posted
I claim Narnia too! She's my acolyte! And that makes her fellow acolytes with all my other acolytes, Erik Slaine and Toretha and Human and The Rabbit and Anna and Black Fox. Then from there you have my two daughters, Saudade and Jaiden, and then one really should account for all the siblings through Bernard. JaneX (hi sis) finally gave me a complete list of those. Pod is one and kwsni and Black Fox again and who all else? Darn! I'm forgetting them! And don't even talk about grandminions! I have more of those than I can count. Myr and T_Smith and Apostle Radio (prolixshore) being prominent among them. We should definitely make a huge family tree showing all the relationships. I wonder if PAF can be extended for connections like minionship and acolytism? We really need to work on that. Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote: Everyone's dying to know what's going on with the Ralphie/dek/T_Smith saga
Nathan is staying with us in a little over a week.
More later.
(Greg - you remain one of my favorite Hatrackers, as does Kira. You guys both RAWK, and when I'm not able to post most here it's people like you guys I miss the most. Thanks for the landmark. )
Posts: 7600 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Posting under a different name for an extended period does give you a different perspective, doesn't it? Newbies don't know that they should worship you, and oldbies who've been gone for a while want to know who the heck you are to address them without bowing and scraping!
quote:And we all should totally do something. Somewhere. at some point. Any ideas?
How 'bout GreNMEcon II in the spring?
Speaking of which . . . were the two of you already an item before we met you, or were we involved in your coupleness?
...And on being with Leo. I always thought you two would be good together so it's pretty neat to hear you guys are together. Also...
Yay for that new online business! I remember thinking it was great idea the first time you mentioned it here so best of luck with that and I hope things keep going well. Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
well there's not much to do yet as we're building content and a customer base. But everyone is welcome to look around and see what they think, and remember that it's still a work in progress! Well, not the site itself, but we'll be adding content and features over the next month or two.
If you want to see our example packages search for ZZ and TEST.
When we've got more content and start pushing the site with advertising, I'll be sure to post the link again.
Any and all comments welcome.
And thanks Pix, on both accounts.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Some suggestions for the site, from a technical perspective.
1) do some search engine tuning. Add the appropriate meta tags, particulary a description (otherwise your search engine results will look silly) and some keywords (don't make stuff up, google's good at noticing keyword stuffing, but judicious keyword choices will help your rankings)
2) add a preload script for those rollovers. You can find them all over the web, but if you don't have one dial up users are going to find your site hard to navigate. I'd be in favor of ditching the rollovers altogether, myself, as the navigation bar is unclear unless you roll over them one by one, and they being rollevers doesn't aid in any way: you're not trying to sell web design, you're trying to get people to browse your site.
3) fix the rather jagged logo. It doesn't look professional the way it is.
4) make it possible to search by zip code. Your searches are far too broad (for instance, I get every bar in new york city when I browse to there, which isn't really practical). Looking at your search results, I'm betting you'd have to refactor your database in order to do that. Do it soon, or redoing it will be a huge hassle later on. Heck, you could even do a "nearest bars" feature with a radius search, though that would involve paying out for access to one of the map databases for commercial use.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Oh, and the search functionality should be consistent. Add a submit button to the state page, instead of auto submitting. I realize its not necessary, but in a given user interface widgets should function consistently.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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1)i know...i just started researching all the search engine optimization stuff last week. and i had no idea how involved or complicated it was.
2)true...but they're just so snazzy! they do take unbelievably long for dial up though.
3)yeah, i'll give you that one. the guy we have doing the graphical stuff doesn't like it either. it was done by someone else..
4)we've been talking about changing the search options, for areas that are too broad. or maybe adding another listbox to narrow down places like new york and philly into smaller areas. eventually i'd like to maybe have a pictoral map that you can click on to narrow down your area. and we've thought of doing the distance search too, but that does involve money that we don't have yet. although honestly, i haven't researched how much that would cost. the database is actually set up to handle lots of this sort of stuff, cause when i was setting it up i foresaw alot of possible changes eventually and made extra tables and fields that i thought would eventually be beneficial.
5) how bout taking away the submit for the county?
again...thanks for your suggestions. if you notice anything else, more are welcome. i enjoy constructive criticism. especially considering i want to make money. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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on a more serious note, i'm betting the percentage of people in our target market that actually do use dial up is pretty low.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Taking away the submit for the county would be semi-okay, but then you'd still have the other list boxes using a submit button, and they need to. Consistency consistency consistency.
