alittle nervous...

[WebJoel]

I created alittle totally for fun comic site for my wife's amusement, populated it into a lightbox script, and built a quick navigation legend for it. It displays best on 1024-monitors and I know that the legend and lightbox compete for real-estate on 800-widths (I need to address this issue). Totally un-indexable, inaccessible, heavily image-laden and probably slow on anything less than T1, I have been hesitant to share this with critical peer review. But I thought you might enjoy the cartoons that I drew, taken from events (real & slightly apocrophyllic) from my life. If you critique, it's the art, humor and the PaintPro 'coloring'.

http://thestoryofus.net78.net/

[KDLA]

Joel -
The link doesn't work.
Website Under Review

You see this page, because the system administrator of **********.com is currently checking this website for malicious content. This redirect will be removed once we will finish manually checking all files on this account. As far we check over 100 websites, it can take about 2-4 hours to complete. If you are the owner of this website, you will get email confirmation once it's done. If you are a visitor - please come back later.

[WebJoel]

They're still checking. Site has been up & functional since before June 14th, and it worked when posted this forenoon, so, this is something new. I am trying them as a free-host, up~time & etc. and to date they have been reliable. But if they mess around too long with this I'll bail on 'em and host elsewhere. :cool: ...And then they will have my support. :p

In all liklihood they are just miffing because I have pointed out three grammar and spelling errors in their site. -I'm just loved wherever I go!

[WebJoel]

Your account thestoryofus.net78.net has been checked and approved by the system administrator. Domain is now active.
We are sorry for inconveniences it may caused and thank you for patience. Site has been online since mid-May and they decided to take it offline & 'inspect it' the day I posted for review.:( -Talk about good timing, eh?
It's back up now... :) http: // thestoryofus [dot] net78 [dot] net/

I'm thinking about switching to "simpleviewer" http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/ for displaying this, instead of "lightbox". I LIKE the notion of displayed thumbnails instead of numerals and the 'queue' will remain a static size, and not keep extending vertically as mine currently does. I only stopped making new cartoons because I was running out of room for convenient display on 1024 w/out vertical scrolling..
.............................................
edit (several hours later...) :

Okay: **********.com is really starting to get me unhappy... my site is up for over a month, then it's offline 'for review' for 20+ hours... Then, it's back up, then it's down again. A few hours ago, -up once more but certain folders weren't being utilized (the *js, the CSS, the IMAGES, etc etc...) and now, it's back on.

********** lets you make a second subdomain, " *net78.net " (where my site for WR is), and where all the problem seems to reside... If this keeps up, I will terminate my 'membership' and probably speak poorly of them, forever. :( And before anyone suggests '...that is what you get for a FREE membership' I might suggest that if they cannot get the FREE hosting part right, -I surely would not wish to purchase a paid membership with this kind of record...

I might just move this over to awardspace.com where I have *never, ever* had any problems of any kind...

[expat]

i think u should go with your instincts; i didnt know what it was: a lottery system ?? :D

i like thumbs galleries

[WebJoel]

Yes, -it needs to be intuitively an 'image gallery'. It's intended for a small audience.
This navigation on the right looks a bit like a TV Remote without instructions for use.. :p

[WebJoel]

The host 'net78 [dot] net' is, in my fair opinion, unstable and unreliable. This the second time in three weeks that they have had my site 'unavailable' for 72+ hours with no warning or advisement. And I have also discovered that their 'site promotion program' actively encourages posting link-back on forums such as this one and they even provide a 'tool' for finding such forums. As a Moderator I have recently seen (and removed) several attempts to 'spam' this forum from this host by it's affiliate members. I do not approve of these things and thus, have moved my site to this, a faster, friendlier and more reliable host:

http://thestoryofus.ismyse.com/

Asking for critique of the artwork and concept, and want note of the really nice gallery "simpleviewer" which makes my admittedly ametuerish sketches really vibrant and alive. :D

[cridley]

I like the viewer, nice work. The artwork is maybe a bit personal so wouldn't like to comment.

[dtm32236]

the site's nice - navigation is fine. And I like the simple sketching, this style attracts me somehow. it reminds me of explodingdog.com comics:
http://www.explodingdog.com/august6/worryabout.html

i'd like to see, in the right-side navigation, the colors of the links change for images I've already viewed.

