Reskin of my EWI website.

[deathshadow60]

http://www.ewiusb.com

New skin, relies heavily on CSS3 for corners and shadows, uses my 'boxSir' lightbox-type script. Legacy IE (version 8/lower) don't get the rounded corners and shadows -- OH WELL! (see the latest news item for info on that). I'm really liking how this new appearance came out.

Under the hood it's updated to my latest "poor man's" PHP codebase. Valid XHTML Strict. Added media queries so it drops to single column and loses the CSS3 effects on narrow displays, which means it should load fast and render quickly/scroll smoothly on handhelds.

FINALLY (after two and a half years) did some content updates as well - including a install guide for PC (since the one it comes with blows), reviews of some software I consider important, etc, etc... Fixed some inaccuracies in the technical breakdown and reviews too.

[Spritanium]

The markup is great, as I'd expect from you.

Love the media queries.

From an aesthetic standpoint, I think it could be a little better. The thick borders I'm not so sure about, and the background seems a little busy. The navigation links look outdated in a way. The box shadows on the modules are pretty big, and pretty dark.

The way the information is presented is nice and concise; I like how the modules to the left give a sort of preview to all the pages of the site, and then disappear when that particular page is viewed. I dunno about the contact form; I personally prefer to see an email address and some alternative methods of contact. I wouldn't want to force someone to contact me in a certain way.

I like the use of red as an accent for a predominantly gray page...maybe it could be used a little more? I actually think a dark red background could look pretty nice.

You might want to hide "page best viewed with eyeballs" from screenreaders if you haven't already :P

And of course, I could try to convince you to use HTML5 for some added semantic benefit, since even though it allows some careless errors, it still supports and encourages strict XHTML markup. But let's not even go there.

Overall a solid site

[deathshadow60]

The thick borders I'm not so sure about

I tend to be a large font user, so they seem quite reasonable to me... I looked at it on a friends laptop and see what you mean - I may have to play with trying to declare those in EM instead of PX... but with things like border and box-shadow (much of it is built with box-shadow) EM's can be a wee bit.. unpredictable. Of course if you have a IPS panel like on a quackintosh, it's going to look much, much higher contrast than what normal users will see. (part of why I advocate having multiple displays of DIFFERENT capabilities for testing).

and the background seems a little busy.

Looks less so at smaller display sizes... I like it, but my tastes do run a wee bit towards the gaudy... what with my Parker Lewis shirt collection.

The navigation links look outdated in a way.

Yeah, but they're designed to look like the thumb pitch benders on the actual instrument so...

The box shadows on the modules are pretty big, and pretty dark.

Should have seen it in Alpha where they were much more so.

I dunno about the contact form; I personally prefer to see an email address and some alternative methods of contact. I wouldn't want to force someone to contact me in a certain way.

Coming from doing sites for companies, I've learned never to put an e-mail on a website... hence the form. Will probably be better once I get the forums up and running, but no, NOT putting a e-mail address directly on a page, that's just bad practice and in my experience, completely useless as you end up turning the spam filter up so high, you never get any of your legitimate mails either.

I actually think a dark red background could look pretty nice.

Oddly, that's what the site used to have, and everyone complained about it

You might want to hide "page best viewed with eyeballs" from screenreaders if you haven't already :P

They're not viewing it -- doesn't apply to them.

I could try to convince you to use HTML5 for some added semantic benefit

Benefits? WHAT BENEFITS? Presentational attributes that have NOTHING to do with semantics but they claim they do? Bloated half assed coding practices and undoing ALL the progress of STRICT and the past DECADE? That steaming pile of .... Ok, I'll stop there.

it still supports and encourages strict XHTML markup.

BULLCOOKIES!

But let's not even go there.

Good call given the total disgust and string of expletives I have for everything related to the idiotic steaming pile of manure called HTML 5... which I still can't believe anyone is DUMB ENOUGH to even want to use!. It seems to exist just to throw us back in time to HTML 3.2 coding practices, undoing all the removal of redundancies and pointless garbage that 4 Strict gave us, and making validation pointless and destroying anything resembling a sensible document structure.... and that's without talking about the new allegedly semantic tags like SECTION, NAV or HEADER... none of which serve any practical purpose on a page if you bother understanding what numbered heading tags and horizontal rules are, and how to use them properly.

So yeah, let's not go there. I may end up breaking out the shotgun, and I just bought this screen.

[Spritanium]

I knew I'd be facing a response like that :P

I think I'm gonna PM you, because I'm actually curious to have a friendly (more or less) debate on this...

[J in Calgary]

Having read some of your comments to other posters, it's a bit intimidating offering a reply, since you obviously have a mad level of expertise with design (whereas I am in wysiwyg mode). However, I will say, for whatever it might be worth, that the look is very stylish and appropriate to the concept. It's easy to read, but it also has some subtle treatments that make it unique. Impressive.