My site, your opinion

Hi all!

I have already gotten on the nervs of the members of
c.i.w.authoring.stylesheets and c.i.w.authoring.html, now it's your
turn:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

I hope that I am in the right group to get some feedback on this site.
Simply write about everything you think is important to say.
Thank you in advance for your feedback on my site,

Michael

"Michael Kalina" <michaelkalina (AT) despammed (DOT) com> wrote

Hi all!

I have already gotten on the nervs of the members of
c.i.w.authoring.stylesheets and c.i.w.authoring.html, now it's your
turn:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

Its nice looking, but that top image is a big waste of screen space.
Lemme guess - you have a really nice, high-resolution montor, don't you?


--
Karl Core

Link of the day:
http://www.mightymoocow.com/werbung.mpeg

On 2004-05-16 05:09:46 +0200, "Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com> said:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

Its nice looking, but that top image is a big waste of screen space.
Lemme guess - you have a really nice, high-resolution montor, don't you?

Ok, Karl, here is the answer: I am working on a 14" Apple iBook with a
screen resolution of 1024 x 768, so that's more a luxurious typewritter
than a "really nice, high-resolution monitor"!

But I think that the picture is so important for the whole feeling on
this site that I think it is okay to have it that big!

But thank you for the first hint!

Michael Kalina wrote:

On 2004-05-16 05:09:46 +0200, "Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com> said:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

Its nice looking, but that top image is a big waste of screen space.
Lemme guess - you have a really nice, high-resolution montor, don't you?

Ok, Karl, here is the answer: I am working on a 14" Apple iBook with a
screen resolution of 1024 x 768, so that's more a luxurious typewritter
than a "really nice, high-resolution monitor"!

But I think that the picture is so important for the whole feeling on
this site that I think it is okay to have it that big!

But thank you for the first hint!

I'll give you the next one :-)

Difficult to explain, so here's some screenshots:
On 800x600 IE6.0:
http://locusmeus.com/temp/kalina-ie-8x6.jpg
On 800x600 NS7.1:
http://locusmeus.com/temp/kalina-ns-8x6.jpg
The large brown area on the right is there on higher
resolutions too.

--
Els
http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

"Michael Kalina" <michaelkalina (AT) despammed (DOT) com> wrote

On 2004-05-16 05:09:46 +0200, "Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com
said:
I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

Its nice looking, but that top image is a big waste of screen space.
Lemme guess - you have a really nice, high-resolution montor, don't you?

Ok, Karl, here is the answer: I am working on a 14" Apple iBook with a
screen resolution of 1024 x 768, so that's more a luxurious typewritter
than a "really nice, high-resolution monitor"!

But I think that the picture is so important for the whole feeling on
this site that I think it is okay to have it that big!

Despite the fact that my assumption was incorrect about your monitor doesn't
change the fact that the image takes up far too much vertical space on the
user's screen. Your users aren't coming there to see that one image are
they? They're coming there to see the content of the site. Having an image
at the head of the page that takes up 30-50% of available vertical space is
creating a hinderance to the user's access to the content.


--
Karl Core

Link of the day:
http://www.mightymoocow.com/werbung.mpeg

Michael Kalina <michaelkalina (AT) despammed (DOT) com> wrote:

screen resolution of 1024 x 768

1024 x 768 is a common desktop size, resolution is expressed in dpi.

--
Spartanicus

On 2004-05-16 13:37:08 +0200, Els <els.aNOSPAM (AT) tiscali (DOT) nl> said:

Michael Kalina wrote:

On 2004-05-16 05:09:46 +0200, "Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com> said:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

I'll give you the next one :-)

Difficult to explain, so here's some screenshots:
On 800x600 IE6.0:
http://locusmeus.com/temp/kalina-ie-8x6.jpg
On 800x600 NS7.1:
http://locusmeus.com/temp/kalina-ns-8x6.jpg
The large brown area on the right is there on higher resolutions too.

NS7.1. Everything as it should be...
IE6.0. Normally I'd say: also everything as it should be, because IE
always makes problems, but in this case I have no clue what happens
there... (And I do not have an IE to test it!) - Anybody an idea?

Thanks, MK

Michael Kalina wrote:

On 2004-05-16 13:37:08 +0200, Els <els.aNOSPAM (AT) tiscali (DOT) nl> said:

Michael Kalina wrote:

On 2004-05-16 05:09:46 +0200, "Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com
said:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of
criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

I'll give you the next one :-)

Difficult to explain, so here's some screenshots:
On 800x600 IE6.0:
http://locusmeus.com/temp/kalina-ie-8x6.jpg
On 800x600 NS7.1:
http://locusmeus.com/temp/kalina-ns-8x6.jpg
The large brown area on the right is there on higher resolutions too.

NS7.1. Everything as it should be...

hmm.. didn't expect that. I find it very a-symmetric, which
I personally don't like.

