Ahhh, it's finally done.

[saifai]

I finished the re-design of my online portfolio.  *sigh*  Such a relief too.  The previous design was just a bit too bland.  Plus?  This one's got a cute lil' fox.  *gr*

Go to FoxShadow Designs - Take a look and give me your feedback.  Becuase I am a feedback h0r!!!  *bounce*

What else have I accomplished today?  Well, I posted the update for Xander Xtreme to the Yahoo group.  w00t!  Was gonna do it the other day, but got some last minute additions, so I waited until I finished them today.  All totalled?  There's 13 new authors.  *bounce*  Neat, huh?

That's pretty much the extent of my productivity though.  The rest of the day was spent catching up on emails, comments, and a whole bunch of fic.

Comments

[ex-kyrieane267.livejournal.com]

you have no pics on your site, just the blank boxes with the little red x's. do you still need beta's for xander xtreme? if you do i will fill out the form thingie, if you have enough, i wont worry about it! ::mwah::

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Ugh. thanks for telling me. They looked fine on my computer, but then again they're local files. *head.desk*

I was gonna say yes, because I've removed maybe 5 names from the list recently. I heard from one of the ladies I removed though that they don't get much action as it is, so I wasn't sure whether or not to add more. I'll say no for now.

Thanks for your input! *smooch*

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Hi! *waves* I'm spamming you. Would you mind checking again? I think I got it all fixed, but I wanted to make sure it looks alright from a computer that doesn't have access to the local files. *gives you the puppy dog eyes* Please?

http://www.saifai.co.uk/~foxshadow

[ex-kyrieane267.livejournal.com]

sorry it took so long, was watchin movies with the kids. pics are all up now! lovely! like the little fox, very cute!

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Between you and chicken_cem, I think I got it all sorted now. Thanks!

Glad it looks okay. And yeah, luv my lil' fox. He's cute. :)

[ex-kyrieane267.livejournal.com]

lol...yeah, read her reply....*glaze* me...pics are missing...her....tech babble that actually makes the problem make sense, and gives viable solutions....aren't you glad you have me around?

::mwah::

[saifai.livejournal.com]

::giggles::

She actually saw the site after I'd tried to fix the image problems you'd mentioned. *blush* I fixed the same problem twice. *head.desk.* So you're both good. :) And yeah, she might had some techno babble in there, but it's all good.

...and of course I'm glad to have you around! *hugs the stuffing out of you*

*smooch*

[ex-kyrieane267.livejournal.com]

lol....i'm insanely lazy when it comes to pics....i use tables and div absolutes! the alt code is a vague, i know its used kind of thing. but the div? yeah, i know how to use that baybeeee!

[saifai.livejournal.com]

OH man, you're better than I am at least. I'm lazy about pics, obviously. *rolls eyes* The div tags though? Augh! Those drive me nuts. I always end up with way more than I really need, then get too many close tags and it all gets messed up and I scream and thow fits.

Blather. Rinse. Repeat.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Three broken images (with incorrect URLs or whatever) on this page: http://www.saifai.co.uk/~foxshadow/portfolio.htm and also, the general lack of alt tags on your images means that there is not even a clue as to what the images are. I myself make this mistake a lot, just from laziness, even though I know that one must do in order to meet accessibility laws.

Since the university where I work has had an influx of blind students this year who have threatened lawsuits, we have to start fixing out sites and complying.

The 'alt' attribute value on the IMG element is only one example of how to make your site accessible. Here are some ways to check and fix your code:

Get started toward making one's site standards compliant by putting it through the 'Bobby' testing suite
(http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp).

Read up on the World Wide Web Consortium's standards (http://www.w3.org/WAI/) and using their checklist (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html).

Etc.

My co-worker has been trying to get me to shape up my code for a while now, and I myself feel a bit bad. So don't take this as lecturing you. I just think if I say this a few times, I might actually start to listen to myself.

I've recently noticed the effect accessibility has on non-disabled people, because I bought a cell phone with internet access, and have noticed that many sites are so inaccessible that they look like total garbage on a cell phone. So this is getting me thinking, too.

As for the general design, my first love of your site is the clean, rather minimalistic look, an uncluttered design that appeals to the eye and makes navigation a pleasure. I also love the clear conceptualization of categories, and I love the lilac color.

One thing, though, is that for example on the previously-mentioned Portfolio page, there is no link to 'home'. I suppose there should always be a way to get back to the home page on any site.

You have to take all this as advice from a programmer (XML, HTML, PHP, Perl, MySQL, etc.). I am a programmer and not a 'designer', so I speak intuitively about things like colors and information design. But I feel I've learned a lot from my co-worker in this area, and she's learned a lot of programming from me, so it evens out.

Great site. I really love it.

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Don't feel bad about it, I really appreciate your advice. Getting my sites up to code as far as the ALT tags are concerned is kind of a new thing for me. I had done it with the previous design, but the basic site elements are the ones I always forget.

Thanks for letting me know about the broken images. It was worse before. I didn't even run it through my site checker, which I should have. I'd kept the design in a seperate folder and when it loaded, they hadn't switched over to the correct one. Lazy mistake really, but I appreciate your help with that.

Thanks for the compliments on the design elements themselves. I was really hoping that it came across much better than my previous design. Basically, I was shooting minimalistic without being boring and bland.

Thank you for the links. I'll check them out. :)

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I see now on closer inspection that the Portfolio page isn't the only one with broken image URLs. The top two on the left of every page seem to be broken, and there is an additional third image in the body of the Portfolio page which is also not displaying. I'm sure you already know this from other people's comments. So ignore it if you wish. :-)