cupidstoejam

I think this site is done! It's amazing!

The only one I like is the leaf Logo.

I'm afraid to say anything, you might get all pissed off again. My lasy comments stands. The design needs some visual clues as to what the site offers.

Follow this link for tons of different ways to make rounded corners for your box. It has CSS and JS ways. http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000044.php

How 'bout a cool image that has to do with babysitting under your scanlines. make it appeal to your audience more. The header is the first thing the view will look at, it should tell them what to expect. This header doesnt tell me anything.

Looking better! Keep at it!

This site isnt loading for me

Dude, this header is amazing! Can you sence my sarcasm. No, really, it needs more. Text is too small with such a large background. Maybe you're planning on putting other things in this header, but as is... needs more.

Screen readers need to be able to understand webpage structure to properly convery the information to the user. If an image has just an "alt" tag, that tells the screen-reader that its just an image. If you tell the screenreader that that image is a heading, it will be easy for the user to understand the structure better. screenreaders voice the content to the user. If its an H element, the reader says "heading 1" ...short pause... "Welcome to my site, or whatever". Its important to the user who makes use of screenreader, to have a very well structured page to understand the site better. The average person will not see a difference at all. I would research accessibility compliance. Soon, it will be the law. You can actually be sued for discrimination, but unlikely. to take the border off an image link... a img {border: 0;} or, whats really cool...This will make a border appear on hover. The transparent tag is a must, or you page would jump on hover to compensate for the border that wasnt there before. a img {border:3px solid transparent;} a img:hover {border:3px solid red;}

jcombs, I love the feel of this site. Great color scheme!!! Great nav!! This is prob my favorite design I've seen in here so far. A few things to think about: 1. The site doesnt validate. 2. some of the links in the top nav dont go anywhere. ie: Schedule-early release, Students-clubs-class-college visits, and all of Athletics. 3. the calender hover tool-tips are sweet. But when clicked, open a window that goes nowhere. 4. this is no big deal, but more funny than anything. your background.jpg is awsome, but has a cats head in the center. nobody sees it, but just kinda funny that it's there 5. your meta data needs to be shaped up for search engines. All-in-all, its a great looking site dude.

Twitch, 1. NRG is correct, this doent validate. Always validate your code before styling the site. 2. Strange, but nothing shows up in IE7 for me. Looks good in FF. 3. it looks weird to me with the left nav text justified right. creates gaps of whitespace. I dont like seeing a house, and have to look way to the right to see whats is said. 4. meaningful markup goes a very long way. All you box titles, should be H elements and with a slightly larger font size. 5. Your logo should be a link back to home. 6. I dont like the blue background behind the comments box under the entries. The comments box shouldnt stand out more then the entry title. I would lay things out as illustrated in the attached image file. keep in mind, h3's dont have to be smaller then h2's. but for screenreaders, they need to know whats more important. http://pixelbehavior.com/images/temp.jpg I really like the overall feel of everything. nice color scheme!

Sam, I dont have the time to go back and see what everybody else has said. So you may see some repeats. First thing I do when building a website, is reset all my browser styles. Then I construct meaninful markup making use of H elements. The way your markup is constructed (XHTML) will go a long way when it comes to validation and accessibility. W3 has a great checklist for accessability... http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html. I ALWAYS do all my XHTML before styles so I can see how it will look to a screen-reader. All XHTML should validate before you start to style. I would also research the different <!DOCTYPE that can be used. These are just some helpful ideas to push you further along. 1. The first thing I did to your site, was check to see if it validated. All your pages did!! That was very impressive!! 2. I see that your H1 element can be used in a better way. "read footbal news" should be your h2, not h1. H1 should be your masthead. see the below link for more info on image replacment. http://www.mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/ Screenreaders need to read your H1 as the title of the page, or logo. 3. Inline styles should be avoided. Try and keep content separate from design. This is why CSS was established. 4. I think your masthead image is way too large. You want all your important content to appear "above the fold". With lower screen rez, all good content appears below the fold. This is enough for now. I very very pleased with the progress you have made. You code better then many good designers I've seen with many more years under thier belt then you. Hell, some of them dont make good use of meta data, unlike you. Good work Sam, keep up the research. When you get more comfortable with CSS, I recommend buying this book by Andy Clarke http://www.transcendingcss.com/. Good luck Sam!

I love the coloe scheme. i dont like the white bar for discussion title. I do not see any masthead at all. I do see a very strange white verticle line in the center extending the entire height of the page. Also, the site does not validate.

1. the site does not validate. Validation should be successful before you ever begin style and design. 2. I agree about the Flash mast. Flash is also not accessible for people with disabilities. Accessiblity is something we should all adhere to. It changes the way we construct websites altogether. W3 has a good checklist .. http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/full-checklist.html 3. The left menu roll-outs should be a darker color that the main content grey, not just the hover-states. 4. Code semantics are important. Your code should be meaningful. I dont see any H (headings) elements anywhere. 5. too bad you're using tables for layout and design ??? I like the feel of the site. Its nice and clean. You've made good use of spacing.

The good, the bad, and the ugly, 1. The cork background seems over-powering to me. 2. The staples could look more realistic. 3. Shouldnt a music site have some kind of music player?

Its broken in FF

Thanks guys for all the help! All are great ideas.

Thank again!

PNG's fixed

I'm using two images for css reasons. I have the header image placed as a background for the header div. I wanted the entire header to link back to the home page. So I added the logo into the XHTML as a link that takes up the size of the header.

okay, all my PNGs are reduced!! should load much faster now!

WOW, I was wrong on both counts. PS can create PNGs with alpha trans. Fireworks can compress PNGs.

I always use "save for Web" with PS. I'm not using Photoshop with my .PNG files cause it doesnt support PNG's alpha trans, or does it? I am using Fireworks for PNG files. I was very impressed with how you had PS compress the PNGs. I didnt know they could be compressed. I'll have to research and play with this further! I am very happy with the compression of PNGs. I knew the files were HUGE, but didnt know how to get around it without using GIFs. GIFs dont handle gradients very well. Fireworks ( that I know of ) doesnt allow this compression. As far as sliding doors, that is something I was planning on doing from the start, but for one reason or another, didnt. Maybe I'll re-visit that option. You are correct with the fixed sizes VS using EMs. I was planning to go back and convert everything after I got the design down. Thank you very much for your constructive criticism. I feel its very important for every website to get feedback on al issues.

Events, Disability, Domestic violence, Shelter, .. just check that whole page. These did not validate, i stoped after Shelter.

Dial-up? wow, dude im so sorry This design makes use of alot of .PNG files for use of alpha transparency, and are never small in size.