How about this?

[hambleto]

Hello again everyone. I had an idea and I wanted everyone’s opinion on it. How would everyone feel about having a Wreck Valley home page? Now this page in no way shape or form would have any similarities to this page. It would be a page where we could have a photo gallery, logo, and some general information, calendar of events, dives, and things like that. We would still chat and communitcate on here, but we would have our own place to put up a bunch of photos and the like. Give me some feedback and let me know what you think?
Take care,
Ben

[ScottyK]

Could be cool once we have enough members to make it worthwhile.

What kind of cost would be involved?

[hambleto]

Well. The domain would have to be registered (Since I suggested the idea I will take of that myself). I could park the domain on one of my servers and handle web traffic and possibly some e-mail forwarders. (ie a message goes to scottk@ourdomain.com and it would be forwarded onto the real e-mail address). I do not currently see any cost as long as the bandwidth usages stays low. If it over loads one of the servers I might even be able to throw a spare dedicated one together (that is a bridge to be crossed if the time ever came) But for a basic webpage with a photo gallery and info and such I do not see a cost. That is just my thoughts.
Ben

[BOATS313]

Great idea!
I'm glad someone understands how to work all these magic boxes. It's just smoke and mirrors to me.

[hambleto]

All I need is the big OK ahead and I can get the ball rolling.
Ben

[grouchyturtle]

That's a great idea. That way we could have a real photo gallery, with thumbnails, etc. instead of just a thread with a bunch of links to photos on other sites.

I could help with the design. We could make it look nice and perty, not like some of those sites, built by programmers or people who know a little bit of Front Page, but don't have clue what looks good.

Actually I'm working on some ideas for the logo too.

But we should hold off for now. As Martin pointed out there is a dive charter called wreck valley, so we may have to change our name.

[hambleto]

Perhaps there is a dive charted called wreck valley. But they do not own the domain www.wreckvalley.com. As long as we specify on the site that we are the Wreck Valley dive club and that we are not a business under the same name we are not infrindging on their name.

I myself can do some web design, but I am not a graphic artist by far. So if you can make a web page look good that is great! Typicaly when I setup a Photo Gallery on a web page I use a PHP scipt that dynamicaly generates the thumbnails and web pages and can resize the images on the fly.

[grouchyturtle]

Actually if you look at my other post, never mind I see you already did.

But for those who want to reply about the name issue please do it here. OUR NAME! (http://www.scubaboard.com/t39671/s.html)

Cool I could work on the design. I also know Flash, Dreamweaver, HTML, and some **********, so I could hand it off to you at any point you want (finished site for you to just integrate the photo gallery, template for you to use to build the pages, or even just the optimized slices.)

[hambleto]

I am glad you know how to do the design. It sounds like a plan to me if we get the go ahead.

As far as the name, I am sorry for the misunderstanding. If we change the name I will just grab another domain name. (As long as it is not taken of course).

How was the water yesterday?

[grouchyturtle]

I just got a 5mm core warmer to wear over my full 7mm. I felt nice and toasty even down to 90' at around 11:30, but by the third dive a little after 4 I think, I was pretty cold even at 50'.

That was probably mosly from sitting the cold air in between dives though.

The name's not entirly up to me anyway, and I kind of like our name. There is one other factor to consider, but I'll post it in the other thread.

[grouchyturtle]

About Us
Contact info
Gallery
member list?
Diving in Wreck Valley (books, websites, etc)(maybe 2 sections one about local diving, places, conitions, regulations, etc. and one with info on gear, books, websites, etc.)
news and or trips/club dives

what else?

[XJae]

hambleto once bubbled...
How was the water yesterday?
My nipples are still hard. That will teach me to walk around in my bathing suit between dives. Friday was 10 degrees colder. Brrrr.

That's great that you grabbed the wv domain name.

Maybe I'll just send you the web size shots to put out there.

[hambleto]

If you want to send the picts to me, just let me know.

