new look???

[sylvaticus]

Hello.. I am new on unixshell (my vm was actived just yday) but I noticed you just changed the look&feel of the web site..

I think the previous one was more professional and close to yr targheted customers ;-)

[mopo3]

Just seconding that motion. The old look was much cleaner and more professional looking in my opinion.

[matta]

Does anyone have anything positive about the new site design? If not I have no problem putting back up the old one. Input is definitely appreciated!

For those who have already stated their opinion, what does not work for you? Perhaps because it doesn't have a white background?

[kaya]

I think the new site looks a bit better than the old, but the logo looks cheesy and unprofessional IMHO. A light background might be an improvement.

[gilesmorant]

I have to say I preferred the old one.

Not entirely sure why; it might be the cleaner white background. And the text seems smaller now and more daunting.

The text also seems to be more "advertorial" now- although that could just be my English reticence showing through :-)

[americantechie]

Heh... I hope you did not take much time creating the new web page. :D

[limey]

You know, you could do worse than impliment a mambo portal to run your website IMO. I'm currently learning it's ins and outs and beginning to run it for some services and for customers "guvvy jobs"

It's pretty cool as it's open source and has modules like - shopping cart, forums etc which are intergrated and snap into the CMS building a site which can offer an array of options from a single login. The templating method is also one of the easiest to impliment I have ever come across.

Just an idea...

Chris

[americantechie]

Mambo sucks... that is all.

[limey]

Thanks for the input 'americantechie' !

If you'd care to give me a little more supporting information on your opinion perhaps you'd assist me to change mine!

I'm always of the opinion that different software products are good for different jobs, that is to say - whats good for your task isn't always good for mine...

For sure there are better CMS's, but in bang for my buck, in implimentation for my particular purposes, I don't mind it at all! :D

[richardgreen]

While were talking about CMS does anyone have an idea of one that is written in PHP, and outputs nice CSSd HTML without the horrible use of tables like mambo, have had a look but havnt found anything too good...

Thanks
Rich

[limey]

I have looked before Richard, and to be honest it seems that unless you wish to pay for a commercial solution, fully css driven cms's are either non-existant or very hard to find.

If you do find a free/open source one I'd love to hear about it mate as I'd be very interested in giving it a go.

[gilesmorant]

[QUOTE=richardgreen]While were talking about CMS does anyone have an idea of one that is written in PHP, and outputs nice CSSd HTML without the horrible use of tables like mambo, have had a look but havnt found anything too good...
[/QUOTE]

As Limey says, there are very few CMS which use all-CSS. Try looking at http://www.opensourcecms.com/ for one. Is it worth it? Many browsers can't cope with only CSS anyway.

We've used Drupal which is excellent. I believe the three main competitors in the open-source CMS stakes are Drupal, Mambo/Joomla and Plone; Plone being rather over-complex for many people.

I tried Mambo and Drupal and stayed with Drupal because it just seems simpler. There's a new version coming out soon which looks like a massive improvement too.

[americantechie]

Open source provides great development tools, but open source apps are not always the best.

Expression Engine is the best of the content managements systems in the same class of Drupal, Mambo, and Jooma.

The full version costs $99 with the option of a integrated forum for an extra $45. You can download a limited feature version for free. Give it a try and you may never look at anything else again.

Expression Engine gives you total freedom of your web presence. The control panel itself does have a table-based layout, but the control panel is completely separate from your actual web pages. All of my websites running from Expression Engine are completely built in CSS.

I have put a considerable effort in attempting to build a site in Drupal and Mambo, and the experience was a waste of time. I would like to kill the guy that came up with the idea of blocks. Expression Engine is designer friendly as saves alot of time.

My biggest complaint with Drupal is the lack of separation from the control panel and the rest of the system. You basically have to hack the code to get some elements in the block system to show up exactly as you like. This is one of the reasons that many websites built from these systems look the same. There are some people out there that have highly customized versions of Drupal, and you cannot tell which system they are using. The problem is this requires too much time and expertise to pull off. With Expression Engine you never have to touch the code or the control panel.

