OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[unknown lions fan]

I'd be interested in receiving any feedback on our new company website at http://www.accucam.net

I built it myself using Wordpress blogging software, stripping out all of the stuff that makes it look like a blog.

There is one little bug I still have to work out, at least that I can see. When viewing in Internet Explorer, the RFQ page changes fonts. IE isn't really all that great when working with CSS.

[romster]

Dave, I looked your site over earlier when I was at work. Nice job and well written. A couple suggestions...

There's too much white space at the top of each page. I'd move everything up a bit. The writing is good and gramatically correct, however on the welcome page, I'd change from paragraph form to bullet points. It would be more compelling for your visitors and potential clients.

A rewrite suggestion:

We are a precision machined components manufacturer located in Coopersville, Michigan. We specialize in:

Quality (hyperlink to your Quality page)
Industry-Leading On Time Performance (hyperlink to your On Time page)
Best In Class Technology (hyperlink to your Capabilities page)

I'm not sure "Best In Class" accurately captures your intent so that verbiage may need to be modified.

[-Deborah-]

The best advice I can give you is to ask yourself who your target audience is and how you think they will be viewing your site. Then emulate it. If you think most of the folks looking for a quote will be viewing on an 800x600 resolution display, see what your site looks like with that. I think you'll find Rommy's remark about the white space a very serious problem in that resolution.

Otherwise, I think it looks nice for just using Wordpress.

[SeattleLionsFan]

I agree about too much whitespace. I also noticed the pics all turn into hyperlinks...I don't know if that's on purpose or not.

[unknown lions fan]

Thanks romster - I need to figure out how to reduce that white space at the top - it's in the theme css, and there's just one "padding" setting. I put it where it's at to get good white space on the sides, and it gave me more than I wanted at the top.

I agree that I need to change the welcome page, it shouldn't tell people to refer to the links on the left. I'll work on that tomorrow.

[unknown lions fan]

Deb,

It's definitely a business-to-business site, and my target audience is someone who buys these components, so at least I think I'm OK there.

I used to manage e-commerce initiatives ten years ago, and we typically designed sites for 800 x 600 back then - is that still what the industry goes for?

I reduced my resolution down to 800 x 600 and the white space seems the same to me, on any page, using both firefox and IE. Am I missing something in the feedback you all have provided? I do need to reduce it.

SLF, good catch on the image links. I overlooked that one, I guess it's the program default to link them. I went in and edited them out.

[unknown lions fan]

Aha - figured out the spacing issue. I'm new to style sheets. I reduced the top and bottom but left the sides like they were.

[SeattleLionsFan]

ULF, I also think this paragraph is way too wonky. You know your customers way better than I, but these paragraphs are too full of jargon which may be unfamiliar to the average user. If it is, another page detailing your philosophy or approach might be better. You don't want people put off by your About Us page.

David brings two decades of manufacturing process and quality expertise to Accucam, and has transformed the company into a model of continuous improvement and world class manufacturing. Our methodologies are based on a theoretical foundation built by W. Edwards Deming and his mentor, Walter Shewhart. The theory of variation and the scientific method of problem solving and process improvement is built into our culture. The four-sectioned circle in our logo represents the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle in tribute to the great quality pioneers Deming and Shewhart.
Our culture is one of continuous learning and freedom of the individual, built around a model of information sharing that encourages and empowers team members to better serve customers with access to the information they need.

[DeanUK]

ULF, I think if you close the <code> tag (</code> than tht will sort out the font in your request a quote page. In fact I expect you could just remove it.

A good place to check css and your coding is here http://validator.w3.org/

[unknown lions fan]

SLF, the customer is a technical buyer or an engineer, so the references to Dr. Deming and Shewhart and the theory of variation really say something to the ones who understand the philosophy.

For those who don't know much about what I'm talking about, they typically just read over what they don't get anyway - they're used to the technical jargon.

BTW, there is a paragraph break between "Deming and Shewhart." and "Our culture is..." in your browser, isn't there? The quote box doesn't have a break between them, maybe that's just how the forum software put it together?)

[unknown lions fan]

DeanUK, I plugged the page into the tool you pointed to, and it has picked out thirteen errors that would not have been anything I edited (?) Are they flaws in the coding of the plugin?

I have a hard time understanding the raw html and how to relate it back to the CSS and php. I'll poke around with it and see if I can find the fixes.

I also have two firefox plugins that help me find this stuff - Firebug and Web Developer. Maybe they'll help fix the issues.

[DeanUK]

DeanUK, I plugged the page into the tool you pointed to, and it has picked out thirteen errors that would not have been anything I edited (?) Are they flaws in the coding of the plugin?

I have a hard time understanding the raw html and how to relate it back to the CSS and php. I'll poke around with it and see if I can find the fixes.

I also have two firefox plugins that help me find this stuff - Firebug and Web Developer. Maybe they'll help fix the issues.

Yes it probably is a flaw of the plugin. It might be that they display correctly in all browsers anyway, just that they don't conform to the W3C standard. If they display ok then it's not really anything to worry about. It can however help if there is a problem.

I got this book when switching to CSS and found it really helpful http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-You...sxp_grid_i_0_2 although not all the reviews are that glowing!

[froot loops]

That paragraph SLF quoted gives me headaches.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Cool ULF. and yes, there is a paragraph break in there.

[mason reese]

Anybody hear about the "Eee PC"? I guess it's new laptop from Asus. My Dad is interested in them and wanted me to do some research...