Tyre kickers required....

[Jonathan]

OK, I hinted at this in another thread.

I have a new website under construction!  If you have 5 mins please have a snoop round and then report back here.

You can get in via 2 different URLs

www.PeopleByRyan.com and www.WeddingsByRyan.com (they go to different places on the same site).

Areas that I know still need work:

1. Content - I need to copy about 200 pages over from MyWeddingStory but can't do this until I have 301s in place or Google will spank me
2. Portfolio page - I need to pick out different images from the slideshow and round the number up
3. Kids area isn't done yet (and won't be for a while).  Weddings have priority and I have to show this to a firm in about a week.
4. I'll be adding an "about" and "products" page to the wedding menu.

But.....do you like it?  Do you find it easy to navigate?  Does it look pretty?

TIA

[picsfor]

OK, initial look before i start tidying the house and packing the cases to fly away.

I found it extremely quick, maybe cos its fairly new and not getting lots of hots as your sites usually do, but that despite the fact that my 20mb broadband is struggling to deliver 2mb the way it is trudging with other sites at the moment.

The site is simple to navigate, the sections are easy to understand (i'm assuming Kidography will end up as Kids by Ryan), contact details and the map extremely concise. I've only done the 1 trip to Canterbury but even i could find you from where i parked my car last time with a small walk. The slide show worked a treat and the images crystal clear. I'm glad you've added the warning about screen images not being as good as the real thing because not every one has a 24" or better iMAc screen to view them on. I presume it also serves as an invitation to visit the premises where they will undoubtedly be blown away by previous work.

It is a total change from previous stuff - as you say re-branding the Ryan Photography business. It's moved on from Nikon to Hassalblad to use the analogy (well you included it  ).

Any thing others spot will be minor errors and despite it not being the finished product it is without a doubt a very polished product that reflects you extremely positively.
I expect Tim will be hot on your heels - it's worth all your heart aches and sleepless nights. Go and have a pint of your favourite - you've earned it!   

[Jonathan]

Go and have a pint of your favourite - you've earned it!   

Thanks very much   I'm a long way from relaxing on this though.

Quite apart from the migration to-do list I need to do a lot of work on SEO and then hand it over to my publicist

Web sites used to be so easy.....

[BTW in theory the speed should remain high - it's suing the same sever and database as the current site so load on that affects this one.]

[minky_monkey]

Nicely put together site, everything works as it should on my system.

The only very slight thing for me is the speed that the wedding photos scroll on the front page of the wedding site.  It seems a bit "rapid".

I know they`re in the gallery...

That`s about the only thing that stands out for me.  Other than that, very neat site.

[ABERS]

Echo what Martin says about the rapidity of the pictures on the front page, other than that great!

[Sarasocke]

Agree with Alan and Martin

The site really gives the impression that a photo session with Mr. Ryan is just heaps of fun!

[Jonathan]

Interesting on the speed.  Thanks.  Fortunately I can literally tweak one JS param and slow it down

BTW I'm aware that the "fade" is a bit abrupt on the iPhone - it doesn't support the transition I'm using.  At least it's not Flash....

[Jonathan]

Oooo somebody in the Haarlem using an Android on my site.....

[Hybridphotog]

Yep, the flash that's present at "weddingsbyryan" (which seems to be the same address as "peoplebyryan", but accessing the "/weddings" subdirectory... unusual, I guess) does go rather fast.

Time for the W3C test/check...

Hmm... the site's invalid with its XHTML doctype setting... a couple of coding errors, and one "information" alert...:
http://tinyurl.com/ybrx3kn
I've seen alleged professional websites with worse coding...

CSS validation... urgh... 45 errors...
http://tinyurl.com/ylrz2e2

Layout... to me, the "Jump to" section (rendered in Firefox 3.5.8 (Ubuntu 9.10 (uname -r "2.6.31-19-generic"))) renders at the bottom of the page, which is a bit odd... or maybe its layout itself is odd (perhaps a single line, much smaller font, no bold fonts, and either #cccccc or #8c8c8c for font colour).

The drop caps are a nice touch, btw.

Check the CSS again though.

Oh, and a traceroute takes a minute to escape BT. I know you're unable to do anything about that, but... y'know... just doing my old job...

[Jonathan]

Ooo yeah thanks.

Hmm CSS errors.  Most of them are in "professional" modules that provide plug in functionality.  I'll check for updates.  They also look like they are the bits that do the fancy stuff like fade transitions.  AAFIK that's where browser "standards" are at their worst....

That Jump to thing...  Yeah it's rendering like it "should".  I need to write a custom style for the footer.  It's mainly there for SEO so I should be able to blend it in better.

Who doesn't like a drop cap?

And as for the traceroute.  Well I know what ost of the words mean but when you put them together like that you kind of lose me.....

[Hybridphotog]

And as for the traceroute.  Well I know what ost of the words mean but when you put them together like that you kind of lose me.....

To my knowledge, the traceroute should only stay within the ISP for 2-3 hops (connections between IPs). The ideal connection should be "PC -> ISP DNS server -> target DNS server -> target web address"... 4 hops, not the 7 or 8 I had thanks to BT Openworld bouncing me from DNS server to DNS server.

[Jonathan]

Nope.  Even Google Translate is coming up blank on this

Is this something I can do something about?
Is this something I should do something about?

If both answers are yes then the questions get harder

[Mick]

Jonathan, site looks very nice. Very clean, loads very fast, and easy to navigate. 

The only thing that I noticed straight away was the same as previous comments, the js slideshow is too fast.  Seems like about two seconds between images.

Nice job. 

[jinky]

Wow Jonathan - great site. So smooth, fast and clean with great images to boot. Yes I agree with others the slideshow is a lttle too fast but other than that works really well. Love the trashing the dress section and grabs your interest to look elsewhere within the site.

[picsfor]

In simple terms Jonathan - trace route is something you can realistically do very little about.

Trace route is the internet equivalent of Sat Nav. It's a fascinating activity and can help you put off those jobs you don't want to do when your job is IT Support in some form.
As with Sat Nav - some people don't come straight to your server from London down the A2 - no they go up the A12 and A133 and then by ferry from Harwich to Holland, drive down through Belgium into France and back on the ferry to Dover etc... Bit of cloud can do that some times to a Sat Nav.

And that's how the internet works in simple terms.

Now i've got a few days of looking after the wife, i'll take time to have another look at the site.