http://www.1337geek.com

Looking for an overall review, I realize content is pretty slim, and I'm working on that, other than that I'd like some honest opinions.

Go round or go square, the combination of the two isn't working for me.

Per your suggestion I've rounded off the corners. I agree with what you said, there was something bothering me about the design I couldn't quite put my finger on it, I feel this looks much better.

try expanding your color palette to give your page more visual variety, for starters try orange (#FFAA00?) to highlight important areas, don't overuse though. Also you could use some neutral colors to set certain areas apart, maybe on the navigation or the center area.

this is a nice article on color, http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/colormood/index.htm

put more attention on color and size of your graphical elements. The navigation label size and the news entry bevel size /color is too identical. Try a different more neutral/muted color on the navigation label? most important bevel size should be smaller.

Lastly, I think you did a good job overall, just remember to not overdo the graphics. Too many big buttons make them seem most important, they also steal attention away from your content.

All the best dude!

Is this site created with a document management software?

Not exactly sure what you mean executive. I developed the entire site from scratch (except the forums) myself. It uses PHP and a MySQL database to build the html.

was wrong about the desaturated bevels, these things look best bright ... made a sample see attachment - with light n dark font color sample too

Try scrapping the tables and using css for layout. Loading times will be cut by a lot and it will be easier to update the site. A good css tutorial can be found at www.westciv.com (I think) if you need one. Nice site tho.

Actually changing it to CSS would make no difference in updating the site, it's all built on the fly by php anyways, although I will look into it if it does speed up load times. (also looking into php caching options)

http://www.decloak.com/Dev/CSSTables/CSS_Tables_01.aspx

hmm Had a look at this article, I'm not really convinced css is the way to go

I think pyromancer is right, you should try CSS layout jinexile, its a good idea IMHO, esp since your site is non commercial. And your target auduence are mainly computer geeks, I think its safe to say geeks usually have the latest browsers (I do )

You will have less chance (maybe none) to experiment when you are doing commercial projects.

Checkout, http://www.csszengarden.com/ for what is possible with CSS. I think decloak.com has their points (CSS workarounds are a pain).

Again, looking at your audience and the non-commercial nature of your site, its like such a fantastic chance to try CSS driven layouts, CSS driven by database backend even! how cool is that!

just my raants ... all zee beaist ~

I think I will explore the benifits on my test server but from what I've read the only advantage I can see is for those that have screen readers and the fact that W3C advises against using tables for layout purposes (specifically for the pervious reason)

don't mean to revive this thread, thought of our discussion here about the benefits of CSS, when I saw this article -

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx...es/why_css.html

hope it is useful, cheers!

Plus, dont include all that news (grr) only the latest one will be needed, and provide a link for the others. This will speed up loading times, and mean less scrolling

And you dont really need a huge PHP banner to go over a single link. Just have one banner called "CODE" and place all the PHP and VB6 links under that.

i like the layout i have to agree with cjx again i dont think you need news from nearly 2 months ago