OT, sort-of/New, improved (hopefully!) page on my website

[chriskleeman]

Season's Greetings to all on TS !!!

My webmaster has rolled out a big improvement on my website, and for those of you on TS who have checked it out, I would appreciate it if you'd go to my website and see how the new page works for you.

When you get there, click on the "Sound Bytes" button on the left-hand side. A new window should come up, and you will see the CD Covers on the left-hand side, with mp3 links on the right. All but one of the mp3 links is working on the Northern Blue CD, and nothing on the next two (waiting for me to get my lazy rear-end to edit some more bytes...) and sporadic ones on the last CD. I will get those working by the end of the week, but I'd like to know if the page displays correctly, and whether those first  CD sound bytes work for you.

Just click on the link on my signature to get there!

TIA,

Chris K

[sandbox]

Hey Chris, I like the site but if you want search engine exposure you'll need to adjust your frames/ here's some info.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167901

The links worked fine the toons were good but i couldn't find a place to download any CD's or cuts.


Have you ever played at Alice's Restaurant in Brattleboro around 1969-71, or maybe Max Parties?

[Texas Mac Man]

Worked fine with the following browsers in OS 9.2.2.

Mozilla 1.3.1
Internet Explorer 5.1.7
Netscape 7
iCab 3.0
Opera 6.03

[daryl66]

Great site and it works as advertised  FF 1.5.0.8

Daryl

[tacit]

QUOTE(chriskleeman @ Dec 19 2006, 06:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Season's Greetings to all on TS !!!

My webmaster has rolled out a big improvement on my website, and for those of you on TS who have checked it out, I would appreciate it if you'd go to my website and see how the new page works for you.

I did not check the sound bytes themselves, but there are some very serious problems on your Web page, I'm afraid.

The biggest problem is that you are using absolutely enormous graphics files, then shrinking them down in HTML. Never do this. For example, the "Northern Blue" album cover picture is ginormous--1425 by 1389 pixels, and a whopping 880 KB (!) on disk, but on the page it is only being used at 240x240 pixels. Do not use such large images. Resize the picture to 240x240 using a graphics program, then upload the small version and link to it. Your users will thank you; your picture is so huge it takes about 10 seconds to download on my full T1 line, so I can only imagine how long it would take on dialup.

(You might want to consider, too, that the album cover artwork is being distorted, because you are resizing it to 240x240 pixels even if it is not square to begin with.)

You have designed the page using frames--you have a navigation frame on the left and load all the frame pages on the right. I strongly, strongly recommend you do not do this. Instead, just put all the navigation buttons on the left-hand side of every page and do not use frames at all. Frames will not be accessed by search engines. If you want your page to be accessible on Google searches, you should not build it using frames.

The guitar image on the bottom of the navigation frame, beneath the buttons, has a white speckled "halo" around it because it is a transparent GIF saved in a way designed to be used on a white background, not a black background. If you go back to the original Photoshop file that created that GIF and you save it using the Save for Web command, and in the Save for Web dialog you set your "matte color" to black, you won't see that speckled white fringe around it.

You have a "noframes" tag in each of the frames. This "noframes" tag will never be read, and simply doubles the size of your HTML pages. The "noframes" tag belongs not in each frame, but rater in your index page--the page that has the frame tags in it. There is a "noframe" tag here, but all it does is take you to

http://www.chriskleeman.com/ck_home.html

and the user can not go anywhere or do anything from that page. (You really want to get away from frames altogether, I think.)

[chriskleeman]

Tacit,

I completely agree about the size of those graphics... I noticed they took forever to load in on my very fast ADSLx2 line... I will pass your comments on to my pal... he's a programmer who also happens to be a fabulous musician (bassist on much of what's there on the site). He has built the site from the ground up programming the html from scratch as much of an experiment as anything else. And as such, comments like yours are quite on point.

Sandbox,

I played Alice's Restaurant in Stockbridge/Lenox MA, circa 1978-85, but not in '69-'71 in Brattleboro, I was still on Ohio at that point.

And to both of you, if you punch in my name to Google, my website comes up first, for whatever that's worth!

We'll keep working on it, and thanks for the comments, everyone! Keep 'em comin'!!! I want this site to rock, for so many reasons!

Have a great Holiday!

Chris K

[krissel]

Hmm, pics loaded pretty fast here. Longest was maybe a couple seconds but I'm sure smaller files would make them pop.

Site worked fine on Camino but not all the sound bytes led to an mp3. In fact most got me a 404. I assume you are still setting up the files.

Otherwise, looks fine.  


And I'm still enjoying your CD.  

[MamaMoose]

Chris,

I am no expert on web page design. Your page worked fine on my FireFox 2.0001 running on a dual 2 GHz G5 under OS 10.3.6.

MamaMoose

[sandbox]

No doubt your name will pop in goggle but I know your name, but say I'm looking for Blues in Vermont http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=v...G=Google+Search

or the name of a song that you have, or where your next gig is, if I put that in goggle it won't pop.

In order for search engines to work they need text, page tittles, content, if all your pages are hidden from the bots in frames they will have no data to refer you.

This is important stuff Chris. The key ingredient!

[kimmer]

Like Krissel, most mp3 links earned me a 404, but I like what I could hear.

I *hate* frames. Just a personal opinion and I had to open my browser out to get rid of the scroll bars on the bottom and such, so someone with a laptop and small screen would have a prob.

