Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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Would anyone be interested?
First of all, I'm not trying to advertise, there's no cost for the website or anything, it's just that I adore reading car builds on various sites, and there's no site to bring all car projects together.
I've written http://www.carproject.co.uk and I need input on what works with the site, what's not so good, and I need people to start posting their projects so I can improve the site.
All and any projects are welcome, it's free to upload unlimit photos at the moment, although if the site gets too busy I'll have to change that. More likely by placing a limit than charging.
So if you're interested, go over to http://www.carproject.co.uk register, add vehicle, add photos, add project, and write it all up.
It supports [img] [ b ] and [ u ] tags, so if you've already got it on a forum you can copy and paste.
I appreciate any and all feedback.
Gaz
[Edited on 14-02-2010 by Gazdaman]
[Edited on 14-02-2010 by Gazdaman]
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Doug
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 03
User status: Offline
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It is a crap template that you have used but a good idea.
Sort out the design and get some very subtle adverts up on the site to cover the hosting costs (Because they WILL get high)
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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Don't concentrate too much on the template, it's one I've quickly stolen from another of my websites, that will evolve over time.
And I agree with the adverts eventually, especially with images uploads.
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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I'd be interested if the top line lines up for you aswell, on Safari on my girlfriend's mac, the middle is above the background, on i.e on my laptop it lines up perfectly.
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Doug
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 03
User status: Offline
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Firefox in Vista here.
Doesn't line up.
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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I think it must be the classic IE vs the world problem then. Ok cheers.
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Doug
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 03
User status: Offline
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Make the site in flash?
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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Oh dear god! Flash kills kittens.
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Doug
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 03
User status: Offline
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Let me guess. You have an iPhone? 
Flash is a very good language for compatibility
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am4nf
Member
Registered: 27th Jul 08
Location: South Ayrshire Drives: Corsa Sport
User status: Offline
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corsasport has other projects too not just corsa's 
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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I know, but this is just one site, there are car projects all over the net, and at present, to read all the decent ones you have to trawl tens if not hundreds of different sites.
I wish I had an iPhone, I just dislike flash, php is so tidy and efficient, flash is a resources whore (and I don't know how to write it). I dislike it so much I never bothered to learn. All its good for is sexy games.
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Butler
Member
Registered: 2nd Jun 05
Location: London
User status: Offline
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Does line up in safari. Design wise its a bit poor in my opinio, and your english isnt brilliant which doesnt help.
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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Sorry where is my english poor? It doesn't hold a lot of weight when you don't put apostrophes in either isn't or doesn't.
Thanks for letting me know about Safari though.
Cheers
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Kurt
Member
Registered: 23rd Oct 05
Location: Hi
User status: Offline
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horrible colour scheme, doesnt line up in ie7, pixelated logo
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Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
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It wont take off unless it has a good design so it shows the projects well and a good structure to it for ease of navigation.
It currently has neither. Nice idea though, as sure people post projects across multiple forums/sites so could save them hassle - especially if you figured out some way for threads on forums to be updated via it.
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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Updating forum threads could be done.
I agree the design is far from finished, but I think the navigation is quite simple, especially when there are some more projects posted.
When there are more they'll be listed both by most recent, and you can view by user, date and the subject vehicle.
The lining up I can sort, that's no issue, I quite like the colour scheme, but I lifted it directly from my other website http://www.gaz-racing.co.uk
And the pixelated logo I'll sort out, it's a shame because it's pixelated in my high res version, so I'll have to redraw it.
Really appreciate the input.
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noshua
Member
Registered: 19th Nov 08
User status: Offline
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In response to uploading images on your server, you could re-route the image upload to a free hosting website, such as tinypic or http://pic.leech.it/
Haven't signed up on the website, but if someone adds extra information at a later date (say they did something else to their car), does this get added onto the end of the document? If so, you could combine it into a 'folder' like affect. For example, http://www.carproject.co.uk/content.php?page=viewarticle.php&project_id=6 would display the first information the user put in. Then, an 'index' system would list the rest of the added information. Crap explanation but it'd save load on your server.
http://pic.leech.it/pic.php?id=36e977f7untitled.png
[Edited on 14-02-2010 by noshua]
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Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
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Allow people to sign up and select to 'follow' a project. Show the number of followers on the projects details page. Allow projects to be sorted by number of followers.
Allow it to be searched by car make or type.
Make it so the projects can be viewed in parts - each new post separately, as well as the whole project - will cut down on waiting ages for a long project to load when you've seen half of it before.
Put the menu to the left, personal opinion but I hate menus on the right.
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noshua
Member
Registered: 19th Nov 08
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo
Make it so the projects can be viewed in parts - each new post separately, as well as the whole project - will cut down on waiting ages for a long project to load when you've seen half of it before.
This is what I was trying to explain.
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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I thought this sort of thing already existed?
http://www.cardomain.com/
http://www.fueltopia.co.uk/
Butler's been telling me to do something like this for a while, facebook / myspace, meets cars - with project building being the centre.
I've always told him it's a saturated market, am I wrong?
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo
Allow people to sign up and select to 'follow' a project. Show the number of followers on the projects details page. Allow projects to be sorted by number of followers.
Allow it to be searched by car make or type.
Make it so the projects can be viewed in parts - each new post separately, as well as the whole project - will cut down on waiting ages for a long project to load when you've seen half of it before.
Put the menu to the left, personal opinion but I hate menus on the right.
All great advice
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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You could make a great looking page and a really efficient database and it'll still be nothing without content.
You need users and for that, you need a reason for them to be there. Hence why it's hard to start up.
I'm going to move away from car data in the next garage version because less people use it for that purpose. It becomes like a DVLA document if you go too crazy with the structures.
A better approach may be to try and syndicate content from other sites. Either to display outright in your own page or something like Digg where users link to threads elsewhere.
That is all we would do here if someone finds one somewhere else. For example jr pasting in some PH content is typically what happens.
Leaderboard thing doesn't necessarily need to take the content as its own.
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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I like the followers idea.
And I tend to agree with various posts to one project, it can already be done like that.
that's how it is on www.gaz-racing.co.uk
You view by vehicle, and I add a new post for each different thing I do.
I did have a bit of a google around for a website like this.
So maybe I should concentrate on a 'vehicle' and have various 'projects' for one vehicle. Then you can view each segment of the vehicle.
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Gazdaman
Member
Registered: 30th Aug 07
Location: Leicester
User status: Offline
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Appreciate your input ian, it was actually your 7.5t truck project that finally gave me the kick to make the site.
I would hope content would come. Once I can entice a few projects people will read, and hopefully add their own.
Content is really what I'm after with this site, it's a bit selfish really, I made it just so I've got content I want to read.
I love reading peoples projects, I just wish they were all in one place.
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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Depends if you want to be surprised. The most popular cross-posted threads on here are the Koenigsegg Granada and vxrmarc's Astra.
Now I wouldn't be searching for either of those personally. I think some of the interest is that you don't know what you're going to find.
200SX engined Morris Minor was another example. The Alvis thread by waters. I wouldn't search for that but found it immensely interesting.
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