[tdobes]

[QUOTE=americantechie]Open source provides great development tools, but open source apps are not always the best.

[...]

My biggest complaint with Drupal is the lack of separation from the control panel and the rest of the system. You basically have to hack the code to get some elements in the block system to show up exactly as you like.[/QUOTE]
I humbly disagree. I feel that Drupal's integration between administration and user interfaces is one of its greatest strengths. This is one of the reasons I avoid Mambo/Joomla. Similarly, I avoid phpBB and use UNB (http://newsboard.unclassified.de/). Then again, I am one of the people working on Drupal, so perhaps I have an unfair bias. ;)

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by hack the code... almost any aspect of Drupal's layout can be modified within the theme. We also make an attempt to apply lots of class/id attributes so that many elements can be modified using pure CSS (without even needing to create a custom theme). Digging deep into the code and modifying functions is not necessary and can make upgrading a nightmare.

Anyway, back on topic, I'm glad that we returned to the "classic" Unixshell look. It looks much cleaner and less cluttered than the other design.

[americantechie]

[QUOTE=tdobes]I humbly disagree. I feel that Drupal's integration between administration and user interfaces is one of its greatest strengths. This is one of the reasons I avoid Mambo/Joomla. Similarly, I avoid phpBB and use UNB (http://newsboard.unclassified.de/). Then again, I am one of the people working on Drupal, so perhaps I have an unfair bias. ;)

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by hack the code... almost any aspect of Drupal's layout can be modified within the theme. We also make an attempt to apply lots of class/id attributes so that many elements can be modified using pure CSS (without even needing to create a custom theme). Digging deep into the code and modifying functions is not necessary and can make upgrading a nightmare.

Anyway, back on topic, I'm glad that we returned to the "classic" Unixshell look. It looks much cleaner and less cluttered than the other design.[/QUOTE]

I am not an advanced user of Drupal, and I assume you have never tried Expression Engine. This will make any agreement between us to be difficult. Expression Engine has by far the best templating system I have ever seen. I would also say that Wordpress has a better templating system than Drupal, but still not as good as EE.

By hacking the code I mean using the hooks to change the look of certain components. To the credit of Drupal, this is a very nice feature.

I could be wrong, but I thought the stucture of some of the blocks are hardcoded, and you need to override that look by using hooks. The whole templating system was very confusing. I could spend more time to learn the system, but EE is much more intuitive. The time I save creating a website in EE rather than Drupal pays for the cost many times over.

I am not saying Drupal is bad, but I would never use it or Joomla for anything other than nonprofit, personal, or low budget projects.

[limey]

I've tended to use mambo when I need a simple 2 column layout (ie side menu and main content) and the administrator of the website wants a simple wysiwyg way of adding content. As I don't really deal with any high-budget projects (I only do web-design work on the side, I'm a windows server admin by day!) I've never bothered using anything else (my lazy side coming out I guess!) :D

I also agree - I prefer the existing unixshell layout... much nicer.

[dne]

[QUOTE=richardgreen]While were talking about CMS does anyone have an idea of one that is written in PHP, and outputs nice CSSd HTML without the horrible use of tables like mambo, have had a look but havnt found anything too good...
[/QUOTE]

I'm not much of a CMS user, but with Textpattern (http://textpattern.com/) you have full control of the presentation using CSS (or not).

Regards,
Daniel

[matta]

New new site is up, criticism is appreciated!

[hezekiah]

I realize the new design is fairly new, but one of the benefits (I felt) of the old design was the feeling of continuity between all of the main site, including the forums. That seems to be lost a bit with the new look.

I still like the old design better, but I imagine people will likely find the new one friendlier and more attractive. The old design was a little... intimidating perhaps?

[matta]

The forum header will be updated, for now I just simplified the nav bar.

[americantechie]

I still like the original look much better. Did you get this look from a template?

