1979-ish web site?

J

joseph white

My son is a professional computer program. I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.

My many international pen pals visit my web site to see any of my new
photos or links there, but I rarely get any other visitors. I asked my
son, "Why, do you suppose my web site has so few visitors?" His reply
was, "Dad, your web site looks 1997-ish" You need to rebuild it with a
newer look and beef up it's content". To me, 1997 is quite modern, but
antiquated to many web users. Do you agree with his critique?

My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
My son is a professional computer program.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Interesting.
I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.
Click to expand...

That'd be because they didn't exist[1].
My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...

No offence, but 1997 is being generous. It's awful. And I didn't even
look at the code.

[1] Well, depending on your definition of the Internet, it did exist,
but certainly not in the form we know it today. HTML also did not exist,
though its "parent" language, SGML, did.
 
N

Neal

My son is a professional computer program. I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.

My many international pen pals visit my web site to see any of my new
photos or links there, but I rarely get any other visitors. I asked my
son, "Why, do you suppose my web site has so few visitors?" His reply
was, "Dad, your web site looks 1997-ish" You need to rebuild it with a
newer look and beef up it's content". To me, 1997 is quite modern, but
antiquated to many web users. Do you agree with his critique?

My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...

Ok, think of me as the Carson Kressley of web critique, except I'm not gay.

First thing: No frames. Ever.

Drinking birds? What were YOU drinking? Make a promise to me - no animated
GIFs.

"Webmaster views this site at 1280x1024 resolution with 16 bit color. It
looks okay to him. It should look okay at other resolutions too. If not,
drop me a comment about here and I'll try fixing it. He does suggest
viewing this site in a maximized window."

Boy, contempt is so attractive. This is ridiculous. Listen - the main
featore of the WWW is that the user can alter what is rendered to their
needs. If the text needs a larger size, done. The browser/screen is at a
different size, no problem.

This is awful. Throw it out the window.

Firat, let me tell you about validation. It's a way to check that your
code is in line with the specs. First you need a doctype. I'm aiming high
for you, I want you to use this doctype:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Then go to http://www.w3schools.com and learn about HTML the right way. We
use it semantically now. If it's a heading, it's a heading. If it's a
paragraph, it's a paragraph.

Validate your new document (don't waste another second on this) at:

http://validator.w3.org/

and if you don't understand an error, ask.

Here's your homework. Forget about frames, scripts, even tables, even
IMAGES. Design a site with none of that. Just basic HTML. Validate it. Now
study CSS at the w3schools link and do all the stuff you want. Post it to
alt.html.critique and say Neal said to go easy on you.
 
N

Neal

Here's your homework.
Click to expand...

Oh, one more assignment.

See the list at http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/index/elements.html ? These
guys are the authority on HTML, truly. Look at this list. If it's marked
wih a D, L or F, it's not for you. Stick to markup with no D, L or F. (F
in the third "end tag" column is OK. I'm focusing on columns 5 and 6.)

This is your diet. This is all you will eat. And avoid b, i, anything
dealing with image maps or tables (unless you really have a table of
data), and a bunch of other stuff. Wish I had a better list...

Basically, stick to:

headings
paragraphs
lists
forms
div and span (but know the difference)
anchors (<a>)

And that's it. It's like the South Beach diet, after a few weeks we add in
some other markup.

I'm dead serious. This is what you need.
 
W

Wizard of Draws

My son is a professional computer program. I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.

My many international pen pals visit my web site to see any of my new
photos or links there, but I rarely get any other visitors. I asked my
son, "Why, do you suppose my web site has so few visitors?" His reply
was, "Dad, your web site looks 1997-ish" You need to rebuild it with a
newer look and beef up it's content". To me, 1997 is quite modern, but
antiquated to many web users. Do you agree with his critique?

My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...

Without content that's unique, visitors have no reason to visit. You
yourself state that the site is for your friends and family. Most search
engines don't give a hoot about personal free hosted websites. If you want
to get into the search engines to attract visitors, get a domain and content
worth indexing.

Keep working on it. Study what you like about other websites and what you
dislike. Ask yourself if your grandmother could navigate the site easily or
if she could read that text against that background.

All websites are a work in progress. No need to tell your visitors, they
know.

