Personal Webpage Critique

[Jim Young]

I just put together a web page with my woodworking stuff and was looking for some feedback. Since I'm no web genius I figured there were some things tha I can do to make the side more fluid. Take a look and give me some feedback. The site is also a testament to the fact that I actually do woodworking, not just buy tools and read internet forums.

www.simoli.net

In time I will change out some of the back drops to make them a little more subject related and also add some of those cute little gifs. So far I have managed to put in a guest book which seems to actually work. Even thought about getting a digital camcorder, it would be easy to share short films with some of my distant relatives.

[Andy Hoyt]

Jim - Site structure looks good. Simple and straight forward. And very easy on the eye. It's a wee bit lacking in content but that will come. It's a great start and have bookmarked it so I can not only keep tabs on ya, but also to steal ideas for my site.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Looks like a good start, Jim. (Your shop's too clean, though. ) As Andy said, the content will come, and it looks like it's laid out in a workable way. Are you using Frontpage? (I seem to recall seeing that template when I was choosing the themes for both of my home-made sites.)

- Vaughn

[Andy Hoyt]

Jim - I just thought of another thing, and I know that Vaughn can relate to it. I also have a Guest Book on my site (put it up back in early September) and my guess is that three out five entries are from robotic spidery search engine entities (help me here with the correct language, Vaughn) that are employed by the porn industry. A message gets posted that is mostly benign but will include a url to an adult site whose pictures are way beyond the SMC TOS!

As such, I've taught my self to visit it at least once a day to delete the offending entries. Porn has it's place, but it's not in my guest book; and would presume yours either. Keep an eye out!

[Frank Hagan]

The site looks nice! You will get bad entries in your guestbook, as Andy mentions. So it is a good practice to check it daily (some of the guestbook applications will notify you when a new entry is made, which makes it more convenient.)

The other thing that will happen is that you will get a TON of spam now to your email address on the pages. There is a way around it ... instead of using your email address spelled out, encrypt it using Ted Williams' nifty little conversion routine at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/spam/spam2.htm

He has a few other "more secure" methods, but then not all visitors will be able to see the email address or click on it to send you an email. I prefer the simple method, and it has reduced my spam by about 90%.

[Jim Becker]

Nice and clean, Jim. And I also endorse Andy's and Frank's suggestions relative to security, etc.