[hambleto]

O.k. So www.wreckvalley.com is now ours! The DNS servers should have updated all over and you should have no trouble getting to it. As of now there is nothing really on the page.

http://www.wreckvalley.com/album which is a generic PHP album. If you want pictures in this, just e-mail them to ben@wreckvalley.com and I can put them up for now. Do not worry about the size of the pictures, the script I am using will generate thumbnails and can resize the images on the fly. I usually post pictures 2448x1632 (4.1MP) and it has no problem resizing them. If everyone likes this I will work on getting a way that members will be able to add their own pictures on the fly, but for now this will work for now.

http://www.wreckvalley.com/logs is just a script that goes through the log files and gives a little info on hits, bandwidth, and such.

I hope I am not upsetting anyone by setting this up. If you have any questions about this feel free to PM me here or contact me through the contact options in my profile.

[grouchyturtle]

Well let's so far you have the thumbs up from the following founding members:

XJae
ScottyK
grunzster
BOATS313

That's 4 out of 10, haven't seen the others on this weekend, I know a few were possibly at Dutch today. And I could say with almost no doubt, you have the ok from ingreevox too, associate member, maybe full member after yesterday, if we're officially going with the diving with full members to become one rule.

[wrekdiver2]

grunzster once bubbled...
Well let's so far you have the thumbs up from the following founding members:

XJae
ScottyK
grunzster
BOATS313

That's 4 out of 10, haven't seen the others on this weekend, I know a few were possibly at Dutch today. And I could say with almost no doubt, you have the ok from ingreevox too, associate member, maybe full member after yesterday, if we're officially going with the diving with full members to become one rule.

You got my vote.

[grouchyturtle]

Hey do we want any animation, sound, etc. or just a nice simple site with a nice pro design, etc?

I could even do the whole site in Flash, with some cool effects, bubbles coming up every once in while, fish swimming maybe, or maybe a few divers that swim accross every now and then, etc.

I have lots of whacky ideas for a site like that. It will just take longer. We could also just do a simpler site so we can get it up quicker, and update the whole thing when the higher end site is done?

Also another section we need.
Weck Gear (stickers, t-shirts, etc.)

I'm going to hold off on the design and the logo for a few days anyway until others check in, but...
If anyone has nice shots of the surface of the water from like a diver's view, the bottom, looking straight ahead, or any cool scuba sound effects, feel free to send them over.

[IzzyTahil]

you got my vote.

[mwilding]

I am all for it!

I use a photo gallery on my home page that is great - check it out: gallery.mwilding.com I highly recommend it

[hambleto]

I have used that script in the past. It is VERY nice. I am more than happy to install that if that is where everyone wants to move towards. As of right now though I am not getting much feed back on what people want. It is probably because it is the weekend and the time change has messed people up. I know I am out of it today.

[grouchyturtle]

Either one works for me. I don't really care as long as it's organized nicely.

Remember we're going to have a lot of pics from a lot of members.

[VTernovski]

I like the idea. If you need any help with web graphics let me know... I designed the Beneath The Sea website.

cheers,
-VT

http://www.beneaththesea.org




hambleto once bubbled...
Perhaps there is a dive charted called wreck valley. But they do not own the domain www.wreckvalley.com. As long as we specify on the site that we are the Wreck Valley dive club and that we are not a business under the same name we are not infrindging on their name.

I myself can do some web design, but I am not a graphic artist by far. So if you can make a web page look good that is great! Typicaly when I setup a Photo Gallery on a web page I use a PHP scipt that dynamicaly generates the thumbnails and web pages and can resize the images on the fly.

[BOATS313]

I don't know about anyone else but sound on a home page kinda bugs me. It seems like my sound is always turned up and then BAM! music. I guess I would be expecting it at that site and would be ready for it. So either way.
Eric

[hambleto]

As I told grunzster, I am not a web designer. I can do it, but I am not good at it. I am going to leave it up to the founding members as to what they want on the page. I know had a good list of items to be on it.

[clearwtr]

Check out, http://www.deepsouthdivers.org/. Their site looks very good.

[docmartin]

i love the idea with the website and it is great that we could get the domain name.

