Opinions and suggestions for my new website

[Fredstar]

Yo guys,
Just got my site up and running, been working on it for about 6 weeks but over the past 4 weeks i have had a lot of college work on so i haven't had much time to work on it, and i doubt i will be able to do much till after my june exams.
Anyways, comments/suggestions on layout/design or anything would be appreciated. It is just a Mac Site that i am aiming to include everything Mac related - News/Rumours/Tutorials/FAQ etc etc, i know a lot of website that have a variety of stuff but i am aiming on making mine the one place where you can find everything about Mac Osx.
More than anything it is a practice site so i can work on a few friends' business websites.
Anyways - visit it at www.macinfo.co.uk
cheers
Fred

[Josh]

Nice!

The thing I noticed right away is that it is a little wide. Im running 1024x768, and it still scrolls horizontally.

Imagine how wide it would be if I was using 800x600

Maybe you could make it a liquid width, so that the site would be as wide as the broswer window, and would expand and contrast as the browser is resized?

[Fredstar]

Hey Josh,
Thanks for the reply mate, yeh that was my biggest worry, since i have a 20" imac it looked fine on that i forgot that i was running at 1680 X 1050. I checked on our family Dell 1024 X 768 and i am considering narrowing the whole website but not at this present moment, i might try and squeeze it at 800 X 600. My biggest issue atm, since everything is actually graphically based, including text, that on bigger screens it would seem tiny.
I am adding loads over the next week, the Mac family tree is under a major revamp, upto date news is being added, new reviews are being written, these are all personal reviews, and of course, imo, the best bit of the website is yet to have properly launched - the Extras which will include so much kewl Osx and other techno stuff.
keep em coming lads

[mduser63]

It looks good, but you definitely need to narrow it. People hate it when they have to scroll horizontally, and 1024 x 768 is the absolute maximum you should design for IMO. I design all of my sites so that they'll display fine at 800 x 600. Anyway, I like the way the site looks, and keep us posted on your progress!

[Fredstar]

I am working on a 800 X 600 and a 1024 X 768 version (choosen on frontpage) as we speak so peeps with both small 15-17" monitors and peeps with large 20+" monitors can enjoy my website.
I am also adding a LOAD of new content over the next week, i will keep u all posted.
What i promise u all:

1)monitors of all sizes will be able to enjoy it without screwed up menus or anything
2) AD FREE, not one ad because i think that is one of the worst things in a website.
3)Zero pop-ups/annoying music or anything else of the kind
4)Purely a resource site for Mac (and other electronical) news/reviews/rumours and loads of extras. You get many sites but mine will have a huge variety of anything and everything. This is done completely in my own time with a friend and will be updated several times a week - this is completely profit free and just a hobby.

I hope, when this is done, you guys will appreciate visiting my site and enjoying my work , i think it is definately worth it

PS guys this is also a hands on website, Opinions articals are a big part of it, if YOU have an opinion and want it expressed email me by clicking on the contact us link on the bottom of the page and i will publish most of the work. Also i welcome personal reviews and any Extras you wish to contribute. This is a website made by Mac fantatics and for Mac fanatics

[Chimera]

I'm the co-producer of the site and would also like to forward fred's wish for some user feedback, we hope to improve it greatly over the coming weeks as there is still much to be done.

Thnaks in advance

Frank

[mduser63]

Was looking around the site some more today, and I like a lot of the content you guys have put up. One thing that I find somewhat annoying though is the way everything is images. Even article text is actually an image. Not only is this hard on people with slow connections, it makes it so you can't select text on the site for copy and paste or whatever. Also it makes the site completely incompatible with text-only browsers, screen readers for blind people, etc. You can achieve the same visual effect you're going for without using images of text in place of actual text.

Please don't take this harshly, I'm just trying to help you guys improve your new site so that it'll be an enjoyable place to visit. Keep up the good work!

[tech4all]

I have to second what mduser63 said. And on one of the pages about the iPod mini, not only is the text an image, but every line is a slice/image.

And again like mduser63 said this is just constructive criticism. It is not meant to offend anyone, just to help ya'll improve it a bit.

[Chimera]

No problem you guys, this graphic as text thing is something we realised a while ago but have been fudging the whole site together with a WYSIWYG editor (Freeway) and are not experienced enough with it yet to enter html text but it is definately on the to do list (as well as making it more suited to lower resolutions).

[Fredstar]

Hey guys,
thanks for the pointers.
Yes text is very important on a website and while graphic text is annoying and slow to load, it also solves a lot of problems - for example always perfect alignment with all the graphic boxes and no overlapping due to the browsers font preferences. I am going to try having html text, hopefully it won't screw up any of the alignment and obviously will improve load up time and allow people to highlight e.t.c
keep em coming, more and more content is being added every day and i am trying my best to keep up to date with news, rumours and add loads more opinions and Extras. Particularly Extras will be great once all the articals are published.
thanks again guys
Fred

[Fredstar]

Actually starting to HTML written content, so far done The Top Ten applications page, if you guys could feedback how it may look on their browsers (any overlapping or anything)
thanks

[marcfiszman]

If you plan to update the site fairly regularly, you might want to consider using a CMS.

[Chimera]

Hi guys, today the website has been improved dramatically and now works perfectly with 1024 monitors as well as larger ones. Another major change is that much of the website has been rewritten in HTML as you guys requested.

What do you think now?

Thanks in advance
Frank