My priority is making fast, clean affordable sites for businesses, Entertainers and animal-related businesses such as breeders, boarding kennels, showdog handlers and Veterinarians. Looking to bring in more business to an existing company? Looking to jump-start your career? Want to redesign a site you already have to gain that professional edge? No matter what your situation, I can help build a successful web site that you can be proud of. I am a seasoned Web Designer who has developed successful techniques to bring in and keep customers/visitors coming back to my sites. People like my sites because everything I do is based around two things: Make it fast and make it functional. Here are some key points in my philosophy: I, along with most of the rest of the world am an impatient person when it comes to "web surfing". I want immediate gratification, and I want it NOW! After all, isn't that what the web is all about? Remember, when you have a site designed to bring people in, you may have only 10 seconds or less to hold a person's attention, so you better make sure those first 10 seconds show your visitors something besides trouble. Top Annoyances On Sites That Drive People Away (what I DO and DON'T do and why, in no particular order): 1. Browser incompatibility and slow pages. No site should require that a person have only the latest browser version. You cannot possibly reach high numbers of people if you require this. I do not use any canned/WYSIWYG HTML software programs - I write all my code by hand. This gives me total control over my sites, keeping the pages small and viewable by all browsers so they load fast. Canned programs such as the "build it yourself" or "Click 'n Build" features ISP's (such as those Earthlink, Homestead, Geocities & AOL offer) generate huge, ugly and unnecessary code that makes browsers either crash or slow to a standstill. Canned editors will generate 100 lines of code equal to what I can create in 4-5 lines of hand coding. We have all visited sites that perform poorly, waiting an eternity to see ANYTHING show up on the page. This is usually because someone used a program like Front Page or an free online build-it-yourself program to create the site. This is what you will get when you hire "that kid" or the inexperienced amateur "computer guy" to do a site for you. Editing code by hand is the ONLY way to ensure swift-loading pages and "no crashing" when you arrive at a site. Have you ever noticed that some sites look all off-kilter on Netscape or Mozilla Forefox? Check it on IE, and it all looks different. By using automatic HTML generators such as Front Page (Microsoft), sites are made ONLY to perform correctly on IE (also a Microsoft product, get it?). This is ridiculous, and, again, you are turning away thousands of people if yous site is not hand-coded. All sites I do are cross-checked on the major browsers including Web TV, as well as older versions of each. This is my guarantee that your site will perform well on everyone's browser. All of this DOES require a higher level of skill to hand code as opposed to using one of the above canned programs, but the results are very obvious when you compare sites made by both methods. I guess you can tell that I put a heavy emphasis on cross platform compatibility (sites that look and function THE SAME on ALL computers). A site designed by me will NEVER have pop up ad windows or unnecessary bells and whistles that turn people away when they can't get the site to "work" when visiting. Just clean, elegant, hand written code which is tested to look and perform identically on all 3 major browsers and Web TV. My #1 priority is to make sure NO VISITOR ever has to leave a page because of poor performance, crashes or browser incompatibility. Lost visitors = lost business and lost money. 2. Frames. Framed pages suck, there's just no two ways about it. There is NO good reason to use them. They are ugly and lack functionality. Anyone who's tried to surf a site with frames knows this, especially if you have an older browser. Ever try and bookmark pages in a site with frames?? Some browsers cannot do it. Thank God I have noticed all the big sites removing them from their sites because they have had so many complaints about not being able to surf correctly. I will *NOT* use frames on ANY site I do. Period. 3. Splash screens with large Flash animations with no message or obvious purpose. Even worse is when you encounter a splash screen, click on it, then get to a page asking what version you want - high graphics, low graphics, or Flash. Now we have 2 steps in front of getting to the real thing. I will use a splash screen occasionally if it creates a feeling and sends a message as you are introduced to the site. When done well, and I DO MEAN WELL, splash screens can be an acceptable trade-off between usablilty and design technique. 4. Java and JavaScript. Big pet peeves here. Aren't you sick of getting that box pop up on pages saying "JavaScript error, or "page done, but with errors"? The problem is that there are VERY FEW good Java programmers or JavaScript applets out there that don't cause problems. The use of Java is usually asking for trouble unless the script is VERY SMALL and can be proven on a number of different browsers. I have used very little of it, and have found that almost EVERYTHING you can do with Java can be done in a much more stable manner by using CGI. If you look at http://www.bewitched.net, you will see a pulldown box about 1/2 way down on the main page that I made using CGI instead of JavaScript. Most people use JavaScript to make these boxes, BUT, they don't work on everyone's systems. Another example is our chat room. Again, we choose the CGI over Java because of compatibility/reliability issues. I choose to use the much harder-to-program CGI because it is 100% compatible with everyone's systems. CGI requires a higher level of expertise in programming/setup and a server that can run the script, but it is extremely stable and reliable. CGI is very cool. Having CGI capabilities on your site separates the men from the boys. CGI is powerful, and it is what really "makes things happen" on sites. I have CGI implemented as password protected message boards, site navigators, searchers and chat rooms on my sites. 5. I am sensitive to the needs of the blind computer user on my sites, as they use text-only browsers which use voice synthesis to guide the person through a site. I have been thanked by a number of blind people, telling me they were able to navigate my sites when they couldn't on most sites. That makes me feel good. Text links are functional! 6. Image size and multimedia files. I have special formulas/programs I use to maximize image quality while minimizing their file sizes. This has taken many years for me to perfect. I get many people writing to me asking how I do my video clips, because they notice my file sizes are so reasonable for these space hogging types of files. Again, my sensitivity to what people will and will not sit still for reminds me to always keep file sizes as small as possible while maintaining quality. When this is not possible, I will at least to warn the surfer they are about to encounter a large file, telling them how long it will take to download. You'd be surprised at how just warning someone ahead of time keeps the visitor instead of sending them away. I always make sure there is a VERY GOOD REASON for a long wait, such as a rare video clip someone could never find anywhere else. I utilize formats that provide the most immediate gratification, especially on large files. Streaming Real Audio is used extensively for music/interview clips because of the quick nature of the streaming. Specially compressed MPEG's are used instead of large AVI's or Quicktime for video clips. Text may also be added to video clips, such as copyright notices through the use of rendering. MP3s are used when good quality, downloadable music is needed. 7. No little colored balls, canned bullets, buttons, dancing lights or rainbow horizontal rules! You will never see canned things like this on sites I design. All graphics are custom made for your site by me. 8. Unmaintained sites. Nothing will kill a site faster than letting it sit unmaintained. People will ONLY return if the site is kept fresh with new ideas and content. This is one of the most important but most overlooked areas of all. A "faceless" site that never changes, has no "personality" run by people who rarely return e-mail is a dead site. A dead site is a dead business. I can maintain your site so that this will never happen to it. For your specific web site needs, check here.

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