The picture at the top of the page has to go. This is the typical picture a web hosting company would use on a website. Stay away from cliche images. Unless it is a picture of the datacenter and shows people that actually work there, it is just taking up space. You could do something much more powerful with that space.

When I think of Unixshell, I think of simple, no frills, but powerful. I think the old design captured that pretty well really.

I just don't know why, but I really like the old design.

Heh... I would consider doing it in exchange of a free account. :D

[matta]

No templates here! This was developed entirely in-house, as is everything we do :) The image is a Comstock image that we've owned for a while, so it is meant to be a 'professional' looking image. Our staff keep track of the forum here, but i'll pass your views on to them personally.

[americantechie]

I don't like the look of the sidebar either. It does not flow together well. Those clunky colored bars serving as the separatators are ugly looking.

The site really has not come very far from where it was. You added a sidebar, and the picture at the top. Everything else has been largely untouched.

Did you look at the pricing plans page??? The most important page on the whole site just got torpedoed. The wording is too small to read. The table is also sitting directly on the footer.

Overall, it looks like someone put little thought into the design. It was just slapped together in a few days. To get a good design, you have to put in the time. You did you have an actual web designer build this thing? Or did you throw somebody from sales on this thing?

It kills me to see how many of the web hosting providers out there neglect the website. It is very important, as a good website will increase sales.
Do youself a favor, hire a professional to build this site.

A professional web designer is not Bill in sales who runs "Bill and Ted's most excellent web sites" on the side. A professional web designer does this stuff full time. So unless your in-house guy does nothing but web design for you guys full time, he is probably not a professional web designer. If he is a professional web designer, he just built two horrible websites in a row.

Keep the original design, and put some real work into this thing. If you come back again the day after tomorrow with the latest kick ass design, then I give up! :D

[dsonnie]

[QUOTE=americantechie]I don't like the look of the sidebar either. It does not flow together well. Those clunky colored bars serving as the separatators are ugly looking.

The site really has not come very far from where it was. You added a sidebar, and the picture at the top. Everything else has been largely untouched.

Did you look at the pricing plans page??? The most important page on the whole site just got torpedoed. The wording is too small to read. The table is also sitting directly on the footer.

Overall, it looks like someone put little thought into the design. It was just slapped together in a few days. To get a good design, you have to put in the time. You did you have an actual web designer build this thing? Or did you throw somebody from sales on this thing?

It kills me to see how many of the web hosting providers out there neglect the website. It is very important, as a good website will increase sales.
Do youself a favor, hire a professional to build this site.

A professional web designer is not Bill in sales who runs "Bill and Ted's most excellent web sites" on the side. A professional web designer does this stuff full time. So unless your in-house guy does nothing but web design for you guys full time, he is probably not a professional web designer. If he is a professional web designer, he just built two horrible websites in a row.

Keep the original design, and put some real work into this thing. If you come back again the day after tomorrow with the latest kick ass design, then I give up! :D[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your thoughts on the new site. The new site was done as a team effort, and yes, besides the sidebar and top image the site remained largely unchanged from the original site. This was done for a reason; the information placement was one of the strongest points of the old site. A professional web-designer, even an in-house one, goes through many stages of design comps. The overall decision as to which images to use (sidebar / banner in this case) were called to a vote and chosen appropriately. I note that you have said nothing but bad things about any of the changes, so what would you suggest in your, and I can only assume, expert opinion?

We are always open to suggestions, all criticizims.

[americantechie]

I apologize that I have only said bad things.

I am between classes, so I will take a look and see if there is any suggestions I could give when I get back home.

[gioeleb]

The new look his better organized, but it looks too much like one of those "provably unprofessional" services.

Usually I suspect sites that look like the new unixshell.com.

The older layout was warmer. But it was "exploding" under the load of the new unixshell.com services.

