watcha think of my new website?

[nickjc]

hey!!!

I finally got around to designing my own website, rather than using bollocks soundclick or something.

nickjc.ww.co.nz

lemme know watcha think - I ain't no web designer or anything but I work for an Internet Service Provider, which is how I got the hosting for FREE !!!

it's not all music, but just wanted some gut reactions from people


any feedback is awesome

[Outlaws]

I would work on getting Photoshop and learning to use "save for web" to reduce the file size of pictures.

Also, at the same time, I would break that stupid thing into pieces. Make the text "text" and make that picture just the picture without any BIG FUCKING BLACK BOX around it. There are Centering tags in HTML which I am sure you can figure out. But there is no excuss for that picture to be that fucking big.

[Outlaws]

K fuck this. I just lookd at you links,.



Dude, youi need to get a fucking clue on how ALL other websites work.

Your links are just GIANT FUCKING PICTURES.

YOu figured out how to place links within you picture, which is good. You use Dreamweaver? Cause it ain't that much harder to figure out how to space shit and not need to load a multiple megs of black space for every page.

[demensia]

Dude you don't have to rip the kid apart.

I agree, the pictures are abnormally large and it takes a very long time to load these pages. Image maps are cool and all, but in this situation, theres really no need. Text would get the job done better.

The content is cool.
I'd recommend checking out www.webmonkey.com and learning to write the html yourself. It looks pretty clean for an html creator, but I'm guessing you did not write this by hand.

The idea is to keep people from hitting the back button before your page loads.

[Outlaws]

I *might* have been a bit harsh...but when a page takes that long to load on my broadband...I have no sympathy.

[nickjc]

cheers for the advice guys.

Outlaws - I DO use Photoshop and I DO use Save for Web, but I'm obviously making the file sizes too large (cheers for the advice). and yeah I do use dreamweaver, but I can write the html by hand - I just find dreamweaver faster and easier.

Thanks for the feedback - I wasn't aware that it was so slow as it's really quick on even on dial-up from an NZ connection. I can make a lot of the images into text, yeah I just reckon it looks nicer as an image.

how slow is it loading? I wanna get some perspective on how much I need to do.

[glynb]

I use paintshop pro for my pics on the site, but the principle is the same, you have to get the file size down to s fast loading size, or people will give up wating and leave your site.

Typicaly I amim to get all photos down to within 20-40k at the most. it is perfectly possible to have good quality JPEGS at this file size.

On a dial up modem even 40k is too large and takes an age to download.

One thing yuo can do is to reduce the actual size of the picture, even a small reduction oin the viewing size of an image can make a dramatic difference to the eventual file size. Use the 'crop' tool to cut out extraneous bits of the image which add nothing to the the 'story' told by the picture, typicaly you can crop out things like blank space above the head of the subjects, if its a band on stage do you need to show the stage floor area? Can you crop to a waste up shot? and so on.

If you really need a large image then you may need to split it up into small files which load more quickly and the viewer at least sees part of the image quickly.

A poor amateur looking web site can actualy do your band more harm than good IMHO.

[stonepiano]

I dig the image maps. they are crazy slow on my connection a (T3 100Mbs in Chicago) but the idea looks good.

I would use rollover images for the initial buttons and possibly a nav bar at the top of the screen. That way, you can jump from any section of the site to any other with ease. Again, the common understanding of a music site is, if you don't compel the viewer within 20 seconds of arrival, you're most likely going to be closed and forgotten.

Also, I clicked on the football link but all I read was talk about soccer...??

[nickjc]

Also, I clicked on the football link but all I read was talk about soccer...??

haha, around here we call soccer football mate.

how can American Football hog that name? Only ONE guy on the team EVER ACTUALLY KICKS THE GODDAM BALL!!!!!!

again, cheers for the advice guys.

another thing which I think is a problem is the ISP the site is hosted with is pretty shitty. I Tested the DNS from www.dnsstuff.com on advice from a friend, and got rated 'F' (industry standard being 'B+'. Problem is, no other NZ ISP gets above a 'D+'.

sometimes it sucks being a kiwi . . .

[lykwydchykyn]

I just gotta agree about losing the imagemaps. The site just loads so dang slow over here in the States. And 80% of your site is just basic text with basic fonts, so why on earth wouldn't you do text? Save your bandwidth for something important, like your music.
And adding rollover effects is only going to increase the page weight. Personally I would use some CSS and just add a hover style for links.

As for content, I tooled around on your site for about 5 minutes and I have no idea what you're about. Are you just a guy who wants to put up some pictures and music? Are you an artist looking for some industry attention or gigs? Are you trying to sell a CD? I like a site that, somewhere in the first couple of links I click on, talks to me and tells me what I'm looking at and why I should stick around and care. Even just a blurb like "hi I'm nick, I record music, check out my site, blah blah" you know?