hi
please help review this one

www.megapointautos.com

i also posted this one last week www.srevir.com but got very few replies, help review that as well.

thanks a lot

nice works. There's something i've noticed about the 2 sites from u so far. Simple. Simple is good, but they look too flat and empty. The things that bring out the sites are your pictures. if you remove the pictures you'll understand what i mean by flat. Colour combination is very good on both sites though. Try bringing shadow effets into your site, they help alot. You could also use rollover effects fo your links, they'll make the site look more interactive.

But i'll have to say your site's are aight.

@nduaj - I like your site! I belong to the 'simple is best' school (unapologetically so too!), and I think the site is very good, well done. In fact, I 'almost' have nothing I'd rather change - but then there's just got to be something, hasn't there

Anyway - the only thing I'd look into is the quality of the smaller photos on the 'newmodels' page. A bit strange, because the quality of the main images on all the pages is very good. Of course I am sure you can deal with that easily. But from a design/functionality/ease of use viewpoint - well done!

nduaj,

with respect to srevir, you have to understand one thing about life, atimes quality (of posts) is better than quantity (of posts).

Back to the car site: I love it!! I wish you have started a trend that others will follow. Even the flash doesn't make me nauseous. The photo quality (in the header) of the photos is suberb! Who took those for u? If you did, I need to hook up with you

My observations (and of course, I use FF):
1) In the header section of your sub-pages, the blue strip is sort of hanging at the bottom of the header images. Consider moving those down abuot 2 or 3 pixels. If that bottom space is actually a thick gray border, I would suggest your remove it.

2) In the "latest models" page, it appears the top of your thumbnail images aren't lining up with the Make and Model text to their right (BMW 645I for example). I would align them such that they lined up perfectly.

3) Also on "latest models", the right border of your left menu cuts off about halfway through the page. Any reason for that? Finally, why are there 2 gray borders, with a large gap, between car listings? I would take those out.

4) For consistency, I would make the header image on the home page the size dimensions as the header images on the other pages and move the menu beside it, again for consistency, to where they are on the other pages. This is a nit-pick, but I just thought I should throw it out there. If you must keep the menus that way, then make sure the blue hover covers the space completely (remember, I use FF and what I am seeing is the blue hover covers about 80% of the space). If you used CSS rollovers, I would say you need to set your anchor tags to "display:block;"

5) I would also suggest you use text, for SEO/bandwidth reasons, where you have images ("welcome to our website", "financing", "welcome to your dream car", etc). Some are as big as 7KB. If you are concerned about crispness and can't find a better font, consider using siFR fonts.

6) I know why your thumbnails look grainy (and you know too ). Let's take the BMW 645 I on this page for instance: http://www.megapointautos.com/newmodels.php . Upon right-clicking the image and left-clicking, "view image", I get this: http://www.megapointautos.com/pics/DSC00036.JPG

I take it you are automatically uploading your photos from a digital camera. Rather than "resize by force", I suggest you either:

1) Use PHP's GD extensions to resize your images when you display them, or:

2) Use Photoshop or Fireworks to manually resize (proportionately of course) uploaded images. This option may not be the best, especially if you aren't the one to do maintenance once you hand the size over, but I just thought I should throw it out there.

Don't take my observations the wrong way please. If you were to handover the site as is, thumbnails aside, and I were the client, I would probably pay you jara. Good job man!

I hope these help.

@my2cents

thnks for the post. well, i guess ur right that the quality not quantity of a review matters more.
You see my2cents, most (if not all) of my sites are optimized for IE and not for mozilla,operas, navigators etc. so sometimes, i print out your reviews and go to my site to make the corrections, but i usually dont , due to browser issue. thoughh there are times that browser or not, i see the corrections you suggest that shud be made. i havnt done my usuall print on this site, but i will once am true sending this. Thaks a billion.
yeah, concerning my thumbnails, i recently worked out a code that automaticaly creates thumbnail imges once i upload (Using the GD lib of course). but @ the time i was workin on this site, i hadnt finished that function , so i simply used a simple resize echo in my src tag (bad programming practise , i know )

Yeah , i took all the pictures in the site myself. I have this digital cam i use .wen going for job. and u can trust lagos sunlight to provide adequate lighting for the photo. thnks am glad u like it.

hahhahhaha i wish you were the client too o. buy in anycase sha , the owner has since paid for the services. (though i wish he dashed me one of his cars sha), lol

thnks, thnks again.

nduaj,

if you code to web standards and do so in FF (which has a lot of cool web tool plugins), then verify your work in IE, you probably wouldn't have to do that much tweaking.

Having said that, I am not taking away from your site. It still is good. Its just that, by default, I use and develop in FF. As for the camera, you mind giving me the specs? It might be something I look at buying depending on cost

Thanks.

@my2cents

points taken

the camera is a Sony DSC-N2 (10.1 MEGAPIXELS) Camera . I got it for N50, 000 earlier this year. dont kno if the price has gone up or down. Its a nice one and a good investment as a web dev. cos there are times gettyimage and corbis wont do the trick so u must get the images urself, feel me?

wow,

such a tiny camera takes such powerful photos? Interesting! I just checked it out on amazon and the reviews are good as well.

Thanks, and good luck to you in your web dev endeavors.

Observation : The Site are excellent but if you can teach me how to use php then more observation will come in

we should not mistake simplicity with lack of creativity 


srevir.com 

megapoint.com : i actually  taut the domain had expired, the site looks like an expired domains place holder 

you have to inprove a little bite

@timmy

the address is www.megapointautos.com and not megapoint.com

@georgen2u

georgen2u:

you have to inprove a little bite

I think you need to improve your spellings a little bit (for where??!!, A whole lot)

Nduaj , sorry ive not responded, i was at interswitch yesterday to make enquiries on the pricing and all, as soon as were set, ill call you up so we can discuss with my OGAs. By the way the sites are kool keep up the good work