[grouchyturtle]

I'm not a huge fan of sound either, especially music.

If I did do sound it would be more for effect, especially if the site was built in Flash.

For example:

The constant sound of waves/surge/etc.
sounds for any animals, boats, etc. that may move across the screen every now and then
A reg being breathed through under water
bubbles
sounds on buttons (one idea I had if we use flash, is maybe having divers as buttons accross the top, when you click on them they deploy a lift big, which would have the name of the page on it)

Think like movie sites, where you usually have some sort of constant sound, but it's subtle.

[docmartin]

the problem with sound is that when you are surfing at work you don't want the bubble noise before you can turn the sound off.

[grouchyturtle]

Very true.

As far as the cool facter, it would be nice to do some of the effects I mentioned, BUT...

I guess a lot of us are going to be surfing the site during the day, when we're miserable at work wishing we were diving.

Kind of like we do with this site now!

Also as cool as it is, it's not needed. We don't need all the effects and eye candy, to try to build hype or to sell something. Most of the visitors will be going to the site, because they already do dive, are looking for specific info or to look at pic, see where people are diving, etc.

Maybe just Flash navigation with some cool effect, at the most, just to make our site cooler than the other diving sites out there.

Maybe we could also have a multimedia section to post dive related animations, videos, games, etc?

[hambleto]

It all sounds good to me. As far as the mail forwarders, I resolved an issue that was preventing some mail from getting though and that is working so I can setup forwarders and defined by the founding members. As far as getting pictures of events up. Right now I am going to use the album scripts until I hear otherwise. If you want pictures of gatherings and the such posted email them the admin@wreckvalley.com and let me know what you want the folder named (i.e. the DutchSprings.10.25.03) then let me know you sent them and I will get them up ASAP.
Ben

[mwilding]

sound on a website is never a good idea

[padiscubapro]

hambleto once bubbled...
Perhaps there is a dive charted called wreck valley. But they do not own the domain www.wreckvalley.com. As long as we specify on the site that we are the Wreck Valley dive club and that we are not a business under the same name we are not infrindging on their name.

I myself can do some web design, but I am not a graphic artist by far. So if you can make a web page look good that is great! Typicaly when I setup a Photo Gallery on a web page I use a PHP scipt that dynamicaly generates the thumbnails and web pages and can resize the images on the fly.

There is a dive boat called the Wreck Valley. Dan berg has called his last two boats that along with his TV series that used to drun on madison square garden netwrok (the videos are still available)

His company name is AquaExplorers..

Attached Is a picture of Wreck Valley and My friends wife taking a swim during a surface interval while hooked into the Oregon

[grouchyturtle]

sound on a website is never a good ideaIt really depends on what the site is for, the design, etc.

I agree background sound or music on site, like you see on a lot of personal sites or businesses that didn't want to spend $$$ for a real design stinks, but...

If a site is designed in Flash sometimes sound can really add to the site. A perfect example would be movie, music, and game sites (especially action, horrow, sci fi movies.

Look at Alien (http://www.alien.com/) as an example. Really cool site, but it wouldn't half as good without sound.

But I was probably getting carried away with some of the ideas I had for wreckvalley.

[hambleto]

O.k. I took MD's idea of using the gallery script instead of the albums and installed it at http://gallery.wreckvalley.com/ If it is alright with everyone, let me know who is going to post images and IM so I can setup logins through the web page. That way you can upload the images yourself and create the gallery as you want to for yourself. This will save the time of people having to e-mail the images to me and me putting them up. This way you can go right there and put up the images and name them or whatever you want to do. Is this o.k. with everyone? Let me know what everyone wants.
Ben

[grouchyturtle]

Works for me!

I guess at least the 10 founding members for now, should have access.

Since I'm guessing only the admin has rights to edit and delete albums, I don't care if every member gets a log in.

[BOATS313]

Ben,
The album looks great. I like the background color.
Eric

[grouchyturtle]

Keep in mind this is only a rough.

I don't know if we really need all those sections in the navigation, or if there's other sections it's missing?

