It's Finally Done!

[Jesse Bekas]

Yeah, most people are still on dialup, including myself (and I can afford a computer =P), but I'm not paying, an extra $50 a month for cable, and that is my only option, like a lot of other people. If you're creating a website you're still going to have to make it easy for dialup users to access and navigate for a little while yet. Also, multiple formats for the video would be nice.

[Dylan Couper]

Jeeze, how much is your cable internet if it is $50 more than your dial-up???

I guess I'm spoiled where I live, I pay about $25us for my cable internet.

Honestly, I swear the only people I know still on dial-up are my 80 year old grandparents. And Jesse.

[Randy Reyes]

I don't know about you, but cable costs about $45 to $50 in the Los Angeles area. Please tell me where I can find high-speed internet for $25 a month for a year, not $25 for the first 3 months or any other promo like that. Trust me, I'm all ears. (** no sarcasm intended **)

And as far as owning a computer & affording the luxury of high-speed internet, some of us actually have to work a little harder to acquire those things. Just because you have that luxury doesn't mean you have to forget about the rest of the people out there. I'd rather try to reach as many people I can rather than cater to the digital snobs who think that low-band is for "nobodies".

In any case, information in general should be something that people can acquire easily. And a good designer should be mindful of that. Do you really think that people who subscribe to low-band are any less important?

[Josh Bass]

I seem to remember SBC Yahoo DSL is/was around 26.95 a month for the first year, then goes up to some higher price per month.

Yes. . .there's a bit of arrogance there--not catering to people with dial-up. Seems you'd want to cast your net (whatever it is) as wide as possible, UNLESS you're only targeting a specific group of whoever, and KNOW they will have broadband, and therefore really DON'T care about people with dial-up.

[Michael DeMattia]

Thanks for all your comments, the good and the bad. I will add this site to the links. And to answer your last question - yes. When working in the field of video, I cant use 56k to push anything. Most of the people that use that cant really do anything with video work. I dont mind that 56k users cant really do anything on the site. They cant do most things that have anything to do with video or media content. I dont see why its really a big deal. Get high speed. If you cant, then your going to miss out of some things.

[Michael Bernstein]

Michael,

The flash is pretty, but off-putting. There was too much going on for me. I prefer simpler designs.

If you maintained the same look but reduced the animation, I'd like it much better.

I agree with the folks lobbying for a low bandwidth-friendly design. Once every couple of months I have to dial in. I appreciate it when I can still find stuff even at 56k.

Finally, I'm no fan of sites that automatically play music when I load them. Personal preference. I wasn't able to find a "stop playing music" button.

Good luck with your new site.

Michael

[Michael DeMattia]

its the square in the music player to stop the music.

[Dylan Couper]

Randy, cable is about $35-$40cdn here in Vancouver, which is $25-$30us. So just move to Vancouver! Plus less smog! :)

I ate a lot of Kraft dinner to get my first computer after going to school. Not the name brand Kraft dinner, but the cheap no-name stuff. Then I ate even more to switch from dial-up to highspeed. If it meant going back to dial-up, I'd stop eating sushi and go back to the KD first.

[Michael Bernstein]

"it's the square in the music player to stop the music."

Found it.

You may want to label it explicitly (i.e. the actual words "stop playing music"). That seems to be a common practice on sites that have background tunes. You may also want to add a button to start the music again, which I was not able to find.

I don't know why this is, but leaving the site up in my web browser (mozilla) sucks a lot of CPU. More so than some other flash-powered sites.

Michael

[Terry Thompson]

Wow, I thought it was the 4th of July. Flash really can do a lot of things.

In the case of a lot of Flash, it's cool the first time but after a while watching it on the web site it becomes annoying. We have it on a web site where I used to work and I really got tired of having to wait for it to finish. There wasn't any motivation to put all of our flash stuff in and I expect that's the case with most real "Flashy" web sites.

If (maybe better said as when) I use flash on my web site I think I will put two buttons. One will say "Click to see our introduction" and the other "Go straight to the main menu". That way there is a good choice. Some web sites just have one button which sais "Click to bypass the introduction". If you don't click on it the flashy intro begins.

Real flashy Flash reminds me of when I played in a musical group and our lead guitar player would take off and play something real fast and wild. I didn't like it because I wanted something "musical" that was well thought out and practised. Kind of like my boy's band. Their music (?) was so annoying I called it "white noise".

Anyway, the flash was cool but needs to be a bit more "musical" for my tasts.

I watched "She" and couldn't figure it out. What were you trying to say?

Terry

[Graham Bernard]

British telecom charge $46.32 per month. You get the Black keys for free . . . ! [ quote from Blues Brothers meeting Ray Charles ]

Here in the UK, ADSL [BroadBand]is not cheap for non-business users. Personally I can write my connection costs off against the business. However consider having 2 options ADSL and 56k access shows customer help beyond advertising .. . don't forget you've now got a Global market - but I guess you realised this already - yes?

Grazie