To start the Website Reviews -> Under Construction board off, I thought I'd post a request for comments on the layout I've designed for our upcoming website.

A screenshot can be found at http://www.largenets.com/images/largenets.png (note that if your operating system such as Windows XP shrinks the image, you'll have to unshrink it otherwise it will look horrible).

I'd appreciate any comments on the layout, overall feel, etc.

It's only a screenshot because unfortunately our development server is only available if you are on our network or by dialing directly into our network - it is not accessable on the Internet.

Basically the whole site is based on a Content Management System I designed that makes use of PHP and MySQL. It is entirely modular, so:
* The logos on the left are replaced by a sub navigation in sections of the site that require it (or they can be removed alltogether). This can also change to other things, eg: in the "Your Hosting Account" section - a username/password login box appears in the left section.
* The option exists to have a news pane, specials, etc below the sub navigation.
* You could have a different template shown for different sections of this site although we don't have this need yet.
* etc.

Thanks,
Shaun

Yup, I think it fits the bill.
Bit hard for me to check your code!!! (thieve)
What's with the female pic?? Is that you??
What's the connection??
Hey, you heard when Gary's getting up the forum at Aussiehosts?

later....

Thanks Brumer

The girl is actually a stock image licenced from http://www.istockphoto.com. I was reading some articles that having a human presence on your site gives it more feeling, etc. I'm actually a male (if you split up my nick you'll get my full name - Shaun Ewing)

If you want to see the code and how it looks in your browser, have a look at http://dc1.largenets.com:14000/web-d...ts/?id=welcome - but beware, the code is nasty .

Note that the links inside the site won't work when accessing it by that URL, you'll have to manually change the ID at the end of the URL to view some pages (but beware the content isn't all finished, I've only just done the layout and have started on the content).

And... that URL will only work when I'm connected to the internet which will probably be for another few hours. The URL you would have seen in the screenshot (http://largenets.web-devel.dc1.largenets.com) will only work if you are on either our LAN or WAN networks.

Regarding forum.. word from Gary is that it has moved servers but there have been some problems with the mySQL backup (messages, etc). They're trying to get it backup tonight, so hopefully we'll have the forum back soon

--Shaun

Disregard the previous link... I need to switch off the office PABX to make some changes so all calls going through the PABX when I flick the switch will be dropped (which includes the modem).

I'll post another message when I've done the changes when the link is working - or you can wait until the site launch at http://www.largenets.com (which should be about next Monday if everything goes to plan).

Regards,
Shaun

Well, everything is back online. After ~3 hours of working with the phone system everything is fixed. I had to take some action to fix faulty wiring that was causing the modem to retrain all the time (eventually retraining to a level where I would get 1.2kb/s maximum download speed). What I did was:
* Mount the phone system in a new location
* Replace all wiring between the phone system and where the phone lines come into the building (about 1 metre from where the phone system is located)
* Recrimp all connectors between the phone system and phone lines (the system uses NEC proprietary connectors) paying extra attention to the quality for line 4 (the modem line).
* Recrimp all connectors between the phone system and telephones behind the system.

The improvements are immediately noticed. Not only does the phone system installation look much neater, but the modem is connecting at 49,333 with no retrains (before it would connect at 46,666 and retrain about 20 seconds later and retrain once every 10 minutes or so).

Anyway, I'm going a bit off topic. The link should be working again for at least the next 6 hours - the actual pages can be viewed at http://dc1.largenets.com:14000/web-d...ts/?id=welcome

Regards,
Shaun

looks quite nice indeed
cant say i approve of your use of IE or XP though :P

Nice

Thanks for your nice words

I hate to say it, but in my opinion IE is the best web browser out there.

Netscape 6 - too slow (even on my PIII 1.1ghz laptop w/256mb ram) but if it wasn't so slow it would make a great browser.
Netscape 4 - too crashy and it seems to have major problems with most sites.
Opera - I don't really like the interface and feel.
Lynx - Nice little lightweight text browser... but unfortunately doesn't support images so it would be out

If it makes you feel better, I've got a Linux box sitting right next to me with 117 days uptime (and no UPS either which shows we have nice reliable power) so I'm not all Windows

--Shaun

im in Opera right now. I love the thing, especially compared to clunky IE.
So much faster, so many more features

That's interesting because I have several browsers installed to check websites and I really have found IE5.5 to be the best and also the fastest. The latest Opera (the free version) seems to be as slow as Netscape these days.

Ron...

really? i find it much much faster on my cable...
ive got Mozilla, IE5.5, Opera 6 & Netscape 4 all installed....Opera i use 90% of the time, IE 5% and the rest split between NS & Mozilla