The Forestry Forum

General Forestry => Forest Education => Topic started by: Jeff on May 27, 2002, 03:40:28 PM

Title: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 27, 2002, 03:40:28 PM
In the Not to distant future I will probably be building a website fro Michigan Adopt a forest. I am playing with a technology that I like, but seldom use, mostly because in the past, The general populous did not have flash on thier computers as they do today. Anyhow, What I am doing here, it first asking how do you like this? Second, if you cant see what I am talking about, then that means you don't have flash. That will also be a big help if you tell me, that way I have an idea of weather to proceed in this direction with this site.

Whith Flash, you can right click on the movie below, and rewind then play again, or zoom on a part if you like. Comments, Suggestions?  I plan on having links appear if I go this route.

http://www.cleanforests.org/test/Movie2.swf
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Tom on May 27, 2002, 04:31:21 PM
I see it.  The bird noises follow me where ever I go.  They followed me to this reply page.  I replayed the movie.  Don't know where it would fit into something that I would enjoy.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 27, 2002, 04:43:26 PM
I guess I was not trying to get someone to enjoy it, but to get thier attention on entering a website

Look at it in the context of being the lead in to a website.

http://www.cleanforests.org/test

After the brief commercial the links to other parts of the website appear.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Ron Scott on May 27, 2002, 06:15:24 PM
I see what you are talking about so I must have Flash. At first I was looking for the owl outside until I read the post.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Corley5 on May 27, 2002, 08:58:37 PM
Works for me.  Didn't know I had Flash 8)
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Texas Ranger on May 28, 2002, 07:41:28 AM
apparantely, no flash, but annoying crickets.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Gordon on May 28, 2002, 03:06:31 PM
Yes as a lead in it's a good eye-catcher. Just remember alot of us don't have a very fast connection so I guess it would have to be kept short or at a lower pic quality to keep people interested. I hate a page that takes too long to load.

Don your a piece of work. :D

Gordon
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Ron Wenrich on May 28, 2002, 03:42:43 PM
I clicked on your link, and it took a looonnnnggggg time to load.  Most people won't hang around for a slow loading page.  I'm one of 'em.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 28, 2002, 04:29:12 PM
It wasnt the page Ron, could have been the server at the time. try again please. The total file size for that webpage and associated is 26 K. About 8% of the webpage you are looking at now.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Ron Wenrich on May 28, 2002, 06:29:49 PM
You're right.  It was only about 8 seconds.  But, as you add more content, won't that take more time?
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 28, 2002, 07:01:16 PM
That will be a one time view intro page. First time visitors to the site will get the little flash movie if they have flash. The site will set a cookie, and then when ever the visitor comes back in the future they wont see the welcome page, just the main site.

I may or may not use flash. Its pretty involved to work with. THe forum frontdoo has a taste of it)  I am interested if I do use it if the masses can view it now. 3 years ago it was pretty cutting edge and nobody had the plugin.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: RavioliKid on May 28, 2002, 07:15:12 PM
The flash played fine and would be nice as an entrance, but only if it loads and plays quickly.

Sometimes the "frontdoor" of this website takes too long to completely display itself. If I weren't committed to seeing what was inside, I probably wouldn't stick around for it.

One of these days, I am going to have to reconnect the speakers on this machine, I didn't hear the birds or the crickets.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Tom on May 28, 2002, 07:17:34 PM
Jeff hears crickets all the time, Kim.  Seems his daughter bought some mature ones to feed to the pet lizards and they chirp all night long. :D :D
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 28, 2002, 07:27:50 PM
Yea, that aint funny either. We have been buying crickets 1000 at a time over the internet for 8 bucks. we bought the 3/4 inch size. The water dragon is getting bigger so we thought we would buy bigger crickets, the 1 inch size. MISTAKE!  The little ones did not have thier peepers yet. The big ones do. They are driving me nuts!  Cant keep them outside till stable warm weather.

If the forum front page loads slow, you probably have an old book mark. The one that ends in .shtml  Update your bookmark to just the main address. www.forestryforum.com
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: RavioliKid on May 28, 2002, 07:47:47 PM
That's the URL I have when I access the forum. Maybe I just need to learn patience.

I wanne learn it NOW!  :D
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 28, 2002, 07:57:07 PM
Problem is I just hate it when I might be at fault. Try this for speed,

A cable modem and a new pentium 4. :D  If that don't work, its gotta be my fault.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 28, 2002, 08:04:03 PM
actually, I think the Poll is the culprit for slowing down the home page. It could be the flash. we could vote on whether to lose the flash or not and just go back to the boring sedimentary logo. ??
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: CHARLIE on May 28, 2002, 10:36:55 PM
Flash is cool. Good attention getter as long as it's not overused. :)
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: woodmills1 on May 29, 2002, 04:23:55 AM
yes I see the flash, and hear the crickets and the birds.  I would use the best technology avaliable.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Scott_R on May 31, 2002, 05:08:19 AM
The codec that you are using must work with other applications than flash. I installed flash on my Mac a few years ago and it messed up my video. I removed it but this stuff is coming through somewhat. The video seems to work alright but the crickets sound sick. Might be time to feed them to the water dragon!! No owl or bird sounds. I would guess that Quicktime must be handling the flash codec. I normally keep the sound off when surfing. Scott_R
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on May 31, 2002, 10:13:34 AM
No birds and no owl because I took em out. Its just to much. The cricket is to much too. He does sound a little sick.  Scott i'd be willing to bet that the flash plugin still resides somewhere on your computer.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: RobK on June 25, 2002, 10:18:26 AM
The right hand side of the initial lake picture moves in, then moves back out. Otherwise it looks pretty good. I really like the idea of not playing it again if the user has viewed the page before. That's one of my biggest gripes about Flash animations. You might also consider an animated gif though.

-Rob
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Texas Ranger on June 25, 2002, 11:26:04 AM
AH HA!  It said RIGHT click.  I got Flash, and annoying crickets.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: L. Wakefield on June 27, 2002, 08:25:33 PM
   Yes, I can see it, and get the edited sound. It's OK, I guess. I tend to like loons, and I probably would've liked the wols, but all I got were critecks of a typo.   lw
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on September 02, 2002, 01:11:16 PM
O.K.,

Your valued opinions. This website made a full and complete detour in its design and will soon be ready for release if you would like a sneak preview. The forms on the site are fully functional so unless you are volunteering to clean trash in Michigan or reporting an illegal dump site to adopt a forest I wouldnt be testing them ;)

[size=4 ]Adopt-A-Forest (http://www.cleanforests.org)[/size]
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Ron Scott on September 02, 2002, 02:28:16 PM
Glad to see the Trash and Illegal Dumps Reporting Form provided on line.
Title: Re: Your Valued Opinions.
Post by: Jeff on September 02, 2002, 02:41:22 PM
Yes Ron, Spread the word. Maybe a note to SAF and others that spend time in our Forests that they can easily report these sites now so they can be scheduled for cleanup.