Advice needed: My first website. Thans to all!

[tyson]

I started my site about the area I live in, but ended up writing about my experience creating a website in BlueVoda. I think Bluevoda is fantastic, but I found I had to do a lot of research and reading to solve some problems. I've tried to pull some of the ideas together. Thanks to all!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[mwalsh62]

Hi Tyson,

I'm no expert, and don't have any advice, as I'm mired in my own developing, but I had to tell you that I had clicked on your site about a week ago, and it looks much better now.

Keep it up!

Good luck,

Mike

[whiteshepherd]

it's really bright and refreshing and I was not too sure whether I liked the colours or not ... but they grew on me and kind of fit what your are doing.

Just a couple of quick comments... it would look really good if you centred the pages in the browser ... just right click on an empty part of your page, select page properties and check the centre in browser box.

Maybe consider slowing the marquee banner down a bit.

Well done ....

[tyson]

Thanks for the advice! I hope I get more comments.

[cheryl20]

The yellow is a bit bright at first. Site is informative. Great job.

[tyson]

Thanks Cheryl! I looked at your sites and take it as a compliment when you use the word "informative".

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[shenders]

Site looks good and the colors are a bit bright.Overall good job.

Please correct the spelling on the very bottom of the page.

[philipc9635]

Hello Tyson

You have done a great job. On the left hand side the word Suggestion in the yellow is spelt wrong. It has only one "g".

I find the yellow writing hard to read but this is an individual thing.

I really like the backgrounds on all your pages, looks great and once again well done.

[zuriatman]

My observations are:

Your overall design has no depth of field. Looks really flat.
The bright yellow and and the bright blue fonts on the main page does not
really compliment each other. Pardon my saying so it looks a bit gaudy.
Finally your font size of 19px is a bit large. the fonts for the main text messages should remain between 10px-12px.

Your background photo is large and it takes a long time to load. Try to figure out how to speed up the loading of your BG Photo.

[tyson]

Thanks, added a g to suggestions. Bright colors, I am a little color blind and I picked out bright colors. Comments on colors to change to would be welcome! My text is in 14pt. not 19pt. I appreciate the comments, Keep them coming!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[WSBlue]

center it. click right outside the content. page properties check center in browser.

[smi]

Tyson

well done for getting your site up and running, i agree with the others, you need to centre you page, I think some of the pages are too busy with too many flashing boxes etc,

I don't know about pictures as backgrounds, they take so long to download, and can make the text hard to read, you might also need to put up a description of what you do, as to me it just looked like a directory of other sites.

Good luck with your site
Mark.

[tyson]

Thanks for the coments! I'm taking it all seriously. More coments please.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[zuriatman]

Hi Tyson,

Your Background photo is currently 2048 x 1536. [333kb] This is a very large photo.

Try reducing it to 63% or 1290 x 968. Which a lot of people will say it is still large as the most common web page is 900 wide. The max width of your BG photo should not exceed 1200 as any width size above 1200 is really an added burden to the loading speed of of your photo and also serves no purpose as your webpage will not exceed 1200.

[tyson]

Fantastic! How? Should I use pixresizer? Or should I crop it first? I need 900x1200 for my page. I had to go back to my original pic to get the size. How could you tell that? Thanks!
http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[PlayItByBeer]

Hi Tyson,

You have used the photos as 'background', which will stretch to visitors screen size. Try resizing all of your background pictures to about 800-900x??? and insert using bv 'Image' icon. They can then act as the background to your "template" and a guideline to positioning your content. (Centre align page)

Cheers,

[PlayItByBeer]

With regards image size (kb) and dimensions, if you: right click>properties on any website image you'll see the these.

Cheers,

[tyson]

Thank you!! I used photo toolkit (link below free download) to crop and used lighting effects to change a little. I only changed my index-home page. I need some feedback before I change the rest of my site. Thanks again!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

http://www.photo-toolkit.com/index.html

[PlayItByBeer]

I prefered the previous image as this mod has resulted in the picture becoming grainy and yellow.

If you use the image as a BG it will be difficult to achieve good clarity. If you have the original (bigger than 79dpi ???) try resize it to your new requirements, as the image you are using looks to have been resized or altered at least 3 times already.(repeated changes to same picture will lead to quality loss)

Cheers.

[tyson]

Thanks for your advice!! I'll go back to the original and start again. You have a real eye for photos. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[zuriatman]

Tyson,

Use the Pixresizer to resize your photos without any loss to the clarity of your photos.

[PlayItByBeer]

Tyson,

I'm yet to test photo-toolkit, but agree with 'zuriatman' that pixresizer is a great free tool available for download from BV.

Cheers,

[tyson]

I went back to my original and croped the photo. How did it turn out? If I resize the entire photo, it changes the look of the page. This way the page looks the same with a smaller photo. I look forward to hearing both of your thoughts. Keep the comments coming!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[zuriatman]

Hi Tyson,

I checked your site and your resized BG photos are loading pretty fast.

