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Tesla Downunder website reborn (soon)

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LAN_403

Tesladownunder

Fri Jul 15 2011, 01:49PM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

I am in the throes of a website rewrite and upgrade of the old www.tesladownunder.com . The old FrontPage code is a real problem with current browsers and a frustrating number of things are just going wrong.

It is being redesigned in WordPress by Melissa Michaels and will be a lot more bloggy/interactive and interesting. Articles will be a lot more bite sized and generally less of a "toilet roll style". More smarts generally.

I have also engaged the services of a very well known expert to specifically do the SEO work. He/she/it will advise me on the SEO minutiae. It is vastly more than mutual links.
I have just restored my PageRank 5 status recently.

It's a bit like building a new house with decisions to be made at every turn.

Here is a part screen grab at an early stage.

1310737283 10 FT0 Tesladownundernewsitepeek

Download

Fri Jul 15 2011, 01:58PM

Registered Member #561 Joined: Sat Mar 03 2007, 02:46AM
Location: Adelaide Australia
Posts: 230

Looking very nice. I was their earlier today and it didn't load properly in the latest Firefox 6 beta

PSCG

Fri Jul 15 2011, 02:25PM

Registered Member #3792 Joined: Sun Mar 27 2011, 06:07PM
Location:
Posts: 136

Can you keep the photo of the 18-inch tesla coil? I admire it every time i enter the page.....

Tesladownunder

Fri Jul 15 2011, 04:09PM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

The 18 inch coil is still my first photo but there will be 4 slideshow photos that cycle with fades as the main photo. They were selected for strong colours on black: purple (18 inch coil), yellow (HV antivirus), blue (Michelangelo hands) and red (red TC sparks). It keeps the front page dynamic and a bit of text cycling.

The current site has problems and I am not trying to fix it. That may include Firefox, sorry.

The new site should be properly compatible. I hope that videos will also run properly and have HTML5 and Flash compatibility to allow use on iPads etc. I can't use YouTube for a lot of my videos because they are copyright of the TV stations. Even Lady Gaga got her YouTube site pulled for infringement of a TV show.
On a small private site like mine, TV companies probably don't care too much and it is too hard to deal with for little gain.

The index page should load a lot faster on the new site and has much better handling of large screens. I did a background pic for large screens that loads last and is reasonably economical on download.

Killa-X

Fri Jul 15 2011, 04:14PM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

I guess im out of the loop with you good sir...Only becauses I clicked your site link, did i Just for the first time watch the Australia's Got Talent videos. Wow, I fail =)

New site is looking good, hopefully things go well and will be released shortly!

Arcstarter

Fri Jul 15 2011, 09:28PM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

I am going to miss the old website! I have always gone to your site for info on Tesla coils, ever since i became interested (in fact, your website was probably one of the very first ones i saw, which 'sparked' my interest in Tesla coils). I still remember trying to use ceramic capacitors in a sgtc and i wondered why yours worked so much better, whereas mine just kinda exploded

. Im going to go save some screenshots and put them on a flash drive so i will never forget what got me started in this hobby!

Mattski

Sat Jul 16 2011, 04:02AM

Registered Member #1792 Joined: Fri Oct 31 2008, 08:12PM
Location: University of California
Posts: 527

Tesladownunder wrote ...

It is being redesigned in WordPress by Melissa Michaels and will be a lot more bloggy/interactive and interesting. Articles will be a lot more bite sized and generally less of a "toilet roll style". More smarts generally.

Just be sure not to go too bite sized! A page with real content is worth scrolling down to read, versus a page with little content that I have to click "next page" on 5 times and I am left unsatisfied at the end

Dr Hankenstein

Sat Jul 16 2011, 05:10AM

Registered Member #1642 Joined: Sun Aug 17 2008, 11:36PM
Location: Black Canyon City
Posts: 96

Old website was no good....couldn't find anything. Seemed like it was just a long, endless page. Hope the new one works out better for you.

Tesladownunder

Sat Jul 16 2011, 08:03AM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Dr Hankenstein wrote ...

Old website was no good....couldn't find anything. Seemed like it was just a long, endless page.

The index page still works at least in IE9, It is a long (endless) page of many pictures text and videos. There is so much content that many of my pages are like that.
Other pages like Public Displays have a corrupted and have a 20 screen roll of blank before the 30 pages roll of normal articles and text.
Maybe the index page doesn't work on your browser.

Mattski wrote ...

Just be sure not to go too bite sized! A page with real content is worth scrolling down to read, versus a page with little content that I have to click "next page" on 5 times and I am left unsatisfied at the end

This is a really good point. The value of long pages is that (if done properly) they load up while you are reading so you can read and scroll at your own pace uninterrupted. Having to flip pages and endure a 5 second or more wait is a frustration.
On the other hand, if you want information about a Zamboni battery you might not want to wade through a lot of other stuff.
In developing the new site I hope to have a balance but most pages will run more than one screen and some for very many.

Arcstarter wrote ...

I am going to miss the old website! I have always gone to your site for info on Tesla coils, ever since i became interested (in fact, your website was probably one of the very first ones i saw, which 'sparked' my interest in Tesla coils). I still remember trying to use ceramic capacitors in a sgtc and i wondered why yours worked so much better, whereas mine just kinda exploded

. Im going to go save some screenshots and put them on a flash drive so i will never forget what got me started in this hobby!

The old (pre 1995) site will still be here. Many (167!) old verions of the pre-2011 site should be on Wayback Machine and the content will still be kept on the new site.
Yeah, I'll miss the autumn leaves theme with yellow on dappled black too.
And my ceramic caps? They exploded, burned, frizzled, smoked and otherwise displayed their dislike for Tesla coils on many occasions.

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