My Brand Spanking New Website!

[thomaskennedy]

Hi!

Well i finally finished my new website (a little pointless really as i won't get any customers! )

Most things are done just need to update the products and gallery bit!

Any questions for the FAQ section please post!!

Ta

Tom

ps The Webby is in my signature!

 

[johnelliott]

Looks interesting, homas, I liked the coffee table. One thing, though, my screen is set to 800x600, which I would have thought was the most common judging by the majority of websites I visit. Unfortunately your website doesn't fit, is it me or you?
John

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry to be critical.....

First thing I noticed was white on dark blue. I'm not sure that works for me, it's too stark. Text stands out nicely, but perhaps too much. If you are going for a coloured background it's often a good idea to use a pastel colour rather than something harsh. Also, dark colours are usually considered to be quite depressing, so you might be sending the wrong message to potential customers - maybe something a bit lighter?

Second thing - that image on the main page is way too big in terms of file size. I right-clicked it and the properties show it to be 230 kilobytes in size. It should ideally be one-tenth of that, and under 30 kilobytes.

The reason for image size being important is that your web site visitors might not all be on cable modem or ADSL downloading at breakneck speed. Many will be on dial-up modem connections. And the fastest modems in use today will transfer somewhere in the order of 2 kilobytes per second. So your picture will take a whole two minutes to arrive. It's probable that many of these people won't bother hanging around because they are paying for connect time.

The golden rule when designing web pages is that the page should be complete within 15 seconds (less if possible), except where the user is given feedback to advise that there might be a long wait coming.

You may lose marks with some customers because when you click on another link and then come back to the main page, it fades in. Some people see this as a gimmick - and if you are trying to present a professional image to your customers it's best to leave the gimmicks out.

You have no copyright message at the bottom of the page. That's important if you don't want people ripping your site off (the copyright message won't stop them, but at least your lawyer will have something to grab hold of....).

Choice of font - very good. Nice rounded font (Arial?). Gets my vote.

Apart from the negative comments above which are intended to suggest areas which could be improvied I think the site looks good.

Andrew

 

[thomaskennedy]

John-Hmm not sure about that :? works at my end but i will look into it

Andrew!-Thanks for that, i like it when people point out my mistakes!

I'll change the picture sizes and do the copyright bit tonight and I'll see if i can find (or make) another suitable background!

Thanks again

Tom

 

[thomaskennedy]

There we go, pictures are smaller..
Not sure why that page did the fancy fading thing but i stopped that!

Copyright bit nearly done!

Ta

Tom

ps. what do you think looks better?? Font

 

[Anonymous]

Wow! I couldn't believe this!

I clicked on the link to your web site, and it started displaying fine (like it did earlier). But all of a sudden my anti-popup utility went doo-lally, beeped multiple times as something was trying to open popup windows, and within a couple of seconds blew the browser out of existence.

I reloaded the browser and tried again - exactly the same result. I couldn't get to see your web site this time around because of this problem.

No other web site has ever managed to do that before and I'm literally gobsmacked!

Thus whatever changes you've added in the last hour or two have resulted in something untoward happening.

Are you on geocities by any chance? They are reknowned for using popups to annoy people

Andrew

 

[Chris Knight]

Get rid of those pop-ups pronto. Also try to cut your use of exclamation marks by about 99%!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[johnelliott]

Just got this-
"Sorry, this site is temporarily unavailable!
The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Visit our help area for more information.
Access to this site will be restored within an hour. Please try again later."
Bit strange?
John

 

[Adam]

Same message for me - you've exceeded your monthly bandwidth allocation, although the evil popups were still trying to put some ad-ware crap on my harddrive.

Adam

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the following information might be of use with regard to this web site. Apologies if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs!

The domain name for the web site is http://www.yorkshirefurniture.cjb.net. Which means that you are locked into that ISP forever because the cjb.net part of the domain name will always be under the control of their servers. You won't be able to move to another ISP because of that, so they've got you by the short and curlies.

If you publish stationary with the URL or email address on then you won't be able to make a switch later on without seriously denting your customer loyalty base.

This current arrangement probably means that these popups are a feature of the web site whether you like it or not. I just reviewed their sign up process and they don't apparently ask for any money - and they give instant availability of the chosen domain name - so they are most likely making money out of free advertising that you are giving them whenever someone goes to your web site. That's very nice of you to offer that service isn't it?

