user-removed

OSX is not more secure than Windows. It is simply not attacked as much. That doesn't equate to being more secure - even their own security experts admit that Windows 7/8 are more secure operating systems. And, when you place them side by side with a team of hackers - it's OSX that gets hacked quickest.
 
http://www.dailytech.com/Apples+OS+X+is+First+OS+to+be+Hacked+at+This+Years+Pwn2Own/article21097.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hack-windows-security-snow-leopard,8704.html
 
Windows is more secure specifically because it gets targeted. I've run three separate installs of Windows 7 and Windows 8 over the last 6 years and I've not had one single virus or malware. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
 
As for market share, I have a copy of Custom PC magazine from 2006 that states OSX's share in the desktop market at about 6%. Apparently it's now 7%, so their market share has barely changed in 7 years. You say Windows has lost 10% but I think that's rubbish, only when you start factoring in mobile devices and iPads can you portray MS as having lost market share. Windows 7 was the biggest and fastest selling OS in history. And Windows 8 has already overtaken Vista and using projected sales Windows 8 alone will be used by more people than OSX by about March/April time.
 
That isn't even the point however. The point is, specifically when it comes to the corporate market. Microsoft have it all sewn up. A few students and young people and trendy businesses adopting Mac OSX isn't going to change that because those are still very small numbers.
 
Take a bank for example. My brother helped build the IT infrastructure for one of the biggest banks in the world. Their entire network and systems and infrastructure runs on Windows, with some Linux on the back end. Their tens of thousands of staff know how to use Windows, and all the software that they use has been coded to only run on Windows.
 
Now are you seriously suggesting that there is a threat to that? Why would they switch to an OS that isn't designed to be used in that manner (OSX is designed for the end user) at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars...only for every single one of their staff to need training at great expense and great loss of revenue and all their software also need to be completely re-written to work on OSX? It would be such a tremendously huge operation for little or no gain.
 
I nearly forgot - you'd have to replace every single computer with Macs. Yeah - it's not going to happen.
 
Sorry, but Apple may make some minor inroads into the consumer desktop PC market, but Microsoft and Linux have the corporate industry sector sewn up so tight it will never switch over to OSX. It would be far, far too expensive and unnecessary. You can get a PC workstation suitable for general use for about £300...cheapest Mac is what...£1000? Come on, use your brain, it's never going to happen.

OSX is not more secure than Windows. It is simply not attacked as much. That doesn't equate to being more secure - even their own security experts admit that Windows 7/8 are more secure operating systems. And, when you place them side by side with a team of hackers - it's OSX that gets hacked quickest.
 
http://www.dailytech.com/Apples+OS+X+is+First+OS+to+be+Hacked+at+This+Years+Pwn2Own/article21097.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hack-windows-security-snow-leopard,8704.html
 
Windows is more secure specifically because it gets targeted. I've run three separate installs of Windows 7 and Windows 8 over the last 6 years and I've not had one single virus or malware. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
 
As for market share, I have a copy of Custom PC magazine from 2006 that states OSX's share in the desktop market at about 6%. Apparently it's now 7%, so their market share has barely changed in 7 years. You say Windows has lost 10% but I think that's rubbish, only when you start factoring in mobile devices and iPads can you portray MS as having lost market share. Windows 7 was the biggest and fastest selling OS in history. And Windows 8 has already overtaken Vista and using projected sales Windows 8 alone will be used by more people than OSX by about March/April time.
 
That isn't even the point however. The point is, specifically when it comes to the corporate market. Microsoft have it all sewn up. A few students and young people and trendy businesses adopting Mac OSX isn't going to change that because those are still very small numbers.
 
Take a bank for example. My brother helped build the IT infrastructure for one of the biggest banks in the world. Their entire network and systems and infrastructure runs on Windows, with some Linux on the back end. Their tens of thousands of staff know how to use Windows, and all the software that they use has been coded to only run on Windows.
 
Now are you seriously suggesting that there is a threat to that? Why would they switch to an OS that isn't designed to be used in that manner (OSX is designed for the end user) at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars...only for every single one of their staff to need training at great expense and great loss of revenue and all their software also need to be completely re-written to work on OSX? It would be such a tremendously huge operation for little or no gain.
 
I nearly forgot - you'd have to replace every single computer with Macs. Yeah - it's not going to happen.
 
Sorry, but Apple may make some minor inroads into the consumer desktop PC market, but Microsoft and Linux have the corporate industry sector sewn up so tight it will never switch over to OSX. It would be far, far too expensive and unnecessary. You can get a PC workstation suitable for general use for about £300...cheapest Mac is what...£1000? Come on, use your brain, it's never going to happen.