IE6.0. Normally I'd say: also everything as it should be, because IE
always makes problems, but in this case I have no clue what happens
there... (And I do not have an IE to test it!) - Anybody an idea?

Yes, where the container div stops getting smaller, because
of whatever fixed width div or picture or whatever in it,
the header still obeys the margin you set for the right side.

I don't know exactly why though.
I had the same problem before on my own pages, but I forgot
how I got rid of it :-(

What I don't get in your case, is why, if I change the width
of the container to 400px instead of 80%, the large white
background with the border, stays put, while only the
content and header get narrowed down to 400px. This must be
due to the same problem as shown in the screenshot.

If I were you, I'd definitely download a version of IE, as
most of your visitors will use it, and you should at least
know what they see.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/ie6sp1/default.asp

--
Els
http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

Karl Groves wrote:

"Michael Kalina" <michaelkalina (AT) despammed (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:c85vgu$rst (AT) odah37 (DOT) prod.google.com...

Hi all!

I have already gotten on the nervs of the members of
c.i.w.authoring.stylesheets and c.i.w.authoring.html, now it's your
turn:

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.


Its nice looking, but that top image is a big waste of screen space.
Lemme guess - you have a really nice, high-resolution montor, don't you?

I agree the header graphic is a bit large and I don't understand a word
of it but wanted to say your code is very skillfully wrote! Congrats! I
wish you a high *Pigeon*Rank.
http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

=)


Matt


--
DreamHost Web Hosting
.. PHP MySQL 'Full Unix Shell' Cron 'Great Support'
.. http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?m3k

It looks very much like the templates offered by http://www.blogger.com,
(especially with respect to layout, and atom)...I'm not suggesting that you
copied the css and the page codes, just that it might have helped if you
had! A few tweaks and you would have had a similar result. It's all a
question of plagarisation versus learning/building from others' work a.k.a.
re-inventing the wheel unnecessarily I suppose ( a difficult ethical
question)!

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmichaelsremarks.com%2F&la ngpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

It's very poetic, filled with similies and metaphors -- your thoughts
obviously, and a natural web log. I can't understand why you didn't simply
get a template from the Google-owned www.blogger.com, make a few changes and
publish to your own server, it would have been the natural choice for
most -- especially as the result is almost identical.... anyway...

External CSS and strict w3c code have many inherent difficulties. One is
that the header doc type declaration messes with any dhtml and javascript,
especially with respect to browser software and so forth.

If you have not got Opera, IE5.x, IE6, Avant, Netscape and so forth, you'll
always be flying in the dark. At the very least, you should check your
pages at an Internet Cafe, a friend's PDA and on just about anything else
you come across before you 'launch it' and connect up your domain name.

A lot of people view web sites while at work, and it is not uncommon for
them to set up over-rides... they set the Internet Options (IE)
Accessibility to turn off your font and colour settings so it does not draw
attention to the fact that they are surfing instead of working (the screen
looks like they are looking at an office document). Some turn off (or don't
have) audio, a lot turn off graphics (speeds up page downloads), Flash,
animations, pop-ups and so on.

Any web designer should test their page under all sorts of browsers,
resolutions and weird settings -- do you know how many people do not
actually use the full screen resolution (the browser is not maximised)? I
know far too many people who leave the 'History' pane open -- this shrinks
the site real estate considerably!

.... so to finish my 'criticism' of the testing, your large header picture
may look great to you on your set up, but imagine it without the picture, on
a small screen resolution, 16 bit, with over ride settings, the history pane
open and the browser not at maximum, and you will see what the other posters
have been talking about.

If you get a free counter from http://gostats.com, for example, you will get
statistics about your visitors' settings which will help you make all sorts
of decisions.

It is also a good idea to bear in mind that 1 in 4 people in the world have
one of the three forms of colour-blndness. Test your pages at vischeck for
contrast etc. It is peculiar to see your page as others' may see it....very
entertaining, and very informative!

Not everyone has broadband, and so speed is of the essence for paying
dial-up visitors -- your background image/wallpaper is unnecessary when a
colour would do. I would suggest that you work on the header -- less
picture and more a short description of what the page is (remember the 'mom
test') -- not every user of the Internet is clever enough to know what a
weblog is/how it works!

Apart from my moaning, it seems fine to me, the divs work well under the
nine browsers I checked it on and while 800x600 laptops hate your site
(especially with over rides), it can be read easily enough -- and that is
the main thing after all.


<snip>

I have created a new design, new css and new xhtml for my website at
http://michaelsremarks.com - now I am searching for a lot of criticism,
tipps, hints and ideas how to make it better.

I hope that I am in the right group to get some feedback on this site.
Simply write about everything you think is important to say.
Thank you in advance for your feedback on my site,

Michael
/snip