wish to receive feedback......

[goldfries]

Hi all,

http://www.goldfries.com is my site

It's based on wordpress, my custom designed theme. :D

I've done the best I can to make the site comfortable for reading and easy to navigate.

I've decided not so spam my blog with ads as I personally find them annoying. I don't like to have a huge AdSense appearing right smack in the middle of an article. :)

The site content is mainly tech-related, upcoming articles including website / blogging related articles and digital photography related articles and so on so forth.

I just wish to here opinions, perhaps you guys see something I don't see. :D thank you.

[ses5909]

At first glance it definitely has the feel of a video game/ or high tech site. Like many you see in video game forums. In general I think it looks good. I don't see any room for improvement as of yet. I like that you have an About Page

[goldfries]

Thank you Sara.

The ABOUT page is limited for now, I've not unveiled a few more things there. :)

goldfries.com started off as a personal site but the direction changed, the personal site is now some place else but i've not officially launched it as i'm busy with work + article writing. :D

i make a lot of effort to write articles.

[ganti.r]

the look is great.
One thing though. I find that the site (especially the side bars) load very slowly.
Other wise great design.

[Jelena]

I had the same problem - site loaded painfully slow for me. It looks nice. The font in the sidebar is little too little for my taste, but overall impression is cool.

[goldfries]

thank you all for the favourable comments ladies and gents!

that also i've removed most of the ads already. :) i didn't like how other sites take time to load ads.

sidebar - the only thing that could possibly load slow is
1. Site Traffic
2. Advertisements

from my site, #1 loads slower but for you guys, it's possible #2 loads slower which i think is the one you guys find it slow to load.


Jelena, you found it slow - entire site or just sidebar? it's interesting to know what speed you guys face cos my site is hosted within my country, so loading speed varies.

Here's the viewing speed from my end -

Pinging goldfries.com [202.71.103.136] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 202.71.103.136: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 202.71.103.136: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 202.71.103.136: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 202.71.103.136: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 202.71.103.136:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 13ms, Average = 11ms


As for the fonts :) I'm having it small because a little bigger screws the look but I appreciate the feedback and I may consider enlarging them.

[shyflower]

What's the use of having navigation if people can't see to navigate?
I agree with Jelena, the font is too small to be of any use.

[goldfries]

ALRIGHT! :)

thank you very much for the feedback.

can you nice people have a look again? I've increased the font size.

EDITED : i think i'm going to use the font size for the "RECENT BLOG" as in our signature.

[Jeremy]

I've been to your site in the past and I like it, but right now it is painfully slow. I'm about 15 seconds into clicking your link and I still see nothing. I don't know if it is the host or some script or what, but at nearly 30 seconds without loading any content I'm sure most readers have left.

[goldfries]

the server is fast.

the connection between to USA to MALAYSIA might not be. :(

could you help me out? when it loads, see the loading status at the bottom and tell me which one made it slow.

there are only 3 things that load externally (not within the server).

1 alexa
2 sitemeter
3 advertlets

[kimberlybarryd]

the look is great.
One thing though. I find that the site (especially the side bars) load very slowly.
Other wise great design.
I agree. Very slow loading. I like the design and colors. Good Work.

[kimberlybarryd]

the server is fast.

the connection between to USA to MALAYSIA might not be. :(

could you help me out? when it loads, see the loading status at the bottom and tell me which one made it slow.

there are only 3 things that load externally (not within the server).

1 alexa
2 sitemeter
3 advertlets
Php averterts username seems to take the longest.

[smittenbite]

...did you fix the problem? it just loaded pretty fast for me

[goldfries]

thanks all.

i believe it's highly subjected to the connection between your machine and the ads server. :(

on my side, the avertlets loaded fast but it was alexa that took time.

i did a few modifications recently, like widen the bars on the side, increase font size and streamline some of the hidden codes.

[shyflower]

Much more user friendly that at first. Nice changes.:cool:

I especially like your Read More About ... thing. Would you be inclined to share this code snippet with those of us who are php challenged? ;)

[kimberlybarryd]

Just checked you site again. 25 seconds, 17 the second time.

[shyflower]

16 seconds here on cable modem. I guess it does load slow.....

[goldfries]

Much more user friendly that at first. Nice changes.:cool:

I especially like your Read More About ... thing. Would you be inclined to share this code snippet with those of us who are php challenged? ;)

read more about has nothing to do with PHP. :) it's part of Wordpress.

I just changed the words. :)

Just checked you site again. 25 seconds, 17 the second time.

16 seconds here on cable modem. I guess it does load slow.....

as for this part - it's beyond my control. i'm quite sure it's connection issue. btw you could see which one took longest to load by looking at the browser status bar.

alternatively you could try my company website at http://www.orangedot.com.my but it should load faster as there's lesser things called from there.

[shyflower]

as for this part - it's beyond my control. i'm quite sure it's connection issue. .

