Dju Members Website Reviews

[Eskie 0]

Time for another DJUMWR

FYI this week it's Robbie Harrison and his site is

 

www.northerndiscos.com

 

FWIW Robbie mentioned that there is a slight issue with IE 6 at the moment which may well be fixed by the time you lot get your grubby paws all over his site

OK, I'll stop with the acronyms now smile icon

 

Let's be having your opinions of Robbies site and post your opinions of the good and bad points about it.

[YourBigEvent 0]

Nice and crisp, Ipresue you did it yourself via a template ?

Also how do you find the 0845 number, I have noticed mine getused less and less as many people have free minutes on thier mobiles, which don't include 08 numbers

[Paul Smith 0]

I'm not sure what your IE6 problem is/was but I did find that on every page the content appeared after the links bar rather than to the right of it. Initially I was clicking links and thought nothing was happening. You could cure this by putting a table on each page.

 

Other problems:

 

On the Bar/Club page you need a comma after planning (top line)

 

And that's it!! I thought it was well written, easy to read and even the pictures - although not disco related - seemed to fit in well.

 

Once you get the alignment problem sorted you'll have a nice tidy site

 

Not so fast - I've just had a peek at your HTML and you need some META tags with a description and some key words as well.

 

Apart from that :Thumbup:

[Robbie Harrison 0]

Nice and crisp, Ipresue you did it yourself via a template ?

Also how do you find the 0845 number, I have noticed mine getused less and less as many people have free minutes on thier mobiles, which don't include 08 numbers

 

Hi thanks for your comments.

 

I wrote the site myself from scratch starting with the PHP and mySQL Database and creating the stylesheet to make the design happen. Then I designed the logo in Freehand. I'd love to take credit for the photos but I bought them from a stock photo website!

 

The whole site has taken about 4-5 hours in total but there was steam coming off the keyboard by time I'd finished!

 

I'm trying the 0845 as an experiment as we are looking to expand to a larger area and will see how it goes but I'll bear your comments in mind.

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

Robbie

 

[Robbie Harrison 0]

I'm not sure what your IE6 problem is/was but I did find that on every page the content appeared after the links bar rather than to the right of it. Initially I was clicking links and thought nothing was happening. You could cure this by putting a table on each page.

 

Other problems:

 

On the Bar/Club page you need a comma after planning (top line)

 

And that's it!! I thought it was well written, easy to read and even the pictures - although not disco related - seemed to fit in well.

 

Once you get the alignment problem sorted you'll have a nice tidy site

 

Not so fast - I've just had a peek at your HTML and you need some META tags with a description and some key words as well.

 

Apart from that :Thumbup:

 

Hi Paul,

 

Thanks for your kind comments! I've fixed that naughty little mistake and pasted in the META tags I had left out.

 

The problem in IE 6 is the way it is interperating the CSS which I am currently investigating (I was only made aware of it after uploading and it only affects some copies of IE 6! Which is annoying as I cannot replicate the problem here!) All works fine in IE 7 and Firefox.

 

The site is written in HTML 4.01 Strict which for those who don't know is a version of HTML where all of the design elements are provided by CSS so I'm going to have to spend the next few hours trying to find the bug in my CSS file which is no doubt a missing . or something!

 

Thanks again for your comments!

 

 

Robbie

 

[TonyB 0]

Hi Paul,

 

Thanks for your kind comments! I've fixed that naughty little mistake and pasted in the META tags I had left out.

 

The problem in IE 6 is the way it is interperating the CSS which I am currently investigating (I was only made aware of it after uploading and it only affects some copies of IE 6! Which is annoying as I cannot replicate the problem here!) All works fine in IE 7 and Firefox.

 

The site is written in HTML 4.01 Strict which for those who don't know is a version of HTML where all of the design elements are provided by CSS so I'm going to have to spend the next few hours trying to find the bug in my CSS file which is no doubt a missing . or something!

 

Thanks again for your comments!

Robbie

 

You have used "Position: fixed;" in your CSS which IE6 doesn't support. Easiest way to fix it to make it all browser compatible is stick it in a table smile icon. Have a read of http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/fixedPosition.html

 

 

[Paul Smith 0]

I'd love to take credit for the photos but I bought them from a stock photo website!

Which site(s) did you use?

