January WSOM - Official Nominees!

[Andrew Lenz]

Ok, here's the 10 nominees for the January Website of the Month Award.

GUIDELINES (Just like last month.) Bob D.'s wise words:
1) Every site is the result of the hard work and best efforts of the webmaster - they will all have considerable pride in their site - as they should, and we don't want to insult or alienate anyone.

2) We would like to see public discussion, using the sites as a starting point, on what you (the viewer) likes about the sites, or what you are not to crazy about. If you're not too crazy about something, or you don't like something - please offer those comments in a constructive fashion.. - a simple example.. if you hate a site's frames .. you could suggest alternatives to frames, and give examples of the problems you see in the frames..

So we want LEARN from these sites.

Also, we want to keep in mind we want to critique the WHOLE site, that includes CONTENT. If you think the site is something you'd bookmark even if it's not pretty, that should be considered. And the opposite case where sites that are pretty and are lacking appropriate content. (FYI, my original site won WSOY primarily by content. It's since been redesigned.)
Ok, in random order:


Reed Making by Byron Boddy
http://home.comcast.net/~brbergen/bb-000.html

Matt Willis
http://www.mattpiper.com

Sudbury and District Pipes and Drums
http://www.sudburypipeband.com

The PPBSO Niagara-Hamilton branch
http://ppbso.niagara-hamilton.org

Santa Cruz Pipes and Drums
http://www.santacruzpipeband.com


And the top five runner-ups from last month:


Midwest Highland Arts Fund
http://mhaf.org

Steve MacLeod Bagpipe Q & A
http://qanda.themacleods.net/qanda/

Mark Saul
http://www.marksaul.tv/

Bagpipe Chat
http://www.bagpipechat.com

Glencoe Knitwear
http://www.glencoeknitwear.co.uk



Discussion is now open. WE WANT COMMENTS.

In a couple weeks, I'll post a poll for voting.

And remember . . . PLAY NICE!!

Andrew

p.s. If YOU want to nominate any site for a future WSOM, e-mail me.

[Mark A. deJong]

My comments on 3 of the sites:

I'm guessing that the Reed-making site is nominated for its content, which is great! Design is simple but effective -- my only advice is get rid of the background (but that's just a personal bias). Overall thoughts: :thumb: :thumb:

Matt Willis: Looks strikingly familiar -- looks like something I would make. I like your "About the Pipes" section and the fact that you used your own pipes for pictures. Overall -- good content, good layout: :thumb: :thumb: :)

[Steve MacLeod]

For what it's worth, potential voters should probably not assume that any of the sites from last month are "static", but should take another quick view to see what's going on with them.

Specifically, I'd like to invite anyone/everyone who looked at Steve MacLeod\'s Bagpipe Q&A site (http://qanda.themacleods.net/) last month to look again.

I got a copy of Frontpage 2003 for Christmas and I think you'll all agree that the navigation and presentation are much "smoother" than the previous version.

I've also left a link to an updated version of the older frames site for those who haven't upgraded browsers in the past few years.

For those who commented on my site, thank you! I hope you'll be able to see that your input - both with respect to content and to format - has been very valuable.

[Mark A. deJong]

Wow Steve! It looks 100000% better. Content is still A+++ too -- I use your site about once a week!
Mark

[Steve MacLeod]

Thanks, Mark! I'm really pleased with the outcome.

John Allison provided some great ideas, suggestions and examples along with a basic structure. From there I was able, with Santa's help ala a new editing program, to take it further.

Now if I can just get the darn FP site search engine to work, then people will be able to search through all that content for the nuggets that they want!

[redhairedpiper]

The website for Sudbury and District Pipes and Drums site was transformed from a patchwork "get to it when time allowed" kerfuffle to a straight forward easy to navigate site. It was transformed after I answered a post in this forum for "free website design"

It was taken on, cleaned up, and I fear it (I :thumb:

[Ray Bergen]

Originally posted by Mark A. deJong:
My comments on 3 of the sites:

I'm guessing that the <span style="font-weight: bold">Reed-making site is nominated for its content, which is great! Design is simple but effective -- my only advice is get rid of the background (but that's just a personal bias). Overall thoughts: :thumb: :thumb:
</span>Mark,

Thanks for your kind comments on Byron Boddy\'s Reed Making (http://home.comcast.net/~brbergen/bb-000.html) site. As to the background, those pipes go back to my first piping related website and I guess I've fallen in love with them over time...