Nice going.

I still think that you should change the bright yellow color of your buttons.
If you are not good with colors try google. I have been to a site long ago that provides color matching or scheme help.

[tyson]

Thanks! I started changing my other web pages. I have really enjoyed the comments so far and I hope for many more.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

I've changed the background on all but three pages and am waiting for more comments.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

I've changed all the backgroud photos to a smaller size. How do they load now? Several viewers have commented on the bright Yellow nav buttons. More comments on this and anything else would be appriciated. Hello PlayItByBeer I really appriciated your comments, Please respond. Thanks to all.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[PlayItByBeer]

Hi Tyson,

This is a twist on your existing site www.froggdesigns.com/tyson_example.html and comments:

• I kept your yellow buttons but must admit i'm not fond of it as a web colour.
• Your present main content on your home page is repeating what your nav bar has to offer.
• The 3 or so 'email to friends buttons' are cluttering up your page and seem to indicate "desperation" to get visitors to promote your site.
• I reduced the "create a website buttons" from 5 to 1 as you should take vistors to the page and then offer or show all the different options.
• Less is more...

Hope this helps.
Enjoy.

[zuriatman]

What Play It By Ear has done is neat and nice and does not look amateurish as it did before. Your Portrait could be resized slightly to enable it to load faster.

[tyson]

Food for thought!! I like the ideas. It would take a big rewrite. I can handle that. If I am going to do a rewrite, what else should I think about? How about my content? I taught school for 33 years, and I tried to create step by step instructions on topics I felt were not clear and provide access to sites and downloads that I found usefulll. You have been a big help, keep it coming!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

I need more comments!! LadyEye where are you?

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

More comments please! I've added a new webpage on SEO. Look forward to your coments on this page and my website.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.c...awebsite6.html

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[SAman]

Hello Tyson

You have done a great job. On the left hand side the word Suggestion in the yellow is spelt wrong. It has only one "g".

I find the yellow writing hard to read but this is an individual thing.

I really like the backgrounds on all your pages, looks great and once again well done.

They must use a different dictionary down under!!! In the U.S. dictionaries, suggestions has two g's. Your site is looking good, I do like what, I think it was Play-it-by-beer, did with the buttons and the border on them.
Keep up the good work, and good luck.

[faraday]

Congrats on the website! I do agree the yellow has a bit too much contrast and the blue lettering while big enough is a bit uncomfortable to read when the contrast with background is a bit low. I do some design for GUI's in an beverage factory so we get a lot comments when we deviate too much frm the norm. Geat info though. You might consider playing around with more 3d looking buttons. The button templates BlueVoda has are pretty cool. The software package we use at the factory are with 3d animated buttons. I'm also just working on my first website but cannot seem to find the page even though I've published. The site name is www.cityfolkcansurvive.com. Trying to figure out what I missed. Any thoughts would be great.

[faraday]

Nevermind. Now I find it. Just a baby in the woods out here. I guess there is a delay before the web pages get loaded by VodaHost?

[tyson]

Thanks faraday for you info, you"re the seccond to comment on my content. More comments please! You may have been looking at a chached version of your webpage. When that happens, click the refresh button. Check my createawebsite7 to eliminate that problem for youself and your viewers. Your third line on your webpage has "has" at the end, it should be "have" I think.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.c...awebsite7.html

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

I need more comments on my content etc. Where are LadyEye, Chris and Beth?

[tyson]

Where is Vasili?

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

I've made some changes to my website. I look forward to comments on content etc.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[Oscar7]

Tyson,
Looks like you are getting a lot of very good ideas and suggestions from some real experts. All I can add is that, I have looked it over, like what I saw and I will be using it as an aid in designing my web site. You have a knack for explaining things in an understandable way. Must be those many years of teaching experience. Thanks

[tyson]

Tyson,
Looks like you are getting a lot of very good ideas and suggestions from some real experts. All I can add is that, I have looked it over, like what I saw and I will be using it as an aid in designing my web site. You have a knack for explaining things in an understandable way. Must be those many years of teaching experience. Thanks

Thanks for your reply Oscar. I'm glad to hear you find the content helpful! As you create your website, I would appriciate any comments on any areas that are not clear to you. Email me your progress.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

I've reorganized the menu flow, based on PlayItByBeer's suggestion. I have not changed the yellow in the nav buttons yet. My hard drive crashed and I had to do some reconstruction. Please let me kow if you see any errors I missed. Keep the comments coming!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[PlayItByBeer]

Hi Tyson,
Have you had a look at placing a border around the main area of your page and centre aligning?

Cheers,

[tyson]

Hi Tyson,
Have you had a look at placing a border around the main area of your page and centre aligning?

Cheers,

Good to hear from you! I assume a border around tne text area. Would you segment the border or make a border around the whole text area? I can make a solid border with transparent bacground in shapes. I tried Logo and like the varriations of borders I can create. But I could not get Logo to make the background transparent. Ideas? What do you think of my new menu organization? All coments welcome!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[PlayItByBeer]

Tyson,
You can place a BV 'shape' over the page (area you want to border) and make it transparent>>enable border. If you use this method remember to>>layout>> arrange>>send to back or it will lie over your page and affect nav and other features.

