Resources Used In The Construction of This Website:
I did this website all "Old School" - using NotePad++ as my text editor.
This is purposely done to refresh my memory on HTML and to experiment with CSS.
I used a few tools from the internet as follows:
- NotePad++
- Banner Maker Pro
- CSS Navigation Bar Info From Vanseo Design
- CSS Navigation Bar Info From YouTube Videos (various)
- PaintShop Pro
About Big Wood Vise:
BigWoodVise.com is a website that I started in 2008 in an attempt to learn Web Design and E-commerce and to sell some large woodworker's workbench vises (Hence the name Big Wood Vise) that I make. I really struggled putting that website together (ok, I'm still struggling putting my websites together...). I first started with a site-builder tool (Yahoo Site Builder). It was really awful, not very powerful, and poorly supported. I then spent a great deal of time struggling to learn HTML and (eventually) got it running (ok - don't look at the source code -it's bad..) Finally things were up and running though.
I designed the Logo for BigWoodVise in Paintshop Pro - with a lot of struggling (I'm not very web graphic savvy - yet). I will definitely incorporate the BigWoodVise WaterMark in my website in the near future. :)
Ramblings of a Newbie Web Designer/Coder...
I really like CSS menu's. All modern browsers work with CSS. A CSS Menu system is very easy to create (ie there are no graphic images to put together, although perhaps a bit boring). A CSS Menu system will load faster - as there are no Graphic images to load. A CSS Menu system is easy to maintain, as it really is just a simple list and links... A CSS Menu system should actually be picked up better by web crawlers, too - as the web crawler can "read" the text, versus not so with images.
With CSS Menu's and a Style Sheet, you can have Style sheets designed with seasonal motif's (eg halloween, Christmas, New Years, Easter, etc.). Very simply you would copy the Seasonal Motif (eg "ChristmasSale.css") to the daily CSS file name (eg "styles.css") - and instantly change the whole layout throughout the entire website... (MeLikey)
"Least Common Denominator" Web Design Approach...
I want to design websites so that anybody can access the website, and not have problems or delays in waiting for the thing to load. This means that I have to design to the "Least Common Denominator". By Least Common Denominator, I am referring to a person that is still possibly using an older browswer, 800 x 600 monitor resolution, possibly a dial-up connection, etc. So the website has to be small, and fast running. Forget Flash, forget high resolution displays. The end user is using an IBM PS/2, not a high end water-cooled gaming machine with 4 GigaBytes of Ram on the graphics card.
This means I have to use 770 pixel wide resolution (to allow for a vertical scroll bar), browser safe fonts, browser safe colors, etc...
Why the ramblings?
Part of the purpose of the above ramblings is to test that the background image does indeed remain fixed when scrolling.
And - Yes - It does !
:)
(meLikey)
