Finally!!!

[JAB]

I am pleased to announce the launch of my new blog
www.threeharmonies.blogspot.com as well as my fully re-designed and updated website www.threeharmonies.com

If you like what you see please check back frequently. If not, thanks for visiting!
Cheers
Jake

[Joe L.]

Very sleek layout, Jake.

Nice work!

[GrahamB]

Jesus man! Opening pic on your blog looks like you have a mutant foot that grew fingers!

I will now read and digest, but looks good.

I like the Dragon app you linclue on the site - very similar to how we do it - nice. Also thanks for putting so many of your articles on there - very generous.

G

[Formosa Neijia]

Jake,
Congrats on getting all that up and running. I appreciate how hard it is.

A couple of minor points that you can think about. Allowing comments on the blog create a sense of community amongst your blog readers. You also get feedback that let's you know whether you're getting your points across or not. Finally you give them the ability to introduce new things to you by linking to new clips or articles you may not have seen.

Your site looks good. But it seems to be excessively table based and loads fairly slowly. It seems to be overly formatted. As you know, that may prevent people from exploring your site.

Good luck,
Dave C.

[Kurt Robbins]

Great job Jake!

[Jake]

Hey Jake!

The new site looks GREAT! (it does load pretty slowly though)

Keep keeping it real and enjoy Seattle! (I'm STILL stuck here in this city of sin... I guess because I'm a sinner )

Cheers bro!

Jake.

[JAB]

Thanks guys!
First of all the site was designed by someone who has no idea, so overall I think she did an awesome job. Sorry if it loads slowly, but on all of our computers it goes up quickly (perhaps your connection is a bit slower).
There are a few glitches we will continue to sort out. The important thing was launching the new site because the old one was SO outdated and hard to navigate. It will be a work in progress for sure.
Dave -
Thanks for the critique. Right now I am not too interested in hearing everyones comments about every single thing I post. I get enough of that on forums such as this
I have no clue what you mean by table based and overly formatted??? Again, she is not a web designer so.........


Indeed Graham all of the articles I have ever written are archived on the site! It is my goal to share and disseminate info to those interested. So I wanted to make sure all my articles were available. Enjoy! Got some back reading to do eh?

Thanks Kurt and Jake!

[Tomita]

I got one word for you, Jake... Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

I finally got to read the article about Sun taijiquan. Liked it very much, and I will keep a keen eye on the blog as well...

Thanks for putting it all out there.

Kind regards,

Tomita

[cerebus]

Great! Jake finally got it up! Uuuuh... I mean... never mind...

[JAB]

Yeah, a little computer Viagra goes a long way!
Thanks guys! I am glad you are digging the articles too!

[Dale Dugas]

Brother,

Nice new look.

Congrats on that.

Hope all is well with you and Clan Burroughs in the NW.

[GrahamB]

Indeed Graham all of the articles I have ever written are archived on the site! It is my goal to share and disseminate info to those interested. So I wanted to make sure all my articles were available. Enjoy! Got some back reading to do eh?

Thanks Kurt and Jake!

Indeed - I see what you mean about the arm drag now. Thanks.

G

[ashe]

jake,

can you go into depth a bit more about your pricing policy and how that works out per week or per class.

the things that caught my eye were the mat fees / class in addition to the monthly fee, and also the 10 class punch card. (i quite like that option in theory)

but if i'm coming to class three times a week i'm going to pay $75 dollars a week in mat fees? seems pretty high. (not judging, you may have high over-head or other reasons).

i'm assuming that the ten class punch cart cost also does NOT include mat fees?

on a pure web note: tables = bad for any website.

the next time you want to give your site a face lift or add functionality, you'll need to rebuild the ENTIRE site from scratch. if you'd gone with a standards compliant CMS like drupal or joomla, or even a proprietary CMS, you could endlessly change the whole layout, look and feel of your site, update versions and add functionality and your whole site (i.e. content) would change and update.

check out http://www.wusource.org to see what i'm talking about. if you create an account, when you login in for the first time you can go to "my account" and click "edit". then you can actually choose from any of several themes that are installed and viola, the whole appearance of the entire site are changed but the content remains the same.

or i guess your blog is another good example, as you can change the template there as well (blogger is essentially a giant CMS). i would recommend that you integrate your blogs look with your site more closely, and also include a way to navigate back into the rest of your site from your blog. check out mine as an example. you can move from one to the other and never even notice you moved off the main site and back. most importantly it means that those who find my blog first have a way to find my website if they want to.

not to mention that the site will run faster and you'll get much cleaner code and the site will be more accessible.

for instance, any blind users interested in training with you will be unable to navigate your site, since it has a table based design, it'll be nearly impossible for them to navigate since it'll screw their screen reader.

[Formosa Neijia]

on a pure web note: tables = bad for any website.

the next time you want to give your site a face lift or add functionality, you'll need to rebuild the ENTIRE site from scratch.

Jake,
Listen to Ashe. He's telling you more specifically what I was saying. Apparently you got a non-professional to do your homepage. I understand that. I do my own blog and I'm not a professional either. But your site is excessively tabled/formatted for what it has. It doesn't come up quickly or smoothly.

It's pretty. Don't take this the wrong way. No one's trying to tear you down. We're just offering some friendly advice to help you out. You could get that design in a much cleaner format that would work better for you and increase click through rates (people looking around your site). That's what you want.

Dave C.

[JAB]

Well the site comes up quickly for me and those who have high speed. Sorry if not. Get high speed!

Too long of a story to explain why the pro did not do it. Basically I put my faith in a person, whom I should not have! We learn from our mistakes. As for re-doing it....no money=no go. Thanks though!

Ashe
If you a re a member then it works out in your favor (if you make every class). 10 Class punch card varies, but in general costs $180.

Cheers
Jake