[Ray Bergen]

Originally posted by Steve MacLeod:
I got a copy of Frontpage 2003 for Christmas and I think you'll all agree that the navigation and presentation are much "smoother" than the previous version.
Steve,

I took a look at your new and improved website and was generally impressed with both its content and navigation. However, when viewed through Netscape (v7.1), my browser of choice, the navigation "pulldowns" overlaid the feature list and make it very difficult to go to other features in the list.

But, when using Internet Explorer (v6.0.2800) the "pulldowns" appeared to the right and of the feature list as I'm sure was intended.

I'll bet that the Netscape problem is caused by FrontPage which thinks there is only one browser in existence.

[Andrew Lenz]

Originally posted by Ray Bergen:
I'll bet that the <span style="font-weight: bold">Netscape problem is caused by FrontPage which thinks there is only one browser in existence. </span>I've already contacted Steve about issues on Macs. His site doesn't work using the lastest Internet Explorer (under OS 10.3.2) or an old Netscape Navigator 4.78 (under Classic mode).

What DOES work is Apple's new Safari browser that I just now tried. Looks just like it is supposed to (Steve sent me screen shots from his Windows machine). I think I'll be switching browsers here pretty quick!

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft Frontpage has been designed to generate code that only works correctly only on Windows systems!

Andrew

[Piper_Rick]

Steve

I have always been impressed by the content
of your web site. Well done on the new
face lift. :thumb:

Rick

St. James Gate Pipe Band
http://www.stjamesgatepipeband.150m.com

[Steve MacLeod]

(Andrew, This is getting way off your original topic. )

I'm a little chagrined that I mentioned that my web page (http://qanda.themacleods.net/) was upgraded - only to have it bomb out on both Macs AND Netscape. I wanted to let the Netscape crowd that I've "fixed" the issues with that browser - at least on version 7.1 - which I downloaded today.

The problems were two-fold:

Much of my page is a table. Most of the columns were defined widths to accommodate the menus and bars. The main info column width was left undefined to take up the remaining space. IE did as I'd intended while Netscape proportioned the remaining space amongst all the columns and allowed them to shift. Once the main info column was defined to be 100% (of what was left), it works perfectly on both browsers.

Also, I learned that IE will handle "font-size: 10 pt;" in a CSS just as you might expect, but Netscape doesn't. They both handle "font-size: 10pt;" (note no space!) correctly.

Anyway, thank you all for the kind and gentle words. Now, I've got to find someone nearby with a Mac.....

Steve MacLeod

[Marc]

Steve

Sorry, was in holidays so I wasn't able to answer your private mail. I'll do this now here.

Navigation's much better now on your site, also the overall look. With this quality content it is now very impressive. Page of the year at least.
It is fast loaded, good structured.

Only one bitter pill: I'm dommed to use IE5 here at work so the pull-right menu sliver under the main table. Strange.

Andrew: IE for OSX isn't important no more. If it has problems with some sites, doesn't matter, M$ don't work on an new version any more. So i'd like to say: IE for Mac is dead. The future is Safari although it's non-perfectness. Important is that a page is viewable in Safari, cause many third party sw use it's engine.

Greets

[Andrew Lenz]

Originally posted by Marc:
IE for OSX isn't important no more. If it has problems with some sites, doesn't matter, M$ don't work on an new version any more. I'll confirm that. Microsoft announced about a month or two ago that they were discontinuing IE for Mac. Too much Safari competition. BUT, I'd expect it to be used quite a bit for the next year or so by a lot of folks who don't upgrade by habit. Can't hurt to be compatible as long as you don't have to sacrifice compatibility with browers that will be around in coming years.

Andrew

[Bob Norris]

And the winner is?

[Andrew Lenz]

Oops, sorry Bob. I probably should have posted something in the Webmasters forum.

BD and I wanted to try a different tact. The poll got restarted over in the Beer Tent and extended through February 7th. If you voted in the Webmasters poll, you'll need to vote again in the Beer Tent version as the previous poll got trashed.

We're hoping for more voting. So far, hasn't helped much, but it was worth a shot.

Andrew

[Glencoe Knitwear]

For those of you who may be interested, our website was also produced on a Mac. So far there have been no reports of any problems opening the site as we kept it reasonably simple, ensuring support of all the main Web Browsers.