I thought we covered this a long time ago, You have bigger boobs than I. And I am less furry than you. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
I don't know you never turn around for your cheese cake pics.
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Expert since 10:00 a.m.
I knew it was a matter of time.
I am really concernd that you actually saved that.
really concerned. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
How bout' shpwing how things slide off the roof easily woth copper...a picture of Duane on the ground unscaved of course.The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
Does it for me.
Is the roof all copper? Would slate be an alterative?
Is the roof all copper? Would slate be an alterative?
Yes, it's all copper. That's the first copper roof I did on my own about 15 years ago. Slate would not be an alternative in this case, 'cause I'm selling copper, not slate.Birth, school, work, death.....................
Ha ha,I meant was slate available in the area,just that I have never seen a copper roof here in NZ.Mostly Zincalume due to cost.
Cu while Bob may be
onto something with your picture being too dark (on a Windows computer) you have to be real care full laying around with the Gamma. The Jpg that Bob "fixed" the gamma in for you looks terrible and washed out on a Mac. I looked at your site on my Windows machine too and didn't think the photo was so dark that it needed gamma correction and even if you end up thinking it does I wouldn't take it as far as Bob went with it. (Gamma by the way is the curve that describes how the middle tones of images appear on a computer screen it's similar to but not quite the same thing as adjusting the brightness and/or contrast in that adjusting brightness or contrast doesn't adjust as a curve, it's straight line linear adjustment.).
Now your file size that's a whole other issue. Your site loaded up quickly for me but I'm on a speedy cable modem here and you might want to consider doing something about that. If you have something like Fireworks or know someone who does you can slice up you image and sections of the image that you don't need as high quality (such as the sky) you can reduce and besides just slicing up the image often helps speed up loading time (see Reduce download times by slicing your images).
Now that said I like what your doing but I'm bothered by how you content ends up positioned in a browser window. When I opened up your page I see and inch of white space on the right side (and a pixel or two at the top too). You should either force the window to open up a 800 pixels wide (via javascript) or maybe border and then center your content on the page with a good background color.
Also why did you choose a sans serif font? I relate copper to old world elegance, grace, and craftmanship and therefore think a serif font is a better emotional fit.
Also make Email to: [email protected] a link so that when I click on it it opens up my email program with your email in the "To" field. If you plug this code in you should get that:
<a href="mailto:Email to: [email protected]">Email to: [email protected]</a>
What kind of links to more content are you planning on?
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Jerrald,
Good to see you again.
Myself, I think that code should be
<a href="mailto:[email protected]">Email to: [email protected]</a>
SamT
Yup that is better, whoops my mistake. It was late and I was sloppy and didn't check what I was writing.
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Jerrald - interesting, I haven't tested on a mac.Would you do me a favor?Go to http://pi-inspect.com/index.html and take a couple of screen shots of that index page and maybe one or two others and email them to [email protected]And maybe a screen shot of the image I gamma'd?Now I'm concerned about how they display on another machine!
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Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace
Interesting company name "Paradigm Inspections". I wonder why I like it.
I'm just passing through quickly this morning so I'm sending you a screenshot (TIFF) of just the home page but you really need to see the images on a Mac driven monitor rather than looking at a picture on a Windows monitor of an image taken on a Mac monitor to see the difference. 90% of what I use my Windows machine for is testing HTML code and seeing what images look like.
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>Also why did you choose a sans serif font? I relate copper to old world elegance, grace, and craftmanship and therefore think a serif font is a better emotional fit.That was, believe it or not, my very first reaction. I noticed it right away and it came across less sophisticated than the work itself--as seen through the beautiful picture--deserves. A different font can add elegance to the presentation.
But you have to be careful to not get too carried away with your fonts. Some of the more decorative fonts are hard to read, and may display differently on different systems.
jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Darn, and I was just on the verge of recommending that he get carried away with obscure fonts. :)
I have a hard enough time reading some of the default suite.
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jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Edited 8/5/2005 10:53 am ET by JohnT8
My point in bringing up the font question in my post msg# 61319.7 was that
I think a standard html font like Times New Roman would be a better choice for a copper work website
(or perhaps even Georgia)
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Edited 8/5/2005 11:04 am ET by Jerrald Hayes
Agreed. And its easy to read.jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
<G>If you threw in the word "Copper" I woulda been sold!
"You should either force the window to open up a 800 pixels wide (via javascript)"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And a thousand POX's on your house for suggesting that.I HATE IT.I have MY browser configured how I LIKE it.And I don't want anyone messing with it, PERIOD.And it not only screws up that view, but others. I often open up new sites in tabs while keeping the current page.
