The sorry state of web design skills

[SYNERGY]

lol. still playing around with ideas. First time using CSS.
Aother reason why the website is not advertised yet...
Will showcase the final website.
Old Website was in complete flash:
But working with flash is cumbersome
Used to working with html/js

 

[kris860911]

here is sorta what i meant: http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php?photo=1069&cat=500
quickly put together in paint.net haha

 

[SYNERGY]

True, but the thing is working with fluid websites is tricky. Standard websites are a breeze. See

http://gigazoneretail.co.za/

designed by me also.
And yes I know the logo needs to be moved a bit more up.

I'm trying to design something a bot more dynamic, and more people are requesting fluid width websites due to the increase of widescreen usage, which varies alot in resolutions etc. The background will be easily sorted with a higher quailty image

 

[kris860911]

Ok man. It's not that tricky

 

[rorz0r]

Sorry Synergy but based on your own website I would never commission you for a project. The gigazone retail site is a little bit better but has no redeeming quality that would lead me to choose you over anyone else (including doing it myself). It also looks just a little too similar to the synergy designs website to me, which is bad because you have 2 websites shown and they look similar so it only really counts as 1 design to me.

 

[kris860911]

I'd be interested to see what the flash website looked like though.

 

[kifoth]

Flash: 99% Bad

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

Famous article...

 

[Roo!]

I'm trying to design something a bot more dynamic, and more people are requesting fluid width websites due to the increase of widescreen usage, which varies alot in resolutions etc. The background will be easily sorted with a higher quailty image

Simple, use a container (span, div, table) of a fixed width, make it's position relative and give it a margin-left : auto; and margin-right : auto. This will always put your text in the middle of the page (width wise that is).

Now, getting a footer to always be at least at the bottom of the window is a pain in the butt especially with the different browsers.

Oh and one final tip, always develop for FF and Opera first, it's easier to force something to work in IE afterwards that it is the other way round.

 

[SYNERGY]

Sorry Synergy but based on your own website I would never commission you for a project. The gigazone retail site is a little bit better but has no redeeming quality that would lead me to choose you over anyone else (including doing it myself). It also looks just a little too similar to the synergy designs website to me, which is bad because you have 2 websites shown and they look similar so it only really counts as 1 design to me.

The Gigazone website was commisioned as a basic design. My Whole Portfolio is not up, neither is the main website as it is still under construction and Im playing around with ideas.
Also, the Gigazone and Synergy Website designs vastly differ.
Once everything is up, I'll send you a PM to check it out.

I took the flash website out as I realised the inherent weaknesses, although it did achieve its effect of "wowing" the viewer.

As I said, I'm playing around with numerous designs, and is nowhere near completion.
Please note the Synergy Design is under Heavy construction and is nowhere near the final design.
kris860911 : I'll dig up the website and put it up for you it.
Roo!: Yep already implemented, just need to fine tune
Thanks for your input

 

[DragonLogos]

Telkom would loose half their profits without Flash and dial-up so glad Flash does not work with Opera Mini, nothing worse than being tortured by stupid ads that you are paying for

 

[Nod]

So what would you oke sugest one does....?

I am a small bussiness owner who would like to have a website with photos of jobs I have done before. I have had quotes for R1800 - R3500 for just a very simple front page and a couple of thumbnails of photos.

I cant justify that kind of $$ just to have a couple of photos and a overview of what service I can provide.....

So the next best thing for me is to attempt it myself. It might look bad, but hey, its just a website. Maby if I was a web designer by trade, then yes, by all means please have a very shiny, good looking and easy to use website. But for me, a website is just a interactive advert....

my 2c

Have you tried using Joomla or Drupal? Very easy to set up, and comes with a very customizable design. Also have a lot of plugins, including photo albums. Templates can be changed easily or downloaded.

 

[AirWolf]

Have you tried using Joomla or Drupal? Very easy to set up, and comes with a very customizable design. Also have a lot of plugins, including photo albums. Templates can be changed easily or downloaded.

Can you use these on a google apps hosted website? Google has their own built in templates but I want something more complex.

 

[chiskop]

Nope. If you want something more complex you'll have to set it up on your own domain and hosting service.

 

[AirWolf]

Have you tried using Joomla or Drupal? Very easy to set up, and comes with a very customizable design. Also have a lot of plugins, including photo albums. Templates can be changed easily or downloaded.

Eish, the Joomla Zip file doesn't have any executable file --> how do you work this thing?

 

[kris860911]

haha. u just running into Linux->Windows converted software.

 

[AirWolf]

haha. u just running into Linux->Windows converted software.

Ah ok that explains the tar.bz2 and tar.gz file extensions on the other available packages. So how do I run it in Windows or can't I?

 

[chiskop]

Ah ok that explains the tar.bz2 and tar.gz file extensions on the other available packages. So how do I run it in Windows or can't I?

Err, do you have a server setup in windows? If not, you'll need to start with that. Try xampp for an easy, all-in-one windows server.*

Then, once that is installed unzip joomla into your web root (on xampp it'll be something like C:\xampp\htdocs). In your browser go to to http://localhost - and follow then instructions.

http://www.joomlatutorials.com/
http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla/

*Assuming you want to create a local server that you can try stuff out on.

 

[kris860911]

Ah ok that explains the tar.bz2 and tar.gz file extensions on the other available packages. So how do I run it in Windows or can't I?

You can do anything... Just depends how hard it is

But this doesn't seem like too much of a headache. But it isnt unzip, click the install. (Unfortunately )

 

[AirWolf]

Err, do you have a server setup in windows? If not, you'll need to start with that. Try xampp for an easy, all-in-one windows server.*

Then, once that is installed unzip joomla into your web root (on xampp it'll be something like C:\xampp\htdocs). In your browser go to to http://localhost - and follow then instructions.

http://www.joomlatutorials.com/
http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla/

*Assuming you want to create a local server that you can try stuff out on.

I'm just looking for a simple free program to create web pages with text, pictures and a menu system to upload to my web host. Any suggestions?

 

[chiskop]

I'm just looking for a simple free program to create web pages with text, pictures and a menu system to upload to my web host. Any suggestions?

joomla may be overkill

It depends on your host - but wordpress may be the easiest way to start.

PM me if you need a hand setting it up.