TubeNet

Hey everyone,

I am taking a crack at web design for my quintet, The Apollo Chamber Brass . I would appreciate it if some of you would take a look at it and maybe e-mail me privately with some comments. Be kind, tis my first real foray in to web design .

Obviously, the next step is to put some SOUND on the website. I confess I don't know the first thing about adding sound to a website. My idea is to have clickable tracks people can listen to, on demand. I don't want to have music playing in the background the entire time...I think that can scare business away!

Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!

cdo

http://www.apollochamberbrass.com

SirCharls wrote:Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!

Nice, clean design, with a minimum of font effects and other things that expose first-time graphic designers.

One thing I'd lose: The page-to-page effects. You want your title logo to remain on the screen, and your page effects are erasing it as they do their wiping action, before putting it back up. And it's slow.

I would also set up the graphic images to display as they load, using progressive-scan JPEG's. That way, dialup users can see something happening, even if it takes a while for the full image to appear. I always test my web work using a dial-up computer and a small window to simulate a lo-res monitor.

I would also loose the crawling marquis. Most folks like to use their IE status line to see where links are pointing, rather than your news crawler.

Your opening page has all the important bits: Who you are, what you do, where you do it, and it even asks for the sale (Come see us!). But I would make sure the next performance is visible on the screen without scrolling, so that the casual viewer sees the time and place without having to look for it.

Finally, the "Sign Guestbook" and "View Guestbook" wrapped on my hi-res monitor set to use large text. You might give it a little more room to be resized by browsers.

But all that is mostly little stuff that would improve what is already a nicely done web page. I like the simple approach; I think it shows taste and class which is consistent with the role of a brass quintet. The plain gray background and the black and white images of the Apollo statuary is nicely done, and it makes your color pictures pop better. It gives you a subtle culture theme, too.

And just so you won't think I'm just being critical from a protected distance, I'll give you a crack at a web page I designed and maintain:

http://www.lcbandinc.org

Rick "comments welcome" Denney

knuxie wrote:

.......how does one convert files one way or the other?

Doc,

I have a WAV to mp3 converter program ($15). It converts WAV to Mp3 and vice versa, WAV to wma, wma to mp3. As easy as right clicking on the file to convert.

Audacity is a free program that can do the same thing. It is an editing program, and all you have to do is open a file with the program, then under the file menu choose which format you want to export the file in. You can choose from wav, mp3 or ogg vorbis.

Free download: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Alex Reeder wrote: Audacity is a free program that can do the same thing. It is an editing program, and all you have to do is open a file with the program, then under the file menu choose which format you want to export the file in. You can choose from wav, mp3 or ogg vorbis.

Free download: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

You should be able to recor the playback from Windows Media Player with either Audacity ( or the Windows SoundRecorder accessory) to get WMA format to something else. Not sure about creating WMA format since I prefer Vorbis (ogg).

Actually, I just looked at the soundrecorder on XP. After recording a file you can save in a bunch of formats, including MP3 (MPEG Layer3), and WMA (Windows Media Audio, V1 and V2). Window Media Player will rip from CD to WMA, maybe mp3, too.

I'd still use Audacity instead though.