biscuitrat

And (since I've been gone so long), as far as downloads go, do everything you can to make your site unique. You don't have to have downloads and tutorials to have a good site.

I started writing an article about this for an article site I had just joined. It was done! I wrote so much! I was so thrilled! I hit "Submit!" And as it turned out, it had timed out and the entire page reset. My face was probably priceless but so was my utter rage. So I've been careful about what I write since then. I have a Notepad document open as I type. And then I make several threats and continue writing. But back to the point. Hosting This one's simple. Dear god, if you ask me questions about this, I will scream very loudly. But seriously, if Xisto isn't right for you { O_O }, look around. If you feel like you want to pay, go ahead. Always make sure you look over features and guidelines before you buy anything or subscribe to anything. You might get yourself into a lot more trouble than it's worth to put your site online. Two things you want to consider: space required and features required. If you don't care about databases, don't bother paying extra for them. Most hosts will allow you to upgrade later if you need. Second, estimate how much space your site is going to take. If you have a lot of downloads planned, get lots of bandwidth (transfer). You don't want to pay fees for going over your limit when you could have easily had as much as you wanted. Your identity People don't like going to sites and seeing, "John's site - things John likes - about John". They like creativity. Not to sound cheesy, but we're all creative in our own ways. Mix around your name, a favorite hobby, a favorite color, a favorite element, a cartoon character, a TV show, a word from the dictionary - anything can be tossed into the blender here and can make your name. Color scheme Plan this out BEFORE you start your site. What I do is I take a greyscale palette and add a few accent colors. If you have a bright color, use it sparingly - use it in accents. You don't want a site with a huge bright orange background and such. Or, you can take an image (refer to "Your Identity") you want and pick colors from that. You can later work that image into your site as a header, background, etc. DESIGN FOR CONTRAST AND READABILITY (I think I made a word, oh well)! Content Cheesy again, but write from the heart! It's your site, people can't tell you what you want on it or what you don't. But every site will find viewers in the end. Every site will find commenters, if that's what you want. Don't go by the standards of other sites - where everyone has affiliates, topsites, voting, polls, forums, graphics, downloads, tutorials, etc - pick something you know you can do. I'm sick of seeing 100+ tutorials on how to make a CSS file on sites. Please please please please please please please be original. This is your baby, don't make it a genetic match to everything else in the world. Design While accessibility, semantics, and valid code is great, don't throw yourself overboard trying to get it. Work towards it a little at a time. My first few sites were horrid but I still loved them. One thing you want is to always improve, or try to. If your header loads too slow in one version, make it smaller in the next. Always keep your eyes open for little errors. Hints: Most people like navigation at the top or left of a page. Make sure headers and links look different from normal text. Always underline links (default), and always check if you can view it across browsers. Validity I recommend it, but as I said before, you don't have to. This will push you well on your way to your site being SUPERAWESOME across most browsers as well as semantics. (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/) Advertising Be nice, be yourself. Don't impose things on people on your site. Find ways to introduce user interaction - forums, comments, polls - people like being involved in helping you make your site better. Make a few small images and distribute them. Let people link to you and you can link back. Don't expect your site to become popular instantaneously overnight, but let the site grow. One visitor can lead to five, and on. It's gradual, but if you keep trying, you'll get the popularity you want. Hope you enjoyed this! My other one was tons better

Don't use frames if you can help it! Write main content into your HTML file first and then add things. Site engines want to see the main points of your site before you know, your favorite movie or whatever. Second, I'm not really sure how Pagerank works exactly, but advertise - make little buttons, leave helpful comments, make friends. HTML is slowly moving to XHTML, etc, but normal HTML is fine. What you want to make sure is that your site looks similar (as stated earlier) in most browsers. Opera, IE, and FF/Mozilla are the top three, I believe. If you can get a friend to check it for you on Safari (Mac), that'd be cool too. If it doesn't look like it's going to work out, simplify your layout. Add things one at a time so you don't have to go back and take out a whole lot of stuff just to get your site looking good.And whatever you do, try to learn CSS so you can edit your site a lot easier. It'll also make your pages load faster by taking the design out of the content. Enjoy!

I use Sitemeter because it gives me a lot of data, it's easy to customize, and it's just a lot easier to use than some other scripts. I realize that Xisto's cPanel has some integrated counter scripts, but I think Sitemeter is still my favorite. For one, I barely have to do any maintenance to it. I just place it anywhere on my site and I'm good.

I made a few templates. They're all pretty simple, but they're pretty, I think. One of my more recent ones is Paramour. I dunno, I guess it's more fun for me to make my own template than build off of something that already exists. But a few of those are pretty.