"You and Stan are two people that SERIOUSLY need websites that showcases your work"Absolutely!"The last metrics I saw still gave the edge to 800x600 as the 'default' size to design to"This is what I'm seeing these days based on our wesite vistitors. Unknown would probably indicate people with cookies turned off. 800 x 600 is steadily declining..thank gawd. Story I hear is most newer Pc's are set to 1024 x 768 and few know how to adjust to anything different. EDIT--guess that doesn't make sense with the numbers below. I suppose much larger resultions are becoming more popular with larger monitors sales.July 05 1 1024x768 (medium size) 51.9%
2 800x600 (small size) 16.2%
3 1280x1024 1,870 11.5%
4 unknown 4.1%
5 1152x864 3.5%
6 1280x800 2.8%
7 1600x1200 (very large) 1.9%
8 1400x1050 1.5%
9 1680x1050 1.2%
10 1440x900 1.0% July 041 1024x768 (medium size) 52.0%
2 800x600 (small size) 24.5%
3 1280x1024 (large size) 9.3%
4 1152x864 3.2%
5 unknown 3.0%
6 1600x1200 (very large) 1.3%
7 1400x1050 1.1%
8 1280x800 0.9%
9 1440x900 0.7%
10 1280x960 0.6% July 031 1024x768 (medium size) 47.7%
2 800x600 (small size) 36.0%
3 1280x1024 (large size) 7.7%
4 1152x864 3.0%
5 1600x1200 42 1.2%
6 640x480 28 0.8%
7 1400x1050 0.7%
8 1280x960 0.5%
9 1600x1024 0.3%
10 1152x870 0.2% I agree completely about the .net. It's definately not too late to change.
Edited 8/5/2005 7:15 pm ET by HARDWOODGUY
Bill Hartmann- ""You should either force the window to open up a 800 pixels wide (via javascript)"
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And a thousand POX's on your house for suggesting that.
I HATE IT.
I have MY browser configured how I LIKE it.
And I don't want anyone messing with it, PERIOD.
And it not only screws up that view, but others. I often open up new sites in tabs while keeping the current page."
You should learn to get over that hangup real quick Bill and get into the real world. Not all the books on my bookshelves are 6-1/2" x 9-1/2" and I've learned to live with that. Should I put a pox on the Taunton people? Most of their books are 9-1/2" x 11-1/2" which really makes spacing shelves the way I like them difficult. While the typical average monitor size should be a consideration in designing any web page it is ultimatly an asthetic design on the part of the designer as to what size the page is and how the designer wants the public to view that page.
I happen to like dynamically designed pages but that's no so easy to do for a beginner to do and still have it look good. And certainly Cu's page opening up with all that white space on the right hand margin looks terrible. What would you suggest he do then? Forcing the page to open via javascript was only one of the suggestions I offered. Opening the page with the content within borders centered on the page being the other. Designing a dynamic page is yet another.
Your suggestions????
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"Not all the books on my bookshelves are 6-1/2" x 9-1/2" and I've learned to live with that. Should I put a pox on the Taunton people? Most of their books are 9-1/2" x 11-1/2" which really makes spacing shelves the way I like them difficult."When you put a 6.5/9/5 book on the shelf it does not fold up all of exisint 9.5/11.5 books so that they are all the same."While the typical average monitor size should be a consideration in designing any web page it is ultimatly an asthetic design on the part of the designer as to what size the page is and how the designer wants the public to view that page."Well ultimatly want you want is a page that people are willing to look at. I have killed more than one page just because it is too hard view. I will go looking elsewhere.Now if you want to the web site to he an artistic monument and don't care about anybody seeing it, then fine.
Bill Hartmann- "I have killed more than one page just because it is too hard view. I will go looking elsewhere."
You mean to tell me that if you were searching the web for a copper work contractor (or any particular specialty for that matter) and the web page used javascript to open it at a particular size you would blow off that site? Ahh, you shouldn't be such a curmudgeon. An open mind will get you further along in life faster.
"Now if you want to the web site to he an artistic monument and don't care about anybody seeing it, then fine."
I'm not talking about creating "artistic monuments" Bill. I'm talking about good basic graphic design principles. And I think 99% of people out there aren't as angry, discontented, and annoyed as easily as you are.
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"and the web page used javascript to open it at a particular size you would blow off that site?"I didn't say that.I said if it was too hard to view. A single resize to REASONABLE size would probably not cause me to kill it. But if after I resized back to what it want it to and it keeps fighting me then I would. Other things are background colors/text colors that are hard to read. Fixing the size of the font for 600x800 screen which makes it too small on mine. Or fixed placement of frames, tables so that text over laps when you try to change size."Ahh, you shouldn't be such a curmudgeon."Why not. I the person trying to sell me something does not have any concern about how hard it is to veiw his site how much concern would have about me as customer.
GRant,
Someone else can probably do a whole lot better than I can, but, heres a little touchup of your main pic.
SamT
I like Sam's pic the best, but agree that more of the roof is what you want to show with better sun on it.
How am I gonna get that in there!
Thanks guys - This was just a trial run.
Bob, Sam, and Jerrald - On my monitor (LCD), my pic looks best. On my previous monitor, I had to adjust the gamma like Bob's pic before I couild see the detail. Sam's is too grainy.
I forget people still have dial-up, thanks for reminding me - I'll have to go in a different direction.
Haven't gotten to the adding links part yet, I'm still working on content and design.Birth, school, work, death.....................
Pretty nice.