Search engines have greatly devalued meta tags as increasing search significance, but it has far from happened completely. Particular the description tag, which search engines use in their results, and is thus extra important. Even google still uses the keywords, though. A keyword appearing as a commonly used word to link to your site will increase your ranking on that keyword. So you should at least have a few keywords, like bar, clubbing, specials, drink specials, drinks, beer, mixed drinks, and maybe a few more.
For making sure its more cross platform you might discover what your markup is compliant with and put a schema statement at the beginning of your pages.
Remember that your target market is people who are looking at deals at bars. You never know who might have dialup ;-) . Plus, even on my rather quick dsl the rollovers have a noticeable delay. You need a preload script to get rid of that.
Another thing that would help your load times considerably (and save on your server bill) would be to optimize your images. I downloaded one of your menubar images, opened it in photoshop, chose save as, and saved it as the same type (jpeg), not very lossy.
Now check the sizes. The original is 11.6 kilobytes, while the one I made is 4.5. If the images are downloaded a mere five thousand times a month (this will hopefully be a quite conservative estimate), and similar savings are true (the savings will likely be much greater, I didn't put any effort into this optimization at all) for the other images in the menu bar, that's around 400 MB of transfer! And five thousand is likely to be a very conservative estimate as a regular visitor throughout the month would easily download each of those images 10 or 15 times, so once your site takes off expect to save several gigabytes of data costs a month.
Oh, and give me a bit and I'll be happy to clean up the logo for you. If you know the font, that would help, but I should be able to work ok-ish from the current verison (unless you have a higher res one somewhere).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
okay, i'm back. girls, you're going to have to stop feeling sorry for yourselves and make a stand. Get faster connections!
quote:Taking away the submit for the county would be semi-okay, but then you'd still have the other list boxes using a submit button, and they need to.
yeah, but the different lisbox sections are like completely different searches. especially if i add more choices to narrow down the area, and more choices for the special search eventually. I could have one top section that automatically submits, opening up a new box each time. and one large bottom one that has multiple simultaneous choices that need submitting because you have to pick more than one.
quote:You need a preload script to get rid of that.
i don't really know what a preload script is. but i can either research it, or you can tell me if it's easy to explain. i'm sort of winging all this.
quote:Another thing that would help your load times considerably (and save on your server bill) would be to optimize your images.
good advice. i'll get someone on that.
quote:Oh, and give me a bit and I'll be happy to clean up the logo for you.
well, i have a guy doing graphics. and we've been talking(arguing) about the logo. he doesn't like the current one on the site. for some of your reasons and more. but i'm not pleased with the ones he's been doing. we have like another 6 images for the logo. i'm trying to find a mix between the one on the site, and the style of these other ones we have. so far it hasn't happened. anyway, my point is i appreciate the offer, but we have nicer looking images, that clear up the stuff you're talking about, i just want them more in style like the one on the site, with the flash, and the faded/layered letters.
oh, and btw, feel free to keep the suggestions/criticism coming. i know there's alot of stuff i don't know that could be improved, i just happen not to know it.
posted
all a preload script does is, when your page loads it tells the browser to load and cache all the rollovers right away, before they are rolled over. This means they appear instantaneously, instead of after a delay.
new logos are always good. if you're tuning your graphics, might as well play with the saturation/color balance of the group of people in the top bar.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
thanks fugu, i took care of the preload script.
And we're working on the logo and optimizing the images.
oh, question, for keywords, do you think i should put states in as keywords to? Like throw in a New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York. Or even for biggers cities have Philadelphia, New York City, Boston?
or do i trust that if someone searches for Bars or specials in Boston. it'll find the site just from bars and specials.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I'd suggest putting as keywords "boston bars" and "new york bars" and such.
Also, make sure you use language in your text that is almost keyword-esque. You should mention all the important words, such as bars, and the names of some of the big cities, and drink specials. Google places high weight on in text words.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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And know we must stop, because we're already teetering dangerously at the edge of the Annie/Hobbes Blatant Flirtation and Shameless Self-Promotion Pit of Despair.
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I....I meant know. Like a commandment. "Know ye that thou must cease thine shameful promotion of thyself, for if thou wouldst teeter perilously close to the pit which breatheth fire and despair, thou shalt be consumed by it."
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We should definitely make a huge family tree showing all the relationships. I wonder if PAF can be extended for connections like minionship and acolytism? We really need to work on that. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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