[Is this site excessivily slow in loading for you?]

Thank you all, I am quite relieved!

 

It is my ISP as I suspected.

 

@ Archadian, Glad you liked the place! They have a problem with CEO ranking with the site I designed for them. Working on that.

 

All best wishes to all responders and the rest of "The Gang"

 

Alfie

[Need Help With Critique of My Website]

A very admirable site, except you could use some "copy editing" of the text.

 

It is difficult to be specific with pages in a forum such as this, but as an instance, you have a "you" that should be a "your" on one of your pages.

 

I have been an editor for most of my professional life and those "typos" pop out to me.

 

I am going to offer you my (retired) professional proofreading service at no cost to you, because this forum does not allow solicitations, as is proper, and because I do like your site.

 

Contact me through the "Personal Message" feature on this site if you are interested.

 

Alfie

[Is this site excessivily slow in loading for you?]

I have recently been forced into using a new Internet Provider and this site, which I just finished, is slow as molasses in January to load (for me!).

 

Admittedly it is heavy in photos, especially in the pages showing montages of properties, but also the "home" page.

 

I have been promised that when 4G service comes to our area this will improve for me, but I am still a bit concerned. Does it seem OK to you?

 

I am personally fairly proud of the site, but constructive critique is always welcome!

[What questions should I ask of an SEO expert?]

I am in need of an SEO expert. How do I discriminate between the "whores" and the "real" experts?

 

Any recommendations? Suggestions?

 

Much obliged!

 

Alfie

[problem with css id]

Quick comment -- I'm pretty sure you mean that the other way round. CSS comments start with "/*" and end with "*/". Just thought I'd point that out so it doesn't confuse anyone.

 

You know, I stared at that comment tag for minutes. I should have checked my comments before posting, but I didn't.

 

My bad and thanks!

 

Alfie

[problem with css id]

 

 

p {

width: 100%;

font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;

font-size: 14px;

color: #333333;

}

*/

#image{

background:#fff url(inv_logo.jpg) no-repeat;

padding-top:170px;

}

 

the size of my image is 160X160 px.

I am not able to see the background image. Why is this so?

 

Also check out the */ you have just below your CSS paragraph definition. That is a "comment tag" in CSS, which means that the following code will be ignored!

 

Comments are text you leave for yourself to help you recall what the purpose for the code is. Comments are started with the */ and should be ended with /*

[Icon maker]

Good link Ben, thank you! I was actually thinking of creating my own, and as I have an early version of "Illustrator" I shall explore that route.

 

What I do not know is what dimensions to create it in. I would assume something like 15x10 pixels at 72ppi.

 

For now I have chosen one of the standard choices (A star) to do the trick.

 

Much obliged!

 

Alfie

[Icon maker]

Is there an "Icon Maker" software that you people have used and prefer? I would like to customize some of my folder icons in some of the MS windows so that some of them are easier to spot in a long list.

 

Thanks! Alfie

[Can you tell when a Search Engine has crawled?]

I have forwarded this thread to my customer as it is informative, pertinent and assuredly accurate!

 

Thanks to all!

 

Alfie

[Can you tell when a Search Engine has crawled?]

Other that getting magnificent results from your brilliant use of proper keywords etc Is there a way of telling that your new site has been visited by the various search engines?

 

Cheers!

 

Alfie

[IE Hacks]

I think that is where Stephan lives is why I suggested it.

 

All right - Las Vegas then?

[Validation errors]

When validating THIS site, (which I just posted,) I get four errors:

 

The first two have to do with a GOOGLE tracking code the client had me put in and I don't know enough about it to do anything!

 

The other two mystify me! they claim I am not using proper ASCII codes for a dash and an apostrophe. I am using NOTEPAD as an editor and saving it as ANSI. I tried to save it as UNICODE, but that screwed everything to a fare-thee-well!

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

 

Alfie

[IE Hacks]

Wow! What a wonderful bag of worms I stirred up with that post!

 

Yous guys are awesome!

 

Wouldn't it be great to have a "party", like the amateur astronomers do, and all get together at some site and actually meet "eye to eye"?

 

Stephan, what do you think? Toronto?

 

Just a thought.

 

Alfie

[Network Engineer to Web Developer...NEED ADVICE]

Jon:

 

You will get other more comprehensive answers to your inquiry here than this very basic one from me. I still consider myself a beginner.

 

Dreamweaver and Frontpage and other such WYSIWYG web development tools are just that. Tools. They write HTML and CSS for you. Until and unless you learn the basics of those two "languages" you are in essence working blind. You will have no understanding of WHY things appear as they do!

 

HTML is used to introduce the CONTENT of your website (Headings, paragraphs, images etc.)

CSS gives those elements STYLE that you specify (Main headings are 24pt, bold, Times New Roman in color with a drop-shadow. Paragraphs are 12pt .......etc.) You get the idea?

 

Best of luck, and don't be daunted. HTML and CSS are not terribly difficult to master.

 

Alfie

[Could you check this script for me?]

The following short script is something I inherited from a website I am updating for my client. My client claims he receives the last "error message" in the script along with messages he even DOES receive!

 

I am not expert enough with PHP to even start to analyze the problem!

 

Can you help?

