Security Blog and Website review

On the weblog… I hope you don’t mind a few critiques..
I am not to keep on the background picture of the dragons.. it makes it hard to read black text on. Your best bet is just to have a white background.

The right hand sidebar is too large.. you might want to make the header of that smaller and hope that it will reduce the width of it.. it looks like Advertisements makes it extend too far being so large. (at least it shows wrong in ie.. it is fine in FF.. but you have to remember different people reading will use different browsers.)

A lot of the sizing and such and displaying in diff browsers can somewhat be attributed to the fact that you ahve about 22 warnings on that page as far as broken code goes.. from elements not being closed properly to discarding elements that should be there and missing elememnts. check it with tidy or other HTML /XHTML verifiers.

in meta tags.. you dont want to leave these blank
<meta name="Copyright" content="" />
<meta name="generator" content="" />
<meta name="Rating" content="" />
<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />

anyway… a lot of that is just me.. im a stickler about a lot of that kind of stuff. no offense meant.. i am a pretty blunt gal when it comes to stuff ??

I was looking at verifying the CSS and HTML when I posted. I had a feeling I would get dinged

I am not sure why the background images shows up as black in IE when it is white in FF. Any ideas?

Thank you for your input.
Cutaway

Okay, so I found the flaw that IE has with transparent PNGs. So, I replaced the bg png with a jpg and it seems all is fine so far.

I have also updated the HTML and CSS so that I am compliant. Or at least all most. It seems that I will never be compliant with HTML because I have a link to Google Maps that has some characters the validators think should not be used. So, although I am CSS compliant, I cannot maintain HTML compatability without removing the link.

**Alright, a busy night of answering my own questions.
I determined that I did not need all of the extra junk Google slaps on their links. I got the same results without them.**

Such is life. Thank you, Aleeya, for your input. Is there anybody else out there with an opinion or suggestion?

Take care,
Cutaway

Persoanlly, I think it is looking WAY much better!!
Very nice ??

i noticed on the meta tags..

you have
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Macromedia Dreamweaver 8">
for example…

if you add a forward slash at the end..
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Macromedia Dreamweaver 8" /> it will get rid of the warnings for those (there are a few like that)…

that is how to close a meta tag or an element that is only opened and not using another tag to close it.

also, on the <img align="left" src="../../../../images/cut_sec_small.png" width="160" height="25" border="0" alt="Cutaway Security">
you can do the same with img tags..

<img align="left" src="../../../../images/cut_sec_small.png" width="160" height="25" border="0" alt="Cutaway Security" />

and anywhere you use a break tag or a horizontal rule
<hr align="right" width="85%"><br>
make it <hr align="right" width="85%" />

for
href="https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Dallas,+Texas&spn=0.102417,0.160958&hl=en"
if you put it in there manuall ..
change it to
href="https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Dallas,+Texas&spn=0.102417,0.160958&hl=en"

for all urls with a & in them, you can replace it with
& to make it valid

on inputs – same thing
<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1">
<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" />

though i dont know if those are in your source or where

out of about 59 warnings for html (you have 0 errors.. but warnings can make things appear different in different versions of different browsers)that will prob get about 50 of them by cleaning those up That is jsut html though

in xhtml you get
Failed validation, 56 errors

which a lot of those i mentioned will clean that up

https://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cutawaysecurity.com%2Fblog%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&ss=1

I hope that did not all come out harsh..and I know you mentioned anyone else… so I hope you dont mind I posted again. I realy like your blog a lot! (Im a tech w a security forte) and I really think you have a great blog ??

Thank you for your input. I have just looked at your site. Very impressive. I will definately be dropping by from time to time.

Thanks for the help. I was thinking about working on the XHTML stuff to get rid of the warnings but that will have to be another day. I think it is close enough for me to concentrate on blogging.

Just wanted to be sure I was moving in the right direction.

Your input is much appreciated and I have thick skin. So no probs.
I am very impressed with your quick work. Thank you for monitoring this thread as you are very helpful.

One thing that I was wondering about was how to gain a readership? Any ideas on how to get the word out that I am blogging?

Have a great weekend to all.

Thanks again, Aleeya!!!
Cutaway

Well.. I can only offer advice such as sign up with lots of blog searches.. there is a page also called https://www.blurtit.com …. join newsgroups and put your url in your signature.. since you are security minded, forums with tech support would be more happy to have someone as you to help when they are having problems..

now that is all online.. but offline, have a batch of pens made with your url on them.. everywhere you go, use a pen and leave it to sign credit cards papers, sign stuff, leave a pen here and there at the pizza place.. make a bumper sticker for your car.. make t shirts.. all kinds of promo things. heck publish and add in the local classifieds or even online in the classifides..

donate rulers to a high school art class that have your logo and url… or pencils to a daycare.. post it on bullatin boards in grocery stores… on telephone poles downtown (if that is legal where you are)… print out fliers 3 to a page, cut them and leave stacks at your favourite local shop.. donate pens there too… most places are always looking for a pen to write with, and customers have habits of taking them too

sign up for search engines.. write email to all your freinds and make sure url is in there..

all sorts of online and offline things you can do

and.. i have learned over the years.. when you post in computer forums, slashdot, etc not only do you help others, but a lot of times you also learn from reading and helping others as well. You have skills, use them ??

Other thing: if you post in fora where you have some expertise (even if only in using a particular type of forum, cms, etc.), and use your blog link WHERE LOGICAL (in other words, do NOT spam or use as a sig link if not allowed!), you will start being picked up by the SEs….

[I know this to be true from personal experience….]

I thought about that after I posted and couldnt edit afterwards.. I meant to say post with meaningful content on forums and have the link as a sig… not to just psot the link and nothing else or post for no reason… good catch vkaryl