My first "serious" website (non-woodwork)

[arose62]

My daughter has just started dancing lessons, and as someone who tries to be an involved parent, I've set up a website for them.

http://www.cathymakindanceacademy.com.au
or
http://www.cmda.com.au

I'd be interested in any feedback, and happy to provide info on what I've used to build it, should anyone be interested.

Cheers,
Andrew

[Brown Dog]

Very impressive Andrew....having just had my first crack at a personal website recently, I must say yours leaves mine in the dust .

Its not really a subject I am particulary interested in, but from the design side of things I am very impressed. I especially like that you have your own little forum and classified sections . Its easy to navigate and is pleasing to look at....top job

One question though... who did you use to register your domains and do your hosting ? Im interested as I will hopefully be moving mine from sludgepond to my own domain soon

Cheers
BD

[arose62]

Brown Dog,

I checked whatsinaname.com.au and went with Intaserve as they were cheapest for domain registrations.

My suggestion is to be a bit careful sussing out what names are available, as the day after I registered these domains, "cathymakindanceacademy.com" (not .com.au) was gone! Maybe grab the .com first, then the .com.au if you are after both. The .com.au has a bit more protection around it, whereas anyone can grab anything .com

Hosting is with ServersAustralia.com.au

Not wildly impressed with them...
You can set up a free domain to start playing, and their pricing is amongst the cheapest. Jumba would be my 2nd choice.

I had quite a few technical issues, which were all eventually resolved, but in each case I believe it was an initial stuffup on their part, which shouldn't have happened. Still, if you've got a bit of nouse, they are worth a look at.

Cheers,
Andrew

[RufflyRustic]

Very impressive site
loads quickly and easily
works well
easy to travel around it and find the pertinent info quickly

cheers
Wendy

[RobP]

Hi Andrew
Very nice effort on the website.
The only change I would suggest is to shorten the red hover bar on the home page so it just overlaps the longest list entry by one space at each end.
Cheers
Rob

[arose62]

Rob,

I agree, but it depends on which browser you're using - things that happen one way in FireFox, happen another way in IE, and different ways in different versions of the same product...

I also noticed that the little favicon image showed up for each item, or didn't, depending on which browser was used.

Cheers,
Andrew

[RobP]

I see what you mean.
I usually use IE7 but I just tried Firefox and it all works beautifully.
Good job.
Cheers
Rob

[oges]

nice looking website
keep meaning to make one for a group im in

[arose62]

'oges,

I used Drupal (it's a freeware CMS - content management system). I've been pretty impressed at what you get for nothing, and it seems to be a pretty popular option available with cheap/free hosting.

Once set up, you can give different users the ability to add/change/delete info, so you end up with a group of people building the website, not just you.

I did about the first 10 pages, then started pushing the requests back to the business owners, and after they'd done a couple of pages by themselves, they just took off and ran with it.

Cheers,
Andrew