My friend have a problem with his Mac?

Can a simple template-created website be modified to add Mac accessibility?

• On my PC, I've created a website, using a simple template program called Website Complete, bought from GoDaddy.com, an online service that stores domain names, hosts websites, and so on. I've had the site live for almost a year, also hosted by GoDaddy. Problem: I gather that different programming is needed to make a site Mac-accessible, so of course mine does not work right on Macs (I've seen this for myself, on a friend's Mac). Is there any inexpensive solution? I assume I could hire a programmer, maybe a college student, to create a Mac version of the site (or a version which works on PCs and Macs?)...but even then, I'd have new costs for every update. I modify the site frequently, so I'd have to have new Mac versions frequently too. This is important to me for business reasons, since I'm a teacher and author of a children's book, and I'd like the site to be accessible to schools, which of course typically use Macs. In fact, my book is being used and/or recommended by a number of school. The site is: www.bradburg.com Maybe there IS no solution other than working with a programmer, which may mean at rather high expense. I'd just appreciate some perspective on this, in any case. Thanks! (Incidentally, in case anyone can use such info: Website Complete is very efficient and user-friendly. The program has some awkward spots, but that's reasonable, considering its extremely low cost, $14.95. And GoDaddy's web hosting runs about $5 to $10 a month.)

• Answer:

  Hello Bbb, To paraphrase a comment made on one of your pages "Some people want the cliff notes version.... answer #1" For the most part, the web site works fine on the Macintosh using the three most likely browsers to be used (Internet Explorer - IE 5.1, Netscape 6.2, and Safari 1.0.1). The problems appear to be limited to: - the animated text (marquee) works in IE only. For safari, I reported its failure as a bug to Apple, perhaps it will be fixed in a future version but there are other animations that work just fine - for examples see http://developer.apple.com/internet/javascript/jstests.html which has a series of tests, two have varying forms of dynamic text. - the fonts in some cases are just too small / hard to read. - the "Swing Song" appears to be the only one which doesn't play well. But since its featured, I hesitated playing the others but was glad I did. The first problem could be solved with Flash if you can make those effects or see if another method (e.g., the DHTML javascript test) works as well. The second problem can be avoided by requesting fonts at 10pt or larger, or just use the default of the browser which is generally set to the user's convenience. The third problem can be solved by swapping the "featured song" with another one and putting a caution on the swing song where it appears. #2 - I don't think you need new tools (unless you need them for Flash). #3 - It is your option. I realize that money may be a problem but there are some good free on line resources such as http://www.useit.com/ http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ where there are a number of observations / guidelines provided at no cost (or a reasonable fee for some of the extensive reports) on a regular basis. I regularly read Alertbox to stay current with web design features / problems. #4 - Absolutely. The longer version (basically my notes as I browsed the site) follow. Take the comments with a grain of salt - as I mention above, the site basically works with the Macintosh but if you handle the items covered above, you get 80% of the improvement. Good luck with your site and your book sales. --Maniac The details follow..... Initial, Site Map, Endless Poem pages - loads well in all three browsers. Home page - appears OK in all browsers but the moving text only works in IE. Swing poem page - appears OK in all browsers but the song requires a high speed connection. At 56k, Windows Media Player will play OK for about 6 seconds and then pause / break up badly. I even tried increasing the buffering to 60 seconds (longer than the song - but no change in behavior). The other song pages encoded at 32k sounded great and had no lost packets (from the statistics page). Graphic poetry pages - all appear OK but I noticed a delay in Netscape when I did the back / forward comparison of the swing text. The other two browsers displayed those two pages quickly (after the initial load) but Netscape would sit for 10-15 seconds before it would be "done". Not sure why - but it may be a side effect of the tables you use extensively, Netscape was always slow displaying tables. Balloon, short legs pages - Again, the marquee does not work at all in either Netscape nor Safari. Connect the Dots - the text indicates you can "Click on the picture, and print options should appear." but that does not work on any of the three browsers. Using the print menu option prints the page in all three browsers but IE prints 2 pages (page break below image), Netscape 3 (page break above / below image), and Safari 1. IE has a white background, Netscape has a white background, and Safari has an orange background. Odd that IE omits the book / child images from the output. Netscape also chops off the right side of the large image. Between the Cracks - looks OK after it is fully loaded, but the large green box appeared before the gray box covered it the first time I loaded the page in IE (second time did not do the same effect). I can see the green outline most clearly in Netscape. Teacher Page - looks OK. Not sure what Amazon.com was displaying for "Catch", but it did not appear for me when I followed the link. Hmm. I looked again and perhaps it was the one line quote about the visual effect of zooming across the page. If so, I'd just repeat it here and refer to the original as a reference. I went through the rest of the pages as well, they all looked fine. Design comments Initial page - I note it uses Flash. This may be a problem with some users - for reference see: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html because I see this as "fluff" and something that gets in the way of finding out about your book and other resources. Home Page - The home page establishes a theme for the rest of the site. Your site name at the top, a strong phrase right below it (with link) and the menu on the right. This is a good design but does not carry through uniformly throughout the site. For example, on many pages the menu is not the same as the home page. Use of server side includes could solve this problem, other methods (e.g., style sheets) can work as well but might not be as portable to other browsers. Site Map - the top link takes you to the splash screen (not the home page) which I find annoying. Others may too. Graphic poetry series - the titles change each time, not quite sure why but it was something I noticed when I saw the title of "Just For Kids -- Part 5" on the page but the title bar said JustForKidsGraphicPoetry04. The Balloon Page and others like it in the site index should have a link taking you to the next one. I found it annoying to go back to select the next one. Oops, I found that link hiding in the Balloon page, but then Short Legs did not have it. General comment - some of the text is a little small for the older people (say grandparents) who may be interested in your book and purchase it. When I make the text larger with the browser (several times), I notice the menu on the right is done using graphics (and not text) so that text remains small. There was also an odd behavior when I choose a large size (e.g., 300%) where the top images are repeated two or three times. I found the links with a single word (or two) harder to find than when the phrase was longer. It was not so bad on the reader comment page where the contrast is really good, but the site map basically hides the link for teachers after all those long link anchors. Search engine optimization: I should mention that your site does not currently rank highly with Google, even with the explicit phrase "outside the lines" I had to add your name to the search before your site appears as a top search item. Using the full title "outside the lines poetry at play" makes your site show up on the first page but I would not have guessed that name from viewing the cover page of the book. You may want to dedicate a page with the title Outside the Lines: Poetry at Play to help boost your position in searches. Using "Click Here" as the text for a link does not give any guidance to the search engine. For example, on Google, there are over 15 million hits for the phrase "Click Here" but only four hits for "see and hear a poem" with your site as the first page.