Xjae has some shots he's sending me, I was thinking of putting a footer on it, laid out the same way as the header, except a shot from at depth. That's why I asked about people sending me pics before. Even if anyone has a better surface shot than this, that we can still get the same effect.

Just like the logo, thing will probably change. Maybe a different font on the navigation. The one I used kind of works for a scuba site, but does it look too much like warm water, vacation warrior, I onlydive in the caribbean font? I was also thinking even maybe the nav in Flash and making it slightlt transparent, maybe even have them kind of appear to be floating in the water?

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/grunzster/wreckvalley/interface.jpg

[XJae]

theyre numbered. file name wise.
those ones you said are probably the best for what u have in mind.
472 and 437 are my favorites.

either way you'll probably have to strech the background color up.

[grouchyturtle]

Cool. I'll probably have the background fade into the color that's in the background now.

Much easier to read copy, than if the whole bg was a deep blue.

Send em over! grunzster@wreckvalley.com

[XJae]

i just sent you 472 and 437.
seperate emails.
let me know if they went through.
i used a web based mail app, so?

[grouchyturtle]

Got them. That one will work perfectly! Thanks.

[grouchyturtle]

Here is the latest version. Sorry it took so long, been really busy lately, plus trying to milk those last few weeks of diving before it gets too cold.
latest template (http://gallery.wreckvalley.com/Logo-Drafts/interface)

A couple questions and coments:[list=1] Do we want to make the site fit within 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768?
Most people were still running at 800 x 600 last time I checked, but most of those surveys, stats, etc. are a few years old. I'd think 1024 x 768 would be the standard by now. I know any laptop that came out in the last few years runs at at least that resolution, and it would look nicer if we made it bigger.
Does anyone mind if we use frames?
I know most people hate frames, but from a design standpoint it would look really cool if that header and footer were always visible, and the content scrolled between them.
Are there any sections I missed in the navigation?
Keep in mind some of these will have sub sections. For example, I was thinking "Diving in Wreck Valley" would have pages about sites and conditions, local LDS, links to other local sites (dive tables, etc.) Members and contact could probably be combined into one page. Maybe also a General Scuba page with info about gear, tips, etc.?
The new top image doesn't have a dive boat in it like the old one BUT...the new shot was taken at last weeks shore dive. I just thought it was kind of lame to have a wreck valley site with a picture of a dive boat in Aruba!
I was thinking maybe doing the nav bar in Flash. I will make it a little easier to update, plus maybe I could do some cool rollover effect (like maybe have the text look it's moving in the swells when you roll over a button?
[/list=1]

[hambleto]

Looking good to me! To answer your questions:

1. I would go with 800x600. Even though I love 1024x 768 I know ALOT of people that still use 800x600. If you use frames there is no question, 800x600 is the way to go.
2. I like frames. In the past some browsers did not support them, but all modern browsers support it without problems. Once again, with this I would go with 800x600.
3. I can not think of any you missed, plus if you had to you could add one or two more by moving the logo up some.
4. The new picture looks good. How hard would it be to change images now and then? Or even use a java script to rotate through various pictures?
5. It sounds good. The only question I have is load time. We do not want to fill it with so much eye candy that is causes it to take long to load over a modem.

Those are just my thoughts. I think it looks great.

[XJae]

Looks great.

I like the shore shot.

The bottom shot looks good too.
I think it just needs to be darkened a little
and blued to match the top.

I also tried removing the...
uuugh...
well, see if you can tell.

temp2 (http://gallery.wreckvalley.com/Logo-Drafts/interface_sized2)

I liked the rocks you did, I just couldn't adjust the screen copy and had to use the original.