Also, the song lists for 2 of the albums displayed weird. I'm 10.4.8 with FF 2.0.0.1. You can see the pics using the links below.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/Hook...rook/malkum.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y270/Hook...rthernblues.jpg

Best of luck, it's a worthy endeavor!

[dboh]

I'm using Mozilla 1.7.12 (with 10.3.9) and the right third of all the buttons along the left have lines going through them.

[Xairbusdriver]

As long as you asked...

I dislike black backgrounds. so what!

Frames are not bookmarkable by your users. And all the other reasons not to use them that were mentioned...

There's no point in dumping a viewer at a "404 Error" page. With a standardized. non-frame site, you can easily trap that ( and other ) errors and provide a friendly way to get back to the main site pages. Do you expect all your users to know ( or care ) that "404 not found
The requested resource could not be found." What's a "404" anyway, why wasn't it 'found' and what's that got to do with Chris' music? Just have the site let them know that an 'error' occurred for some mysterious reason ( probably not caused by them ) and they should just use the menu to visit other pages. Or perhaps they would like to click on a link ( on every page ) to send a message to the webmaster ( and you ) that they had a problem. Users are great at finding spellin nor grammatical mistakes!

Speaking of getting to the pages around the site: All pages should have the same, main navigation menu in the same place, whether it be at the top, left side, right side, down the middle, etc. You can float that menu, if you really want, but it's usually enough to put "back to top" links as often as possible on each page.

Speaking of page length: It is much nicer, IMHO, to keep each page relatively short, especially, if you don't use floating nav menus.

Speaking of scrolling: I hate horizontal scrolling. Putting the nav menu along either side or at the top should allow you to use the entire page width for content ( another reason to dump the space-wasting left-hand frame ). After all, people want content not blank space on the page ( not that a judicious use of blank space is not part of a well designed page, web or printed ).

IMHO, every image on a page should have a reason for taking up the bandwidth required to use it. What is the point of the alternating image of you and ( I assume ) your dog, for example? I may know, but it could be rather confusing to new comers. "Is there a link hidden up there about his dog? Nope." "Does his singing remind people of a dog howling at the blue moon? I hope not!"

Please note that none of this has anything to do with you or your skills or talent! Their simply my judgments and opinions. Take them and five dollars to Charbucks and enjoy a cup of their over roasted beans!

" Take my advice. Nobody else is using it!"

[Mayo]

You asked for feedback, so here it is:  I don't know how much you are paying your "Web master," but it is probably way too much for all the reasons mentioned, plus your Web site just comes across as looking rather amateurish.  (Your current person's own business Web site is really pathetic. I'm sorry- I just cannot think of a more appropriate word to describe it.)

I think that you could probably do a better job yourself using iWeb or RapidWeaver, which are both relatively easy to use and inexpensive. iWeb has a few limitations that might preclude its use, but RapidWeaver should fill the bill nicely (someone who has more experience using RW correct me if I am wrong because I don't know ALL of its capabitlities.)

If you aren't interested in putting together your own Web site I would hire someone who can show you samples of well-designed Web sites and who will show you a preliminary plan that will make your Web site unique and reflect your musical abilities and professionalism.

I wish that I could sugar-coat this but I really hate to see someone not get their money's worth; so-called Web masters should not be learning their trade at their clients' expense.

[Paddy]

Chris, I second Mayo's comments - it really wouldn't take too much to turn it into something far more professional-looking and also a lot easier to maintain and update.

If you want to tackle it yourself, Rapidweaver is a very good option, IMHO (unless you really want to learn HTML etc., in which case the big gun, Dreamweaver is the best choice, along with learning hand-coding). iWeb is frustrating to me and has the nuttiest site management I've ever seen. Rapidweaver, on the other hand, seems to be much more straightforward and I've seen some very nice sites done with it. If you go to the MacSanta link that Harv mentioned in this thread you can get it for 20% off.

In addition to the comments already made:

1. Get rid of the frames - build a page template instead. Follow Jim's advice about keeping the pages fairly short whenever possible, though "return to top" where needed AND text navigation (part of the template) at the bottom of the page for longer pages is appropriate.
2. Use CSS to control the look and feel. Right now there are font and color tags all over the place, and the look is very inconsistent.
3. Limit use of colored text to links and possibly headings. Otherwise you confuse your users, who have become conditioned to thinking colored text represents a link.
4. Improve navigation - right now there is no way to get back to the home page - but then again, your home page doesn't have anything on it other than your picture. See #5.
5. Don't waste your home page with no information. This is the spot where you want to engage your visitors. It should have the important stuff - the stuff that changes. Keep people coming back. If your home page never changes, many will assume that the rest of the site never does either. You don't have to have everything there - highlights and links to more complete information works. Draw people in.
6. Don't use things that move/flip/change - it's REALLY distracting and makes some people run away. (the photo of you/your dog...)

[jcarter]

Hi Chris,
Great songs, I love your music!  Glad youve gotten the soundbytes working.
Your graphics loaded really fast here on both Safari and Firefox.

I am signed up for a XHTML CSS class, so I will be very interested in looking at the comments and critiques of your site. It is difficult to get everything looking good, links happy, validated, pictures sized correctly, and working OK at first, but it sure is fun to learn how.

I think your intro photo and your dog could be made into a mouse over, thats one thing more I want to learn how to do too.
Merry Christmas!  
Jane