Please critique my sites

[mattastic]

Please comment on my sites:

www.halesowen.ac.uk

My personal site:

www.w00t.biz

Thanks

[the tree]

On the college site:
Technical
Avoid tables for layout (http://hotdesign.com/seybold).
Get rid of white space before xml declaration
What's with the flash? I don't see what purpose it serves.
Accesability is lacking (http://www.contentquality.com/mynewtester/cynthia.exe?rptmode=2&url1=http%3A//www.halesowen.ac.uk/)

Design
It's a bit cramped up into the corner, you could at least center the content horizontaly. Some more padding wouldn't hurt and maybe not the same rollover affect for everything.

It's not bad though, well done.

[mattastic]

Hi the tree,

Thanks for the comments.

But I have a few questions:

If tables should be avoided, how come lots of big sites still use tables, ie bbc, channel 4

How do you accomodate for older browsers such as Netscape 4.7?

The flash banner is so that I can dynamically change it using flash vars, as the banner changes when you go into different areas.

Can you comment on www.w00t.biz please?

Thanks again.

[the tree]

Originally posted by mattastic
If tables should be avoided, how come lots of big sites still use tables, ie bbc, channel 4 Big companies can afford a few mistakes.
Originally posted by mattastic
How do you accomodate for older browsers such as Netscape 4.7?Not entirely sure what you mean by "accomidate for"

Originally posted by mattastic
The flash banner is so that I can dynamically change it using flash vars, as the banner changes when you go into different areas.Can't this be done using SSI's and normal images?

Originally posted by mattastic
Can you comment on www.w00t.biz please?A good use of j/s, not over-done but flashy nonetheless, on the homepage I couldn't tell what were links and what weren't.

[BeachSide]

www.halesowen.ac.uk -

Looks good although I would center it (I am a big advocate for centered sites) there is a good workaround that I know, using CSS if you would like it.

I would probably make the home page a bit longer so that it flows with the rest of the site. The home page feels a bit compressed compared to the other pages.

I checked this site in FireFox, IE 6.0, IE 5.5, & IE 5.01 and all looks good. Your tables don't break. Tables breaking would be the biggest problem I have found using nested tables instead of DIVs to layout a site.

To answer the question of why one should not use tables to layout a site... tables are a tool like anything else you can use a tool the wrong way (you wouldn't use a screwdriver to hammer a nail in would you? You could but I wouldn't recommend it). As someone mentioned tables are for tabular data not for layout. I would use DIVs then use tables for things like the search box you have there. Sorry if it seems as if I am preaching as that is not my intent.

I agree with the Flash thing in the top corner, loading in different pictures and whatnot. I think that it would be a great use of this tool. Smaller file sizes, more control, and if you wanted you could throw in a bit of a transition fade or whatever.

Overall good job! Keep it up man! :D

[Binow]

http://www.w00t.biz/

Do you know of any tutorials to create something like the woot logo? It looks fairly simple but I like the effect. Also I would like to use something similar to your portfolio page. Any idea where I could look to try to learn how to do that too?

[soccer362001]

The woot logo was made using Macromedia Flash, and I don't think there is a specific tutorial on how to do that, I could be wrong.