 

The alignment problem was showing up with IE7. I've just checked it with Firefox and it's OK although I think it would be better if you made the pages central on the screen for higher resolution monitors.

[Andy Westcott 0]

OK for starters;

One point I found a little annoying, and I see this a lot, is that the content is hard against the left margin.

I see your current CSS stipulation is 100% width with zero margin.

 

You can easily fix this by editing your external CSS file to stipulate a margin for the BODY element, somethng like the following:

 

body

{

margin-left:5%;

margin-right:5%;

}

 

By adding this, you will prevent the content from reaching the extreme edges of the page, aiding readability, and by using percentages rather than a static measure will allow for a bit of fluidity, always a good thing in these days of variable window sizes. smile icon

[Robbie Harrison 0]

You have used "Position: fixed;" in your CSS which IE6 doesn't support. Easiest way to fix it to make it all browser compatible is stick it in a table smile icon. Have a read of http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/fixedPosition.html

 

 

Thanks for that! That'll teach me to not read the end of the chapter in the book. Chucked it all in a table now so should all be fixed!

[Robbie Harrison 0]

Which site(s) did you use?

 

The alignment problem was showing up with IE7. I've just checked it with Firefox and it's OK although I think it would be better if you made the pages central on the screen for higher resolution monitors.

 

 

Hi Paul

 

 

I used iStock Photo which I like as its inexpencive and is massive!

 

I'm trying out your central suggestion and Andy's 5% suggestion and deciding which looks best!

 

Thanks,

 

Robbie

 

 

[Paul Smith 0]

Well it all works now. I also think that it's gratifying for someone like me who makes a conscious effort to look at every site that's put up for review and make some, hopefully, constructive comments to see some almost immediate results.

 

This particular site was, in my opinion, good to start with but now with a few minor tweaks it's even better.

 

I'll just add one other thing I think could be changed and thats the speaker Gif in the header :shrug:

 

Incidentally I received a message earlier today that I was at No.1 - no I haven't released a record but someone typed 'Wedding Disco Entertainment' into Google and there I was smile icon

 

I will admit that a few months ago I started to take this SEO thing that I'd been reading about for years a little more seriously and it would appear that my efforts are paying off which is why I also make a point of suggesting to members to check their META TAGS.

 

Good luck with the site.

[Dukesy 0]

Very nice site. :Thumbup:

 

Now that you've had your site looked at, etc on DJU, do you intend to add a DJU banner to your site?!

[Robbie Harrison 0]

Well it all works now. I also think that it's gratifying for someone like me who makes a conscious effort to look at every site that's put up for review and make some, hopefully, constructive comments to see some almost immediate results.

 

This particular site was, in my opinion, good to start with but now with a few minor tweaks it's even better.

 

I'll just add one other thing I think could be changed and thats the speaker Gif in the header :shrug:

 

Incidentally I received a message earlier today that I was at No.1 - no I haven't released a record but someone typed 'Wedding Disco Entertainment' into Google and there I was smile icon

 

I will admit that a few months ago I started to take this SEO thing that I'd been reading about for years a little more seriously and it would appear that my efforts are paying off which is why I also make a point of suggesting to members to check their META TAGS.

 

Good luck with the site.

 

Hi Paul,

 

To add to what you said it's nice to also get some constructive comments from people in the industry. It's nice that people who are in the same business are willing to help each other. I come from a media background and as an example one of the radio stations round here won an award and another one sent them a bottle of champers to celebrate and they just chucked it in the river! Nice of them!

 

Well done on your search engine ranking!

 

Do you think I should drop the graphic from the logo? Or is it the design of the speaker you don't like?

 

Thanks,

 

Robbie

 

 

Very nice site. :Thumbup:

 

Now that you've had your site looked at, etc on DJU, do you intend to add a DJU banner to your site?!

 

 

Thanks!

 

Do you have some HTML for the banner?

 

Robbie

[Paul Smith 0]

Do you think I should drop the graphic from the logo? Or is it the design of the speaker you don't like?

 

Although the colours match in I just feel that the speaker doesn't fit with everything else. The site has a certain 'classy feel' about it but that speaker doesn't. I know I'm being picky here but it's the little things that can make a big difference. I don't really have any suggestions on what to replace it with though.

 

[TonyB 0]

 

 

Do you have some HTML for the banner?

 

Robbie

 

HTML for banners is here http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=2972