Thread: my first website!!! Lots of pretty glass!

My name is Brandie and I am a lampworker.. if you wanna know what that is check out my site. LOL... shameless self promotion ;)

well I finally got it atleast usable and I cant believe how easy it was!
So what do you all think? Is there anything I can do to improve on it? Please be honest I can take it! LOL

http://meadowskydesigns.com

have you used pix resizer ? because it was a bit slow to oad for me and im 2 meg braodband this may be because the pics need resizing a good way is to use the gallery feature this lets you have a thumb nail then custmoers can click on th image to enlarge it , sorry if you already know this trying to help apert from that its realy nice and neat like it

thanks! nope I had no idea about resizing for the website. I thought it would do it for me. humm well I have adobe so i will work on that tomarrow. Thanks again!!

anything else I can improve on?

Brandie

You are quite talented in both the things you create and web design. Very nice job. Absolutely beautifull product. I very much agree with the re-size picture thing- I downloaded one of your pic and it was 1.83mb. Way too big. Check out this reference on picture display;
http://netisopen.com/computer/PICT001/PT001.html

That contains two programs that quickly and easily re-size photos for you.

Other than that- great job. My wife is from Meredosia Illinois and has family in Jascksonville and Lincoln. We lived in Galesburg for a few years. Small world.

Take care.

Andy

Hey Brandie

Very nice website. Job well done.

I have my screen setting on 1280*1024 and I had to scroll sideways still.

You might wanna consider doing your pages smaller. Everyone here suggests to make them 800 width by whatever you want for the height.


Mike

Hi Brandie,

Ilove the muted colours of your flowers on each page they work really well together, youve made a really beautiful site and your work is lovely.

Only a few of things that i could see ..firstly your page widths are very wide making a large sideways scroll on my screen....if you click on your page and go to page properties put 800 width and centre your browser and save then publish..hopefully that will fix it...there is a grid you can use to as a guide at the top of BV go to layout go down to guide settings then click on show guide borders I also use the grid to keep things straight..on the right hand side of your page you will see a broken dotted line ...this is your guide...hope that helps

Your gallery took a full 15 mins to load on my dial up so agree with the above that your pics need resizing....gorgeous by the way ..

Also a good idea to keep your navigation buttons the same throught your site ...just a suggestion but maybe do them in the same beautiful muted colours taht you already have ..that would look fab!

Theres a thread somewhere that tells you how to do stuff like that but sorry i cant remember where it is ......someone else will put a link up i'm sure

Well done Brandie ...good job

so what size should I resize to? I would prefer to not have a pop up window with a larger size so I need the largest acceptable size would 500Xwhatever work?

I did change my page width. Thank you for telling me because things looked fine on my end.

I will move my navigation. I wondered about that but want to make sure that it fits in with the pages also. hopefully sometime today. :) Thanks again!

Hi Brandie

Your doing fab!..ive copied this off one of my other posts someone having similar problems...think it might help you ..i know it helped me ..loads! lol

I to am a beginner and i only know this thro my own mistakes of which ive made millions lol

Anyway i found how to put the guide on by sheer luck!..it might help you to try this

First set your page properties...right click on an empty space on your page go to page properties and set your width to 800 ...you can ..centre in browser there to once youve done that click ok....then

Go to the top of the page click on Layout..then go down to Guide settings and set to ..show border guide ..i also click on.. show grid..helps keep it all in order kinda thing .... once youve done that you will see a dotted line down the right hand side of your page ..this is your guide ..keep everything within this line and thats it...done

Brandie-

Use the tutorial to decide which size you want the picture to be. I thnk your large pictures would look good at 320X240. The quality will still be there after resizing. Currently the one pic I downloaded is 1500X1900. So you will ineffect improve your download time by a factor of at least 5 by going to 320X240.

None will open in a pop-up window unless you design it that way. Getting graphics to a small size is a must though when trying to appeal to viewers patience. Often if they have to wait to download something- they will just keep surfing.

Hope that helps.

Andy

The colors are wonderful, I do agree try a little smaller if you can.

oh I havent published yet. Let me try that and check back in a few min will ya? Thanks a million!!

is there a way to publish all pages at once?