Agree about the logo size, also personally not too keen on the textured background.

Agreed...
 
Logo needs to be bigger it's totally lost amongst all the other elements on the page.

Wind your neck in!

Wind your neck in!

It should either be provided by the company or produced by a copywriter.

iems
 
All of the advice you have been given, especially by Pete and Rallport is spot on. There's no need for me to add anything to that. But I thought I'd just say the following...
 
Do not think you are alone in the position you are in now. Virtually all of us started out in a similar way to you, and at some point we all had to get knocked down and given a reality check. Those that can cope with that, learn from their mistakes, take the advice on board and start doing things properly - those are us who end up lucky enough to work in this industry. Those who can't, end up losing interest due to frustration and give up. I severely doubt a single person on this forum woke up one day and straight away started producing well designed, clean coded websites. We probably all started with "website builders" and tacky software.
 
My first foray into web design was slapping together websites on Yahoo Geocities. They were just as bad as yours - actually they were worse. They had no purpose. They were just a random assortment of images and text and videos.
 
I took it a little more seriously when I was about 15 by putting together pages for school projects using Front Page. Again, not really the correct way to build websites.
 
When I started participating in forums and communities for websites, showing my work, a few years ago I got knocked down too. I had people emailing me telling me to give up, that web design isn't for me, and that I was talentless. Seriously, some people struggle to toe the line between helpful criticism and harsh reality checks - and just being plain bullies. You're lucky because so far as I can tell, nobody on here has sent you abuse like I got.
 
If you can take on board everything you've been told and you can work hard over the next few months, learning HTML/CSS, learning a CMS like WordPress, learning how to work with colour, typography, design skills....then there is no reason why you can't be creating quality, decent websites.
 
This is why I always say tenacity is by far and way the most critical personality trait of a web designer. You have got to be able to take it. I did - and now I'm extremely proud to be able to label myself a Web Designer and that is is my full time career.
 
Good luck. "Good things come to those who wait".

No - don't use just jQuery/Javascrpt. Use the placeholder attribute, and use a polyfill for older browsers.
 
Why?
 
Because this way, you're using the modern method for browsers that support it, which is better because the site will run faster, be more efficient, and be more up to date. Yet, at the same time, for older browsers you still get the same functionality by using the script.
 
Seriously, in instances like this you should be using a polyfill. Just using Javascript because browser support isn't 100% is merely a sign of being a lazy developer.

Well if you know their support is completely useless, doesn't that tell you something?
 
Yes, it works OK for you now. But what happens when something goes wrong? You get no help, even if it's not your fault.
 
It happened to me. They crippled one of my websites and they refused to do anything about it, even though it was their fault.
 
http://michaelgunner.co.uk/11-try-to-blame-me-for-slow-website/

Erm, guys, please actually read my posts properly before quoting me. There is a big, big difference between someone who can only work with templates, and someone choosing to use one for a project.
 
"who can only work with templates"
 
If you literally can only mess about with templates and you don't have the capability to design and build bespoke websites, in my mind you're not a web designer. You're an amateur at best.
 
That doesn't mean if you use a template I think the same, so long as you're honest about it.
 
I can't play football properly but I can mess about with one on the park with friends. David Beckham can mess about on the park with friends but he's still a professional. But if I started calling myself a professional footballer....yeah you get the point.

The real limitation with templates is that they're not bespoke. They're generic. The design is generic. It's not targeted, or directly relevant to the business and audience.
 
Use a template, and you're getting a website that's never going to be as effective as a well executed bespoke design.
 
Templates undermine the fact that design is more about aesthetics and function, it's about the audience. Everything that is designed is designed for an audience.

The real limitation with templates is that they're not bespoke. They're generic. The design is generic. It's not targeted, or directly relevant to the business and audience.
 
Use a template, and you're getting a website that's never going to be as effective as a well executed bespoke design.
 
Templates undermine the fact that design is more about aesthetics and function, it's about the audience. Everything that is designed is designed for an audience.

I was also talking in general, not specific to you.
 
There does come a point where a project is signed off to completion and generally speaking that is not the time developers and designers ask for feedback.
 
We generally ask for feedback throughout the project, not at the end, as throughout the project is when it's easier to make changes. It's harder to make changes when something has been completed. And if something has been signed off, you can't really make changes afterwards unless the client has asked you to and you're getting paid for it. I would certainly never make alterations to websites I've finished for clients unless they asked me to, even if it's something I think would make it better.

http://contrastrebellion.com/

Don't edit anything live. That's one of the worst mistakes you can make. If you make a mistake, you can crash their website.
 