I'd move the text to the top or along the side so the user can read it while the picture is loading. I'd also use a better quality picture that focuses more on the roof than the cute house it is sitting on. And, if you have a logo this is a good place for it. If you don't have a logo, think about designing one so that it looks a little more sophisticated and like something from a mature business. I'd also change the email address so that it is a click on sendto. Lastly, on my PC, at least, your specialties don't line up exactly - the first line is more indented than the following one.
All this from somebody who really doesn't know what she is talking about, so keep that in mind.
Didn't time it but I'm not patient. No problem for this dialupper. Looked good on my Windoz. More pics of more complicated roofs, like your current one, would be good. That was a lovely house.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
My turn...
.
"You should either force the window to open up a 800 pixels wide (via javascript)"Let's keep it simple for the guy. I have about 4,000 hours(yes, I'm obsessed) into our website and haven't a clue how to do that. Besides if you ever want to be seen in search engines they can't read java script. I suppose what I'm trying to say is don't get hooked on java. A few important items to consider before you create new pages and have to start all over again.1- Place content above "the fold" What's the fold? The fold is the area people cannot see unless they have to scroll. You'd be suprised how many won't scroll. They'll leave the site within seconds if they can't find the information they are looking for.2- If you can't fit all the content above the fold use short bullet phrases or similar at the top of each page. This way they've found the information and gives them reason to look further by scrolling.3- Learn about screen resolution. Most of us view the web with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 while others view it on a 800 x 600 resolution-- and there are others much larger but they make up a small portion.
--How to check screen resolution? With most systems-- click start, click control panel and click on "appearance and themes" then "change screen resolution". There may be other variations but that's what I have with Windows XP4- Navigation. When you get into creating other pages make it easy to navigate with page links being visible on each page either on the top or left hand side--again above the fold. You may also want to create a site map for two reasons; for your vistitors and search engines(if you ever desire to be seen--some don't care) "Orphaned web pages" have a difficult time being spidered by search engines. Most times they will never be indexed.5- Always have the following page links visible on each page, preferably at the top and in full view.
**About Us-- people always want to know
**Contact Us-- yes they will want to contact you too.
**FAQ-- If your site gets large enoughThat's my .02 based on experience and taking a website from 10 pages to 1770 in three years. Search engines are my specialty if you ever need to know some tricks--actually I've mentioned them in other threads. Have fun! It can be quite addicting.Examples below of screen resolution.
Most of us view the web with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768
The last metrics I saw still gave the edge to 800x600 as the 'default' size to design to. Until the IT departments start replacing CRT with flat panels, that may be the case for a lot of folks.
Your point is still valid, though. Resolution is what communicates, and you have only about 1/6 of a second to "grab" the viewer who is surfing. Which is another reason for a "faster" graphic, too.
I might be inclined to make a medium-low res graphic on some hidden navigation buttons to things like "view larger image," "see detail picture," etc., as the pointer change can catch the eye while a graphic loads progressively. Just a thought.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I realize you've probably already paid for at least a year with that grantlogan.net, but IMHO you would be better off getting a .com
A lot of your low-level web users tend to miss the '.net' part and put in '.com' by mistake. In this case, grantlogan .com is an OBNOXIOUS site! And looks like it plants spyware. You don't want potential customers accidentally hitting a spyway site.
As an example of possible .com's:
LoganCustomCopper .com is available.
GrantLoganCustomCopper .com is also available (but I like the first one better since it's shorter).
As far as the page goes, its a good start. Excellent file size on that picture. At 50k-ish, it will load fast even for dial-up users. But as several others have pointed out, it doesn't showcase copper.
I've seen many of your BT posted pics and let me tell ya... You need more pics on your website. You got some "wow" ones out there. I attached two of my favorites. See if Karl is still around and if he'll let you use his turrets on your website. On that "ck7" picture, if you had a clear closeup shot of just the copper tiles, that would make a nice background texture (about as close as your "ck6" shot, but without the chimney..just copper).
Do you have a logo? If so, slap it at the top of the home page (and possibly a smaller version of it on all other pages).
You and Stan are two people that SERIOUSLY need websites that showcases your work.
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jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.
-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Edited 8/4/2005 11:11 am ET by JohnT8
I realize you've probably already paid for at least a year with that grantlogan.net, but IMHO you would be better off getting a .com
If he wanted he could still change & not be out the money that he spent for the space. If he wanted to register an available .com name (I don't think their that much if they aren't already owned by someone else).
All he's really paying for right now is the space. If he wanted to, he could register a new name & have it resolve to the same IP address that grantlogan.net does. (specify that IP address when registering the new name).
I think John has a valid point about .com vs. .net. I have my site as . com, ( not active, but I saved the name yrs ago.) And most folks looking in google will hit.com.
Are you thumpin this out solo? It is hard to do it that way. Hire a geek for a day...I'll chip in.
I think it is great so far...if ya need pics of past jobs, I have them at full size. Perryville, and fincastle come to mind..after all, it is not just copper, we do wood too right...right..? LOL Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
OK, guys. Thanks for the critiques and keep 'em coming. All good suggestions. I'm not trying so much to be found by random searches as be able to send potential clients to the site to get an idea what their house might look like when I get done with it.
