Right!, I have basically got my site up good and proper for the first time, with everythin workin as it should etc. probs fixed.

I'm not sure what to do next with it, and I thought that maybe, just maybe the good old trap' community could help me out

If anyone would mind takin a quick look over, its pretty small so shouldn't take long.... Critiques and sunshine people appreciated alike
OOPS! Almost forgot to show the sites' address! lol my bad, here it is - www.projectjim.co.uk

Thanks, james

This post has been edited by Jimmy: Jul 29 2006, 03:54 PM

Well, just let's say: Most impressive! You have done a real professional job.

I pinched a link from your site, moon river photography. Like you say, inspirational pics. And your own pictures are very good.

My suggestion
Have you thought of doing a photo blog? I think that might be good idea for two reasons:

1. It shoudn't be hard for you to do, and for example, a trip to Sark will probably give you lots of material that you can drip out over several months, interspersed with other pics so people don't get thoroughly sick of Sark. You don't have to post every day, a couple of times a week is fine, most visitors would be looking at the archives anyway. Just post a lot to start with to give the blog a bit of a shot in the arm at the start. Then if a new pic appears every three or four days, people will want to come back, and if people start commenting, you will know that you have arrived.

2. A photo blog is a good way to get people to visit your site in the first place. You could submit your blog to http://www.photoblogs.org/ that will help direct people in your direction, and there are probably other directories as well.

Here are a couple of links to look at:
http://www.tenyearsofmylife.com/ is a site that doesn't put a new picture up very frequently, but I like the layout and the quality of the pictures is excellent -- just as long as there are not too many baby pictures.

Then, http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/ post a new pic every day, his blog wins prizes, and he has a forum which is a good place to pick up tips on digital photography.

That's it, perhaps you will get some suggestions about games.

When you go to Sark it will feek like a step back in time

took a peek. Seems a little drab to me. The text color is not contrasted enough from the background except for the hyperlink hover color. Maybe a little lighter shade of text and some other color for the hover effect. The layout is very professional looking. Love your picture display effects and the pics as well. Especially "A Muddy Way". I fool around with photography myself so can appreciate the cool shots. Glad to see I am not the only one that picks unusual subject matter. My husband thinks I am crazy when I show him some of my results. I guess he just doesn't understand or get the aesthetics of it all. Keep up the good work, and I just may steal your idea with the blurb about Trap 17 at the bottom of the home page.

I would probably use a brighter font color in order to make your site easier to read. Let's start with that. I recommend white. You could put in a banner and that will get you started. Your site is nice and organized it just needs some color or graphics of some sort. Your mouseover is nice I think you just need to add more graphics.

Well I think it is a ok website but there is always something to work on so get going on it!Also try looking at other websites and try some of their designs.(Do not copy them for that is ilegal )
What I am trying to say is kinda of use there style.

I just took a quick peek of your homepage. Here's my comment:

1) Graphics:
- You might want to reduce the size (in kB not res) of the pictures on the main page. Maybe cropping them to suit your need. I noticed that there was this black and white photo... try to save it as gif (using 64 colours of monotones is more than enough). -> Photoshop CS -> ctrl + alt + shift + S -> choose your preference; Should do the trick.

2) Layout:
- I like your layout. Simple and neat. The colour sheme is ok. You could choose a lighter shade for the text.

I think thats all. From a web programmer's POV, good job!

p/s Thanks for the simple viewer. Nice photos neways! Keep up the good work.

Review:

• Frames - There is always an alternative to these in my opinion. Rather than using frames, try using this code instead:
  
  
  HTML
  <!-- Navigation -->
  
  <div style="height: 800px; width: 500px; overflow: scroll"> <!-- Content --> </div>
  
  
  Search engines cannot read through frames so this is really bad SEO which will hinder the rate of your traffic increase. If you insist on using frames, consider having a good message for those browsers with no frame support which are largely search engine bots nowadays:
  
  
  HTML
  <noframes> Visit mysite.com for games, photos and proxies </noframes>
  
  
• Colour Scheme - The text colour is too indifferent to the background colour and makes it hard to find and read. Although now I've spent time trying to locate the text, I can read it perfectly well, if I was in a rush I may've left.
  
• Speed - The next thing I noticed was how long the page took to load. According to FASTERFOX page load timer, it was close to 40s on 56KB/s modem. I'd consider lowering the sie of your images and read this web speed report:
  
      [/tab] >> http://www.websiteoptimization.com/service...ain/default.htm
  
• Proxy - Finally, if there's one thing I'd remove if I were you, it's the proxy. Proxies are forbidden at trap17.com:
  
  [tab] >> http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?s=&...ndpost&p=227419

However, on the whole the site looks very good There were only a few minor technicalities which needed addressing and they can all be sorted out in a short time.

Thanks everyone for this feedback...

firstly, Mik, I had thought of it and dismissed it, but it does seem to be a good idea. It would be simple to do, as I could just link to it through my "photos" section, plus I hadn't thought of submitting to 'em either, and that would definitely help get some traffic...
yes, i do have a lot of pics, and will have many more cos of sark, plus i have tonnes of better, more recent ones that I just havn't had time to pick out, convert down and put on there yet, so i could begin the drip feed soon!

Mich: lol likewise, unusual subjects are most often very interesting, just a shame i can't drive to go find more of em! the text colour is, I agree a little drab, what would you reckon about something like the green, blue or orange text color in plenoptic's console box (with my current dark background?)?? I kinda like the blue? any suggestions for colours / and / or the overlay hyperlink colours too to match / not look stupid?
and haha yeh the blurb at the bottom, not my idea in the first place!!! I "borrowed" it from the bottom of someone else's footer too ah well I don't think anyone minds!

plenoptic: yeh, more graphics, its just a hard place to start... I just have to find some ones that don't over-clutter the site too much. the brighter font colours is also an issue i can see now, shouldn't be too hard to change - i kinda like the colours of the writing in your console, or is that just eyeball hurting stuff that looks only good to me? I will set about getting stuff to graphic it up.

lol thanks typo, got a good chuckle you have any sort of sites in mind or maybe a light colour background? smaller section, bordered in the middle of the window?

Luitenant zulfa: good points - it seems that the major problem is text colour for people, i will try and choose a more appropriate one to this, to make sure you don't strain your eyes as much0
thx. i have more photos, many more, to come, I just havn't found the will power yet to tackle the biggest section of the site by hand! rest assured i will stop being lazy some time in the future I hadn't thought of getting the photos down in size, I don't have photoshop, but I do have picture it 9, which should do the trick nicely too. I will add this helpful suggestion to my to correct list!

Mr. Ink! - thanks very much for that tip, I was wondering why SEO didn't work so well after submitting to google, if at all, I only learnt html and css myself pretty recently, and coded everything myself too, so this means i'm not really familiar with what you said with div tags etc. I'll go searching for instructions on these later...
the text colour problem, I may have to change, having one of these "brightview" screens or sumthing for a laptop kinda make it much easier for me i guess i went barging in, tho I did try and get stuff to work in different screen sizes! (I think it does)
Apologies about the proxy, it never occurred to me to check it out - It is removed now...
That site for SEO is pretty good, I have bookmarked it and will be checking out if a new layout will help.

Thanks everyone who helped out
I will set to work !

This post has been edited by Jimmy: Jul 30 2006, 04:28 PM