Davide

Hi folks, the website is now online, here. As you see, I have changed the navigation colours and added some jquery magic to it. It was you suggestion about changing the height that got me started, thanks. The layout is fine, but I need to make it bulletproof to text resizing. If you resize the text (only with safari or FF2) you see the navigation tab going down or up, due to a margin. I had thought of absolute positioning, but I can't do that and keep the stuff horizontally central... or can I? Any suggestion? Cheers Davide (PS: the footer also need to be made bulletproof, bt I know how to do that)

Hi Zoli, this is exactly the kind of suggestion I was looking for. Opacity, very simple, and yet it would never had occured to me Thanks, I'll let you folks know when the website goes online. Davide

Hello folks, I am in the process of finishing a website. It's for a craftman doing pictures with pressed flowers, so the design features many material textures (paper, leaves, etc). I am still not happy with this navigation bar: The tabs move up when hovered, but I haven't figured out yet a graphical way to indicate the "selected" tab. I had thought about leaving the selected tab in an upper position, but I guess it would be ugly. Have you got any suggestion? Cheers, Davide

It's very nice, but the time to open it is too much. I speak as someone who is very hostile to flash websites, the loading time being the main reason of my hostility. As many have stressed, your site is nice and usable, but the loading time is a huge hindrance to usability. If I hadn't been vitising the website for the purpose of giving you an opinion, I'd have closed the tab in 3 secs. But I guess that is a problem of all flash websites, and of course as a flash developer you need a flash showcase. Only my two cents Davide

Ok, now we've got more background No, ok, now I don't think you necessarily have to ask 1000€. You're young, it's probably the first website you get paid for (isn't it?), you'll use this website as experience, a good currency for being paid more in the next years. So, summarising, I still think that 1000€ is not necessarily much for a website of 50 pages; on the other hand, asking less (say, 500€ or 600€) you might have a bigger chance of landing the job, which is nice, since I gather it's you first one. At any rate, unless they propose a ridiculous fare (like 100€), I'd try to get the job. My first websites were for free Let us know how it goes! Davide

"I am an amateur" is a very relative concept. Are you up to the job? Are you able of writing good semantic html + css and, if required, integrating a cms? If so, even if you don't have a VAT number, you're not an amateur. Remember that your client most often has no idea whatsoever about web design, so you are, to all intents and purposes, an expert. Of course there are various degree of expertise, but if you can fulfil your client's expectatons you are not an amateur, and you shouldn't be paid as one. For 50 pages I would definitely say 1000€ or more; just think about the time you'll be spending coding. Of course sometimes you have to accept a compromise, but if your average hourly rate is below the national minimum wage of, say, a household cleaner, there' something wrong. Not to debase household cleaners, but qualified jobs must be paid differently from unqualified jobs. There are only 2 explanations for a ridicule hourly wage: 1) You're not getting what you deserve. Ask more, or refuse jobs; once the word gets spread that a website of yours cost 500 it'll be hard selling one for 1000 2) You need more experience, for you shouldn't have taken that much time to do the job. Of course sometimes accepting underpaid/free jobs is good for learning. My first rubyonrails website was given almost as a present, but I did that because I wanted to get acquainted with the framework. Cheers, Davide

Yep, I forgot to mention hat the hack is specific of IE6; at any rate, for some reason, it's IE6 that seems to generate most of my troubles. Thanks ElanMan for clearing it up. Davide

Nana, don't be discouraged. IE6 bugs are atrocious, but I realised that trying to amend them you end up simplifying the website layout a lot. The thing that I used to do, when beginning with css, was using tons of divs, to be on the super-safe side But adding divs is adding complexity. If you reduce the number of divs, the number of possible bugs is also reduced. Moreover, many IE oddities derive from oddities in the organisation of the HTML; if you make you HTML more simple and consistent, your website will be more coherent across different browser. When you really have to tweak a css for IE, I reccomend using * html body your-selector { blah blah } The * symbol matched only by IE, and is useful for small width, padding or margin adjustment. But remember, the ideal is to have a website the is "almost the same" in all browsers, and using these tweaks only for small adjustments. Enjoy ;-) Davide

Hello folks, this is Davide from Italy, I am new to the forum , i have just introduced myself here. In a couple of days I am gonna talk to a couple of potential customers. I have pretty much made up my mind about the price of the website options I am gonna offer, but I have little idea of the average fare for yearly maintenance. I plan to include the maintenance costs in the general offer for the first year, but I feel it's correct to talk about the costs of the second year maintenance in advance. By maintenance I mean the basic stuff that a "minimalist" webmaster does: periodical back ups, occasional assistance ("I can't remember how do I do to insert a picture...", this always happen.), and periodical cleanup of the contents of the CMS (they always end up being unnecessarily crowded). I am not referring to SEO of campaigns, neither to the occasional adding of new modules (these would be additional offers). I am planning to offer a a unified cost, including the hosting and domain costs; we're talking about cheap hosting options, between 30 and 60 € / year. How much would you ask a as comprehensive fare? Could you give me an example of your fares? Davide

Hello folks, this is Davide from Verona, Italy. I got a PhD in Irish Literature, but lately I am mostly working as a professional translator, English to Italian. I have being doing wesites for years, for the fun of it. In 1999 I made the first version of cnomania, my band website; it was done in Dreamweaver, with the infamuous WYSIWYG interface; of course what I didn't see was the messy tables behind it ;-) Later, thanks God, I learned about CSS, and PHP. This last year I pulled a couple of professional web design/development jobs; since I enjoy it much more than translating, I got my VAT number, and am now into business. Yuhoo! I have been working on a Wordpress website and on a Ruby on Rails project. I love Wordpress, but kinda hate PHP, especially after having tasted the bliss that is ruby. I am also interested in cocoa/iphone development, but I am still learning there, I am not qualified to make it a job; yet ;-) When not working with a computer, I play the fiddle, Irish traditional music; I got sort of an attachment to Ireland, and Galway in particular, where I resided for a year. I am also a big fun of the Alexander technique, which I am slowly learning. Well, this is it, I guess. If you want more info, take a look at my website and blog. I found webdesignerforum in a Smashing Magazine article about Web design forums. I have been lurking for a few days in the this and in the other forums listened, and I must say I like the discussions and general tone here. Also, the fact that many people writing here talk about European business is a big advantage for me, since business is probably my weakest area. So, I'm on the ship, hello to everyone. All the best, Davide