[grouchyturtle]

1- Ok 800 x 600 it is.
2- True, most newer browsers are fine with frames, but some people just hate them, I guess from the old days when that wasn't the case.
3-True, it could easily be nudged. I was thinking maybe a section for advertising used gear? And if everyone saw my email from last week maybe a message board (mainly as a back up, for when scubabboard goes down, since we don't all have each others contact info, an easy way to post updates about any upcoming dives, especially if the board were to go down right before the weekend)
4- I'm not sure how to do it with **********, but I can have it randomly display a set of images with Flash.
5- I think it would actually be smaller than doing it with HTML, and I could make the bg a color that contrasts well with the buttons, that way even if for some reason the image takes a while to load, you can still navigate to another page while it's still loading.

I redid the bottom. Had to go back to the original image, to get the color right, but it matches much better now. So I also had redo the rocks. I think they look better though now. Looks more like the boat's sitting on the ledge of a huge drop off, and not just next to a big pile of rocks!

As far as changing the pictures. I can do it as long as I have images to work with. Remember I announced I needed pictures for the site a few weeks ago, but no one sent anything. I can easily get plenty of surface shots. That's easy. I'm sure I have at least a few more that are usable (Dutch, Secret Beach, etc.) Hell take shot from any beach in NJ. But...I don't really have many good UW shots yet. Not cool ones like that boat.

Also is anyone good at writing copy? We know what sections we want. But the content to actually go in there is a whoe different story!

[hambleto]

As far as setting up a forum.. I myself am not too sure about that. The only reason I say that is because I am not sure if it would infringe on Scubaboard. I guess it would come down to what everyone really wants from the site.

[grouchyturtle]

Maybe in an emergency, we could just post info on a dive to the gallery.

Also we could just make sure any little get togethers are listed in the dives/trips section as soon as we know about them with the emails of any members that are sort of acting as a guide (aka familiar enough with the site to provide anyone with directions)

[hambleto]

We could that. Another thing we could do is setup a list. Or at least a forwarder. Somethingthatweonlyknow@wreckvalley.com that will then forward the message onto all the members. This would be something that I would have to maintain since it is server side. Another option being I could setup a true mailing list for the site that archives and has auto subscription features. Or just a calendar or something that can be edited by members through the web page. There are many option and many things that could be done depending on what the founding members decided. For now, I think we should work on just getting the main page up and running, members’ forwarders setup, and gallery logins setup.

[grouchyturtle]

Yeah there's probably about a billion different was we could set that up.

But like you said it's not a huge priiority. We need to just get the site up. Besides, from the looks of it, it seems the season is over for most of us.

[hambleto]

Yeah it is starting to look like that. However, that means we have all winter to work out the bugs and to tweak things accordingly.

[grouchyturtle]

Here's a live version with a few tweaks: (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/grunzster/wreckvalley/index.htm)
1- Lightened up the boat on the bottom as XJae suggested
2- Replaced the fade on the top and bottom with image of LP hoses as a border. This way the header and footer take up less of the height, which means more room for content (especially at lower resolutions). And it also looks cooler the way the content will scroll, from behind a hard border and not just dissapear somewhere in the middle of those fades as it scrolls.

Navigation isn't working yet.

[hambleto]

It looks good! I like the way the frames look. I am wondering on the member section, are they going to have links to say a members personal home page?

[grouchyturtle]

I think any info people want will go there. email, links, etc.

[ScottyK]

Definitely coming along nicely!

Chris- Is the ocean shot on the top of the page one of the pics you took at Hortons Point?

[hambleto]

Looks good! I like the idea of the info on the members page. Of course getting the info people want.. that can be a challenge.

[grouchyturtle]

Actually it's from Beach 9th St. The color in those shots was better than the Hortons Point shots.

Got some cool wide angle shots of the Verrazano, with my new lens, while sitting in traffic too!

I guess I'd say - all the info you see in the SB pofiles, plus user name on any scuba sites, address, and phone.

Of course that would be the most we'd put. Untill someone tells us to do so, the only info would be their Wreck Valley username and email. Separated by state,like the list Xjae made.
By the way thanks (less code for me to write now)

[VTernovski]

grunzster, looking good!

[IzzyTahil]

looks pretty cool!

[grouchyturtle]

Cool I'll get started on building navigation and pages after the holiday.

Bad week at work and next week in Aruba!