Beat me to a Pulp then Leave me to Die

[Skunkboy]

Yes, me again with another site. This time I don't have as much freedom as I did before and yes, I need to keep a shade of blue but if you've got a better hex set to use on the pages, sure I'll try it *if I can find where the blue hex was at again - lol*.

This time around I played with everything I know from the past and even touched something I've never messed with before. CSS, SSI, CGI, of course HTML, and now - Flash! Woohoo... not bad for having known flash for less than 24hrs :cool:

No matter what, the design is a major facelift from the original. Though I'm restricted on what I can modify; I'll take all comments into consideration. If I can make it work this time around, I will. If not, I'll at least make sure I don't do it on sites again if I don't have to.

Yes, I've followed my own advice:
1) E-mail is a cgi forum
2) Custom error pages are created (please to take too much advantage of them as I do receive e-mail about 404 and 500 errors)
3) Meta tags are in (and I'm aware that they're not completely valid yet)
4) I've stuck to 780 or less width

I'm still tweaking things and yes, the ad area is one of the things I'm working on still as I type this; but, feel free to let me know what you think and we'll see what I can do.

I've enjoyed it here now in my second year and hope you'll be as mean (or, I mean helpfull) as I am to some of the other posts.

New URL below

[B&T]

I get a DNS error. Cannot be found. Tried 3 times.

[Skunkboy]

hmmm don't know why there would be an error. I see in synching the site I accidentally lost a few ad graphics but that's no big deal... I can get that redone.

NEW URL: He let me put it live; so, http://onefunkydj.com Play with it, let me know if you see anything dead. I'm still tinkering and I had an issue with my connection so I'm scurrying to get it up 100% - should be here within a few minutes of this post.

http://onefunkydj.com

[B&T]

Comes up now - but I don't have time to play with it. Maybe later.

[YvetteKuhns]

I need to keep a shade of blue

If you have to have a blue background, try another color for your text links! The header image concept is okay, but the quality is not that great. I noticed that the mixer image has working links, but I wondered why you included the links there when there is a menu just below the image.

The site loads quickly (for me) and is easy to navigate. The audio surprised me. The black and blue colors are dark. A little splash of bright contrasting colors (yellow) would be nice. The page does not expand to fill the screen, but it is centered and there is a background image to fill the screen.

If you use another background image or color such as black, the page would stand out better. Maybe a darker shade of blue. The header image seems big and takes up a large amount of screen space, forcing visitors to scroll. I am just being picky now.

Links to other websites should open in a new window while links within a website should open in the same window. Speaking of links - I did not see a related links page for link exchanges. But links can appear anywhere in a website.

The text writing is personal and interesting. Of course, any original contents appeal to ME! ;) Interesting site, though I didn't have enough patience to download the mp3s. Consider converting them to swf format. Nice job! :)

[oatesj77]

allrighty, got some music going!

first off i think the blue is a bit bright for the subject, maybe desaturate it a bit and see how that looks. in the header image, you have two images right behind the name, rather than squares they could be a little more organic and still fade into the black background, as is, not all that engaging. i did download some of the music, but i doubt few, even with broadband will download them, might see about smaller clips as well as the full files for those who just want to hear a sample. also getting someting that will play thru the site rather than having to download will also be helpful.

one thing that bugged me was the sound clip that played on first load. a lot of people-including me-have their sound on w/o music (still turned up from rockin out all day), when the site loaded it scared the poo outa me.

other than that it all comes together well, the photo section works good, maybe captions? the music is good, i went ahead and downloaded the other two to listen to later.

[Skunkboy]

As they came at me:
Links: Not positive what I'll stick with just yet; I've been playing around with different text colors locally and - hmmm, not quite sure what colors to use (text and text links). Of course I stuck toward Yvette's favorite blue and white :cool:

Header quality: The background to the header? With Dj I in in it or the mixer? If the mixer, Doh! I knew I would waste time having spent three days on it - mainly searching for the graphics then a day to teach myself Swish.

Mixer Links: Yes indeed. The original idea was to use the mixer as the menu too. I've just not removed the links. The channels change per page and I'm impressed - you investigated to see that there were actually links in there too still. Actually, notice your mouse didn't change? Don't you hate java? I had actually done java cell links on 'em.

Site load-time: Originally the sliders as I was working on them were 550 height, the Dj I background was 1800 width - all kinds of big files. hmmm, should I put them back? j/k. I did up the page to make it appear decent then remade the graphics to the sizes I was using. Tried to keep the files small - especially since there's two flash images in it.

Contrasting colors: I'm not sure where I could put the yellow in there but I agree - some more color would give it more of a "party" appeal. Perhaps the white border to yellow?

Width: I had chosen 774 as the primary table width but I agree, on a 1900 or whatever gigantic resolution someone may visit on it may be small. My biggest concern was the fact that the entire mixer is a table - and I wanted that to show correctly.

Background: It was originally a bllack background when I first posted. I liked it myself. I was asked to put the background that I've got on it now up though - wonder if it was because the image is him or if it truely is the fact that its blue. With it as it is, in my opinion, sure, it looks nice; but, clubs and parties are lively - it almost looks too young or too soft with all the blue. I had mentioned doing the same image but with a gray/black tone instead (more toward the black) but haven't tried it yet.

