My first real (?) job....

[ehbowen]

My mother is a real estate agent. A few years back, a client whom she helped find a home put together a web page for her, and for a while she paid him a little bit to maintain the site for her. Well, one thing led to another, and so it's been about three years since the site was last updated. But she still owns the domain and pays the web hosting fees, so the site is still live.

Well, after a year of putting together my own site, she says she likes my work (Tough audience, huh?) and wants me to take over maintaining her site (http://www.southbelthomes.com/). She does not have the ftp information to access the site, so it may be necessary to transfer it to a new hosting provider (I'm leaning that direction anyway).

The copyright notice says "South Belt Homes", so I presume that I can re-use graphic elements and the like although I think it would be bad form to copy the other guy's work wholesale. I'm trying to come up with ideas for redesigning largely from scratch. I'd also like to come up with ways to simplify or even automate the process of adding new home listings, which will need to be done on a regular basis.

Any suggestions?

[Leprakawn]

01: Get a real picture of their hot-air-balloon. I might be able to get one if desired.

02: CHANGE THE NAV BUTTONS!!!

03: Do something fun with the background. How about something like your mom's For Sale sign with a sold banner on it? (Obviously drop the opacity on it quite a bit, and give it feathered edges.)

04: I take it the Current Listings are not really current considering the lack of updates... (that, and they do not work)

05: Try to use more colours, or just do something different with the Seminars page. I feel like I am getting attacked by red.

06: I bet the spammers have hit her contact form, so use PHP/ASP + validation scripts. (BTW, FP *****!!!)

07: Same thing on Dream Home.

08: Increase the page width.

Hope this helps!!

[ehbowen]

Originally Posted by Leprakawn

01: Get a real picture of their hot-air-balloon. I might be able to get one if desired.

02: CHANGE THE NAV BUTTONS!!!

03: Do something fun with the background. How about something like your mom's For Sale sign with a sold banner on it? (Obviously drop the opacity on it quite a bit, and give it feathered edges.)

04: I take it the Current Listings are not really current considering the lack of updates... (that, and they do not work)

05: Try to use more colours, or just do something different with the Seminars page. I feel like I am getting attacked by red.

06: I bet the spammers have hit her contact form, so use PHP/ASP + validation scripts. (BTW, FP *****!!!)

07: Same thing on Dream Home.

08: Increase the page width.

Hope this helps!!

Thanks, Leppy, it helps a lot. I haven't started on the project yet; I've just ordered a build kit for what will be my first brand-new computer since 1991—not kidding!—and I'm focusing on that right now. One question, though: PHP/ASP + validation scripts—what exactly are they and how do they work? Sorry, but in these matters I'm a complete novice.

[Leprakawn]

PHP and ASP are advanced programming languages that can allow interactivity, and you can do lots of cool things. The only catch is that it depends on whatever your mom purchased for her account; it would be PHP, ASP or neither of them.

As for the validation scripts, you can use either Java or PHP/ASP. They can make it necessary for visitors to fill out certain fields, etc, etc. I went to her site and did two dummy submissions, both of which were accepted. But if you apply some validation scripts, I would not be able to do what I did.

[Leprakawn]

I am an idiot for not looking here first and adding this link. http://www.htmlcenter.com/tutorials/...s.cfm/149/PHP/