I intend to have lots of box gutter info and pics as that's one of our main products, but can seldom be seen by the customer when the product is finished. Birth, school, work, death.....................
Actually, you've gotten over the hardest part of setting up a website: overcoming the intertia and actually starting. Now you know how to get a domain name, how to get it hosted, and how to get the HTML uploaded. The actual website is just a matter of time and fine tuning.
How large or small you want to make the site is up to you. You could just have a single page with contact information... BUT I think you'd be wasting a valuable resource if you didn't include visuals. So more pages with pics.
As a couple people have suggested, move your text up so that a person with 800X resolution won't have to scroll down to see it. My thought is that it's better to have surplus white space rather than chance someone missing something because they didn't scroll down/over.
On your specialties listing, how about listing them with thumbnails? So you put "standing/flat seam roofs" in and then below it (or above) place a thumbnail sized pic of a standing/flat seam roof. Next "box gutter re-lining" with its thumbnail pic, etc.
If Joe Homeowner clicks on the standing/flat seam thumbnail, it takes him to a "standing/flat seam" page with pics and whatever description you want. If he clicks on box gutters, it takes him to the box gutter page, and so on.
On another note, attached pic is a horrible copy-paste frankenstein, but imagine if it was a single (clear) shot. It would have a nice texture and really shouts "new copper". Don't know for sure (without seeing it), but wonder if something like that would make a good background texture (so your white borders are textured instead of white). And then maybe on a different page, use a pic of 'browned' copper, and then maybe on another page use green copper. Just a thought.
jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Edited 8/5/2005 10:29 am ET by JohnT8
Grant, I figure you will see my reply to JohnT8 but to further emphasize.If there is anything I can provide in the way of photos, testimonial or reference for the outstanding work you did on my turret project I would be honored.The turrets have weathered nicely and I wish I had a better digital cam then my old sony mavica but I would be happy to try and snap a few more. It isn't quite so easy with the scaffolding gone but I am sure I could get something usable with the weathered finish.Good luck with the website and I hope your business prospers.karl
Karl,
Great to hear from you. Actually, the pics of your project was what pushed me to get a site set up. I wanna show off a little bit. If you've got the time, I'd love to see more photos of the turrets and I'd definately like to feature them on the site if you have no objection.
Take a look at the "copper roof in progress" thread. We're gonna use diamond shingles on the dormer sides.
Again, great to hear from you and I hope all is well.
GrantBirth, school, work, death.....................
Does he have a logo? A logo is a very handy item. Reassures folks that they have the correct site (assuming the logo is also on truck or business cards or whatever)... hammers home his company name... ties a website together...
Some of the competitions websites:
http://www.zappone.com/default.asp?ID=2
Is a much better looking site than,
http://www.wallaceroofing.com/copper.html
This one is a very clean looking site, but I think it needs more info,
http://www.newenglandcopperroof.com/index.htm
This one is a nice site...although maybe more pics and less text would help,
http://www.customcopperdesigns.com/index.htm
The copper mothership?
http://www.copper.org/homepage.htmljt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Thanks for remembering my project John. I have been going through all the replies to Grant's post thinking photos of several completed projects and testimonials (including a glowing testimonial from me) would be a good asset.Grant needs a way to illustrate to the uninformed what an incredible resource he is to contractors and homeowners. Karl
Good to hear from you, karl. How is the house renovation going? Your turret thread was a favorite of mine. I mean, what are the chances that you and Grant would have stumbled across each other on an online forum and have had such amazing results!?
What was that, about a year ago?! Time flies!
So have the turrets gone from shiny to brown? I realize without the scaffolding, your access is limited, however is there any way you could duplicate the shot of yours that I reposted earlier in this thread? Duplicate the angle of the shot and I can merge the two into a Flash file (so it will alternate from one to the other). Or if you had the same angle with wood, then shiny copper, and then dulling copper, I could merge the 3 of them.
But no matter what the angle of the shots, I know Grant will want to use your pics for his website. Those were just eye-popping results.
[edit]
Had to go back and find the legendary "turret" thread. karl makes his appearance about 29 posts into it, however its all good. Prior to karl's appearance, Grant posted some nice pics.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=41708.1
jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Edited 8/6/2005 1:39 am ET by JohnT8
That's nice.
Are you reserving the space to the right for navigation stuff? There's a school of thought that says to center your main info, which can make sense. I might (just might) put a fixed margin space on the left.
Or not, it's not my page to monkey with.
And it looks good so far.
I'm going to pull it up in mozilla, as the IE on this machine has some wackiness embedded in it, which will change the appearance of some pages (like for the place I work, & have to make content for, grrrr).
http://www.grantlogan.net/index.html
OK, guys, here's the start of take 2. Bear in mind I'm still working on it, but let me have it. Thanks to all who have helped so far.
Birth, school, work, death.....................
G man, on my dial up it loads medium speed. The pic and superimposed lettering is bad enough to bail the site..not good.
I liked he first attempt a WHOLE lot mo betta.
