New WebSite ... Please comment

Dear Members,

It's been a while since I last posted on this forum. Been busy trying to get my website up and running. I am sure you folks too have had similar experiences

Finally gave up trying to do it in FrontPage and hired someone to do it for me. Fortunately I got a good deal out of it, as the company is fairly new and they wanted to make a name for themselves. My personal opinion is they did a great job and they have my vote.

Here is a link to my new site --> http://www.maxshafiq.c​om

What do you folks think?

Shafiq

Terrible. Never let anyone do your site in Flash alone. A little bit of Flash on a site can perhaps be gotten away with to do something cool But the whole site in flash, blegh. Of course this is a personal opinion, but I do run a software development company for the record and this would never wash with any of our customers.

Anyway, hope it works for you.

Oh yes, why do I hate Flash. Clunky, slow, most of the time similar things can be done with HTML or DHTML, slow, requires a plug-in, slow, slow and did I mention slow.

Oh yes, and browsing to your site caused my IE to crash (maybe I should be using FireFox I know!)
Anyways, it said a Macromedia Flash Script is causing my computer to lock up...blah blah blah and I had to End Task it. Blegh!

Many people are moving away from Internet Explorer and using other browsers. There's a slight problem with the homepage as it appears in Firefox - your name is partially covered by the image. I've attached a cropped screenshot showing how it looks. Aside from that it looks very professional.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Thanks for your comments. BTW what kind of software company do you run?

Regards

hmmm...never had any of my customers said that there IE crashed. Aren't 90% or is it 95% of computers these day already have Flash Plug-In installed? Downloading the Flash Plug-in is usually an automatic thing from what I understand, and once you have done so its like opening a door to a whole new world.

Yes I agree with your comments that Flash websites are slow, only if we were in 1998 and you are using a 14.4K modem. In 2005 I think most people have fast enough connections that speed is not an issue. BTW Flash is vector based and vector graphics are faster than regular graphics. Also Flash sites are more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Just my 2 cents.

Yup, I see all your comments and certainly if you are happy with the site then great.
This is just my personal experience with Flash sites.

I do believe that most things can be done without Flash (especially for a site like yours). It sounds rich considering I don't have my own site - so well done for at least having yours up. For the record my photography is at http://mrstickman.devi​antart.com

I run a company that develops a web based solution for Image and Workflow software. It's all done in ASP/ASP.NET and VB/VB.NET using Oracle/SQL Server on the back-end. The customers seem happy with this solution anyway.

As for bandwidth, I running on a 512Kb DSL connection and I still found your site to be very slow. I hate seeing progress bars when I go to a site, almost enough to make me instantly close them.

Anyway...again...just my opinion on this critque article in this forum.

IanWeatherburn wrote:
Yup, I see all your comments and certainly if you are happy with the site then great.
This is just my personal experience with Flash sites.

I do believe that most things can be done without Flash (especially for a site like yours). It sounds rich considering I don't have my own site - so well done for at least having yours up. For the record my photography is at http://mrstickman.devi​antart.com

I run a company that develops a web based solution for Image and Workflow software. It's all done in ASP/ASP.NET and VB/VB.NET using Oracle/SQL Server on the back-end. The customers seem happy with this solution anyway.

As for bandwidth, I running on a 512Kb DSL connection and I still found your site to be very slow. I hate seeing progress bars when I go to a site, almost enough to make me instantly close them.

Anyway...again...just my opinion on this critque article in this forum.

Appreciate your comments. That is why I put up this post right

Good luck!

The debate between flash vs. non-flash will last as long as the Internet. My view is that flash works well on a website that's intended to display something artistic. Seeing a progress bar is acceptable to me because I anticipate it might be worth the wait, and the flash aspect will enhance my experience of the art. It works less well on a website that's intended to sell something like insurance, where it becomes an annoyance. Why should I wait just to see a price or some policy details?

Unless you only have a small flash animation that takes no time at all to load I would personally avoid it. I use DSL, yet your site took forever to load. If were simply browsing for a photographer I would have exited your site and gone elsewhere, cause I'm just not that patient.

You do have some very nice photos to view once I did get the page loaded. It hink you also have a very nice selection of your work. The only other comment that I would make is to avoid the effect where several images are scrolled through when the user selects one ... made me dizzy

Bob

I take it you liked my pics then? was it worth the wait...LOL

Yes I liked the pics! And the flash presented them nicely too. You might like to look at the site in my sig. which I created myself to show off my pics. No flash but I'm no web designer either.

I use Firefox and also noticed the opening page. The site was a bit slow to open and I'm using cable at 4 meg. But it was worth the wait for me. Nice stuff. I understand the comments about all flash but it seemed to come off quite well. Good music and great photos. (The children's photos don't seem to be of the same high quality as the others). And remember, opinions are like thumbs - most people have at least two. I would also like to see some pricing, etc.

I'm relatively new to Flash development, but have done HTML for a number of years. Seems the Flash/HTML debate might be similar to the .NET/PHP debate. Flash does provide a known "platform," since plugins for all browsers are (ideally) the same, while developing a DHTML site that is truly cross-browser friendly may be nothing short of a nightmare.

Flash sites can be slow, and yours seems to be a little slow. I would see if you could reduce the image size or quality a bit more, perhaps. Here's an example of a "faster" site done in Flash that was truly an "experience" for me when I visited: http://www.robertcharl​esphoto.com/

Doing that in DHTML, cross-browser, would be nigh unto impossible. Of course, presenting pics in straight HTML would be a great alternative, but there is no doubt that the entire experience would be much different.

Here's another: http://www.sorenhald.c​om/. You've got to admit that the feeling at this site is much different than it would be viewing a static, dreary list of pics.

Flash surely is not the "end all" for photo sites, but if done properly I think it can certainly add a quality not otherwise available. Some like it, some don't. For me it has everything to do with the execution, and it's tough to "execute" properly.

Shafiq, your site looks good in my opinion. I'm not overly impressed with the title page's big "enter" link on it, but once inside it's not too bad. Seems a little long before the navigation starts, and the "loading" graphic is a bit simplistic, but reasonable. The music is okay, but I don't know that it really adds to the experience -- it seems like it was done because it was possible, not because it fit. It's a pretty short loop, too. Perhaps just on the intro, then fade it out?