Official Luthiers Forum!

Guys,

Yep...I have done it...in a fit of madness I have gone and totally redone my website!

I'd appreciate it if you could give me some feedback, let me know how it works in your browser, etc.. Even though it's not 100% complete (a couple of photos and sound files still need finishing up), there is enough there to give you an idea...at least I hope so!!

There are probably more than a few typos on the site too, since it's 2am now and I am just finishing!

Please have a look and thanks!!!

Wren Guitars

Russ,

Do you have a relationship with Tommy Emmanuel? Is he a customer or an endorser of your guitars?

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Looks really good. Everything works, and very tastefully done.

Al

Very nice looking site,It works fine

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Looks very nice. Loads fast in netscape, everything seems to work. Nice pics!

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Russ,

The website looks nice. You might want to change the spelling of comission to commission.   

John

I agree - great job. I'm impressed. Some constructive critique I can offer
would be to increase the title's font size about 5% and increase the black
in it just slightly to make it a bit darker. On your home link, the roll over
image is aligned just slightly high, about two pixels. Those are my
offerings. I think the navigation, title, and news area are fighting for
visual dominance in that top area. I would try to find a way to move the
navigation and news down, but that would require decreasing the image's
size. It's a tremendous site, I just feel a little too much going on visually.

Russ, nice website, Tommy Emmanuel on there is a Major Plus to it. everything worked ok!

Russ,

Great looking site!

Are you planning to include some basic pricing info? I'm one of those skeptics who believes that if someone doesn't post their prices, it's because their prices are too high, and I generally wouldn't bother inquiring further. I'm probably unusual, but I'm sure I'm not the only one.

The site is functional, classy, and pretty easy to navigate. (I did hunt a bit for "Contact.")

Your workmanship is awesome, and it would be cool if every photo in the "Models" and "Under Construction" areas were links to a large photo, perhaps as big as 800x600. Pull us in to the details.

One image in the gallery, the one that shows a back (Pau Ferro) is slightly out of focus, but would probably have a bit more "pop" if you apply a bit of "unsharp mask" filter to it. Do you really want to say Pau Ferro is "related" to Brazilian Rosewood?

The ubiquitous phrase "Under Construction" has come to mean an unfinished web page, or worse, a placeholder for an unstarted web page. You might think about changing that heading to "On the Bench", or "In Progress".

I see that you are using a form for contact. You are wise not to include your email address, within the HTML code, to cut down Spam. If you would like to show your email address so that it is readable by humans but not by SpamBots, you could include it in a graphic image.

If you have a relationship with Tommy Emmanuel, you should trumpet that; if not, you may want to move that to a "links" area so that you are not giving the impression of an affiliation.

Hope this helps. Your site is better than many already!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

[QUOTE=Don Williams] Russ,

Do you have a relationship with Tommy Emmanuel? Is he a customer or an endorser of your guitars?
[/QUOTE]

Don,

Thanks for this comment! I think you have saved me a lot of trouble!!

I have no relationship with Tommy Emmanuel (outside of having a couple of beers with him), I am just a big fan. He is soon touring The Netherlands (where I currebtly live), and I was hoping to get the word out about his tour dates.

I can see that in my haste to finish up the site, by placing this link where I did, I could give the impression that he is an endorser of my instruments.

I have removed the link from the "front page", and kept only link to his site in the "external links" section.

Thanks again for your comment!!! I think I owe you one!

Everything works fine in Netscape. I too would like to see a slightly larger and darker text size. But I like the fact that you have not been tempted to put a bit of spruce as the background which seems to be common on Luthery websites. Very tastefull.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

[QUOTE=John Elshaw] Russ,

The website looks nice. You might want to change the spelling of comission to commission.   

John[/QUOTE]

Thanks John...this is what late nights will do to ya!
Hopefully, I have fixed this now....

[QUOTE=James Orr]   On your home link, the roll over
image is aligned just slightly high, about two pixels.    [/QUOTE]
James,

Didn't notice this before, thanks for pointing it out. I have now fixed the graphic, and all seems OK now.

[QUOTE=DennisLeahy]

One image in the gallery, the one that shows a back (Pau Ferro) is slightly out of focus, but would probably have a bit more "pop" if you apply a bit of "unsharp mask" filter to it. Do you really want to say Pau Ferro is "related" to Brazilian Rosewood?

Dennis[/QUOTE]

Dennis,

You're right about the pic, it's a bit on the "soft" side. I have done a bit of work on it, but I think it will need to be replaced in the near future.

Thanks again for the feedback, it's good to be able to run this stuff by the "community" before unleashing it on the public at large!

Hi Russ

I like the overall look, I think it has a class feel.

If I press the button and go to your home page the images in the centre, seem to start at the end, I can only press the previous image button and go backwards through them, where as you would expect to go the other way, pressing next image.

hope this helps

[QUOTE=RussellR] Hi Russ

I like the overall look, I think it has a class feel.

If I press the button and go to your home page the images in the centre, seem to start at the end, I can only press the previous image button and go backwards through them, where as you would expect to go the other way, pressing next image.

hope this helps[/QUOTE]

Russell...Thanks for your observation....I left out one of these ">" , so the navigation was only working in one direction from the main page. Another bug solved!!!!

Thanks again!

[QUOTE=DennisLeahy]I see that you are using a form for contact. You are
wise not to include your email address, within the HTML code, to cut
down Spam. If you would like to show your email address so that it is
readable by humans but not by SpamBots, you could include it in a
graphic image. [/QUOTE]

This is a great little free tool that encodes email addresses. I use it on all
non-flash sites I do and clients never get hit with spam. It's awesome.
Just enter your email address and paste the code it gives you. http://
automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform/

[QUOTE=James Orr]
This is a great little free tool that encodes email addresses. I use it on all
non-flash sites I do and clients never get hit with spam. It's awesome.
Just enter your email address and paste the code it gives you. http://
automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform/ [/QUOTE]

James,

Thanks for the tip. On this page, I am using the PHP "sendemail" function, so my email address is hidden in the PHP file and not in the HTML code of the page itself.

I have been using this on my site for the last few years, and have no real spam issues to speak of (fingers crossed!)

On the new page, I have made a switch to using CSS, and I'm pretty happy with it as well.

OK...I think it's time to talk guitars, before I get too carried away with geeky web talk!!

I saw that! CSS is really the way to go from now on. I'm really a flash
guy, but I was really pleased to move over to it last summer. I hope you
enjoy your new site!         & nbsp;