But hey, whadda I know?
Really, I think it was better b4. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
And you thought you could ignore balloon knot.
The pic and superimposed lettering is bad enough to bail the site..not good.
those are links to pic pages - look again.....................Birth, school, work, death.....................
Ok..My AOL HELL don't allow some imbedded links ...I used Bellsouth and it fired right up, mo betta. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
And you thought you could ignore balloon knot.
A couple of problems.Firs the text it'self is not a link.So if you put your cursor directly on the text in any of the box you don't get a hot link. Specially noticable on the Contact. This is with Firefox. You have to move it to spot on the box that is not covered by the text.The "Previous---" does is not clear what it is. "Galary of---" or "Samples of ---" would be better.You need to title the main page. If someone bookmarks it "index" is not very informative.You need to shorting the banner. I have to go full screen 1280 x 1024 resolution to see all of it.That is not a problem in it'self, but unless I go down to about a 0.5pt font I have to scroll to read the text "We're located in historic Lexington----".
Grant,
Timing;20 seconds for first thing to show up and 50 for completion.
Font usage reference = http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_fonts.htm
You are using the browser to resize the pictures. In other words, using "__foster_ed_op_800x562.jpg" as an example, The pic is 800x562 pix at 55KB, you are cramming it into a 272x188px space. Resizing it to 274x188 reduces the file size to 7KB. Doing that with all 4 pictures will speed you up by about 250KB.
I rewrote your page. Eliminated all references to scripts and stylesheets. This alone saves 12KB of bandwidth.
I got rid of your fancy colored fonts and links. I think it is better to eleiminate "surprises" to surfers when they are not really needed. A blue underlined word or phrase means LINK!!! click here!
I am also pasting all the pics resized to 274px width x proportional height. If you make the table cells in the attached source file the same height as the appropriate image (plus 10 or 20 pixels for the text caption), it will make the page display before the pics are downloaded.
The copper_tile.jpg is what I used as your logo pic. Anybody who wants to view this page can save the indexraw.htm and the copper_tile.jpg pic to their HD and it will work. It will still take a while to download all the images since it calls the originals from your site. Except copper_tile.jpg, which doesn't live there yet.
I'm pretty sure this will display properly on 99% of machines and monitors, even with dingbats like me who keep their browser at about 2/3 their screen width. Try resizing your browser window.
SamT
Ignore "index.htm," I uploaded it by mistake.
"even with dingbats like me who keep their browser at about 2/3 their screen width"Hey Willis, who you calling a dingbat? I see that unlike Jarrold you want to to have you browser setup like you want it, not how someone else wants it.I like new layout.
Bill Hartmann- "...I see that unlike Jarrold you want to to have you browser setup like you want it, not how someone else wants it."
Bill, I'm thinking you don't really read the posts I write when you comment on them. First of all you'll notice name is spelled Jerrald not Jarrold and secondly I even said in msg# 61319.45 that I happen to prefer "dynamically designed pages". Is there perhaps something in your personalized browser setup that didn't alow you to read those things?
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Edited 8/7/2005 6:21 pm ET by Jerrald Hayes
Timing;20 seconds for first thing to show up and 50 for completion.
I'm assuming you're on dialup 'cause it loads quickly on my connection.
You are using the browser to resize the pictures. In other words, using "__foster_ed_op_800x562.jpg" as an example, The pic is 800x562 pix at 55KB, you are cramming it into a 272x188px space. Resizing it to 274x188 reduces the file size to 7KB. Doing that with all 4 pictures will speed you up by about 250KB.
Got it. I'll give it another try soon. Thanks for the input.Birth, school, work, death.....................
Cu,
Now that I've had to take another heat break, your web page came to 285,819 bytes, the one I posted came to 53,248 bytes.
Your pictures were 258KB of that and the reduced set came to 32KB including that 954Byte copper_tile .jpg.
Not tootin' mah own horn, or anything.(|:>)
SamT
Seeyou - I think Sam's was quicker. (I'm on dial up.) So what? FWiW I didn't want to wait. Have fun, but rememeber what the real goal is - to do this in the most professional way, to get those customers. By the way, lots of people in the "country" don't have access to anything except dialup.
Don a/k/a Hammerlaw
Have fun, but rememeber what the real goal is - to do this in the most professional way, to get those customers. By the way, lots of people in the "country" don't have access to anything except dialup.
At this point the goal is not to get any more customers. Currently, I have more work than I can handle (and have for the last 6 years), but I mostly work for the same GC's over and over again. Occasionally, I have to give references to a homeowner (last week for instance) and I just had them look at my site. They were familiar with a number of the homes shown. 'nuff said. Got my deposit check from them yesterday.
I don't have any advertising (signs, lettered trucks, yellow pages, t-shirts, nothing). I haven't needed it. That's my way of weeding out the tire kickers and dreamers. If they work hard enough to find me, then they've qualified themselves.