Third person narrative is awkward. It's a personal site. Loosen up and write
like you talk.
That should be enough to get you started.
--
Jeff 'The Wizard of Draws' Bucchino
Cartoons with a Touch of Magic
http://www.wizardofdraws.com
http://www.cartoonclipart.com

The Wizard's 2004 Christmas newsletter
http://www.wizardofdraws.com/main/xmas04.html
 
R

rf

joseph said:
My son is a professional computer program.
Click to expand...

If he is your son then surely he is a sub-program.
Do you agree with his critique?
Click to expand...

Yes.

Not much needs changing. Remove the flashing stuff and the background.
Remove the popups. Make it work in modern browsers (the photos don't). Tart
up the graphics. That sort of thing.
 
N

Neal

rf
Not much needs changing. Remove the flashing stuff and the background.
Remove the popups. Make it work in modern browsers (the photos don't).
Tart up the graphics. That sort of thing.
Click to expand...

So you're cool with the frameset?
 
J

Jeffrey Silverman

My son is a professional computer program. I was one too until I retired
in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself, I'll build a
personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had never heard of HTML
or the Internet before retiring.

My many international pen pals visit my web site to see any of my new
photos or links there, but I rarely get any other visitors. I asked my
son, "Why, do you suppose my web site has so few visitors?" His reply was,
"Dad, your web site looks 1997-ish" You need to rebuild it with a newer
look and beef up it's content". To me, 1997 is quite modern, but
antiquated to many web users. Do you agree with his critique?

My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...

Howdy. I think your site is fine for what it is supposed to be -- a
personal home page. really I do. But I will share with you some tidbits
that you may find useful.

First of all, don't take any critcism here too harshly. Sometimes the
geeks in this group lose sight of the big picture. Also, just don't take
anything too harshly -- none of the criticism is meant personally.

Things that (I think) are bad with your site:
1) Animated GIFs. lose them. they are annoying little cutey clutterances
that do nothing to improve upon the site. any site. they were neat-o in
195 or so and that is why your site has the retro look

2) bug-out background pattern. Lose it. Using a tiled image for a
background is not generally a good idea -- it makes things hard to read
and increases the size of your site to download without increasing the
usefulness. Background images can be used well, but your case is a bit
mis-applied.

3) Frames. Not generally a good idea. They break navigation and
book-mark-ability of a site. They do not work as well as they were
intended. They are one technology that has turned out to be a mistake.
That said, frams are useful for things like navigation menus. However,
there are better ways to address issues that frames are meant to address.

The notes about your viewing resoluton and bit depth and other stuff
are nice, but really unnecessary. A site visitor shouldn't need to worry
about that sort of thing. It distracts from the main point of the site,
which, in your case, is to show off the things you love.

Other little details...

Consider using a tool to generate and maintain a photo gallery rather
than the by-hand method you appear to be using. JAlbum or Gallery come to
mind as free examples

http://jalbum.net
http://gallery.menalto.com/

Links on your link pages should really include the text -- not just the
"Go" image. Meaning you should be able to click on the text as well.

Other stuff, but that's more than enough for now....

later. have fun.
 
R

Richard

joseph white said:
My son is a professional computer program. I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.

My many international pen pals visit my web site to see any of my new
photos or links there, but I rarely get any other visitors. I asked my
son, "Why, do you suppose my web site has so few visitors?" His reply
was, "Dad, your web site looks 1997-ish" You need to rebuild it with a
newer look and beef up it's content". To me, 1997 is quite modern, but
antiquated to many web users. Do you agree with his critique?

My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...

When you retired, the internet was just beginning.
It never really blossomed until 1995 or so.
Back then, websites were basic, ordinary stuff.
Yours would have rocked the cradle then.
But come on. Front page? Really. Front page sucks.
Ok. Maybe not front page but sure looks it.
Frames suck.
Your next step is to learn CSS and do it all in divisions.
There are ways with CSS to do the same thing, but clean it up royally.
Even your photo section would do better in CSS.

Go visit a few dozen free web template sites and take a look at what they
have to offer.
I'm sure you'll get a few dozen ideas for a better rocking site.

Oh and content?
With the photos and links you have to offer, don't expect to become a world
wide power monger just yet.
You want hits? You want visitors?
Include the two magic words any where in your site.
"Child pornography".
Guaranteed visitors.
 
R

Richard

Mark Parnell said:
Previously in alt.html said:
My son is a professional computer program.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Interesting.
I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.
Click to expand...

That'd be because they didn't exist[1].
My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...

