php_penguin

Okay, first time doing a review in a while. * The logo is really nice. However the BETA looks silly... * The photo looks really young ... and the smily face in the signature? lol... * The font color is waaaaaaay too light. The blue from your logo would be much more suitable. * On, for example, the logo design page, the links look a bit haphazard. Maybe putting them on new lines, aligned right OR at the start of each bulltet would help. Expats comments are more comprehensive, but this is just what I feel are the key points.

Well there are the questions...

When I have done direct-to-owner sites (i am doing more outsourced work atm), I follow this scheme: - initial talk. What the site is about, who the target audience is etc. Then i suggest a vague colour scheme (eg dark blue & orange), as well sketch out a couple of designs on paper - really wireframe stuff... The client can draw here too. Vague cost estimate at this stage. - go and flesh out the designs with the right colour schemes, as well as start on the backend scripting. 2 weeks here. - second talk. The design is chosen at this stage, but can still be changed. Any further concerns that either I or the client have at this tage are discussed. At the end of this, a more accurate costing can be established, and a mini-contract (i'll do the work if you pay me to do it etc, upto limit of £ XXX amount) is signed. - properly do the chosen design, with all elements designed. get the first draft of the scripting done, so the site "works". Email correspondence suits here for any small questions. - third talk. The semi-working site is shown in all its glory. The client almost always has changes at this stage. Work through every bit of the site, making sure he likes every bit. Write down all the changes, and tell him which ones will cost him extra (eg he suddenly wants a gallery or forum etc.) - make all the changes - fourth talk. Same as third really, but site should be much much closer to what the client wants tat this stage. - more changes. buy the domain name, prep the invoices (using http://invoicemachine.com) and print them out. - fifth talk. Payment is made (usually cheque, or direct bank transfer), and the site goes live within a few hours, or even minutes if you can. Project is signed off as complete. there is basically a contract at the start and an invoice at the end. The key is to keep your client informed at all stages. Any less than one email a week is bad. That process takes about 6 weeks most times.

also it can sometimes be wether you are connecting via the correct port (21) or if you are using ASCII/Binary transfer modes. edit: your firewall (maybe windows default) might be blocking it.

you could post what you need here? eg: First Name (textbox) Last Name (textbox) Email Address (textox) Why are you contacting us (Dropdown, "I am bored", "I have a question") etc... this could also help you see how the more experienced of us go about it.

np SpikeZ ... not like i'm gonna haul off and smash your face in for this massive infraction of my awesomeness

submit the form to this (changing variables where appropriate): <?php $emailTo = "you@hotmail.com"; $subject = "Contact Form"; $emailField = "Email_Address"; $message = ""; foreach( $_POST as $key=>$value ) { $message .= str_replace("_"," ",$key).": ".$value."\n\n"; } $mail = mail( $emailTo, $subject, $message, "From: ".$_POST[ $emailField ] ); if($mail){ print "Succesfully sent mail"; } else { print "Mail Failed"; } ?> just change $emailTo, to your email address and emailField to the input which corresponds to the users Email Address and subject to a more appopriate subject and message, you can prepend/append text onto that. very simple mailer, if you need it in a rush without validation./

there is still a server interaction. The scripting requests a page without the users implicit instruction. Just because there is no DB processing/scripting going on doesn't mean it is not AJAX.

i have done this a couple of times for various sites, but it tends to be a custom written script. It isn't too hard really, just have a MySQL DB with this schema: id INT(5) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, parent INT(5) UNSIGNED, filename VARCHAR(255), title VARCHAR(255), description VARCHAR(255) will do it. the "parent" would be an ID link to the car it is related to. then to get the realted pictures, simply do a query searching for that parent.

it happens when i click the settings thing... but only occasionally.

try looking in hotscripts... heres the right category: http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_...ries/index.html

it seems a bit unstable on WinXP-64 ... it has crashed 3 times for me.... luckily i hadn't actually used it at that point

yes.. something like this: $(document).ready(function(){ $("<img src='http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1139563/2/istockphoto_ 1139563_birthday_balloons.jpg' style='position: absolute; top: 0; left: 300px;' />").appendTo("body").animate ({top: '+4000px'}, "slow"); }); seriously... include the jQ library, save that in, and watch the 1 balloon fall slowly from the heavens.. in a straight line... lol

improvements i would make: * make the logo bigger - about twice the size * add some padding between the menu bar and the "Welcome" pink text. * put a more definite boundary between the right and left column, maybe having one of them with a different background * put the quote in a different colour, possibly in its own content box. * center the thumbnail in the right column, put them in a grey background colour - poss glossy/gradient * make the headers bigger thats about it for now. overall it is ok - it will do, but it could be better.

nice... might even get it running under WinE for my dev machine.

try posting this on sitepoint - there a couple of mod rewrite buffs over there.

I use AppServ for my windows server... Its ultra-simple set up, and has plenty of downloads for different PHP/MySQL versions - it also comes iwth PHPMyAdmin. However, setting it up on the server is best left to the server admin... its not easy for a windows buff to work with Linux for the first time

hmm, i think you missed a word here: and write emotional songs it should be: and write bad emotional songs welcome to the forums Kira, and get posting!

XHA: quite a lot of any pages content is taken up by the header/footer code and the CSS/Javascript files. Only a small portion is taken up by the actual page-specific content. In this case I reckon only about 30% of the overall page size is actually content. The rest is wrapping, styling, and scripting. I reckon this way actually reduces server load.

have language links in the header, possibly using the FamFamFam slik flags icon set. Perhaps even a center-column box with an english (american/british) flag on one side and a Japanese flag on the other side. You could then have your content below that (and only show the box once or twice per-session).

update: heres a link which might help: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533034.aspx

i am pretty sure there is a way to save the font to your server, and link to it using the LINK tag... however i have never tried this, and am not even sure it is possible - i might have misread it or sommat.

you need a couple of things: * a shirt and a decent pair of trousers... not neccesarily a tie though * a good notebook and fancy pen, as Dizi said * a laptop is quite useful, especially so later on in the project for showing off your work so far. * aftershave/deodarant (but not too much), as well as clean breath, clean skin, clean hair, clean clothes etc * a phone so you can phone for a quick get away.. a couple of things to remember: * the client is the one paying you money.. he is your boss, and expects to be treated as such * however, don't be a stiff ass. Laugh at his/her jokes and pop some too - just not anything racist sexist or rude at first * don't argue... if you have a valid reason to say something, then yeah.. but just saying "no that is a rubbish idea" is bad. * accept a drink if they offer it, at least in the first meeting... * don't put pressure on them at all. Only talk numbers when they talk numbers. * if they ask for a price, try and be quite broad... eg "from what you have told me so far, between £800 and £1200" * try and look out for their interests - for example do they need this kind of site, or even a site at all. hope this helps.

quite good, only thing i might suggest is: try a different hover effect for the links as the underline is a bit understated & try using a cropped rather than resized image for the "featured site" bit - you can't tell a damn thing from that image other than "crimson" and that you use the default XP theme...

this sounds like a brilliant way to waste my money... it is wonderful how much more efficient we are getting at trashing our bank accounts