Critique Request: Old GeoCities site

Apparently then, your 'free' server is inserting the link to the style sheet.

Yes, it does that. That's how they're able to supply the "free"
GeoCities pages. Professionals have always pooh-poohed the GeoCities
hosting. I think I've been on GeoCities for something like 15 years..?
And was one of the first Community Leaders, way way before GS was
taken up by Yahoo. I haven't updated my skills because I've been busy
playing the violin (and teaching), but you're right, I know; the whole
thing needs to be updated w/r/t the design.

Professionals should be, well, professional. Everyone thinks their own
speciality is the center of the universe, and if a NON-professional
comes into their group, the attitude is that the person is clueless or
stupid. I understand that very well. It would be like one of you,
coming into a group focused on string pedagogy (say, violin playing and
teaching). There are undoubtably exceptions, but as a general rule,
you would be the clueless one. So it pays to be courteous, especially
if your income is based on designing pages for people.

Just a gentle hint, guys.




Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

renaissance (AT) australiamail (DOT) com wrote:
[Please don't top-post. Reply inline as I am doing.]

I'm not using a style sheet of any kind (what's a style sheet?); it's
just plain 'ole html code I taught myself through trail and error,
many years ago.

Apparently then, your 'free' server is inserting the link to the style
sheet. It is in your code (view your own source) at the very top of the
page, above the following comment:

!-- text above generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE --

Don't you wish you could remove it?

Here is the CSS you are serving:
http://k75s.home.att.net/show/connie-css.txt

Note the line:
A:hover {color: #008080; font-family: Ariel; font-weight: bold}

Arial is spelled incorrectly, and that bold is what makes your links
jump.

Farther down, in the geocities CSS, it is mixed in with HTML code,
probably causing the entire file to be rejected by a competent browser.

What I find hard to understand is this: whenever I ask for input
about this page, I always get responses similar to the ones I've
gotten here: it sux, there are lots of errors, etc. However, it

Well, this is an HTML critique newsgroup, frequented by professional
developers. If you only want feel-good critiques, ask your neighbors who
don't know anything about writing good web pages.

looks fine to me on my lap and my PC, and I've looked at these pages
from a half a dozen university labs, computers from many dozens of
temporary jobs I've held here and there (a dozen cities, in law firms
and all sorts of businesses, including IBM), at internet cafes in
dozens of locations, at other people's homes -- and the pages always
look fine.

Sure, it looks fine (for some value of 'fine'). Personally, I think it
is an average quality amateur/beginner page/site. Doesn't approach
professional, though.

Do you like 'jumping text'?

So this mystifies me. Why does it look okay from all these
locations, and yet presumably have so many gaffs in coding?? Someone
care to explain this to me?

The location from which you view the file has nothing to do with the
construction of the pages.

What about:

There is no consistency across pages. Each sub-page has a different
design and layout. Each page becomes a new learning experience for the
visitor, thus taking time away from reading content.

Did you ever consider a 'theme' for the whole site?

--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

lucy wrote:

Apparently then, your 'free' server is inserting the link to the
style sheet.

Yes, it does that. That's how they're able to supply the "free"
GeoCities pages. Professionals have always pooh-poohed the GeoCities
hosting. I think I've been on GeoCities for something like 15
years..?

There are other free services out there that will not muck about with
your pages. Have you considered that? There are also thousands of
full-fledged hosts that cost only a couple of dollars a month.

And was one of the first Community Leaders, way way before GS was
taken up by Yahoo. I haven't updated my skills because I've been
busy playing the violin (and teaching), but you're right, I know;
the whole thing needs to be updated w/r/t the design.

Ok, you've been given several worthy tips on how to improve the site.
Are you going to implement any of them?

Professionals should be, well, professional. Everyone thinks their
own speciality is the center of the universe, and if a
NON-professional comes into their group, the attitude is that the
person is clueless or stupid. I understand that very well.

This depends entirely on the attitude of the non-professional. There are
plenty of non-professionals who come to these groups asking for help
with their sites, and the only ones who are treated as 'clueless' are
the ones who fail to (or rebut) the advice given.

