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cfilut
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my 1st attempt with expression - 3/12/2007 14:34:55
Here is my first attempt with expression. I did not want to start with a template and was unable to understand the tableless CSS design with DWT's, so I did use a few tables and includes. However, all text and pictures were controlled completely by css, which is the real first for me.
I also tested with firefox and IE6-7, I see a few differences, but not sure on how to correct them.
Here is is.
http://modernhomeconcepts.net
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RemodelingGuy
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/13/2007 9:05:51
Looking at your site is the first real thing that makes me want to go ahead and take the Expression leap.
You'll get some nit picking in here, which is good, but I think that it looks kick ass.
John and Mary Doe will think it looks kick butt.
Listen to some of the pros here that will help you work out the kinks, but I'd say you are well on your way.
Time to start working on SEO - ONE SOLID TIPS> No Keywords stuffing - Especially in the wanna ba light grey at the bottom of some of your pages.
Looksmart and joes search might not mind, but Googs does.
Just got kicked in the pearly whites for that .....
Good Luck!
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Mango Himself
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/14/2007 20:24:54
quote:
Looking at your site is the first real thing that makes me want to go ahead and take the Expression leap.
I second the motion. Rather impressive!
One question: what sw did you use before to create sites?
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cfilut
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/14/2007 22:55:48
Wow. Thanks guys. Im glad I inspired more interest in expression. Truthfully, I thought expression was the death of my (side) profession as a webdesigner since I was a frontpage guy all the way. Just when I thought I was mastering my skills, they ripped it away from me, ya know?
I might not have used expression to its full potential, but I did venture into the CSS more than ever. I did work with the template style sheets and copied some of the styles from them then modified them. It was nice to get my feet wet with this editor but I have loads to learn.
I also flipped to FP while workin with EW to see how the pages looked in this site, in fact, expression would hang up during publishing so I would sometimes publish site with FP. I am using the free download version, so maybe those issues are cleared up now.
As far as software mango, FP of course, fireworks, photoshop, and swishmax for flash. (my last FP site)
I have seen the tutorials for expression and it quite frankly looks way over my head right now. But I will keep working on it, mostly cause I have no choice, but also I realize that it up's my game, up's my price, and up's my boat size....eventually
On another note, I dont think I have enough keywords on the page to be considered stuffing, this technique seems to working out real well for me, placement for the clients keyword phrases are up on the search engines.
I really like the style of your photo album. It looks a 100 times better than what I rigged up. Just a little background, I test my sites by showing my mother and asking her to navigate it without me saying anything. Just from past experience, she would shut down that browser the second she wanted to close that picture, then of course the website would be gone. A client like this versus an photography or artsy website needs to be straight forward with no tricky stuff IMO. I will use it for sure for an upcoming media site. Thanks for the link.
You guys were to easy on me, where Jaybee?
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Mango Himself
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/14/2007 23:40:14
Well I am impressed, frankly. I will download the trial version (I did a few months ago on a different machine and IP but didn't have time to play with it) I use various techniques but eventually I find the customer who demands FP. Don't think they will be demanding Expression for a while, though. Anyhow, I enjoy learning new sw.
quote:
swishmax for flash
My 2c ents: Even though I use Adobe Flash 95% of the time, there is a lot to be said about Swishmax. I've followed those guys since they were first competing with Sothink for a piece of the marketshare. Developing a product that focuses strictly on the most relevant aspects of Flash and selling it at a decent price was magistral. There are no limits to what can be achieved with Swishmax. It's no longer the ugly duckling of animation.
Did you do the clouds with Swish? Have you thought of adding the script that prevents the "...activate to use this control"? and avoid the frame as well in IE?
Also one more question. What sw did you use for the 360 degree capture? I bought one but the learning curve is steep
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Tailslide
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 3:01:09
For a first venture into CSS it's pretty impressive.
Couple of things I'd mention:
I'd add a bit more padding to hold the text off the side of the content area to a consistent margin all the way round - at the moment some bits are closer to the edge than others.
You've reused an id (navigation) twice on a page which is a no-no - IDs are meant to be unique identifiers on a page. You can re-use classes or (and I'm not totally sure about this) I think you can have a class and and id as the same name although I don't think it's a good idea to do that.
As a nice touch I'd add in a focus effect for your navigation like this:
#navigation a:focus, #navigation a:hover, #navigation a:active {
background-color: #E3910D;
background-image: url('images/cssrolloverorange.gif');
background-repeat: repeat-x;
color: #000000;
}
That'll add in the same effect for keyboard navigation over the nav as for hovering the mouse (IE being IE incorrectly uses the active rule to do this which is why that's in there too).
