Seeking Review

[Christopher K. Hartley]

I know it has been a while since I've been around, but with work and getting the new club site off the ground it hasn't left much time. I was wondering if some of you might take a few moments to review our new site and give me some feed back. I would certinally appreciate any comments you might have. Thanks.

http://lonestarwoodturners.com/index.html

[Ben Gastfriend]

Looks good! But according to Nancy Laird, the "ya'll" should be spelled "y'all". But Dennis does it your way. Believe they had a large discussion about ya'll's and y'all's and all ya'll's in this thread.

Dennis, Dennis, Dennis....your punctuation is messed up. It's y'all, not ya'll. Different meanings. Back to Joseph's English grammar book with you!

[Jeff Wright]

I was wondering if some of you might take a few moments to review our new site and give me some feed back. I would certinally appreciate any comments you might have. Thanks.

Nice effort Chris. Creating a website takes a tremendous amount of work to do well, and you folks are well on your way. Best of luck!

One comment, and it is only my opinion: Make your margins a bit larger on the left and right side of your type. Smallish margins make the type look squeezed in their framed boxes. Also, use ALIGN LEFT for your type instead of what appears to be CENTERED type. I notice this mostly with your introductory paragraphs. I would also suggest less spacing between lines of type in that same opening article. Spacing between lines of type that is too large makes it more difficult for the reader's eyes to follow the sentences.

I just recently joined the West Coast Florida Turner's Group and as a new wood turner I know I am going to benefit greatly from the knowledge of its members.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Chris - very nice site! Good layout with an easy menu to follow.

Only problem I found was with the newsletter for the month of April. January PDF loaded just fine but when I clicked on April it would attempt to load but Adobe would put up an error message and close. Tried it a couple of times - same result.

On opening page - couple of very minor spelling errors. One to many 'e' in coffeee and I believe bagle is spelled bagel - at least in this part of the woods. I know those are major hits and would cause many to click out of the site!! LOL

Overall - I like your site. Has lots of room for growth and more importantly - for showcasing the members turnings. Seriously - very nice work!

Should my turning club ever decide to do a website - I know where to turn to for help!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Very nice site Chris. The site looks really good and I can see a lot of effort has went into it. I like the ease of navigation. I also like the bio's. Really let's you get to know the folks. Well done.

[Ben Gastfriend]

I know where to turn to for help!

Was that a intended pun, Steve?

[Andy Hoyt]

Not bad, Chris. Not bad at all. Especially for right out of the gate.

Looks like you've kept the page width to a minimum (to accommodate all those dinosaur 14" monitors and 800 x 600 res fanatics out there). That's fine, but when you can, try to take it a step further and center the whole thing so we don't see a huge empty wasteland on the right hand side of the site.

Watch for blue hyper links on that dark blue background. Tough to read.

Noticed that some gallery links to pics etc weren't working. No biggie, ya just gotta hunt 'em down and fix.

The AAW logo looks like a hasty cut and paste. Lemme know if you'd like a cleaner copy.

Ya done good.

[Nancy Laird]

Hi, Chris.

Glad to see you back---we've missed you!!

I went to the site, and I have to agree with some of the prior comments - the empty wasteland on the right-hand side of the site, and a lot of spelling and grammar errors, with incomplete sentences and hanging phrases, particularly in the bios.

I had the same problem as Steve with the April newsletter...trying to close Adobe even shut down my SMC and I had to re-log into the forum.

And yes, the proper spelling is y'all - a contraction for you all.

Good site, Chris. Just needs some tweaking.

Nancy

[Allen Neighbors]

Y'all done good.
That's mespeak. :U

[CW McClellan]

In S.C. Ya'll is two people
Y'all is a bunch

HA!!

[Brian Weick]

I think it looks great and i like the layout, one question I have is ~ the gallery. Is that just for member pictures or is this area going to be for actual projects that have been spun? My only thought, and you did a great job by the way, is that you are repeating the member pictures , taking up space which you would probably want for pieces that have been accomplished by other turners/members. after a while having duplicates are going tol chew up valuable space that you will probably want for other items in the Web space. Just my honest opinion.
I like the color , the layout and the way you have to designed the web space. I have to re-do mine it has been off the WWW for almost 6 months and as you know they do take some time if you want it to flow properly and be a professional presentation such as what you have accomplished.
Well done!
Brian

[Christopher K. Hartley]

Thanks all, the points are helpful and will be addressed...wish I had more time to spend back here. CKH

[Joe Melton]

OK, Chris, I’ll be the jerk here. Here are the most obvious things....

• “Woodturner’s” should be “Woodturners’”
• At the top of the page, you call your club “Lone Star Woodturner’s Association”. The logo omits the apostrophe, by the way. In the first sentence, below, you call it “The Lone Star Woodturner’s Association.” Either lose the “The” or change the name above.
• “Houston Texas” should be “Houston, Texas”
• “show and tell” should be “Show and Tell”
• “took place as a number” should be “took place when a number”
• “coffeee” should be “coffee”
• “Bagles” should be “bagels” (spelling and lower case)
• the next sentence is not a sentence
• “By-Laws” should probably be “bylaws”
• “elected and excitement” should be “elected, and excitement”
• “wood turning” should be “woodturning” to be consistent with "woodturners" used elsewhere
• “Our membership” should be “Membership”
• “open to all and” should be “open to all, and”
• “annual membership fee” should be “annual fee”
• “amoung” should be “among”
• “enthusiasts that” should be “enthusiasts who”
• “Guilds” should be “guilds” (lowercase)
• “Skews” should be “skews” (lowercase)

I don't know about the ya'll vs. y'all controversy.
Building a website is beyond my abilities, and I admire your efforts. You should make the first page as attractive as possible, I would think, so anyone who lands there wants to explore further. Hopefully, it is easy enough to change it after it is "published".
I realize other list members have already mentioned some of these items.
Take care and best of luck with your new club.
Joe, who probably works words better than he works woods

[Bill Blasic]

Chris,
You state that the club is a Non-Profit Organization, how did you get all the legal mumbo jumbo done so fast. After two years my club the Presque Isle Woodturners was finally declared by the government to be a Public Non-Profit Organization. I think you've done a good job on the website. Everything loads fast with my dial up connection.

[Dennis Peacock]

In S.C. Ya'll is two people
Y'all is a bunch

HA!!

Now THAT's my kind of spellin'.!!!!