 

Alfie

 

<?php

$to = "chmyrockin@blueridge.net" ;

$from = $_REQUEST['email'] ;

$name = $_REQUEST['name'] ;

$headers = "From: $from";

$subject = "Information About Chimney Rock Inn";

 

$fields = array();

$fields{"name"} = "name";

$fields{"phone"} = "phone";

$fields{"email"} = "email";

$fields{"arrival"} = "arrival";

$fields{"DateLeaving"} = "DateLeaving";

$fields{"roomtype"} = "roomtype";

$fields{"adults"} = "adults";

$fields{"children"} = "children";

$fields{"homenumber"} = "homenumber";

$fields{"cottagetype"} = "cottagetype";

$fields{"comments"} = "comments";

 

 

$body = "We have received the following information:\n\n"; foreach($fields as $a => ${ $body .= sprintf("%20s: %s\n",$b,$_REQUEST[$a]); }

 

$headers2 = "From: chmyrockin@blueridge.net";

$subject2 = "Thank you for contacting us";

$autoreply = "Thank you for contacting us.

You will be receiving more information shortly from us.";

 

if($from == '') {print "You have not entered an email, please go back and try again";}

else {

if($name == '') {print "You have not entered a name, please go back and try again";}

else {

$send = mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers);

$send2 = mail($from, $subject2, $autoreply, $headers2);

if($send)

{print "Thank You for Us! You will be contacted soon about your request" ;}

else

{print "We encountered an error sending your mail, please notify chmyrockin@blueridge.net"; }

}

}

?>

[My forehead is bloody!]

I don't know this for a fact, but see if the '&' in your file name is causing a problem - rename the image file name (and the link) - and double-triple check oll your lower case - upper case spelling of both (golden rule, stick to one syntax and don't change things)

 

That did it! Now I can really call you "Eagle Eye" and I can remove the band-aids!

 

Thanks so much!

 

Alfie

[What are the differences between web design and graphic design and which career should I choose?]

My view is that people will visit an ugly web site that has good content more than pretty web sites that have poor content.

 

AMEN!

[IE Hacks]

As I said, there are ways to handle IE and my article was about conditional comments.

 

The question posed however is what are Hacks? Conditional comments were the way to go, however being more standards proficient they are not so much needed anymore.

 

CSS Hacks, IE Hacks.. they are all the same really, just taking advantage of mistakes in IE primarily.

 

As usual, Kyle is quite correct and my initial question was probably mis-worded. I asked for "hacks" when I should have asked for "IE conditional statements".

 

As it turns out, Eddie's magnificent answer solved the problem by doing an "end-run" on the issue.

 

You people will all go to heaven because of your basic goodness! (Hope to see you there!)

 

Alfie

[My forehead is bloody!]

Same website, new problem now that it is posted at its final destination

 

Chimney Rock Inn On the "Mountain View Gardens" page, the first picture at the top of the page refuses to show! (The "alt" statement shows up instead.)

 

Is there a mis-spelling I am not catching? Am I going nuts? Or am I just plain stupid?

 

Alfie (putting band-aids on his bruised noggin.)

[IE Hacks]

@Eddie - An obvious solution which, of course, worked perfectly! Moral of the story: When you have flogged the problem to shreds on one side to no avail, - try flogging on a fresh side!

 

@Eagle-eye Andrea - Thanks for the catch! It shall be fixed!

 

Again, thanks!

 

Alfie

[IE Hacks]

I have this website you all have reviewed for various issues before. It is almost all done, but one final issue remains.

 

My customer reviews my stuff in IE7!!!! so I have to explain to him why things don't line up for just 8 to 10% of viewers. (Yes heSHOULD upgrade...but!)

 

I have read scads of discussions in these forums about CSS hacks, but nowhere what they actually are! (Perhaps for good reason?)

 

For instance, on the index page towards the bottom there are two "buttons" that say Bookmark this Page and Like Us on Facebook. In LTE IE7 they a shoved about 100px to the right! FF and IE9 show them properly centered.

 

Any thoughts on a hack to shove them back in IE7?

 

Thanks guys and gals!

 

Alfie

[In-line styling]

Brilliant solution Andrea! It worked like a charm, except I had to create a new class as the "left-justify" was used elsewhere. (And yes, I had to re-size some of the thumbnails.)

 

Thanks so much for a straight forward and easy solution!

 

Alfie

[In-line styling]

This should do it:

 

.left-justify{

text-align: left;

margin: 20px 35px 15px -170px;

}

 

.left-justify img{

float: left;

margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;

}

.left-justify p {margin-left: 170px;}

 

You may have to do some more fine-tuning and it would probably help to have the pics all the same width.

 

HMM! So you are suggesting just shoving the pictures over in to the left and then the verbiage over to take up the space left. Interesting idea. I shall try it!

 

Thanks luv!

 

Alfie

[In-line styling]

I have this page of "mutual links" for my customer.

 

He (rightly!) would like to move the thumbnail pictures of each establishment over into the bare, green area at the left where the menu resides.

 

Moving the pixs is no problem, but then I need to align each paragraph with its corresponding pix. I don't really want to create a separate class for each paragraph, and that leaves in-line styling.

 

Now my question: What is the syntax for adding an in-line margin style to a paragraph?

 

As always, many thanks!

 

Alfie

[Picture montage revisited]

Why is the client asking about the alt attributes for each picture? For SEO reasons, or for accessibility reasons?

 

Mostly SEO reasons. Right now the whole montage has an "alt" saying "Montage of pictures from the ...etc"

 

I shall try to convince him that this is sufficient.

 

Thanks for the answer Ben! It is just as I suspected.

 

Alfie