I suggest you forget about the current hosting arrangement because it'll probably cost you customers who will rapidly get fed up with having adverts pushed in their face. Plus, how's about your web site disappears frequently as you push thru the bandwidth? Or how's about these adverts being used to distribute viruses to your customers? And maybe some of these adverts are pornographic which won't do your customer respect any good!

The alternative is to buy your own .co.uk domain name (that'll set you back about 15 quid for 2 years I think), and host it somewhere where you don't get punished with adverts etc - there will be a cost for that as well, it depends on the ISP what this cost will be. Without wishing to bang my own drum here I provide web hosting for customers because I have a reseller account with an ISP (no adverts 'cos I charge for the service!) so please contact me offline if that might be of any interest.

Even if you don't want to host thru me I'll be happy to help you get this sorted (I won't charge for that). I think you've made a good start with your web site and it would be a real shame to spoil that effort by keeping it on a 3rd rate ISP.

Andrew

 

[Charley]

Hi Tom,

I can't see your website at the mo but if you want, drop me a PM/email and I can help you sort out some hosting a domain name if you're interested...

 

[Charley]

Sorry for some reason I didn't see Andrews post till I posted.. I wasn't trying to push in or anything

 

[thomaskennedy]

Arrgghh.... :lol:

So many things to say... so here goes...

On my PC i have the SP2 from microsoft, which has a FREE built in pop up blocker and it always blocks just one pop up each time...

About the bandwidth... I am on a crappy provider (CJB AND Geocities) Although it still works on my PC :?

I am planning to buy a .co.uk name but i dunno where to get it from

Also i am planning to get a new host depending on the price! (as always!)

Hmm...whatelse?...Oh the exclamation marks I get carried away with them!! :lol: :lol: lol

unfortunately i hve homework to do :roll: so no changes tonight :twisted:

Thanks everyone so far!

Ta

Tom

 

[Aragorn]

Hi Tom
I use UK2.net for all my websites (5 of them!). I think they are competitive and provide good services. I have yet to have a problem with them in 3 years. (Touch wood)
www.YorkshireFurniture.com is already taken, but www.YorkshireFurniture.co.uk is available at the moment.

 

[Anonymous]

Thomas

I'm not sure about your age but homework suggest 16 or under to me.

If my kids could produce a website like yours and the furniture to match the pictures I would be incredibly proud.

Well done on a fine job despite the few niggles that need sorting.

 

[Anonymous]

I use UK2.net for all my websites (5 of them!). I think they are competitive and provide good services

I had a customer contact me a while back, she wanted a web site and already had the .co.uk domain (and email address) thru uk2.net.

When I looked into it further I discovered that uk2.net charged a small fortune for releasing the domain to another ISP, so perhaps they still do. So if you ever decided to go with another ISP you'd probably have to fork out a tidy sum of money just to allow the domains to be transferred.

ISP's can refuse to allow domains on their IPSTAG to be moved should they wish to do so, because it is possible that you owe them money - and although it is possible to get a court order to overcome their objection there's not a lot you can do about it if they decide they don't want you to move. So I crossed uk2.net off my friendly ISP list a long time ago.

I use http://www.freeparking.co.uk to manage my domains. They don't provide web hosting services, just a means of registering and maintaining domains. I find this to be perfect because if my ISP goes down on me then I can switch to a new ISP thru Freeparking. Whereas domains which are tied to ISP's can't be transferred without a lot of grief involving Nominet, Faxes and several days of effort if the ISP systems are down!

Freeparking don't have any silly transfer costs, and even provide a user interface for you to move the domain elsewhere free of charge should you ever want to leave!

About 3 years ago I hosted with a different ISP to the one I've used more recently, and that ISP went off the Internet. Fortunately, because I had the domains under control from Freeparking, it lost me only a little time off the Internet.

Andrew

 

[thomaskennedy]

Tony-Yep thats right 15 and still going strong! Thanks for the nice compliment! Nice to know how people feel

Andrew+Aragorn-Thanks for the links to the sites! I'll be persuading my mum to let me use her account

Ta

Tom

 

[Aragorn]

Andrew
Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[thomaskennedy]

there we go. more bandwidth, .co.uk !!! NO ADS thank god!

Just a little update

Ta

Tom

 

[Chris Knight]

Tom,

Well done. It looks very much better - quite professional.