Give me feedback on my homemade webpage (and my bass skills)

kas_lar · #1 08-13-2008, 12:45 PM

It's been a year since I've switched from Windows to Mac OS and I've been fooling around with Mac OS webbuilding program iWeb and I'm trying to make my own little basspage.

http://web.me.com/kas_lar/Kasper_San...arsen/Mp3.html

So this is what I've made so far!
I've looked into my entire studio/Live recording library to figure out which things are good enough to put on the web.
Please give some feedback - should I remove some of the mp3's? Are they bad?

The purpose of the page is to get more work as a bassplayer and inspire other bassplayers and musicians....

So please guide me and show which other pages I should learn from or if there is something I should add.

Almost forgot it - I've got 3 live concerts (1 rock, 1 pop and 1 soul/pop) on DVD, but they need some heavy converting to iMovie and they need some serious cutting. Should I speed this process up?

It's been 1 week since I started on this project and I can see a page like this requires a whole lot more time, but I trust you guys in guiding me as I come along with a better and better webpage.... or at least just a bit of the way

BlackLake · #2 08-13-2008, 12:47 PM

Sorry...after 1 minute the page still hadn't loaded, so I gave up.

kas_lar · #3 08-13-2008, 04:05 PM

hi Blacklake
That's strange - You use windows XP vista or Mac?

Did you try any of the other pages? Like "gear"?

James Hart · #4 08-13-2008, 04:26 PM

Firefox on XP pro... it locked my browser up for a while too.

Not sure what size your quicktime audio samples are, but they all seem to need to load before the browser comes back to the user... it took mine a minute or so (a life time in the web world).

HomeBrewTJ · #5 08-13-2008, 08:16 PM

Nix the quicktime audio. There are better solutions for that.

seanm · #6 08-13-2008, 09:01 PM

I'd nix the audio period on the first page. I am quite often surfing when my wife is around or when listening to a music program. I hate sites that automatically pop up audio. Let me select audio if it is appropriate.

tplyons · #7 08-13-2008, 09:06 PM

First off, it's no good.

The home page told me nothing about what I was getting into. I had no clue what anything was, who it was for, or anything. Once the audio loaded, I was pretty sure that I had no clue what I was about to listen to, so I didn't.

Videos, in my opinion, are cheesy unless they're relevant to the matter at hand. Perhaps music videos, behind the scenes recording, or something else. I watched the video and STILL don't know what I saw.

Cell number on a website is generally a bad idea. Listing your home address is even worse of an idea. Between that, and your gear listing, I know where to break in to take some very nice gear.

And since I know what you look like, it's even easier to avoid you in person.

When it comes to web design... think it out, plan it out before you even start creating anything. Come up with a theme, an idea, a uniting factor, and a purpose for a website. This reminds me of the beginning of Web 2.0 where everyone and their brother had a website on Geocities or Tripod about absolutely nothing. Hate to say it, but this seems to be the same type of deal.

LKdubby · #8 08-13-2008, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tplyons

The home page told me nothing about what I was getting into. I had no clue what anything was, who it was for, or anything.
...<snip>...

Cell number on a website is generally a bad idea. Listing your home address is even worse of an idea. Between that, and your gear listing, I know where to break in to take some very nice gear.

Agreed, home page is rather bland.. Sorry..

And agreed, don't put your personal information up there. Just use a contact button that links to an email address..

And also, get off of the free web hosting by Apple.. Get yourself a real host. There are host's out there that are very affordable and offer a lot of utilities for a web designer. For instance www.hasweb.com (who I happen to use) is awesome for low priced packages with LOTS of web designing bang for your buck! Part of the problem where people are complaining about your page being slow loading could have a lot to do with your host.. Free host's don't generally give you the best bandwidth or storage space because there are potentially countless other people using that free hosting service as well, and free accounts tend to be low priority..

LKdubby · #9 08-13-2008, 10:31 PM

Hasweb looks like they've changed their plans and gone up in price since the last time I looked at their homepage..

I'm on a plan with them where I pay something like $40 yearly and my plan gives me 2000 MB storage, and monthly bandwidth transfer of 35000 MB...

But I don't see that plan offered anymore..

BlackLake · #10 08-13-2008, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tplyons

First off, it's no good.

The home page told me nothing about what I was getting into. I had no clue what anything was, who it was for, or anything. Once the audio loaded, I was pretty sure that I had no clue what I was about to listen to, so I didn't.

Videos, in my opinion, are cheesy unless they're relevant to the matter at hand. Perhaps music videos, behind the scenes recording, or something else. I watched the video and STILL don't know what I saw.

Cell number on a website is generally a bad idea. Listing your home address is even worse of an idea. Between that, and your gear listing, I know where to break in to take some very nice gear.

And since I know what you look like, it's even easier to avoid you in person.

When it comes to web design... think it out, plan it out before you even start creating anything. Come up with a theme, an idea, a uniting factor, and a purpose for a website. This reminds me of the beginning of Web 2.0 where everyone and their brother had a website on Geocities or Tripod about absolutely nothing. Hate to say it, but this seems to be the same type of deal.

I'm just totally gonna agree with all of this...when I finally got the page to load, it was quite the letdown. BTW, it took over 2 mins, and I have the fastest Commercial service Bell Canada provides. (I can get a 10 min youtube vid to load fully in about 4 seconds.)

kas_lar · #11 08-14-2008, 10:04 AM

Thanks everybody!

First of-
I'm going to find another player than old school quicktime files. This kindda of thing is no good.

Second-
The page needs a lot more info - A welcome page WITHOUT audio.
More info on who's playing what on which tracks and why I'm building this page.

Third-
Video will be delayed until I've finished editing a short film which will be youtubed to improve the streaming speed.

Fourth-
Contact will be restricted to myspace and facebook- no cell or home adresse.

Fiftht-
I agree that the web design sucks. I'm going to look into some flash designing with a good theme.... or maybe just keep it simple and ugly.

sixth-
I've actually got another host called "Cliché", I just used apple to get the page up and flying, but it's to slow.

I'm going to London in a few days so the page is going on hold. Thanks for every advice given here!

The_Juke · #12 08-14-2008, 10:08 AM

I am a web developer... I gave up and closed the browser. Are trying to load the MP3's into memory? Try streaming...

Pilgrim · #13 08-14-2008, 11:25 AM

- After 20 seconds, it hadn't all loaded. I'm on a university Internet 2 pipeline that's as fast as any connection in the world.

- Don't EVER build a web page that plays sound when people open it. It's rude and people hate it. I can't get off those pages fast enough when I come to them.

- More graphics, less audio links. Put a link on the home page to a page of audio links. Get them ALL off your home page and make it visually attractive.

I suggest spending some time on the numerous Internet sites that give you a crash course in web page design. There are loads of free sites out there that will help you get a good start on an improved design.