Your site loads slow and there's nothing you can do about it? Malarky!

Granted, today it loaded faster. However, to say that it's a connection issue when people tell you they have broadband, cable, etc is pretty strange. Are you going to just discount all the people who still have dial-up? Because just about anyone who lives in a rural area does.

Start by creating code that validates. Here's what the validator (http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.goldfries.com%2F) had to say about your site:

I got the following unexpected response when trying to retrieve <http://www.goldfries.com/>:

500 Can't connect to www.goldfries.com:80 (Bad hostname 'www.goldfries.com')

If you made recent changes to your domain name (DNS) configuration, you may also want to check that your domain records are correct, or ask your hosting company to do so.

[smittenbite]

maybe last time i was just lucky. i just rtied to load your site again and it was VERY slow. in fact it didnt even load after 1 minute. i stopped it and re - entered... it loaded but extremely slow. it seems only your site is causing the problems, i dont see anything except transfering data from goldfries.com in the bottom. i didnt get to the adverts because it hasnt even loaded the background yet

[goldfries]

Your site loads slow and there's nothing you can do about it? Malarky!

Granted, today it loaded faster. However, to say that it's a connection issue when people tell you they have broadband, cable, etc is pretty strange. Are you going to just discount all the people who still have dial-up? Because just about anyone who lives in a rural area does.

shyflower, you have misunderstood my post. i'm not saying my readers like the rest of you are having bad connection.

i'm sorry i did not make it more clear - my country has been known to have lousy ISP service. you could google up streamyx or screamyx or whatever name they wish to call it.

for people who are within the country, they could reach the site VERY fast. i've had a server located in USA and Hong Kong before, accessing those servers were much slower. :( it's clear there's something wrong with the connection to my country.

maybe last time i was just lucky. i just rtied to load your site again and it was VERY slow. in fact it didnt even load after 1 minute. i stopped it and re - entered... it loaded but extremely slow. it seems only your site is causing the problems, i dont see anything except transfering data from goldfries.com in the bottom. i didnt get to the adverts because it hasnt even loaded the background yet

hrmm. as you can see. i didn't change my codes. even if i did, it wouldn't affect it so dramatically.

as you can see, sometime's it's fast. sometimes it's slow. :(

Start by creating code that validates. Here's what the validator (http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.goldfries.com%2F) had to say about your site:

:confused: i wouldn't even dare to put the "Crafted to conform to XHTML and CSS Standards. " if it did not pass the test! :)

it was valid coded since day 1.

This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!
Result: Passed validation
Address:
Modified: (undefined)
Server: Apache
Size: (undefined)
Content-Type: text/html
Encoding: utf-8
Doctype: XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Root Element: html
Root Namespace: http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

anyway i was out for about 2 hours but someone did told me that my site was inaccessible, which is why you got the
"500 Can't connect to www.goldfries.com:80 (Bad hostname 'www.goldfries.com')" message i suppose. and which is also possibly why smittenbite had slow access around that 2 hour period.

could both of you try it again? thank you very much for your time.

shyflower, smittenbite - i'm deeply appreciative of your feedback on the site speed. may i know where are all of you accessing the site from?

[shyflower]

shyflower, you have misunderstood my post. i'm not saying my readers like the rest of you are having bad connection.

i'm sorry i did not make it more clear - my country has been known to have lousy ISP service. you could google up streamyx or screamyx or whatever name they wish to call it.

for people who are within the country, they could reach the site VERY fast. i've had a server located in USA and Hong Kong before, accessing those servers were much slower. :( it's clear there's something wrong with the connection to my country.



hrmm. as you can see. i didn't change my codes. even if i did, it wouldn't affect it so dramatically.

as you can see, sometime's it's fast. sometimes it's slow. :(



:confused: i wouldn't even dare to put the "Crafted to conform to XHTML and CSS Standards. " if it did not pass the test! :)

it was valid coded since day 1.

This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!
Result: Passed validation
Address:
Modified: (undefined)
Server: Apache
Size: (undefined)
Content-Type: text/html
Encoding: utf-8
Doctype: XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Root Element: html
Root Namespace: http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

anyway i was out for about 2 hours but someone did told me that my site was inaccessible, which is why you got the
"500 Can't connect to www.goldfries.com:80 (Bad hostname 'www.goldfries.com')" message i suppose. and which is also possibly why smittenbite had slow access around that 2 hour period.

could both of you try it again? thank you very much for your time.

shyflower, smittenbite - i'm deeply appreciative of your feedback on the site speed. may i know where are all of you accessing the site from?

Sorry I didn't understand your other post. I'm accessing your site from Minnesota USA. It just now loaded in 6 seconds! :)

[goldfries]

ahh 6 seconds. that's fast! :) (what other post? #? i'll try to elaborate.)

maybe it's because it's 1AM here and most people are asleep. about 12 hours from now the traffic will be at it's peak again.