It would be like one of you, coming into a group focused on string
pedagogy (say, violin playing and teaching). There are undoubtably
exceptions, but as a general rule, you would be the clueless one.

We would only be clueless if we disputed any advice given by a
professional.

So it pays to be courteous, especially if your income is based on
designing pages for people.

It always pays to be courteous. Where my income originates is not
germane to the discussion of your web site, though.

Just a gentle hint, guys.

Works both ways ... ;-)

--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 06:29:30 -0700, lucy wrote:

And what does a press kit have to do with violins? Or musicians?

You're kidding, right?

Well, I was wondering the same thing. Not being a violinist and all.

But your comment harks back to the core of what is wrong with your site:
It is not clear what your site is really for. Violinists? Violin
enthusiasts? Professional violinists? Teachers? Students? People who enjoy
violin music? Well, I can only imagine a pres kit being important for
maybe one or two of those categories.

Now, your site is really not necessarily bad; but it depends on your
defined target audience and your idea of exactly waht you are trying to
achieve. Most of the responders to critique requests in this group are
done from the point of view of trying to make a site look, act, and read
prefessionally. Unless stated otherwise by the critique requester.

--
JDS | jeffrey (AT) go (DOT) away.com

http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

JDS wrote:

But your comment harks back to the core of what is wrong with your site:
It is not clear what your site is really for. Violinists? Violin
enthusiasts? Professional violinists? Teachers? Students?

That's a reasonable question. In the header it says:

<!-- www.geocities.com/conniesunday/ - Connie's Violin Page - Online
resource for violinists and string teachers-->

And it's always been promoted as that. I struggled with this idea
myself at the beginning, and wanted it to cover materials for violin
students, their parents (Suzuki parents), and professionals. So it's
very broad based. It has elements of all of those.

Thank you for looking at this JDS.

JDS wrote:

..your site does not really suck. It's just that I find it
funny that people expect to get answers of any kind in Usenet. "No answer"
*is* your answer -- nobody has anything to say!

I know what you mean. USENET is a zoo. See:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/mensabarbie/index.html

Still, web hosting, especially
for static HTML patges, can be had for quite cheap -- $4-$6 per month --
these days, and without the Yahoo banner stuff force-fed onto the page.

Good point. I can tell you that the reason I've never done this
(upgraded to a page somewhere besides GC), is that I travel so much and
I've put so much effort into this page, and I'm just afraid I'd forget
to pay for it or overextend on my credit cards, and then lose the whole
the thing. Also, the essays and some of the pages have been indexed by
hundreds of other pages (many in languages other than English, I might
add). Mine and two or three others were the first pages on the net to
deal with violin pedagogy, and I don't want to have to spend endless
hours, updating links with people. If I were to put forwarding pages,
I know from experience that if you only have forwarding pages on GC,
they'll take them down. I know b/c I used to work for them, and I did
that.

First off, I don't really know, straight off, what this page is trying to
accomplish. Violin teacher resources? Violin student resources?
General violin player/student/teacher/instrument resources?

All of the above (as mentioned elsewhere). And to complicate matters,
I started studying and playing viola professionally a few years ago, so
now it's the violin/viola FAQ, as well...

There is also too much stuff on the first page. That page is really,
really, REALLY long. It really should be broken into several pages.

I know. I've broken it up at various times. It is overwhelming to
people, I realize. I get more hits when people come in from search
engies on the various pages separately. The whole thing, in fact,
needs to be reorganized, moved, etc. I just don't have the training
(yet) to do it.

Technical Details and Coding
Now, the coding, just skimming the surface, is poor. Simple steps to
improve coding:

1) Code by hand

I'm not sure what "Code by hand" means, but I think that's what I've
done. I don't use any program or anything.

2) Validate using w3.org's validator.

I hate these web mechanic things. I used to run my pages through them
regularly, but I never really spend enough time with them to understand
them.

And finally, do you have a specific goal in minde in your request for
critique?

I didn't really; just wanted to open up a dialogue. I'm trying to
decide if I want to get some more training or just leave it as it.

Thanks!!