Always make changes locally first. Test them. Then upload.

There's nothing wrong with the generator, the problem is going to lie elsewhere with your code.
 
Please either link us to the website in question (ideal) or post all your code inside CODE tags here.

http://www.digitalquill.co.uk/datafeedplugin/

Randomising is basically math. You can't do math with CSS and HTML, they're static. If you want things to change every time someone visits the page, you need to use something like Javascript or PHP.
 
See if you can find something on Google, look up "random rotation PHP" etc
 
 
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/betterrotator/
http://heartdrops.org/tutorials/php-random-rotation/
 
Should give you some starting points.

That's why I wouldn't bother with one, personally. I personally just don't like marketing drivel, it's often lame, patronising and sometimes even downright arrogant. It's only my personal opinion but I would prefer to just stick my work up top and let it speak for itself.

You only don't need to be a businessman if you're employed inhouse for a company and don't need to attract clients.
 
If you freelance, or run your own business - you need to be a businessmen and act accordingly.
 
And again, unless you are working inhouse and don't need to pull in your own clients, you absolutely do need to be worried about how clients see it. That's just stupid.

It's design, everything is personal taste and I was hardly going to give you constructive criticism before I knew what I was criticising.
 
Web Design (or more generally digital design) tends to embody certain aspects of the digital world, because it's meant for here. There are certain things that hint towards certain types of industry and although they aren't hard and fast rules they are very difficult to overcome if what you are designing isn't for the industry it implies it is.
 
The digital world tends to be sharp edged, smooth, uniform and vibrant. It's a square 2D universe powered by light so when you try to mould in bevelled edges and soft colours you are going against environment and that tends to imply that whatever is being advertised is outside that environment.
 
Serif fonts are the easiest example. We use them when we want to harken back to the old world. Newspapers, Banks, Lawyers. They imply institution, trust, class, wealth, luxury etc.
 
Pair that with the soft purple colouring you have used, the bevelled edge and the scattered word placement it immediately brings to mind soft furnishings. You've created something in a bright uniform world that's neither bright nor uniform and like I said above, that implies something outside the environment.
 
That's not to say I think you should start from scratch. I actually like the purple colour and the word placement but I think you would be much better served by a sans-serif font and dropping the background.

Yo. Look to your left and through the window.
 
See the fire?
 
Go jump in it.

Yo. Look to your left and through the window.
 
See the fire?
 
Go jump in it.

Whoa? Really?
 
Nothing has ever been more wrong IMO. This statement completely ignores the need for professionals. Professionals exist because they know how to do something properly. That is why they get hired.
 
You sound like you haven't got a scooby how to make a website. Yes, I understand you don't want to code yourself, but if you don't want to code then you have to find somebody that can code. You cannot, categorically cannot, build a website without code. Doesn't exist. They run on computers, computers run code. That is how it works.
 
 
 
 
 
Then use Photoshop. What's the problem? Most web designers don't design in code. They design in Photoshop. The designs are then turned into code by a developer, often this will be the same person (in my mind it should be) but it doesn't have to be.
 
 
 
What are you saying? You want to, literally, draw a website, like you would a painting or a picture? Because if so, people already do. But the fact is, if you want a squiggly line and it can't be replicated in code, you have to use an image. That's fine, but you do have to understand that much as though CSS and HTML have advanced massively over the last 10 years (you need to look into this) there still are, and always will be, limitations. Websites are websites, they are not art. They are there to serve a functional purpose. They are interactive. They have users. As design, they are subject to limitations in exactly the same way any other functional design is. Cars are an excellent example, they are extremely limited in terms of design because of aspects such as aerodynamics, safety, performance. You can't just have a car that looks like a squiggly ball of silly putty with windows stuck anywhere you want. There are, and always will be, limitations. This is the difference between design and art that you have to understand, art can be purely aesthetics but design has to be functional, it has to work.
 
 
Again, for a designer, with anything, that is a fact of your job. A chair has to be comfortable, a car has to be economical, and a website has to work. That is why the limitations exist. If you could do whatever the hell you liked with the design of a website, damn we would end up with such a messy, unusable system, that just wouldn't work. Sometimes designers do disregard limitations, the Philippe Starck lemon squeezer is an excellent example. It looks fantastic. But it doesn't work, it is completely useless for squeezing lemons.
 
 
The industry has changed massively, you just need to look into it more. CSS3, HTML5, and other progressions such as the wonderful jQuery library mean as web developers we can do a million times more than we could five years ago, let alone ten years ago.