Small Business Ideas

[Still Waters]

Small Business Ideas (http://www.small-business-ideas.org)

My intention is to convey the educational value of the site, while keeping the navigation experience extremely simplistic. I like the notebook theme, although this particular color scheme seems a bit bland to me.

Any suggestions much appreciated. Thanks.

[Lori]

Hi Debby,

This looks like a terrific resource you guys are pulling together.

The navigation is definitely user friendly. You have actual CONTENT! What a score for your users. I can't stand trying to research something and to come up with page after page of garbage.

I use a high resolution at 1280x1024. So the background seems to duplicate. Rather then describe it, here's a screenshot:

http://www.freelancemom.com/images/debbysite.gif
I'm not sure what you could do to fix that.

After viewing it, I just can't wait for the article for flmom :)

Great job!

[Still Waters]

Yikes! Thanks for showing me that. I can think of a way to fix that, too, by splitting up the background. Hmmm. I'm pretty tired, right now. So, I'll take care of it tomorrow. And I'll post back here with how I solved it, in case others have the same problem.

My husband, Steve, is looking forward to writing that article. In fact, all the articles in our next newsletter will have the same theme. Namely, practical financial information for women, who want to start their own business. Thanks again for the invitation! :D

[Debbi]

Hi Debby,

The background image is tiled on my resolution, too. I can think of a couple ways to fix that, if you need any help, just give a yell.

Also, your logo seems to have a greyish background color that you might want to clean up. And I would suggest a 'home' link to be prominently added to your site when you navigate away.

I like the notebook theme and you have so much content, it is VERY refreshing.

Best,
Debbi

[Anonymous]

Hi, this is Debby. My computer is sick, today. It's lost half its RAM (sort of like a human losing half our mind :p), so I'm using my husband's computer with none of my passwords and cookies. Also, although we're networked, Steve's computer has none of my (very abundant) shortcuts to all my webmaster files.

:( Sigh. I'll have to fix that tiled background another day.

Debbi, can you please suggest a free or very inexpensive software application that can clean up the greyish background that you see around our logo? MS Paint only goes so far and no farther.

Thanks for all the help and feedback. :)

[Lori]

Hi Debby -

I hope your computer feels better today!

I've never used paint shop pro - but I hear that there is a free trial download of it and that it is somewhat comprable to photoshop.

Because the logo is font without a graphic, if I remember correctly -- I might be inclined to start it from scratch on a white background. Unless you had it scanned in from some existing marketing materials?

Let us know how it goes...

Lori

[Still Waters]

The background image is tiled on my resolution, too. I can think of a couple ways to fix that, if you need any help, just give a yell.
Debbi, I'm really interested in the solutions that you thought up. Please share? :D

Here's the method I used to fix the tiled background. I separated the notebook background image into two images. The first image is the decorative left margin. The second image is the rest of the background.

I used nested DIV tags, each with one of the two images. The first DIV had a margin-left 0. The second DIV had a margin-left 75 (because the decorative left margin image is 75 pixels wide).

For the decorative left margin, I used the repeat-y attribute. Technically, this wasn't necessary, as the second DIV image tiles over the first DIV image. But, it looks nicer as it's rendering on the screen. :D



Also, your logo seems to have a greyish background color that you might want to clean up.
I've never used paint shop pro - but I hear that there is a free trial download of it and that it is somewhat comprable to photoshop.

Because the logo is font without a graphic, if I remember correctly -- I might be inclined to start it from scratch on a white background. Unless you had it scanned in from some existing marketing materials?
I appreciate your pointing out the greyish background, as I don't even notice it and never knew it was there. I've never used Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. I'll check out the free download, but I'm wary that there will be a large learning curve, because I don't have a graphics background. What do you think? Is there a simple graphics program for just basic stuff?

I didn't scan it in. I created it with BannerMakerPro5. It's not a very sophisticated program. Basic stuff.



And I would suggest a 'home' link to be prominently added to your site when you navigate away.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I did add a "home" link to the top navigation. An excellent suggestion if this is what you meant. Did you mean something else?

Thanks for the feedback. :D

[glassraven]

Hi Debby

I have removed the grey background from your logo for you - it was easier for me to do so in photoshop than to try and talk you through doing it in one of the other packages. Saved as a gif:

http://www.glassraven.com/logos/small_bus_logo.gif

and here it is as a jpeg:

http://www.glassraven.com/logos/small_bus_logo.gif

Its up to you which you prefer to use so I just saved as both.

Hope this helps
:) Sadie

[glassraven]

oh - and btw - I would recommend using it as a .gif as the quality of the image is better and they are both the same file size.


A few more things I'd say about your site (hope you don't mind - I'm just trying to help!):

I'd make the logo as a link back to the home page aswell as the home link (but thats just me!) - this isn't essential.
Add anchor tags onto your headings (like Finance for Business Planning) down to where the articles are - this will make the site easier to navigate.

You have a lot of text on your home page - and it is not intuitive to have to scroll right the way down to the bottom of the page to find the links to your articles. I would perhaps consider splitting the home page and having just a link to the finance articles and a link to the business ideas. Just something to think about :)

It looks like a great site and a good resource.
:) Sadie

[Lori]

Hi Sadie --

That was really nice of you and it looks great! I hope it saves Debby some time :)

Lori

[Still Waters]

Wow, Sadie, thank you so much! That was very thoughtful and generous of your time. I've saved the first image as a gif. When I tried to save the second image, it also was a gif. Odd, huh? But the first gif is just fine, and I'll use that. :D

I quickly read through your other feedback. Some good suggestions there. I'll come back later, when I have more time, to give it a more careful read and implement the ideas.

Thanks again!

[glassraven]

Not a problem at all Debby - I'm glad to be able to help :)

Not sure what happened with that second image I'll try again just incase you need it:
http://www.glassraven.com/logos/small_bus_logo.jpg

:) Sadie[/img]