I dont think so Brandie...but dont quote me on that one lol

Nope- one page at at time.

Andy

okay, is it better now? I fixed the page size on all pages and resized the photos in the gallery. Do the store pictures load slow?
Thanks again!

they load fine here, on my machine, I like the shakedown kitty:)

Brandie,
Your site is absolutely beautiful, I love the soft colors and your creations are shown in the best possible light. The photos loaded very quickly for me, but I do have high speed. Congrats on a job well done!
Karen

Originally Posted by meadowskydesign

okay, is it better now? I fixed the page size on all pages and resized the photos in the gallery. Do the store pictures load slow?
Thanks again!

Hi again Brandie

Your page widths are still to big making a large gap on your pages on my pc, when i looked they were over 900 ..set them to 800...but first put your guide line in place

Go to the top of the page in BV next to tools ..

click on Layout.
then go down to Guide settings and set to ..show border guide .

.i also click on.. show grid..helps keep it all in order kinda thing .... once youve done that you will see a dotted line down the right hand side of your page ..this is your guide ..keep everything to the left of this line and everything to the right of the line shouldnt be there....that should do it

Your gallery is loading much faster now :o)
__________________

okay I understand what you mean!! whoo hoo I got it!! LOL
anyway I am trying to fix the problem and when I try to save it is telling me "failed to save" what could be the problem?
Thanks!

Lol Brandie! way to go!

I've never had a fail to save message so i cant help you with that one ..sorry ..but someone will i'm sure.

Ive done a link under my name as many people have had the same problems so if you ever forget...i do often lol ...just find me and click on that link

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but after over a minute (at 56K dial-up) I gave up on the gallery. I'm not sure why you are against having the pictures clickable to show a larger image? That is what people are used to.

BTW, 2 minutes now and still loading - you won't have many stay that long on dial-up - and many still are. I suggest you reconsider it - and you can still have a decent size picture with less resolution - the idea is the make them load fast.

What I did see, looked good.

Originally Posted by Bethers

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but after over a minute (at 56K dial-up) I gave up on the gallery. I'm not sure why you are against having the pictures clickable to show a larger image? That is what people are used to.

BTW, 2 minutes now and still loading - you won't have many stay that long on dial-up - and many still are. I suggest you reconsider it - and you can still have a decent size picture with less resolution - the idea is the make them load fast.

What I did see, looked good.

Hi Bethers,

She's getting there, this morning it took 15mins on my 56k lol

Pretty site. However the loading times are a serious problem and if left unchecked will put potential customers off. If you follow the advice the good folk have presented you will have a super customer friendly website. Well done and I look forward to having another look.

Pictures are loading faster, so you must be working on them. Great looking site. I agree with Linda about the nav bars. A little more tweaking and pic resizing and by Brandie, you've got it!
Cindy

now, is everything okay?? LOL I think I got it all but the navigation bars. The only question I have with that is... if I put the navigation bars in the same spot on each page on some pages it will be right in the middle of my pretty template design. Wont that look like ****?
Thanks!!

Morning Brandie,

Not quite but almost lol

Ive had a look there are 3 pages that are causing the problems Home page, About us page and the gallery.

The Home page
The thing thats giving you the sidways scroll on there is the image to the right of that black line you have there and the RSV ad at the bottom to the right tho that is small enough to be put somwhere else..its the flower image at the top right ..is that a separate image? and why is there a black line thro it?...kinda spoils the flow of the lovely flowers youve got going on.

Your About us page..takes forever to load ...pics need resizing thats all

Your Gallery...the problem there is that you have a picture that is way out to the right of the page half way down and thats what is giving you the huge sideways scroll .....

And yes it would look **** if you covered over your lovely template with a nav bar lol just some prettier buttons maybe? in keeping with the template, they look out of place there at the moment ...just my opinion of course ...why settle for less than perfect with such a beautiful site eh? ;o)

Nice looking site, but have to agree with the others. You are best to take the pictures down to about 60kb will make the pages load a lot quicker. I think I am right in saying that anything over 250kb doesn’t make any difference on a computer screen & you would only go this high if using a picture gallery then use the higher Kb as the pop up. Might want a little work on the centre image on the front page to get rid of the grey/blue back ground area.