At this point, I'm not interested in talking to someone out in the sticks who want's to know how much a copper roof will cost if he finally finishes that addition on his mobile home. The people out in the sticks I want calling me are the ones that I'm gonna have to make a custom copper roof mount for their internet satellite dish. I'm not trying to sound elitist, but I sell an expensive (upfront) product. As said before, my customers have broadband and real big monitors.
Also, in Ky, everyone is supposed to have broadband access within the next two years. We'll see, but more and more people have broadband and less and less use dialup.
What I am working toward with my business, is eliminating the contracting side and focusing on the custom fabrication side. That is several years away. I plan on using the website more extensively at that point and will hire a designer when I get to that stage. I'm not sure when that will be at this point. As long as I can keep a good team together, I'll probably keep contracting. Birth, school, work, death.....................
I'm not one to argue with success. Your system is working for you. It's obvious why too. You do really nice work roofs, shingles, gutters, derbys...
I personally have never been a big fan of advertising either. One thing I did find was a good needlepoint embroiderer who did some shirts for me. They are pretty classy, dressy enough for daily wear and they were deductible, which for clothing, is a plus. I'm thinking about t-shirts, for the same reason, but need to sharpen up the logo a bit and find a good company that does t-shirts. I really do not want the needlepoint on the t's. They take too much wear and tear and it's a little expensive.
I see the logo on the shirts and trucks as one way to help make the company look more professional. It helps people remember you. There's a roofing thread out there, which you probably saw. The guy got a price from what he calls a "marquee roofer". He admits that he's probably paying for the nice trucks, etc., but he did notice them and he seems inclined to use the company.
As far as the future plans, nothing says you can't have two divisions - fabrication and installation. If you have the right workers, (and it looks like you do) that's more than half the battle. The work gets done and the money keeps coming in.
What's going on with the horse farm roof? You guys done with that?
Don
As far as the future plans, nothing says you can't have two divisions - fabrication and installation. If you have the right workers, (and it looks like you do) that's more than half the battle. The work gets done and the money keeps coming in.
What's going on with the horse farm roof? You guys done with that?
fabrication & installation. That's what I have now. Only, for the last two years, I don't do much installation. The shop is in my house and is my domain. As long as I can keep good installers, I'll keep fabricating for them ( and my competition) as I do now and keep contracting. I'd like for one of them to take over the contracting part and sub me back to fabricate for them.
Duane posted some pics today on the roof thread. We're about 60% finished, but this is a detail heavy job. I'll be posting more pics soon. Thanks for your input.
Oh yeah, I'm with Mr. Tate - good thing your last name doesn't start with "g".
CheersBirth, school, work, death.....................
Put a comma after Kentucky. Get a good copy editor to look over all the copy on the website and tweak it so it will actually look professional. Lexington probably has several people that do freelance editing; see if an ad agency or the pr office at UK knows of a freelance editor you can hire once everything is written. You don't want to look like an amateur when you're selling a high-end product.
The pictures looked great on my laptop pc. Plus I couldn't help but wonder where the houses were. (I lived in Maysville most of the 1990s.)
fyi..
i didn't read through all the posts...
not sure what you did with your site, but it crashes my firefox broswer each time i try to open it..
I think I've got it too wide - I've already changed that, but haven't published yet.Birth, school, work, death.....................
I'm a little late to the ballgame on version 2, but it is certainly an improvement.
As has been suggested by multiple people you might wanna cleanup the links setup. I agree with Hammerlaw, just put "25 years experience". I like what you're doing with the logo-banner copper background with text overtop, but do you have a clear pic you can use for it? It looks all grainy on my display.
When you're designing your page, you should probably shoot for 800 resolution. That takes care of 'most' of your web surfers. Scrolling is evil and I only do it when absolutely necessary. You can probably fit all of your home page on one 800 resolution screen. I've attached a frankenstein jpg of a proposed layout that 'should' fit without scrolling. The logo text I used was "Old English Text MT".
On the gallery pages you can't avoid forcing folks to scroll, but I'd probably just design it to scroll one way (down). So guesstimate what the 800 resolution folks can see and design it that way. On the previous gutter projects, the pugh__ed.jpg pic is HUGE. Dial-up'ers probably wouldn't wait for it to load (it's also my favorite pic on that page).
I'd slap that logo-banner pic/text on top of every page. Make "Standing Seam Copper Roof Projects" (etc) a sub-header below the logo.
I might be tempted to make the "contact us" an "about us" page. They click on it and it brings up a page with some info about the company, name, address, phone #, email address etc.
It really is coming along nicely. Just keep in mind you'll never make ALL of us happy ;)jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Just keep in mind you'll never make ALL of us happy ;)
I figured that out a long time ago. I'm ahead of you most of your other suggestions. Thanks again for all the help you guys are giving me.
I'm the DIY guy on this project. Several have suggested that I hire a pro.............Not gonna do it, I'm having too much fun and learning lots at the same time. Birth, school, work, death.....................
I'm the DIY guy on this project. Several have suggested that I hire a pro.............Not gonna do it, I'm having too much fun and learning lots at the same time.
If you don't mind messing with it, then you're probably better off doing it yourself.
Hiring a geek is usually best for those people who don't want to deal with it themselves. They get their site up quickly, but probably won't have the ability to change much on it without further assistance from the geek.