[WebJoel]

....i'd like to see, in the right-side navigation, the colors of the links change for images I've already viewed. That is a very good idea and exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for. Thanks. :)

I like the gallery, -it is very easy to populate and it pre-loads ALL our images, thumbnails first, then, the larger counterparts. This makes the whole navigating seem 'faster'. While you're viewing the first few images, the remainder are silently loading in the background...

I like the concept of 'stick figures' for story-telling, to preserve anonymity to some degree.
-A 'stick figure' can be anyone, -even, the viewee! :p

[dtm32236]

oh - i was looking at the original page (http://thestoryofus.net78.net/)... i didn't realize you had this new one: http://thestoryofus.ismyse.com/

That gallery is incredible.... very, very nice.

So, the comment about changing the link color applied only to the old one (net78).

[KDLA]

Joel -
Very cute! One thing -- The slide transition effects don't work well with a slow connection (which I'm operating on today). The transition occurs stripe by stripe (filling with the first color), then stripe by stripe (second color), then a third stripe and fourth stripe, with a reverse process occurring to display the next image. It takes about 5-10 seconds to load each image. You might test this on dial-up to see this in action; I'm using a cellular connection, which is a little faster than dial-up (at this time of day).

[WebJoel]

Yes, -this is not dial-up friendly nor really anything indexable/Google-able. I might be able to compress the images more. This wonderful script 'resizes' the images rather well, but last night I spent about two hours making copies of every image in 'thumbnail size' (I think I made them 80px X 80px) so that THEY at least can be shown actual-size, but the LARGE images are actually being 'resized' on-the-fly.
I could resize these factually, but since this script re-sizes for browser-resolution, this is a bandaid fix because as soon as anyone manually re-sizes their viewport smaller, their processor begins workout to re-calculate the suitable image size..

I may have to re-save all the LARGE images as *png format and see if this can shave a few seconds off of each image.
I really do not like *png and since these use gradients for most, *gif is not an option.

This script I used employs a smart image pre-loader that pre-loads thumbnails and gallery images, but it probably is still a pain for dial-up users..

T1-users will notice on first-load, a white progress-bar running on the thumbnails, and if they follow the right-arrow, will see this progressing on all images. This is the 'preloader', pre-loading the LARGE images into cache..

[dtm32236]

that's crazy - i never knew that existed (images resizing depending on user resolution). very cool.

everything loaded great for me on T1, I believe (at work)

Joel - just for future reference, in Photoshop - under File -> Automate -> Web Photo Gallery, it will allow you to select three image sizes - one for a thumbnail, one for viewing, and another high res shot, and it will automatically save every open image resized as specified, in separate folders. This can turn your 2 hour job into a 3 minute task... I just discovered it and it was almost near-life-changing.

[WebJoel]

That would totally rock! I use PaintPro 8, have Photoshop (a older version). I almost doubt that this version that I have, has this kewl feature..

[dtm32236]

It's a shame that this type of software (photoshop) is so expensive. I do know that Photoshop Elements (a slimmed-down version of PS) is free to download, but I'm going to guess that it doesn't support the photo gallery feature either.

EDIT: Elements does seem to have the Web Photo Gallery feature:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2155996_create-photo-gallery-photoshop-elements.html
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTip/Creating-a-Web-Gallery-in-Photoshop-Elements.id-4716,subcat-BUILDING.html

This will create the entire gallery for you (with next buttons, etc...), but what I did was create the gallery, then just copy the resized images that it saved. I didn't use the photo viewing gallery that Photoshop created, I used my own.

If you're going to keep resizing many images, this may be worth looking into.

[WebJoel]

I might have to try the trial-version of ELEMENTS. Wondering: -does it do this with the 'trial version', and does it 'stop working' in 30-days?
I note that $US cost for this iis around 99.oo and I can get it here at a Superstore for just under $65.ooCAN.
That's just a great price. Has nothing to do with exchange rate though, as the $CAN is worth a few pennies more than the $US right now...

[dtm32236]

everything is worth more than the USD now...

I thought that Elements was completely free... I guess I'm wrong (?). If you'll use it a lot and it can save you that time, it may be worth the $65. I'd suggest checking out what features it has (and doesn't have). I've never used it before, so I'm not really sure.