Learning to make a website

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Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:56 am

Lately, I have taken a break from baiting as I have been busy trying to make a website. The result of two weeks work is this: http://computersecrets.eu.pn/index.htm

Unfortunately, it's not about baiting (I don't have any secrets that I can't post here), but I picked a different topic that would be easy to write about.

The site is written from scratch and, (although I'm proud, Very Happy

) I would like some opinions. I will be updating the site frequently, with the front-page being next, so expect some changes. Suggestions are more than welcome though, and apart from the obvious attempt at showing of, that's why I'm posting. It doesn't matter if you know anything about web-design; you know what you like and what you don't, and that's all that matters Wink

.

Last point: The content might be of interest to anyone, so please feel free to have a look around and read some of the guides. They are 100% risky free Wink

Thanks.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 11 Oct 2009 Posts: 79

Ah well, someone is going to say it sooner or later, so why not sooner?
Site is pretty basic and there are some detail that caught my eye.

Google AdSense on the right side is not centered. Why?
Why do you have it anyway? It's not like you'll have tens of thousands of visitors a day any time soon. (I clicked on one ad anyway, no need to thank me, just send the cheque).

The icons in all the menus are poorly done. They're not following the same theme or quality.
Screenshots look like they were done in Win 95, why don't you switch to regular XP theme for pictures?
You're overusing " Wink

". It seems like you're not being honest or something.

In the end your site will be static with next to none new content, and I'm not sure if it's going to be attractive.
Are you planing to add some dynamic content?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:34 am

^^ Thanks for looking it over. That's the kind of hones advice I would like.

Quote:

Site is pretty basic...

Yes, look at the title Very Happy

. I am aware of that, and I agree, but fact is that it's my first project. I promise it will improve, though, I just have to get a little more HTML and CSS savvy.

Quote:

Google AdSense on the right side is not centered.

Could fix that... or just remove AdSense all together. In that case I apologize if your click did not make a difference, but thanks anyway Wink

Quote:

The icons in all the menus are poorly done. They're not following the same theme or quality.
Screenshots look like they were done in Win 95, why don't you switch to regular XP theme for pictures?
You're overusing "Wink". It seems like you're not being honest or something.

The icons were made with my amazing photoshop skills. Maybe I should assign a lad to do them instead, I agree that they are a little poor.
The screenshots are fine. If you read through some of my guides, you would see that I advice to revert to this setting to increase the speed of your computer.
The " Wink

" I can agree with, and I will remove them.

Quote:

In the end your site will be static with next to none new content, and I'm not sure if it's going to be attractive.
Are you planing to add some dynamic content?

Dynamic content will come in the future. I plan to implement things like comments and ratings for articles. As I said earlier, I do update it frequently, and I will continue to do so.

Again, thanks for looking into it. This is the kind of advice I need to improve, and I will of course get it fixed as soon as possible.[/url]

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:41 am

^ But apart from that, good effort for your first attempt.

Getting the site up and running was the main thing. Tweaking is the nest thing.

Well Done.

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:18 pm

Quote:

Although the site is currently in it's developing stages, you will find some very useful guides and tips to optimize your computer. This is so that the next time you are having a problem with any computer, you pull up your sleeves and say "LET'S GO!" instead of picking up the phone and calling the computer guy who "fixed" it last time. Because, let's face it: What did you learn last time you had your local computer guy over? Did he show you, explain, and teach you each step of the process? My guess is no, and if I'm right, then he secured himself a future customer, because you still don't know how to fix your troubles. I want to change that evil cycle for you by helping you help yourself in an un-technical way that you will easily understand.

Bit of a re-type

Although the site is currently in it's developmental stage, you will find some very useful guides and tips on how to optimize your computer. This is so that the next time you are having a problem with your computer, you can pull up your sleeves and say "LET'S GO!" rather than picking up the phone and calling the computer guy who "fixed" it last time. Because, let's face it; what did you learn last time you had your local computer expert over? Did he show you what was wrong?, explain how to fix it, show you each step of the process? My guess is not. If I'm right, then they secured themselves a future customer because you still don't know how to fix your problems. I want to change that never ending cycle for you by helping you help yourself in an un-technical way that you will easily understand.

Hope this helps

Oh, and the site is too wide for my screen. Could you optimise for 800x600?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:00 pm

^^ I'm sorry, that I beat you to this, but thank you very much anyhow. Problem is that I got rid of that entire paragraph to put up something else instead. Didn't think that long piece would draw any visitors, so I just got rid of it.

Update here: http://computersecrets.eu.pn/index.htm

Thanks for all the comments. Very much appreciated Wink

yeah I know I was gonna stop doing that...

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:49 pm

That's better but you could still re-word a couple of bits 'evil' never looks good. But fits nicely on the one page. Except the title is too long to fit in its box.

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:24 pm

^^^ I'm not sure I follow what you are saying. I got rid of the entire paragraph (including evil Smile

) and put up a "Latest Articles" section. I don't see any problems with the title tho. Could you tell me which one it is?

Thanks a lot Wink

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:01 pm

Your site is still way too wide. Most new sites made will probably be optimized for a 1024 px width (substract the scrollbar and you'll be left with some 1000px width). 800px is rather small and doesn't look to good on really wide screens, but if you want your site to fit on nearly everyone's screen, you may want to adapt it for 800x600 screens.

Adding dynamic content is a pain in the ass if you're not too good at scripting. You'll need to learn both PHP (or .asp, but php is more common) and (My)SQL to be able to add posts to the database and read them from the database when someone is visiting your site. This means that you will also need to implement some sort of user and rights management system to prevent random visitors from posting articles on your website and you'll need to protect your form fields from malicious code-injection to prevent evil visitors from screwing around with your database.
All in all getting dynamic content realized will take you quite a lot of time for reading, practicing and finally building something, unless you've got quite some experience with other programming languages of course. The alternative of course is starting with learning a framework or CMS, for a framework CakePHP seems to be a rather easy and well-documented option, for a CMS I'd go with Joomla. Both have loads of precoded modules available if you want too.

Congrats on the effort though, this looks way better than my first (few) attempts...

EDIT: Some horrible spelling-errors

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 571

Make your site work on a 950px width monitor. For example, I use a netbook. Typical netbooks have a 1024x600 screen. Take the scrollbar out and subtract somewhere from 16-24 pixels. In addition, I have my 'taskbar' vertical on the side of my screen to give me as much vertical room as possible, taking away about 32 more pixels.

Very few people have 800x600 monitors anymore, but a 950px width is still quite reasonable. I would recommend you download (if you use Firefox) the Firefox Web Developer toolbar, which lets you resize the window to arbitrary pixel sizes to test your site on various size screens.

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:26 pm

@ MoP Thanks for that Wink

. I'm not too much of a scripter, and the only programming I've done is a little in Perl and C#. It would be a huge step to learn, and be able to create something in PHP and MySQL. It's definitely a goal, and I hope it will work out, but for now I'll focus on HTML and CSS.

@IG: Did you mean the banner? Where it says Computersecrets.eu.pn?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:57 pm

Now it's optimized for ALL resolutions. Its re-sizes the most it can, and while people on the smallest resolution might have to scroll a little, you should get the white column in the middle to fit. The reason I can't re-size it more is that it would mess up the top navigation bar.

If you do find some issues, please tell me.

Thanks.

EDIT: I have to say that I feel sorry for those of you on 800x600. My eyes are so pleased to get back to the "normal" at 1280x800. Shouldn't ba any problems with the page though.

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