It ain't rocket science. Anybody can do it if they'll spend some time at it.
[edit] OK, so where is version 2b?! Stop teasing us with talk about updates and then not upload them. ;)
jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.-- Walter Percy Chrysler
Edited 8/8/2005 4:22 pm ET by JohnT8
"I'm the DIY guy on this project. Several have suggested that I hire a pro.............Not gonna do it, I'm having too much fun and learning lots at the same time."That's the best part of it. Working on websites helped fulfill a void of mine and I haven't looked back. There's sooo much to learn and if you're the creative type you'll enjoy it even more. I often look back at some of my older sites and look at the progress I've made in three years. How can you check?It's called the "wayback machine" You can actually view what some websites looked like 7-8 years ago. Looking at my site it's abvious I didn't know beans about image size and load time.http://www.archive.org/
OK, if anyone's still interested, I've gotten a little more work done on my site. If anyone's got any more critiques, let me have 'em.
http://grantlogan.net/Birth, school, work, death.....................
Lookin' at yer site, I can tell that you have high speed internet and a 19" to 21" monitor.
And that you love bandwidth eating Java.
SamT
SamT - "...
And that you love bandwidth eating Java."
I think you meant javascript not java and it doesn't really eat up bandwidth. It's client-side meaning after the page has loaded the scripts are executed by your browser (the client) so you're not having to access the server again as CGI would. The javascript itself is just additional textual code within the HTML page that gives special instructions to the browser so it not really taking up any more bandwidth than the HTML code itself.
Now there is good use of javascript and bad use of javascript but that is a whole other issue than bandwidth.
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Jerrald,
Yeah, I did mean javascript, my bad.
I did not look at each of his pages, after I went to http://grantlogan.net/coppershingle.html and all I saw was a No Java Script notice, I looked at his source to see If I could find the picture's Url.
Bandwidth eating; The source, scripts, and the No JS notice, for that page takes up 6,120 bytes. Taking out the JS and the little Homestead SiteBuilder tags, "<hs:realtracker>," and leaving all the formatting white space reduced it to 818 bytes, an 87% reduction.
He's using a <!-- noscript--> tag to tell me that I turned off JS, A script to rewrite when a Netscape browser gets resized, A huge (6KB) js page to send stats to Homestead SiteBuilder,A smaller js page to tell older Netscape users the site might not work, because he's using JS,And finally, a script to pull the image he wants people to see.BUT, no <!--noscript--> tag for the image itself.He has TWO CS sheets at 5KB each that aren't used to show this image. The only difference between the two sheets is that for Netscape, the font sizes are one pixel different.
And my version will work with any browser. BUT, Homestead SiteBuilder won't be getting any stats from it.
If I trim the page down to what is only needed to show the image and display an identifying header, it goes down to 443 bytes.
Bandwidth eating? You tell me. 16 thousand bytes vs 443 bytes. For a white page displaying 1 picture.
SamT
You've gotta be kidding Sam. You just have way to much time on your hands.http://grantlogan.net/coppershingle.html is obviously not a complete page. There's no content, no images, no media so sure in the case of that page the javascript makes up a huge portion of the data transfer. To use an analogy you can think of the page as it is as having ¢32 worth of bandwidth baggage vs. your plain white page with 1 graphic as having ¢1 of worth of bandwidth baggage. In that context, wow that is a big difference! But most decent pages in the real world have several $$$ worth of bandwidth baggage so in that context saving on javascript is penny wise but pound foolish. You're the only "web design guru" that I've ever heard talk about javascript as being a bandwidth hog. Javascript just isn't a bandwidth hog Sam. Style sheets aren't bandwidth hogs either. He very well may have style sheets (CSS) with redundancies in them but they aren't a problem that should concern him at this stage (other than he should be more organized when building a site). He's probably has junk javascript doing nothing in his pages too but he has other much bigger issues he needs work on.
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I think it's a great improvement! I would suggest cutting everything down so the entire navigation bar(left hand side) can be seen without scrolling. Same for the text in the body reading something like:HEADING: Central Kentucky Copper Roofing & Gutters(14 point font)Rest of text in 10 point font--maybe 12. Centering text is also a turnoff for many. Stick a nice pic in the text body sized at something like 300 x 300 pix.Don't forget that TITLE tag. Right now the home page reads "index" Center your banner. That pic rollover thingie somebody pointed out in another thread would work great for the photo areas.drop the javaI'll be watching for more updates:)
Edited 9/1/2005 8:14 am ET by HardwoodGuy
Hardwoodguy I'm not saying he shouldn't get rid of the javascript I said
javascript isn't a bandwidth hog
there is good use of javascript and bad use of javascript (intimating that what Cu was doing I think of as a bad use of javascript)
I would suggest cutting everything down so the entire navigation bar(left hand side) can be seen without scrolling.