Visit this site and check out my layout! History In between making my site from little Notepad files to introducing tabbed navigation, etc, I somehow became a zealot of web-standards. I'm nowhere near there yet, but I'm getting closer. This layout features more of my writing, more of my ARTISTRIEEESSS, and definitely more interesting design. If you hated pink before, you'll hate it more now. This layout oozes of it. Features I'm particularily proud of Breadcrumbs! <3 of CSS Valid XHTML 1.1 all around Why? Well, OK, we've been over the fact that my old layout was boring. I went into a creative slump using Cutenews. I tried Wordpress, a run of different sites. When I thought I'd perfected my old layout, I suddenly needed something cleaner. I tried blues, oranges, even grayscale to see if it would work. But instead, I went back to pink. I tried to use my special talents - making things glossy and painting - and I made the header. From there, it was like I was alive again. Bit by bit, it got better. Bit by bit, I'm loving it still

OMG I love Portable Photoshop! It's pretty good, but unless you read the text, you don't know what's about it. Since it's the World Cup, maybe a soccer ball? In addition, you can't really see the British flag. You can only see the cross, and I guess the blue is behind the red somewhere. Aside from that, not bad.

I like the flash and I love the look. The colors are a little bland, but that's probably just me. One thing I would suggest is to not center your content. Add another color to the background where the text is going to be - perhaps something lighter so the text is easier to read. Arial, Helvetica, or Verdana probably serve as better font choices than Times New Roman.I'd also recommend learning a bit of CSS to complement your graphical skills. That would make for neater presentation, etc. Good work so far

You can probably the top of the page down a little. Your eyes have to move up a bit to see the name of the site. I like the breadcrumbs and I like the gloss, but it looks like the whole thing is a template from a site and I'm not getting exactly what we're supposed to be complementing you on if you didn't make it. The CMS version, however, is pretty neatly done. There's not very much visual flair, but the accessibility is great. Keep it up

It's a bit clunky and it looks like you didn't do very much to it aside from adding your own content. The header image also seem slike it's placed there instead of looking like it fits. The text doesn't really stand out from it either. Um, I'd probably say a 6/10, but you could definitely do better on organization and design.However the link in your signature is pretty nicely done, but again...is that a skin or did you modify something that already exists?

Yay CSS! I love the header image, but it would probably look better if you make the background of that top box the same color as the darkest color on the header image, to make it look like it blends in, rather than just being placed there. Work with padding and margins and font-size and it should be pretty good. Nice!

The colors could be a little more vibrant, but it's pretty nice. My only real complaint would be the use of Comic Sans, a font I absolutely detest. You also might want to make the font a little bigger, change the color of the text that says "Search" - make it bold, more visible, add a border to the text-area, etc. Something to make it stand out. When you're on a site that's going to be linking to as many things as you are, you want to be able to narrow things down. You also might want to move the actual site navigation up a little bit. Most people look to the top or the left for navigation, so that's probably a better place for it. The rest of it's fine. Good work

My dad's the absolute epitome of a computer-newbie. He loves finding new programs that appear to be cool, and actually end up screwing up his computer. It doesn't help, then, that his entire desktop is cluttered with programs meant to get RID of the bad programs. My method of doing this is somewhat different. For one, I don't download things I don't need. I use Firefox with add-ons like Dutchblock, Fasterfox, etc. I check for spyware, adware, and viruses at least once a week. I mean, that's only going to take care of the evident problems you have. Viruses are a lot sneakier than that. No one's computer is truly clean, but at least I think I'm on the right track.

A word's just a word though, right? I don't put any more emphasis on swear words than normal words and I don't get the emphasis placed on "protecting" kids from swear words, finding them offensive. Kids are going to hear "swear words" wherever they are. I mean, what's the difference between words that mean "poo"? They all mean the same thing, right? So why isn't poo considered derogatory, and the others are? There are a few different letters, certainly, but what makes society more receptive to "baby words" like poo when other words are only a few steps away? I'm assuming somewhere in our evolution, expression has become somewhat censored and the necessity to use swear words is coupled with one's moral de-evolution. But why would that happen? Who really cares? Words are only words.

Your band concerts are a lot more complex than mine. For us, most of the hassle is putting on our uniforms and warming up - for what? 14 minutes of playing? It just goes without saying that there's too much pressure on appearance rather than effort and good playing. Either way, I'm usually there for two hours, between having to get ready, and having to wait for the other bands to play before mine goes up. I just wish they'd get the message that we don't really care. I'm just there for my phys. ed. and fine arts credits now. With my school emphasizing so much on marching, I get to wait an entire semester before band becomes interesting again.

Wow, I haven't been here for a while. Anyway, yes, I agree with InitialIgnition. I mean, it has a lot more color and visual impact than the others. And since it's stretchable, it's easy to integrate into anything. There's a lot more vibrance there that you can play with versus any of the other ones. However, the "Menu" text doesn't really fit into the gray background. If you went with something like the title text or perhaps a light blue color as used in your logo, it might end up looking a bit more like it fits. Otherwise, the gradiant makes it look too metallic and there are no other metallic elements appearing in the template.Awesome job, Johnny. Stay spiffy <3

My school's so friggin' clique-y. But instead of defined nerds, we have our anime geeks, the band geeks, the Latin geeks (me!), emo people, a few goths, punks, "gangstas", the asian whatever they call it, the indian group (of which I'm happily excluded), the athletes - we don't have any real jocks, the random rich kids, the hardrockers. We've got it all. And it's so easy to tell who is in what group. Kinda creepy though

My Latin teacher just played on the Faculty's side for a Faculty vs Students Basketball game yesterday. Catch was, he had to play on the back of a donkey - like in the Simpsons. I didn't get to see it, but I'll find out how it went.