No offence, but 1997 is being generous. It's awful. And I didn't even
look at the code.

[1] Well, depending on your definition of the Internet, it did exist,
but certainly not in the form we know it today. HTML also did not exist,
though its "parent" language, SGML, did.
Click to expand...

But you got to give the man some credit here.
After all, go to the archiving site and look up microsoft's first offering.
I mean really. You'll be choking for sure. I mean that poor puppy just
sucked rotten.

FYI, the internet, as we know it today, may have been officially launched in
1985.
As the first dot com domain name was registered.
"Genie", an offering of those famous tax people, was probably the first ISP.
Then along came Prodigy and, yuck, AOL.
 
W

WindAndWaves

joseph white said:
My son is a professional computer program. I was one too until I
retired in 1986. My hobby is PC's and the web. I thought to myself,
I'll build a personal web site" , quite a feat for me since I had
never heard of HTML or the Internet before retiring.

My many international pen pals visit my web site to see any of my new
photos or links there, but I rarely get any other visitors. I asked my
son, "Why, do you suppose my web site has so few visitors?" His reply
was, "Dad, your web site looks 1997-ish" You need to rebuild it with a
newer look and beef up it's content". To me, 1997 is quite modern, but
antiquated to many web users. Do you agree with his critique?

My web site is at http://www.jm000.cjb.net .
Click to expand...


My five cents worth:

Just type the text that you want to put on your website (nothing else),
using only <BR> (line break) and <P> </P> (start and end of a paragraph)

Once you have done this, add <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>xxx</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>

.... add your text here ....


</BODY></HTML>

strictly speaking this is not correct, but you be amazed how good it will
look (I.E. SIMPLE).

Then you can add images (only the ones that are absolutely necessary), the
odd bold text and perhaps a bit of colour (sparingly).

Then, if you really want to go mad, you can something like this in the
header of your page

<STYLE>
BODY {background-color: white;}
P {font-size: 17px; color: #555555;}
</STYLE>

HTML and the web is all about taking things away, getting rid of superfluous
garbage, rather than creating it.

- Nicolaas
 
H

Hywel Jenkins

I liked the layout of your contact form:

http://s107883475.onlinehome.us/tinc?key=hGK3cjOx

I can live with my bland forms but I'd like to know how the 'Your comments:'
text is made to align up top with the muli line control. On my forms, the
text is centered vertically on the cell and it looks terrible.
Click to expand...

For starters, quote properly. Secondly, viewing the source code would
have given you the answer quite quickly.
 
H

Hywel Jenkins

But come on. Front page? Really. Front page sucks.
Click to expand...

Rubbish. A decent developer can turn out code that's as good as another
developer can turn out with [insert text editor here].

Hywel
 
B

Blinky the Shark

joseph said:
My son is a professional computer program.
Click to expand...

I...I...uh...oh, never mind.

(I'm also having trouble picturing what a 1979-ish website would've
looked like.)

I'm tired, tonight, and I needed a lift. Thanks, Joseph. :)
 
F

Fernie

Hywel Jenkins said:
For starters, quote properly. Secondly, viewing the source code would
have given you the answer quite quickly.
Click to expand...

You're right, that was pretty easy. Can an editor be used to create a form
with columns that vary like Johns or would it have to be hand written? I'm
pretty new with html editors and I could not find anything obvious for
specifying column variation as in that contact form.

Thanks
 
B

Barbara de Zoete

Most search
engines don't give a hoot about personal free hosted websites. If you
want
to get into the search engines to attract visitors, get a domain and
content
worth indexing.
Click to expand...

I never found having content at a free host and not at a domain a problem
for search engines. They index my pages just fine. But that is because
they provide content.

Content is the keyword. If you have content that might be of interest to
others, your personal pages will start showing up in SERP's at nice
positions, regardless of the host.
 
S

Spartanicus

Neal said:
"Webmaster views this site at 1280x1024 resolution with 16 bit color.
Click to expand...

Screen Area, resolution is a fixed physical property of the display,
typically expressed in PPI.
 
S

SpaceGirl

Jeffrey said:
Howdy. I think your site is fine for what it is supposed to be -- a
personal home page. really I do. But I will share with you some tidbits
that you may find useful.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding? So his web site is supposed to make him look like he
has no clue what he's doing... in that case it works perfectly :)

GOd, though, I do remember my first web pages back in... hmmm... 1994.
*shame faced*


--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
 

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