Checking out your source code there's a fair amount of CSS still in the page itself which will make your life harder when it comes to changing stuff (you could end up changing things in the stylesheet and wondering why they don't change on the page). There's pretty much no reason for having styling info on the page itself - dump it all out into the stylesheet.
Also - I don't know how EW assigns style rules but there are a few places where for instance you'll have something like this:
<div id="whatever">
<p class="thingy">Blah blah blah blah</p>
<p class="thingy">Blah blah blah blah</p>
<p class="thingy">Blah blah blah blah</p>
</div>
While it will certainly work to style the paragraphs like that - it offers you no advantages over old style coding methods. What you need to do is firstly remove the styles to the stylesheet and then make it more efficient - so you'd end up with
<div id="whatever">
<p>Blah blah blah blah</p>
<p>Blah blah blah blah</p>
<p>Blah blah blah blah</p>
</div>
and in the stylesheet:
#whatever {margin:0 10px 0 10px;}
#whatever p {color: pink;}
As I say - I don't have EW so that may well be something out of your control. In the end, the advantages of CSS over old style coding are really to do with streamlining the page and making changing a whole site's layout a case of changing a couple of rules in a stylesheet rather than digging into every page.
I understand that it's a nightmare switching from tables to CSS and that you've kept some tables in there - not a bad way of switching over to be honest. I do think though that if you can beat EW into submission and make sure it keeps all it's style rules out of the page then you'll find it easier.
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cfilut
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 11:28:50
Thanks tailslide, that what I was looking for. I was aware of my double ID, wasnt sure how to fix it. Before working with EW, I wouldnt of had a clue as to what you were talking about, now I am just slightly clueless... . I will print this off and go over it until its right. I appreciate the help.
Mango....
Did you do the clouds with Swish? I did the clouds in photoshop, then imported a transparent png into swish to get this effect.
Have you thought of adding the script that prevents the "...activate to use this control"? and avoid the frame as well in IE? YES, I DID, where is that?????
Also one more question. What sw did you use for the 360 degree capture? I bought one but the learning curve is steep I bought this lens http://www.0-360.com/ and used the software provided. It is amazing. For the flash files, I used http://www.flashvr.de , but for this, stiching needs to already be done.
I bought the 360 2 weeks ago, went out to the house and it took me about 10 minutes to shoot the house, 5 minutes to stich the ENTIRE project together, and only about 2 minutes to post. I re-skined the java applet, that took the longest, but once that is done, simply replace picture files for every tour and upload. EASY.
I tried shooting my bosses car with the lens, check it out here.
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Mango Himself
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 12:11:37
quote:
Have you thought of adding the script that prevents the "...activate to use this control"? and avoid the frame as well in IE? YES, I DID, where is that????? Since you are familiar with Swish, get it Here There is another way of doing it (jaybee helped me with that one) but you must purchase additional sw. However, the link I gave you works beautifully for Swish
The lens effect is amazing. How much did you end up spending?
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Mango Himself
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 12:17:34
quote:
I tried shooting my bosses car with the lens, check it out here.
nice job. What car is it?
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cfilut
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 13:32:28
Thanks for the link, I will look at it tonight.
I already had the camera with threaded lens attachements, sony DSC S85, so all I needed was the lens. The price on the website is what it cost. Worth every penny considering Im getting more requests for this service. I made enough on this website to not even have to worry about the costs of the lens, so it was a no brainer.
The car is a BMW 645 CI, he went to Germany on vacation to test drive it on the autobond before they came out. Its a really nice car.
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Mango Himself
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 14:52:58
quote:
I made enough on this website to not even have to worry about the costs of the lens
I couldn't agree more! I recently invested 5,000 on a promotional campaign. I expected to obtain at least enough customers to make the money back. I got 7 customers at an average of 2,000 each so it worked fine after all. I believe all money invested in the business that brings an added value is moneywell spent.
Perhaps you could suggest a camera that is not too expensive? One that would work with that lens?
Nice car. I am aiming at a VW Touareg! Someday a BMW series 8 haha! Why not?
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d a v e
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 15:28:16
nice site but the link colour could match a lot better than the default blue: like a cyan from the header or teal from the top navigation
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cfilut
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 16:22:35
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mango Himself
Perhaps you could suggest a camera that is not too expensive? One that would work with that lens?
I spent 499 on this camera 4 years ago Looks like its under 100. You need the adapter ring to go with it, and of course a tripod.
The only downfall they say on this camera is that it is low on megapix, but as you can see, it works just fine. They also make suggestions on the 360 site.
Let me know how it goes mango
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Mango Himself
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RE: my 1st attempt with expression - 3/15/2007 19:26:57
cfilut and Mike
thanks guys . I'll look into the cameras. I am definitely going for the lens
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