To remove background from logo go to properties>>logo: shape>>text only

Cheers
Andrew

[tyson]

Tyson,
You can place a BV 'shape' over the page (area you want to border) and make it transparent>>enable border. If you use this method remember to>>layout>> arrange>>send to back or it will lie over your page and affect nav and other features.

To remove background from logo go to properties>>logo: shape>>text only

Cheers
Andrew

Is this what you mean? Go to my site, select Create a website, then introduction.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[tyson]

Hi Tyson,
Have you had a look at placing a border around the main area of your page and centre aligning?

Cheers,

Cheers to you!
I've been playing with alot of ideas. Does this go anywhere? I published a trial page, click below.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/logoindex2.html

[PlayItByBeer]

Cheers to you!
I've been playing with alot of ideas. Does this go anywhere? I published a trial page, click below.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/logoindex2.html

Hi Tyson,

Your colours are wild as usual LOL
But it has lost the feel/look of "just text on a page". I think it's a good starting point and the way forward.

Have Fun.

[tyson]

Hi Tyson,

Your colours are wild as usual LOL
But it has lost the feel/look of "just text on a page". I think it's a good starting point and the way forward.

Have Fun.

I whited out my colors and made new menu buttons (on left) using shape. I know I have to go a few steps more and then change all my pages. I want to make sure I have it right before I do that. All! comments welcome!

Cheers

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/logoindex3.html

[tyson]

I need some comments on my webpage before I change all my pages to a new format! I thank everyone for their input.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/logoindex3.html

[tyson]

I need your comments on my plans to do a complete makeover of my site. I've heard your much appriciated comments and need input before I make all the changes. Please take a look at the trial webpage below and then click on "home" to see my present page. Is this an improvement? Thanks to all!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/logoindex3.html

[whiteshepherd]

Sorry Tyson ... preferred your old look with some tweaking ... I really loved the background ... what I did not like was the size of you text ... the yellow needed softening and all the pages needed centring in the browser and the work area need framing as everything looked as if it was floating ...

what I like about the new one is its layout and the framed working space ... sorry but I really do not like your new colour combination and the text is still far too large. try dropping it to 11 or 12 points ... if you could incorporate some of your new ideas into your old ones it would look good ... have your considered trying this?

keep up the good work ... most of our websites are still works in progress too ...

[tyson]

Sorry Tyson ... preferred your old look with some tweaking ... I really loved the background ... what I did not like was the size of you text ... the yellow needed softening and all the pages needed centring in the browser and the work area need framing as everything looked as if it was floating ...

what I like about the new one is its layout and the framed working space ... sorry but I really do not like your new colour combination and the text is still far too large. try dropping it to 11 or 12 points ... if you could incorporate some of your new ideas into your old ones it would look good ... have your considered trying this?

keep up the good work ... most of our websites are still works in progress too ...

Thanks Whiteshepherd. I took a shot at your suggestions. Take a look at the trial page below.

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/logoindex5.html

[tyson]

I want to thank everyone for their comments on my website!! I have looked at all comments seriously. I have redisigned my site and changed many aspects. Please take a look and comment. Thanks!!!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[hargo]

paragraph text is too big and I would put a border around the buttons.

Good Job!

[tyson]

Thanks hargo!! I appreciate your comments, I have made a lot of changes to my site based on the comments on this forum. Took a look at your site, WOW, very nice, excellent graphics, lot's of information. How do you keep it updated? Thanks!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[whiteshepherd]

Hey Rex ... I'm back ... lol ...

It looks a great but you need to drop the font size and your page really needs to finish at your border ... have a look around at a lot of our websites and see how they are finished for a professional look and you will see what I mean and apply these principals to your website ... also maybe consider dropping the point size on the border ... keep up the good work ...

[tyson]

Thanks Kym,

Grear to have you back!!
I assume you are refering to the bottom of the page, I don't see that on my computer. I shortened the page length in page properties on the index page. Does that do it? Do you notice this problem on other pages? As an educator I learned to make things very clear, that's why I use the larger font and a clear diference on the mouse rollover on the nav buttons. Maybe I have to change that concept for the internet. Thoughts?

Thanks!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/

[whiteshepherd]

Hey Rex, to shorten your page you need to move the text up from the bottom and move it into the border area. Even though you have shortened the page in the page properties it will not make a difference if there are elements in the way.

As for the larger text it should be the words and their simplicity that get the mesaage across not the size of the text. The larger text can come across as being childlike ...

[tyson]

Thanks Kym,

I'm checking out my page on several other computers to see if I am getting below my background picture. I'm still thinking about the text size. I see you frequently on the forum, and I'm sure everyone appriciates your comments. Thanks again!!

http://www.tysoneducationalsystems.com/