Good luck,

Chris.

Brandie-

I have taken some liberty and created some navigation buttons (following Linda's advice) that have elements of your web page. If you like them- just follow the directions at the top of the page they are on.

http://www.netisopen.com/computer/web/webcreations.html
Scroll down a little on the page to get to your buttons.

You are doing a great job- don't get discouraged.

Take care and have a great day.

Andy

Oh Andy ..the butterfly buttons are lovely..what a nice thing to do

Hello!

I like your work: beautiful pieces.
Georgia is famous with its enamel workings (e.g. The Khakhuli Icon [8-12th century], which is the real wonder of the world) and I give you two urls about modern galleries of these makings. Look how these sites are organized:
http://www.art-minanqari.com/gallery.html
http://enamel.art.ge/exhibition.html
A whole gallery in both cases is represented by small icons, after clicking of which the larger images appear (but differently), and I think in a future you will have to do the same as a number of your workings will increase.
I suggest these sites for the purpose of your getting interested in acquiring techniques of enamel making. I think it will give more chance to realize your talent.

Regards,
Mirza.

thanks Andy!!!! You are awesome!! How do you do that??
Well I will continue to work to improve my site for as long as it takes. But it is slowly getting there! I think I need a more organized gallery and store for one thing cause I just keep adding work! LOL
and does anyone have a link for a tutorial or thread on resizing your picks and using the thumbnails then clicking on them and having a larger picture? I think I am convinced now. :)
My internet was down last night but I think that I fixed all of my wide pages. I changed my screen to 800 just to see what it looks like and seems okay on mine.

Thank you so much! you all are awesome!!!

Brandie-

Hi- glad you like the buttons. I have created several tutorials specific to BV and you can find them here;
http://www.netisopen.com/computer/web/webpagestuff.html

Scroll down to find the one on displaying pictures.

Take care and have fun!

Andy

Hi Brandie,

All your page widths are fine now ... except one.. your gallery page

Your Gallery...the problem is that you have a picture that is way out to the right of the page half way down and thats what is giving you the seriously huge sideways scroll .....it needs to be moved over to the left to join the others

Its looking good tho :o)

I'm still seeing awful load times - your header picture itself is taking way too long to load. On your store page - a minute in, I have the header, the writing and one picture. I would click off.

I'm saying this because I have stores. On of the reasons I decided to leave my last host was that no matter how I optimized my pictures, my load time didn't get better - they were overloading servers, etc. Here - you can optimize your site and have a great load time - make all the people happy :) - and if you want to sell, you need to do so.

Your store is very pretty - but it needs to be optimized for your visitors first - and for the se's 2nd - not just look good.

Hey Brandie,

Nice lampworking! I've done some lampworking myself, but I'm nowhere near as accomplished as you! I've been working on some other aspects of the beadmaking business. Someday when I have more done on my website . . . .

You have a nice website, it's coming along. However, I have DSL and still had to wait for some of the pics to load up. Actually, I didn't bother to wait, and you can be sure that will be the response of your potential customers as well.

Also, I would suggest, like the others have before me, that you keep things consistent throughout your pages, and keep things orderly and organized in appearance.

Your photography is excellent, by the way!

Sandy

Nice web site Brandie,
Wonderful artwork.

By 'fail to save' do you mean 'fail to publish' ? This has happened to me a few times and I have to remember to clear the 'temporary internet files' on my pc, whatever the reason it allows me to publish right away.

Your colors are very pleasing as is the layout. You might want to center the "Gallery" and "Charity Work" pages to match the others, and add a link to http://www.qclabrescue.org (didn't work).

Bill
www.blueearthtea.com

Hey,
I think that your website was very interesting and unique. I think that it showed up very clear and clean on my computer.
Great Job

I find it interesting, Brooksman, that you have been a member of the Voda Forums for only one day, have earned rank so very quickly with the proliferations of your unabashed postings, and do not allow any Members the opportunity to reciprocate in turn to you...... do YOU have a Blue Voda or other VodaHost website that we can view?