Please Have a Look at my Website

IanB · #1 03-20-2007, 09:05 PM

I am currently working on my first website, and have found BlueVoda an excellent program to use. It took a while to find my way about, but plenty of reading of the various forum threads meant that many of the queries I had were answered there. I am grateful to those contributors who regularly post with tips and information for the benefit of others. I personally found Navaldesign's instructions on using i-frames invaluable, and Bether's informative e-book on search engine optimization was also extremely helpful.

My son and I are creating our website based on his meetings with 'celebrities'. It is not a commercial site in any way, so high rankings with search engines to generate 'business' is not an aim. Nevertheless, in the interests of doing the job properly, we have tried to pay due regard to things like meta tags etc.

The site is coming along nicely, and although the background research for each 'celebrity' does takes time to do, it is also a very interesting part of the project. I am keen to know at this stage how the site is looking on other people's computers, and if any problems are evident. We would welcome any comments that you may have on what we have done so far. Bear in mind this is our first website attempt!

The idea is that by clicking on to a name on the menu list on the left, you will be taken straight to the page. All the names in the 'James Bond' list have now been completed and the links should be working. The other names should be completed over the next three or four months, all being well.

The site has been designed like this for flexibility, so that it is easy to add further names to the menu and just create the appropriate page. The pages have also been 'standardised' to make everything look consistent although the positioning of text and images on each page will vary.

The 'home page' is somewhat 'temporary' at this stage and will be revised later, probably when the other pages are completed.

Perhaps you could log on and tell me what you think. Many thanks.

www.ciaranbrown.com

karel · #2 03-20-2007, 09:14 PM

Hi Ian,

Very good job, i am in a bit of a rush so I am sure people will have more time than me to look through. On first glance, very good job.

And wow all those famous people he has met. Must be a real hobby of his.

Well done and good luck, when I have more time I will have a good look around as it looks an interesting site.

Regards Paul

Mook25 · #3 03-21-2007, 12:01 AM

Looking good. Some of your links are not working especially the second column. glad to see you've found something you enjoy and are so passionate about.

For 15 you're doing a pretty good job at your first site and i personally think you could go far. good luck with the site and your future star hunting.

Bethers · #4 03-21-2007, 02:14 AM

Great job and very interesting!

bill2006 · #5 03-21-2007, 02:31 AM

Impressive, congratulations to your son.
-Consider centering your pages.
-When you decide on a home page, remember to title it, don't leave it as "index"

SChajin · #6 03-21-2007, 02:23 PM

Good job, lots of work. Check your links

Vasili · #7 03-21-2007, 08:42 PM

A great "personal" site to be proud of!

Despite the regular tweaks that will eventually dealt with, I found the format well-thought, easily navigable (intention), and uncluttered......all big scores in my book.

motoxxx · #8 03-23-2007, 06:33 AM

I agree with Vasili. Nice layout, easy navigation. two thumbs up for a a very interesting personal site.

IanB · #9 03-27-2007, 09:51 PM

Firstly, a big 'thank you' to those of you who have taken the time to look at our website and have made comments - my son and I are encouraged that we are clearly progressing along the right lines.

Karel - yes, meeting these people is a hobby of his and gives him good material for his website. Do look in again when you have more time.

Mook - thanks for the encouragement; the second column links will work when we have set up the appropriate pages (much of the site is still 'under construction')

Bethers - we have learnt a lot from your various postings on the message board, thank you.

Bill2006 - The pages have all been centred now and the appearance is much better. We will remember your advice when we finalise the 'home' page. Thanks for the encouragement.

Sharon - Thanks. The links that don't work yet are the ones where we haven't yet constructed the appropriate page. Most of the names in the first column are 'active' - we are about to start on the second column!

Vasili and Moto - many thanks, your encouraging comments are very much appreciated.

We hope that you will continue to look in again over the next three or four months, as we hope to have the site completed by the summer. Any further comments or suggestions are always welcome.

Ian & Ciaran Brown

www.ciaranbrown.com

IanB · #10 01-05-2008, 11:11 PM

Well, it's nine months ago that I posted details of the website that my son and I were creating in BlueVoda. We had some very positive feedback for which we were extremely grateful. It has been a steep learning curve for us, but also great fun as we found BlueVoda so user-friendly, and a delight to use.

Our site has now developed into something fairly substantial, with well over a hundred pages, all accessed from an iframe menu of names. The benefits of constructing the site in this way are obvious, as now we only need to add any new names just once in the menu and it then appears on every other page.

The Home page has also been redone - and it is easy to make any changes (eg 'latest addition', links to other sites etc.) that we want.

Although it is a 'personal' site, we have tried to make it look 'professional' with things like favicons just adding a finishing touch.

The site remains ongoing (quite a few more celebrities still to do!) although we think it now has a 'finished website' look. All the many links seem to work, and the pages load up pretty quickly most of the time. Some pages are quite simple in layout, but others are more complex as we played about with lots of different pieces of text and images (eg pages like Ron Perlman and Charlie Higson were a nice 'challenge'!)

Ciaran and I would again welcome your comments, as we are looking to try and make the website even better. We would like reassurance that the site works well in different browsers and resolutions (as we have only seen it in Internet Explorer), and that we haven't made any glaring mistakes.

Please log on and let us know what you think. Many thanks!

www.ciaranbrown.com

nzbr · #11 01-05-2008, 11:29 PM

Congrats! That's hard work putting all this information and pictures together!
One thing: in some links you go to (like Nobby Stiles), if you check all the way down on the left side you'll see the picts overlapping some links.(on this case his autograph). Is that the way is supposed to be?

Cheers,

Hester · #12 01-05-2008, 11:43 PM

the site looks very good! I don't know if this was mentioned before, but I believe you overlooked putting a link back to the HOME page on all the other pages. I just clicked over a dozen links looking at pictures and reading stuff and realized that there was no "Home" or "Back Home" link/button anywhere. I don't suppose that's an easy fix at this point, but it might make sense if you put anything on the homepage that people might want to go back to after they look through the pages. Not the end of the world though if left as is... just for ease of navigation.

Bethers · #13 01-05-2008, 11:48 PM

The iframe works great for your site. I don't recommend that for professional sites that need to be read by se's - instead I recommend using php pages as we outline elsewhere - but this works GREAT for you.

I remember when I first looked at the site and now - so much more - and so well done!

I do agree that you should add a link back to your home page on the site - some of us go clicking of it - and haven't read all of it - want to go back :)

You should be proud of yourself! And it looks like you're still having lots of fun meeting celebs.

IanB · #14 01-05-2008, 11:51 PM

NZBR - Many thanks for looking, and for your feedback. Hard work yes, but very interesting and great fun!

The list of names has been lengthened since many of the earlier pages were constructed so minor layout adjustments were required to some pages where an overlap occurred. Nobby Stiles was one that we missed!! Thanks for spotting it - it's now on the list to be corrected!

www.ciaranbrown.com

AJ113 · #15 01-06-2008, 10:31 AM

What a great site Ian!
Interesting, informative, easy on the eye, easy to navigate. It could end up being one of those 'cult' sites that gets loads of hits even though that was never the intention.

Billie Piper has an overlap too in case you didn't know.

I only have one concern - do you have copywrite permission for all of the photos you have used? As your site is not commercial, it may not be too much of a disaster if you don't, but if your site ever goes commercial it should be a concern for you.

jcaywood · #16 01-06-2008, 12:50 PM

When I went to the site using Firefox the names on the left are garbled. It's almost like there are two separate lists and one is on top of the other. But when I opened it in Internet Explorer it looks great. I have no idea what would cause this - might be my FF browser?