Any Freeper have a web page

[Chad Fairbanks]

Bump.

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

A WWW. bump

[Jeff Chandler]

Rule #1: Keep the background subtle. Don't let it distract from or obscure the content.

Rule #2: Consider your audience. Not everyone browses with the same software and hardware. For instance, if you design your website for, say. 800 x 600 resolution, you could end up with some really weird results if your background image ends up tiling for people viewing with 1024 x 768.

Rule #3: It's usually best to just stick with a white or off white background, or put your content in a table or div with the same.

[Stewart_B]

Thanks. So, its better to stick with solid backgrounds than a picture background.

[meadsjn]

Rule #1: If your main page takes five or more seconds to load on a dial-up connection, 85% of your visitors will click away before any of your content is displayed.

[Stewart_B]

is there any way to make it load faster?

[meadsjn]

Yes. Don't use flash or heavy graphics on your main page. Avoid HTML generators and code your own HTML, if you can. Everyone doesn't want to bother with the HTML, but you can always save your graphics and multi-media for sub-pages.

If your site is a catalog or shopping cart site, you definitely don't want visitors leaving before they can see your main page. Once they have your main page and index loaded, perhaps more than 0% will follow your links to the pages with the stuff for sale or the stuff requiring the graphics.

[LibWhacker]

Here's mine. Brilliant, I'm sure you'll agree. I'm a webpage developing genius. Nobody's better. Nothing ever goes wrong with my webpage. I'm sure you'll want to copy it. On my page you'll find my Social Security Number. My address, phone number, pics of me and my family and kids, my license plate number, the serial numbers on all my guns. Oh wait! . . . I hope you're not a DUmmy trolling for personal info on Freepers.

[Jeff Chandler]

Only use the graphics you need for your content, and optimize those to as small a file size as possible without degrading the quality. As a general rule, use JPEGs for photos and GIFs for grahics with solid colors.

Try to keep the total size of the html file and all graphics and other elements to under 100KB.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

Brilliant. 404. File not found.

[Jeff Chandler]

And here's mine.

[Stewart_B]

So...the less jpgs the better.

[Stewart_B]

Naw, my page is just going to be simple stuff nothing commercial.

[Jeff Chandler]

You can have jpgs, just keep them under control. Breaking the content up among several pages is a good way to display the photos without loading down any one page.

A word of caution: don't give out any personal information or put pictures of your kids on your website. Protect your privacy.

[LibWhacker]

And now to try to actually be a little helpful for a change (I don't really have a reason for thinking you're a DUmmy. I'm just real paranoid after freeping for the last six years!) even though I don't know beans about webpage design: Yahoo's Web Page Design and Layout. Cheers! --LW :-)

[Stewart_B]

Thanks, my wife is pretty cautious and she has told me to be.
Must be a lot of people trying to view her page because it appears to have crashed. I cant even get into it ...lol.

[Stewart_B]

Thank you LibWhacker.

[Syncro]

Yea that is the problem with free websites.

Call your ISP provider, they usually have some space for web pages for their clients.

Good luck

[meadsjn]

Still you have a target audience. Your main page took 35 seconds to load on a rural 26kbps dial-up. Most people in the hinterlands don't have high-speed access unless they have a satellite connection, and they would only have that if they have money to burn.

Your rolling headline links to the Israeli news are pretty neat.

Some people are prejudicial towards sites with black backgrounds, or high contrast, or bright colors, or moving, blinking stuff. Those are all personal preferences. One way to guage the effectiveness of your site is to have some honest, close friends (preferably those who share the views you are trying to represent) review it and provide useful feedback, even if it isn't flattering.