[cmturner2]

I think the new site gives the impression of a more corporate (i.e. supported) service than what you intend/desire to deliver. The original 'no-frills' site seemed to convey better what you're trying to sell.... a solid, reliable, 'no-frills' service that the user must manage themselves.

The new site also has somewhat of a cookie cutter 'professional' look to it. Might be the additional colorfulness of it.

Also, and this is just me, I can't stand sites that start adding all sorts of fancy crap when I just want to get to the details & information I am looking for. Your original services/pricing page was a golden example of great web design IMO.

[hezekiah]

For what it's worth, I think the current unixshell# website design (March 8) is the best one I've seen yet since changing away from the old design.

[cmturner2]

I have to agree with you, the look is much better.

[MiiJaySung]

I like the new design a lot more from a visual point of view, though I prefered the yellow image on the header of the main site, it looks out of place on the forum as the rest of the forum uses a totally different colour scheme.

I must say I do sort of agree with cmturner2's point. While I don't think the old design is a visually as good, he had a valid point in the forst paragrpaph.

But overall, the design of the site doesn't bother me. All that matters to me is that I have some web space that I have a good amount of control, which is what I get here, so I'm happy.

When designing a site I think it's important though that you make a good impression on new visitors. The important thing is that you make it as easy as possible for them to get information they want with minimal effort. That goes above any aestheic aspects imo.

[matta]

Thanks everyone! We're still in process of skinning everything to color match. I think the new navigation system (category/sub-categroy) lets us add many more pages than what most any other standard systems can handle.

[rodmani]

I found that the section imagemap at the top right doesn't have working links when on the blog page. Just wanted to let you know.

[dsonnie]

The blog page isn't live yet, we are still experimenting with it to get it client ready

[radzima]

I have to apologize, the image map links are my area... haven't had a chance with all the changes going on. I will personally see that it is ready before launch. :)

[gioeleb]

Yes, the new site is getting better everyday.

May I suggest some little improvements?
Don't use yellow on white. When one selects one section, the emphatized item is yellow. But many people have problems reading a yellow text on a white background.
Don't show that ugly "Live Sales Chat Unavailable". One can understand "they don't offer live sales chat" and not "live sales chat is unavailable at the moment". Leave the usual "Live Sales Chat" and display a message like "sorry, chat is not available right now, try at 10:00 AM EST" in the chat window.
Find a better first paragraph. Right now the site opens with "Why do I want a ...". It would be better to be explicit and say something along the lines of "We sells shared servers. To We use virtual machines to do so. Why do I want a ..."
A better colorscheme for the forum messages. Black on gray is not too good for readability. Try with black on a light light desaturaded gray.

[zeroion]

I think the new site design is pretty nice, although the "su" in the power symbol next to the "the power of root" is kinda cheesy...

Anyways, the new forum theme is terrible. It's difficult to tell which categories have new posts, and the list of posts in each forum just hurts my eyes...

[matta]

The option for users to choose their own theme is enabled. Just change back to the 'default' theme and you're ready to go.

[rodmani]

I just wanted to let you guys know that when I try to bring up the blog in IE 6 (SP1) I get a huge "menu" div over top of the blog page that is attached to the top-right corner which covers up the top couple blog posts. It appears to be almost the full vertical height of the IE window and about 80% of the width. It's fine in Firefox though. I noticed it again when I went to check out Matt's blog post today.

[matta]

Dave is aware of that and working to fix it.

[dsonnie]

I am in the process of recoding the blog site. It should be IE compatible very shortly.

[matta]

[QUOTE=gioeleb]






Find a better first paragraph. Right now the site opens with "Why do I want a ...". It would be better to be explicit and say something along the lines of "We sells shared servers. To We use virtual machines to do so. Why do I want a ..."
[/QUOTE]


Exactly!


Seriously, I will take the recommendations into consideration. I agree the yellow can be hard to read and perhaps a light blue / grey highlight might be better.

[MiiJaySung]

Good to see the blog and forum skinned. Everything is starting to come to together nicely. It looks a lot better than the old purple/lilac colour