Peter Lewis

A client wanted to do the graphic design for their own website revamp and asked what size to do it. some sites use a dynamic size - expanding the website with the size of the browser - which maximises the space. Although this offers the greatest flexibility, it comes with it’s own challenges with regards to good design and coding.

Although I tend to develop Flash eLearning to run full screen therefore a default of 1024×768, although due to browser security issues you have to allow for the title bar and frame (1016 x 734), although depending on the version of Flash and your browser, this sometimes isn’t the case. Bit of a mine field really!

Typically in the past I’ve developed websites intended for 800×600 at around 783 x 398 actual web space (allowing for scrollbar, border and standard toolbars in browsers).

But more and more I see larger websites as visitors screen sizes increase and generally they run their browser larger or full screen. So now the typical (new) website would generally be around 950×600, although these can fluctuate up and down depending on the developer and design. So somewhere between 850×500 and 1000×700.

There are many considerations, especially mobile phones and older systems using smaller resolutions, but fundamentally you need to look at your target market - look at your existing website stats to see what your visitors resolutions typically are and go with a size that works with your design - too much space can be difficult to fill, too little can look cramped and involve too much scrolling.

Don’t have access to stats? A great resource is W3Schools - The general consensus is that most users are at 1024×768 (48%) but larger resolutions are rising fast (38%), and towards the end of 2008 will probably be the majority.

So, I’ve changed my nameservers on my domain to point to my new host and granted it takes time to propagate, but after a good few hours, peteralewis.com is active and pointing to my new host.

Almost.

www.peteralewis.com (with the www) gets redirected to searchportal.information.com (also related to spi.domainsponsor.com). After a quick search it appears this is common and people start blaming Google, IE, spyware and ISPs for redirecting domains that can’t be found to these websites.

I use Fasthosts for my domains and this site is currently hosted with Dreamhost - I’ve no idea if one of these are responsible, my previous host (hostgator) or some higher management of domains.

But the reason it’s occurring is that the domain hasn’t fully propagated throughout the internet. Low and behold around 18 hours from setting up the new nameservers, the www. address points to the correct place.

Problem solved, although it would be good to know why the address without the www worked straight away…

After nearly four years without a website, I’m back online! Frantically trying to get a site up and running from scratch in whatever time I can squeeze in around projects.

Being a designer, I want it to look fantastic, leading edge and possibly even award winning (hah!).

Being a developer, I want it to be all web 2.0, accessible, usable and fully validated with clean CSS and xhtml. Not only that, it has to be a solution that ticks all the boxes:

• Client login with unique secure review and file download and upload areas, all easy to use.
• Allow animations and example projects to be viewed.
• Implement a dropbox style emailing facility, where I can send large emails via the website and clients can send them to me. Easily.
• There’s got to be a leading edge gallery and image viewing implemented site wide
• Ideally linked or combined with project management and issue tracking websites or tools

And being the customer and project manager…

• It’s got to be delivered on time (yesterday)
• Fully SEO (Search Engine Optimised)
• Include good content and material
• Inspire or help other developers/designers
• Impress clients into hiring me

Phew.

That’s a fair amount to achieve, especially as the old adage is true that “you’re always more critical of your own work, so it’ll never be completely happy with it”. So the only way forward is to get it online straight away and improve the site as required over time.

So stage 1 - get WordPress up and running, use a nice looking template and focus on the site structure and content. Most importantly get the portfolio up and running so potential and existing clients can see my work.

Better get on then…