OMG Academic Challenge! I do it all the time - I'm on varsity, but I'm a sophmore. Unfortunately, this year, I'm an alternate for varsity because some bird-brain (literally - all he reads are nature books) took my place when I can do the same amount as him @_@Instead, I'm captain of my Certamen (Latin Academic Challenge Team) and we just kick **bottom** wherever we go, no problem.

Very nice! I love the gloss

The colors are a little drab, but they're not bad. I have a problem with the Flash, personally. It's cool, but you should probably limit it to one or two elements within the site simple because, as loverboy said, some people have problems with it. On your images, you should avoid the bevel. It makes it look nooby and it causes a shift in perspective because the header is the only thing sticking out. I like the gradients but I think on the header, you should work on unifying them. Move your clan's name to the left side with a tagline or something so that people will know what the site is. ''On the organization, it's decent. I would refrain from putting the colons ( around your text because it doesn't feel very much like a clan then. You can use circles, or squares to exude that modern flair. Move your upcoming events box to the top. When you add in content, people will want to see what's happening as soon as they visit the site. Having it at the bottom makes a lot of people miss it.On the coding, I'm no expert with Flash. I'll admit that. However, if you learn a little CSS, you can make the coding a lot easier on you. If you limit the flash to the header or navigation alone, you can type in your content with a CMS which will be easier to edit and take up less file space than a huge clunky flash file will.

I like the pen and paper as well, but I always make my images first to determine the theme. I think reds can be a bit too dramatic, so I agree with the neutral colors. However, you want to add interest to your site, so add bursts of a bright color as well. Don't use the red and black. For one, it's extremely tacky and overused, and secondly, it evokes the wrong feelings. Thirdly, it's hard to read. Remember that you'll probably want a light colored background (white is usually the best since pastel colors would attract more of a female audience) and enough contrast that you can read the page without well...killing your eyes. Programs (you can get free 30 day trials of these)Dreamweaver (optional) - I only use it to organize colors and templates. Most of my work is done in Notepad.Adobe Photoshop CS (CS2) - My absolute favorite photo editing software. It's incredibly powerful, easy to use, and fun too :blink:Since you're doing a Christian site, I would work around the cross for your logo. Use straight lines and gradients to make it glow sort of. You want something modern. People are going to see the images of the site before the content, so you'll want them to spend more time on that. Use textures and brushes to your advantage but remember the audience you're targetting. I'm 15, so I'll tell you that teens like having interactivity with sites. They don't like reading content as much as discussing content. Comics, funny images, and jokes or things like that will urge them to come back. Keep different sections for children, teens, and parents so that you will get a wider audience.That's all I've got now. I'm creatively dead

I prefer using notepad a lot more nowadays. Dreamweaver made things too easy. I just mass produced everything and ended up with a wad of things I didn't even want. At least it was CSS friendly. I find it's more entertaining for me to take a plain CSS layout, one with room for navigation, content, and a header (I add in a footer later) and add images to it, text to it, and content to it until 1) it validates and 2) it looks decent. While I haven't done templates for a while, I find that's the best way to go about making something. It puts more of your work into it, and if you're charging by the hour, that's the best way to do it

I absolutely hate Intelligent Design. For one, it goes against centuries of evolutionary research. Darwin sure as hell didn't contribute to teaching children that science only happens because someone made it happen. Second, it has so many loopholes. If ID claims that nature is so intricate that it had to be made by some cosmic (or divine) person, it opens for the question "So where did the designer come from?". Biology teachers are forced to stop using the Scientific Method because it doesn't apply to ID as well as losing their jobs for such retarded reasons. My grass is dead, and my dog has retarded capabilities. Are they made from the same mold as, let's say [celebrity grass :/] and Lassie? You just can't say things like that because everything is different for a reason. Creationist and ID theories take away the uniqueness from a person, saying they were all made the same way and can do the same things because of it. This is not at all true. Everyone is different. Everyone has a varied purpose in life. I love being taught evolution because it gives a reason for things to exist, to have those different professions that make them unique. Like the birds on the Galapagos - each adapted to crack a different nut, eat a different fruit. If an intelligent designer had made them, you would have random species of closely linked birds doing the same things, but it doesn't explain anything. Evolution is change, and change happens. It's what's right. I may be a radical on my part, but I've tried both ways and only one works for me.

I have no idea who our president is anymore. I remeber Vajpayee and I know he's gone now, and that's it. I'm retarded about politics anyway, and it really doesn't concern anything but my ego for TEH MOTHERLAND. I guess that's cool though :/