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 10:59:12 -0700, lucy wrote:

That's a reasonable question. In the header it says:

!-- www.geocities.com/conniesunday/ - Connie's Violin Page - Online
resource for violinists and string teachers--

To quote you from earlier,

"You're kidding, right? "

In the header? You do realize that that bit you snipped out deosn't
actually *show up* anywhere on the page, don't you?

I mean, why isn't that one line the first thing one sees when one goes to
the website? That would clear up a lot of ambiguity.

Example:

<h1>Connie's Violin Page</h1>
<p>
Online resource for violinists and string teachers
</p>


presto! All cleared up!

Wow, I just took a look deeper into the HTML (and Javascript) "code" on
your site and it is really quite a mess.

Actually, "Connie" or "Lucy" or "renaissance", why did you post a request
for a critique in the first place? What were you hoping to gain from a
critique of your website? I'm not being facetious -- knowing your expected
gain will help a lot in directing the content of the critique.

later...

--
JDS | jeffrey (AT) go (DOT) away.com

http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 11:13:12 -0700, lucy wrote:

I didn't really; just wanted to open up a dialogue. I'm trying to
decide if I want to get some more training or just leave it as it.

Thanks!!

A website has, in my opinion, three major components.

1) The content

2) The design. (look+feel, colors, layout, images, etc.)

3) The technical details. (HTML, Javascript, CSS, etc.)

Most web people by now have started to specialize in one area or the
other. Back in the day, (ot so long ago in human terms), a webmaster was
expected to be able to do everything for a website from soup to nuts.
This led to a lot of poorly done websites, poor in all three major
components.

As time has passed, tools were created that help with the technical and
design aspects. No tool, IMO, can help with the content. Also, most
people don't realize that the content is far and away the most important
part of a typical website. (Some specialized niche sites, web
applications, and other less common web things might not be entirely
content driven).

Now, you have excellent, in depth, topic-specific content. Great! You are
80% done fixing your site.

Meaning, you might decide that your site is working just fine, thank you
very much, and you don't have the time or need to make any changes.

Now, if you do decide to make changes, I highly recommend that you export
all the content out into text files (not that hard to do, if you know
how), and recode the site (the HTML) from scratch. The HTML in its
current state is a horrid, awful mess. It looks like it was done by a
non-professional website creator in 1996 (which is probably clos to the
truth, nu?). Coding practices have improved since then.

In any case, good luck and all, seeyalater...

--
JDS | jeffrey (AT) go (DOT) away.com

http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

It looks like it was done by a non-professional website creator in 1996 (which is probably clos to the truth, nu?).

Yes, JDS; that's exactly the case. You nailed it perfectly, as I
would have expected.

Coding practices have improved since then.

In what ways? (Is it easy to synopsize?) Using software is one way,
I'm sure.

Online resource for violinists and string teachers

Jeff, you're right about that. I actually had something like that on
the page in one or actually several of it's incarnations.

Thanks for all your help--





JDS wrote:

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 10:59:12 -0700, lucy wrote:

That's a reasonable question. In the header it says:

!-- www.geocities.com/conniesunday/ - Connie's Violin Page - Online
resource for violinists and string teachers--

To quote you from earlier,

"You're kidding, right? "

In the header? You do realize that that bit you snipped out deosn't
actually *show up* anywhere on the page, don't you?

I mean, why isn't that one line the first thing one sees when one goes to
the website? That would clear up a lot of ambiguity.

Example:

h1>Connie's Violin Page</h1
p
Online resource for violinists and string teachers
/p


presto! All cleared up!

Wow, I just took a look deeper into the HTML (and Javascript) "code" on
your site and it is really quite a mess.

Actually, "Connie" or "Lucy" or "renaissance", why did you post a request
for a critique in the first place? What were you hoping to gain from a
critique of your website? I'm not being facetious -- knowing your expected
gain will help a lot in directing the content of the critique.

later...

--
JDS | jeffrey (AT) go (DOT) away.com
| http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

lucy wrote:
[snip]

So it pays to be courteous, especially
if your income is based on designing pages for people.

Just a gentle hint, guys.

That is hilarious! You have a free site that you are "designing"
yourself and are warning people that being rude to you (which IMHO no
one was) may cut down their income potential. How?

TK
http://wejuggle2.com
Still Having a Ball










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