Picky Picky! Just because you have to scroll doesn't mean you have to grab that mouse thingy... If you don't like to touch rodents, that's what your page up/page down and arrow keys are for (at least I don't have left to right scrolling - I hate that). lol but hey, I asked for comments and I can't improve on "looks good" ... I need the bad.

Links: Yes, the links for within the site ARE opening in the same window - and the cell directly above the copyright info... that has a randomizer with links to other sites. hmm, good thing you pointed that out - I'll have to check with Laurey and see what I can do to not kill the script but have 'em load in a new window. My bad. *and here I'm one of 'em that says, "add target="_blank" to your outside links"*

Music: The mp3's will stream - but yes, I'll look into converting to swf as well.

Color issues again: and I've sent a post to this thread to the owner for him to read through :cool:

Header image: Good observation - and I've got the header reopened and am toying with it. I'm not sure what "shape" I'll go with but yes, you've got a point - make it "pop" instead of looking like it was built in less than five .... errr wait, computers are lovely machines and because it was built in less than five minutes, I don't mind going back and changing it. ;)

MP3's: When I first took on the project, I had Teleport copy the site for me... I was on the phone with Laurey (I think) when I noticed that there were only four audio files but yes, they took up a couple hundred meg. Ouch! I agree that something should be done about that. I'll look into swf formats and then smaller clips... afterall, don't people download mp3's to put into players and such? My 64 meg RCA Kazoo in nice but do I want to only have one track on the whole thing? *point taken and I will look into proper action*

Play through the site: ?? as in have it be a variable bgsound? or open in a flash player? I figured they always streamed via media player (or other default mp3 player) but - I guess I shouldn't assume.

Intro audio: Hey, he needed to do something to cath your attention... It worked didn't it? lol Originally that clip was on the bio page but I found it more fitting on the main page - which yes, I know, needs content still.

Gallery: I'll look into captions but I'm limited to what I can do as I'm not the one who took them or knows anything about them. I'll see what I can do.


Keep 'em coming - everything is appreciated thus far and in the future.
http://onefunkydj.com

[Skunkboy]

I've modified the top graphic and made some other changes... I was going to fade all four sides of the top graphic to blue but there's black around the mixer and I don't feel like converting it to gif if I don't have to. My next move was to go ahead and expand the top grapic to the entire width and make it touch the frame around the main table but I can't get it to work. I've got cellpadding and cellspacing down to zero but still can't find out why it won't work.

[oatesj77]

yeah,
like the header image a lot more, but now the color is bugging me, something too primary about it, feels like i should be learning something.

also when viewing the lines in the copy on the index page run right up to the next colmun, try splitting that up and adding some table padding so they look like they are in two columns (more space betweent the two).

[Skunkboy]

I'm not necessaraly attached to the picture of me faded in the blue (although I do like it, and would like to keep it), so if you really think that it doesn't work, than I trust your judgement. But I would like to keep the site in some sort of light tone. Preferabley blue.

So that sticks the color issue as it is - but I could still play with colors elsewhere and am still open to suggestions. The only thing I would really be needing to make a major change with then would be the taper.jpg I have where the menu is.

As far as the index page, I wasn't fond of using <hr> in it but came up with something real quick only because I noticed he had posted information in there but it looked "wrong" considering it was full spread. I'm looking to possibly do something like I have on skunkboy.net separating the colums from eachother - use a background for the individual tables. Right now, I don't have columns in separate tables - good advice and I'll get that changed over right now real quick. :D

Thank you
Next!?

[oatesj77]

yeah, good idea. i know as far as type goes, it helps legibility by shortening line length. rather than havign type go all the way from left to right, break it up into two columns and if there is enough place a "top" link at the end of the first column to go back to the top of the second. i break it up on my so it is easier to read and i think it look better.

[Skunkboy]

uhg! I hope I don't have to type enough to require anchor links in a page. If there's that much, hopefully I'm not the one that typed the original. lol

I've changed it over to use a border-bottom style line in the <td> - obviously then I did go ahead an put it in a table - looks better, now perhaps I'll shrink 'em a little more. I don't like text that has full lines then the last one is only two or three words... perhaps half the width but not worth a line for one or two words.

[oatesj77]

looks a lot better, the only thing now is how Website News & Dj Invinceable are both underlined and sit right on top of that line, could use some space in there. also what's with "EDITING 2:17AM Eastern Daylight Time US June 17"

i think you can drop
Welcome to Onefunkydj.com
(formerly accellaproductions.com)

don't think that is going to help anyone.
i do like the x-fader animation, i keep wanting to throw the switches and see if anything happens, maybe a future project?

[Skunkboy]

tiz pretty much at the mercy of the owner now... Now it is all a matter of helping when he gets messed up somewhere (and yes, there's a few things I need to look at right now) but I've pretty much given him the reigns.

Thanks for everything and of course, I've given him a link to this thread to check on it but overall - tiz his control now.