Okay you computer-geeks (said in the nicest way)

[Russianwolf]

Have a look and tell me what you think.

www.russianwolfwoodworks.com

It's a work in progress, and I'm learning how to do this as I go.

[Alex Franke]

Cool -- great job!

I'd avoid the "coming soon" messages, though -- just remove the links until that content is ready. Also you may want to consider one of the many free content management packages out there today (e.g. Joomla, Drupal, etc.) to make management easier. (Many have e-commerce built in.)

[balzac.thegreat]

I'll echo what the above poster said. Although you'd probably be better off just using a Wordpress blog. It's much easier for uninitiated to use vs. a drupal.

Also there are a crap-ton of off the shelf templates out there that can get you a more pro, less 1995 look (sorry) without much work. Your work is high quality and the content is what will shine on the site. The wrapper it sits in should reflect the same craftsmanship in your work and enhance, not take anything away from the woodworking.

[RayintheUK]

One thing I'd do right away is to remove your e-mail as a link, replace it with a graphic, like this:



That way, visitors can see your e-mail address, but spiders can't harvest it, because the @ symbol doesn't show up. At least this way is spam-proof.

Ray.

[OpaDC]

From a visual aspect I would leave a slight edge between the pictures and text. It gets a little crowded and the impression words may be disappearing under the graphics.

[TheRic]

Nice looking Husky, pretty lady. Got to put a black dot over that dudes face, or just cut him out.

I agree with OpaDC on the words look like they could get lost under the picture. I agree with Ray, do something to hide your email address ASAP. The graphic is one way of many ways to do it.

Very strongly suggest you check and double check the pages on various display settings (resolution, # colors, Freq, etc) Have seen way to many web pages that look horrible if you don't have the settings just correct as the designer liked / used.

[Russianwolf]

thanks for the advice guys.

Like I said, it's a work in progress. I just learned how to publish the pages yesterday and I've already made several dozen changes as I learn how to work with the editor more and more.

The "coming Soons" will be gone long before I start advertising the site. Meaning I just need to take some picture, or rather, take better pics. I just wanted to get everything up that I intend to use so I can make sure things fit and all.

Ray, Thanks for the advice. Took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn a graphic into a link and that will be updated shortly.

One the word/pictures, I think I'm going to try something with tables to clean it up. Smaller pics of work that link to full pages for the item. More pages, but better effect I think.

And HEY!!! I know I'm nothing compared to my wife and pup, but blacking me out. Man.

[Russianwolf]

okay I changed the background to an image. I can see it as intended on my laptop (computer with the editing software) but not on the home computer, and others don't see it on their computers. What am I not doing right?

The image is two pens that has been "lightened" so that you can read words that have been typed over it.

[RayintheUK]

The reason that you can see it on your laptop is that the image is sourced from there, as the code shows:

background-image: url(file:///C:/Users/Public/Mine/Pens2/New%20Folder/background%202.jpg)

Did you upload the image file? You need to point to it where it resides on the server, not the laptop.

HTH.

Ray.

[Russianwolf]

Thanks Ray,
As I was driving around on errands I was having the saem thought. I wasn't seeing the file on the server. It wasn't uploading the background. So I uploaded it as a image on a seperate page and then took out the gobbledie gook on the background pointer and it works I think.

[Russianwolf]

okay, changes made and backgrounds are working.... I don't like some of them.

[Stytooner]

Mike, background images and water marks are hard to pull off well. They work better when they are back drops for images only. When you get text you have to read on top of the back drop, it is difficult to read.

Also if you chose to use a back drop image, enlarge it and lighten it quite a bit so that there is only one image and centered rather than tiled as you have in the pen section now. Usually the lighter the image is, the smaller the file size is.

Also to help your page load faster, you can use thumbnails. You mentioned that already I think. Have the large image display on another page. I like to do it so you can use the browser back button to return to the smaller image. Not all mine are like that, but I find that works best.


Consider using a transparent background on your logo. That way it will blend with whatever background you have on any page.

Once you get your feet a little damper, check out and consider using either PHP or CSS instead of just HTML. These make it much easier to update content. I think a site looks better too when it is designed to a scheme or theme and keeps that theme on every page. Then you don't feel that you have gone to a different site.

You have a good start though. It will take work and learning on your part. You should have seen my first couple of websites. Pitiful.


Not quite as bad as I remember.
Here is a link using the wayback machine.
Nov. 98.



http://web.archive.org/web/20011221172006/www.gulftel.com/~leesty/


A few years later.
This toon shows my purple period.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990204043953/www.gulftel.com/~leesty/

[RayintheUK]

I've just had another look at your website e-mail address. Although you've got the e-mail address shown as a graphic, you've still used a "mailto:" link, which is how e-mail addresses are harvested.

I was obviously not clear enough to begin with. Show the address as a graphic - as you have done - so that web spyders can't harvest it, but also remove the "mailto:" tag, because that is what EmailSyphon and others use to build spam address lists from the source code of the page. It might not be so user-friendly for your visitors, but it'll save a load of trouble in the future.

Ray

[Wood_workur]

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...erview-outside

best way to sell stuff online.... a lot more professional that "we'll e-mail to work out details' kinda thing that you've got now.

[Russianwolf]

decided to use the one background I really like for all pages and changed the layout a bit. I have a couple pages left to work the changes on and I'm axing the contact page.

Hopefully I'll get to work on the buttons tomorrow