Yup I agree when I mentioned to Sam that "has other much bigger issues he needs work on. " that's part of it. Cu needs rally some pure page DESIGN help period. He needs to forget and ignore all the tech mumbo jumbo, his page design layout skills are really hurting. I think he also needs to spend a few bucks and get a legitmate HTML layout tool to work with too. I think one of his big problems is he's trying to come up with something decent using Homestead SiteBuilder which is probably the free web based tool his service provider provides for building websites.
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Jerrald,
I'm in complete agreemint witcha.
Except yer definition of bandwidth hogging(|;>)
SamT
Cu needs rally some pure page DESIGN help period. He needs to forget and ignore all the tech mumbo jumbo, his page design layout skills are really hurting. I think he also needs to spend a few bucks and get a legitmate HTML layout tool to work with too. I think one of his big problems is he's trying to come up with something decent using Homestead SiteBuilder which is probably the free web based tool his service provider provides for building websites.
I don't disagree with you, but at this point I've got the training wheels on and I'm having some fun. When I actually get ready to utilize the site, I'll probably hire a designer ( I intend on changing the focus of my business in a couple of years). Until then, I'll continue to tinker with you guy's help. Birth, school, work, death.....................
Don't get me wrong I think tinkering and playing around with HTML is a good thing. We actually have a client we did a website for who's made no effort whatsoever to understand and learn anything about the web and we find that makes working with him that much more difficult and time consuming. Still if you are going to play around with this I think a real web design page layout tool will really make a big difference for you over using the Homestead Sitebuilder tool and you'll learn a lot lot more.
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CU,
>>I don't disagree with you, but at this point I've got the training wheels on and I'm having some fun.
I'm a self taught HTML'er, myself. Can I suggest
Index DOT Html: Main Index HtmLib: htmlib9530.zip (2.3 Megs) And, finally; UltraEdit (5.9 Megs) as your editor.
SamT
Lookin' at yer site, I can tell that you have high speed internet and a 19" to 21" monitor.
Yup, and so does my potential clientel. See my post to Jerrald and thanks for your continued help.Birth, school, work, death.....................
"Lookin' at yer site, I can tell that you have high speed internet and a 19" to 21" monitor.Yup, and so does my potential clientel."I would not restrict myself to such clients, because they don't all hav ethat for one reason or another.One is available of BB service.And they maybe at work and have BB service, but only 17" monitor.Another is that they maybe using a laptop.Here is a good example. Our Canadain friend with the arbors and the like (gardenstructures.com maybe?) say that he only has access to dailup.Now he has a customer in and he is working on a gazbo and says that would be perfect place for a copper roof. Lets see if CU has an example.After waiting 2 minutes with the customer looking over his shoulder and the site still not loaded it makes him look bad.I know that it will keep out riffraf like Duane, but there are others on dailup that aren't.
Edited 9/3/2005 10:11 am ET by BillHartmann
I know that it will keep out riffraf like Duane, but there are others on dailup that aren't.
Oddly enough, he tells me it loads quickly on his dialup connection.
You make some good points. I'm far from done tinkering.Birth, school, work, death.....................
Here is what you need to do.There is a command that you can get the browser info.If it says AOL then simple don't allow it to load.That is the single best way of keeping out the riffraf.
Too many words on the home page, you need a big pretty photo to draw people in. Remember that internet pages (and just about everything else these days) needs to grab attention fast! Words should then flow from that "center of attention". It's like a big billboard that you can't help but see.
Also, applying a unique font or logo on the top of the home page is a good way to get recognition - aka..."oh yeah, I've seen those guys around town"Justin Fink - FHB Editorial
"That is several years away"If that's the case and you want to draw traffic from the internet at that time, I would suggest working on links. However the question is who will link to you with the site in that condition? Linking is currently the single most important factor in obtaining better search engine positions. It has been that way since Google was created and a majority don't see any changes in sight. I mentioned some of the keys in another thread a few months ago. Considering how comeptitive the internet is getting, it gets more difficult to rank. Three years from now your only option may be to pay for website traffic with paid placements. Older more established sites have years of visibility and a large number of "backlinks" Sure some pay for traffic but they're also listed well in the generic(free) listings in search engines.We were paying $14,000 a year for Google adwords up until last month when I thought "we're doing fine-- why pay for it?" No changes in sales because we've worked on links for 12-14 months now. Now we get anywhere between 12,000 and 22,000 vistitors each week, depending on our Google listings. That's us, your business and goals may be different.Good Luck
Drop the word previous. We know that you do copper work. Also drop the since 2000 only 4 years in business people may either think you are inexpeirenced or they may try to take advantage of you because of not many years of business.
Drop the word previous.
Done.
Also drop the since 2000 only 4 years in business people may either think you are inexpeirenced or they may try to take advantage of you because of not many years of business.
I had to go back and check, but it's actually since late 1999. We're halfway thru 2005, so it's closer to six years in this particular configuration. As far as the taking advantage angle: let 'em try. I've been at this 25 years. Point taken, though. Birth, school, work, death.....................
I was going to comment on the 2000 thing too. But, if you've been doing this for 25 years, why not say "25 years of experience" ? People (the majority) will be more concerned with your experience than they are with when your business was incorporated. Since you've got it, go with it.
Don