Redmond Consulting (was - Re: hwg-critique-digest V1 #70)

Hello Steven,
visited with NS4, T1, large res/hicolor

Following are my views, opinions and suggestions:

1. Figure out a color scheme and stick with it ... your table coloring
interferes with the BODY elements and that's poor design.  It also goes on
to display yellow on white, cyan on white, blue on navy ... and so on
throughout the site.

2. "Site designed for Netscape Navigator 3.0, 800x600" is not correct ...
you are using non-NS tags and your tables adjust to whatever width I choose
(which is a good thing) ... in other words, this should be removed.  You
also go on to say deep down in your portfolio (Sites page), Bells and
Whistles to be exact, that ... I better quote it, "If you are using
Microsoft Internet Explorer, most of these tools will not work. Netscape
Navigator is vastly superior, do us all a favor and run out and buy a
copy!"  You are a tad bit misinformed here ... as a matter of fact, most of
the tools weren't even working in NS ... If you must insist on showing your
skills for a particular browser, try developing a single page for each
browser you intend on showcasing and only use specifics like
tags/elements/attributes/etc ... for that browser.

BTW, the clock wasn't working ... the following is why:
[BEGIN]
[BODY BACKGROUND="images/booj09x.gif" BGCOLOR="#ffffff" TEXT="#000080" 
LINK="#00ffff" VLINK="#00ffff" ALINK="#ff00ff" [p ALIGN="CENTER"
onload="startclock()"
onload="window.showIt()" onload="StartShow()" onunload"stopshow()"
onload="doCookie()"]
[END]

... it should be clearly evident that the above will not work as it is
intended.  ( note the brackets were replaced with [] )

3. You appear to have the "WE" disease (meaning ... if you are an
independent/freelancer, say so.)  According to your resume, which doesn't
even list this new startup of yours BTW, you are currently employed
elsewhere.  There is nothing wrong with being a part-time freelancer ...
what is wrong is the fact that you are misrepresenting yourself and that's
not good business.  You also do not mention the fact that you are
supposedly the webmaster for your employer as your resume would have us
believe, yet you do not list any reference to that address of the works.
Then again ... you and I both know the reasons for that, don't we?  Need I
elaborate?

4a. The "Sites" page has your personal page listed first (Stillpoint: A
personal page developed for Steven Lindsey) ... It's not a good
representation of the new business you want to start.  I would remove the
personal site ... plus, you're speaking in third person when you are really
talking about yourself and your personal site.  It's dubious.

4b. The Medvid page doesn't appear to be your work ... I'm being honest
here ... it just doesn't look like anything else you've done, the writing
style is all different and it doesn't even use the same editors that you're
prone to using.  It has the author as Edward Medvid in the source and does
not list "Redmond Consulting" at all.  And to top it all off, this page has
a link back to your "Still Point" site as http://www.netrail.net/~laotzu/
(which is broken) as does another page in this chain,
http://www.wittnet.com/users/lindsey/ ... this page also appears to be
trying to get to the poems.

4c. "Thursday Night" ... you've added a page dedicated to you and your
friends' Thursday night activities on your "professional" portfolio?  Not
to mention the fact that the entire site is white on black (except for the
Black Ops pages [red on black]).  The image map could use ALT= even though
you've been considerate in your naming convention for the files themselves,
it would keep the user focused on the navigation rather than having them
move over the link, look at the bottom, look back at the image, move over
the image, look at the bottom ... and so on.  Plus there is no text links,
so it would be helpful for the visitors to see that the image is actually
an imagemap and they would need to roll over it more than once.

4d. St. Julienne Church and School & Bakery - Although these are sample
sites.  It would behove you to remove them from your portfolio until there
is actually something to see ... instead of "Development is occuring in
this area. Please practice patience."  Were I the recipient of this
pro-bono work, I would not be pleased in the least with this statement.
It's also in need of a spell checker.

4e. Bell and Whistles ... javascript error already mentioned, the bgsound
didn't load ... you go on to say that you intend on showcasing the good,
bad and ugly of writing code AND "Hopefully, you will appreciate the clean
style which Redmond Consulting strives for."  within a hard return's
distance ... I would suggest you defined what is good, clean writing ... is
this to mean your poetry?  your HTML code?  What?  Plus, there is nothing
here ... no offerings ... how is this page going to enhance your portfolio
... try to be a bit more realistic.

5. Artwork ... "Lots of BIG files on this page. Be prepared to wait."
Frankly, there is no need for this statement.  If you tell me from the
git-go that the banners and logos are going to be BIG, then I would look
elsewhere for designers that are knowledgeable in image reduction and
enhancement for today's web.  Consider revising the statement.

6. Links ... Pagemill really messed with your code here ... consider
cleansing the extraneous code left by the editor.  Study the uses of the
TABLE, TR and TD ... you will be able to position your content into a more
readable and organized fashion instead of what is currently available ...
most notably ... ALIGN=top (this would be a good start)  As for the content
... it looks like a converted bookmark file ... no explanations of the
destinations ... some of the titles are left justified and some are
centered ... the color scheme really is annoying on this page ... blue,
cyan, fuchsia, yellow on navy ... cyan on white ... link color is blue on
navy ... and so on.

7. Files ... "We'll put some stuff here later."  Stuff like what?  Files of
what sort?  What is an empty page doing here?

8. Why doesn't your graphical navigation match your textual navigation?

*** END of Review ***

There is work to be done ... that should go without saying ...
Understanding the Internet and this business is not easy ... if you want to
move ahead ... you'll need to learn more about the way the Internet works
and your code needs strengthening as well as your understanding of the
standards of markup and presentation.

If I appeared overly critical ... I apologize ... Butt, you surely wouldn't
want me to mislead you into thinking that your site would draw me in as a
potential client, paying or otherwise.  Would you?  ... I would hope that
you'd want honesty.  I know I would.

Which brings me to this quote I saw just a few moments ago from Melissa ...
"Once you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny."

Best of luck in your new endeavor,
cmj




At 10:10 AM 2/5/98 -0500, Steven wrote:
>
>I've been a long time reading and reviewing people's pages.  I'd wonder if
>you could look at my web page and the associated pages beneath.  All
>reviews are welcome.  Thanks.
>
>http://www.pressroom.com/~redmond/
>
>Steve
>
>
>
>

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