New Design, would LOVE comments! :)

I love your protfolio site. That colour is very nice. ANd the other site is very cool. Both of them look very profesional. Like them dude keep it up. ANd welcome

Hey thanks guys!!

I never expected such nice feedback.. used to the forums at coolhomepages.com :rolleyes: ... bunch of lamers heh

Anyway, in response to the question about the database format.. I'll be developing it in Microsoft Access initially, and then converting it to SQL format... I'll be developing the code in Active Server Pages though, so minimal changes will be required (if any).

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do this portfolio thing on the right hand side, I'm really impressed by that idea, I think it'll add a lot of functionality to this site.. However, I can get the main site completed first, and basically, make room for it (i.e. a blank Table cell to hold the INCLUDE file at a later date, and just set it to width of 0px for now and perhaps 380pixels later (to take the actual site width up to 780px wide, which will work for 800x600 browsers, with the margins removed from the page.

Also, I was thinking of making the right hand side have another section, which will be quick links to features such as my resume, and various things that I think will be useful for visitors.. However, this might be overkill, and so I'll give it carefull consideration. I'd make it look nice of course, to fit in with the general feel of the site, but I'd do THAT particular section sort of like a Windows Explorer window, with large icons representing each element. These will be icons which fit in with the feel of the site as well, and not just standard nasty things, and it may improve the appeal of the site further. These are great ideas, which I'm looking forward to implementing!!

Deker:
On the subject of administration panels, I did another website which you can find here or here (56k :( direct link to MY server) which has a administration console started. You can only view the member listings, and view a basic crappy stats page I mocked up, and not actually do anything else such as update content, but I love doing that sort of thing and if you'd like help with something similar, give me a bell.. notice in the user listings, each type of user is given a specific level of access, such as Administrator, News Editor, Normal User, Guest User, and Disabled User.. this is also represented by a specific icon for that class... what do you think? You will need to use the following login information to access the site in it's development stage: Username = steve - Password = steve

I look forward to more comments!!!

:D

i think everything i thought of has already been said...

i hate when that happens...

Sounds good... I'd be careful of making too many vertical columns of content though. Most people are used to having one for navigation, then the rest are either news blurbs or advertisements, so they may go overlooked.

I remember you posting that OCD site before. It's very very nice. You actually made pink look good on a web site, which I've seen very few people do! Also, I can tell you've read a couple of useability books, or at least studied sites looking for that sort of thing. The site is very easy to use, and you follow a lot of the 'rules' of useability. One suggestion though... The four little buttons on top of the page, (home, mail, message, and logout) are not very clear as to what they do. Maybe just put some alt text on them so you can tell what they do after holding the mouse on them for a second. (since the site is still being tweaked, you may cover that later, I just wanted to mention it) Yeah, the admin panel is great... I'm going to be designing an interface to a similar site very soon. I won't have to mess with the programming myself, but I am interested in doing it myself on some other sites.

But the site I'm going to be working on soon is for a local photographer that has switched over to all digital. Never uses film. He does a lot of school photography, (year book portraits, sports, etc.) and one of his biggest expenses is printing out thousands of proofs, getting them to the school, passing them out to students, etc etc. Plus how many of those proofs actually get home to the parents? And what about the grandparents who live on the other side of the country that want to order pictures? So anyway, we're making a site so that he can go into a web panel, upload all of the shots from a photo shoot with a special job number to identify them, then the customer gets a business card with the web address and the job number on it. Then to see the pictures, they just log in to the web site with the job number and an e-mail address, then they can look at all of the pictures from the shoot, add the ones they want to a shopping cart, send it off, then the photographer prints out the hi-res version of the pics, and send them to the customer. That way they can also tell other family members in different parts of the country to go to the web site, and they can order pictures as well.

But anyway.... I'm going to be doing the interface for all of that. So it should be a lot of fun.

Deker:
That sounds like an amazing project to be working on, I'd love to be part of setting something like that up. :D

OCD site
Well, hehe you'll be surprised, but I don't really study sites for useability hints or the like, or read books on the subject, I basically just stick a few bits and pieces together and edit edit edit in Photoshop until I get what I'm looking for! In fact, that's me with everything, I do all my own programming, scripting, development, designing etc etc and I taught myself everything without the aid of a book. I have a couple of books on ASP, but I only really used them for obscure stuff, like ADO, and MTS, and for quick reference.

I'm looking for more freelance work, but I'm totally unsure as to how to proceed in the best way, i.e. protecting myself legally.... anybody got any useful hints and pointers? Or any documentation on the subject? Even document templates you use that I could adapt, if you're feeling particularly generous :D

Oh yea, and also, I only use a text editor - EditPlus (the best..) from EditPlus.com. I'm not affiliated with them, but I'm sorry: their text editor is the best around.

I used to use Dreamweaver after coming from using a crappy text editor called HTMLedPro32 (and the 16bit version for win3.x), but quickly switched back to the text editor when I realised how limited Dreamweaver actually is..

What are your favourite tools of choice? I'm happy with only EditPlus and Photoshop, with a nice shiny copy of Microsoft Access so I can develop a nice database and then convert it to SQL Server format.

Anyone?

Well then, you should consider Writing a book on useability... I just read one on the subject, so I noticed a couple things on your site that he suggested you do. I've read a lot of books to learn things, but I've never been to school for any of it.

About going freelance... I think www.guru.com has quite a few articles on the subject, as well as a place to post your resume', and find jobs. You have to register to access any of it though. A few things from personal experience... Require fifty percent of the total quote up front before you even get started. I've been burned a couple of times by almost finishing a site, then the people decide they don't want it, and refuse to pay. Have payment deadlines. Say when a job is deemed complete, require that they pay you in two weeks or something, or you will add interest to the bill. Also if you have a monthly fee for hosting or something, make sure you have a set date it is required by. I know these are common sense things, but I didn't do it when starting out, and I've regretted it a couple of times.

As for editing tools, I use Dreamweaver almost exclusively. Most of the sites I create are really simple, and don't have any database stuff or anyting special besides some tables. So I've found that Dreamweaver just makes it faster and easier to do that. I can also go in and hand code anything special too though. I know a little bit of PHP, and so that's what I would code any database stuff with. But I would just use the codeview option of Dreamweaver to do that most likely. And then of course I use Photoshop for all graphics. I use Ulead GIF animator to animate gifs and stuff. I don't like ImageReady for that sort of thing very much. My hosting company runs on all linux, so I use MySQL and PHP for database stuff.

Well, seeing as everyone likes the site, I've decided to start developing it as of tonight.... so, stay tuned for updates :D

Deker: Thanks for your comments etc... feel free to email me anytime if you need help, or if you find something decent that you think I might be interested in.

Steven :D

Now starts, the development.........

One small gripe, is the e-mail address link at the bottom, its hard to make out the @ in the address, looks like a squiggle of text.

(Ali actualy giving woody some advise lol)

-ali

Hey Ali...

Yea I agree when I look at it, good point.

I think I'll transform it into buttons for quick ways to message me via MSN, ICQ or Yahoo etc, as well as an email link represented by an Envelope image, instead of the actual address.

Cheers matey :D

Steven