Everything Looks Fine... Except in Safari on the iPhone (Yuck!)

Update: We figured out the problem. Although SiteGrinder is supposed to treat a background layer as just that -- an HTML background -- it didn't in my case. Instead, it turned my white background layer into a graphic and then scaled it down to fit that top 1/4 of the screen I mentioned earlier. I was able to remedy the situation by deleting the background layer completely and just indicating the background color in the SiteGrinder panel. (Thanks Kevin for the help and the screenshot from your iPod touch!)

If you go to http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com now, you'll see that the new site is up and running, ready to be snatched up and indexed by search engines. For the most part, everything looks as intended. (1 point for SiteGrinder.) Now navigate to http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com on your iPhone and you'll see something completely different. (Minus 1 point for SiteGrinder.) Hopefully by the time you're reading this the issue will be addressed and fixed, so I'll include some screenshots of what I'm seeing on my iPhone as of this posting.

I can't figure out what the issue is. It looks to me like the internal (white) background is being proportionally scaled down to occupy only the top left 1/4 of the page, leaving the rest of the page (and its graphics, etc.) lying on the grey exterior background (which has somehow crept into the interior background area). Again, everything looks fine in a regular browser if you want to compare the two. I've also re-exported and re-uploaded a few times to make sure the file didn't corrupt somehow in the process, so that's not the issue.

Check out the forum post at http://www.medialab.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5291 if you're interested in following the issue.

Higher-Res MuStat Screenshot

As an update to my earlier post, here's the 'before' MuStat "what's your website worth" screenshot in higher-res. My goal is to get that 166 visitors-per-day to... well, higher.

The New Form Meets Function Website is Finally Complete!

Well, it's at least exporting as we speak -- but the design is done. In the past, I've always utilized Macromedia Fireworks (pre-Adobe acquisition) as my WYSIWYG website builder-of-choice, but Danny Tellers (http://www.DannyTellers.com) recently turned me on to SiteGrinder.

SiteGrinder is a Photoshop plug-in that allows you to build your website as a layered file. With the help of some simple 'hints,' SiteGrinder converts Photoshop files to HTML. It's a really intuitive tool, though I must admit I did run into quite the inconvenient little bug in the program.

Normally I'm a fan of drop-down menus. I've used them in my websites for several years now, so I naturally went ahead and implemented them into the rebuild of Form Meets Function. The commands SiteGrinder uses are very, very simple, so when I ran into this 'error,' I was at a loss for finding a solution. I trouble-shot it from every angle, sifted through ill-organized forums, and finally gave up on the idea of including drop-down menus altogether in my design. It just wasn't happening. Without going into too much boring detail, what worked one minute didn't work the next, requiring a rebuild. After rebuilding the menus, things worked again (or didn't), and then didn't (or did). This working-and-then-not-working situation was so frustrating because I wasn't even making changes to my document, and the menus would cease to function -- or start functioning again.

Alas, it was a design problem as I had built my site around these drop-down menus. After some toying around and shifting things here-and-there, I finally made the decision to keep it really simple. The most important contents of the drop-down menu are now constantly visible, and the ones that require one click to head to a destination still do just that. In essence, I'm saving any visitors to my site the hassle of having to make an extra click every time they want to view another one of my product designs. This really was a blessing in disguise, as I truly believe that visitors will take the time to view more of my work with the current setup (especially mobile visitors).

So the site just finished exporting out of Photoshop via SiteGrinder. I'm going to have a quick last look, and then upload the new site. Let's hope this new infrastructure, coupled with the new Form Meets Function Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Form-Meets-Function/110321935652838 and this blog, will drive a little more traffic (and client inquiries) my way.

Current Site Stats

So these are the current site stats from MuStat.com for Form Meets Function, pre-vamp. (Sorry for the low-res iPhone screenshot.) I was surprised to see that the site receives 166 unique visitors a day -- it's more than I expected, given that the site's structure is very limiting. Oh, and FormMeetsFunction.com is apparently worth $90 :) Let's see if we can make that number climb.

FormMeetsFunction.com Redesign Coming Soon

I'm in the midst of redesigning my design portfolio website, www.FormMeetsFunction.com. I've been pretty busy with client work from Fedaboa, and am in negotiations with a new Russian client, but I've been able to devote a little time to restructuring the site. The new FormMeetsFunction.com will be a lot more interactive, with multiple ways of connecting to me. You'll be able to become a fan on Facebook, link up on LinkedIn, and follow along with my business-building progress here on my blog (which will be linked directly from the FMF home page).

I've been trying to really map out the core of the new site, and have decided to keep the main content focused on generating new business and creating new design alliances. At the same time, however, I am eager to utilize the great domain name and create a dynamic discussion forum on design. At the beginning, the blog will have to suffice, but I'm hoping to integrate a forum from Pligg (http://www.Pligg.com) so that users can join the Form Meets Function community and post their own content. This could be a good forum for, say, students looking to get their work critiqued. Or perhaps the budding designer can post his or her professional work (assuming there's no non-disclosure) for a little constructive criticism and design advice.

In any case, something new is coming and, in hopes, it'll be here within the next few weeks -- so stay tuned!

Mobile Blog Post

Just checking out the Mobile Blog Posting feature. Hopefully I've set it all up correctly...

Switched Servers

After having my website go down twice within a week, I've decided to explore other server / host options. While researching how to take FormMeetsFunction to the next level, I came across TMD Hosting. Their rates are far below anything else I've come across so far, and their support seems to be exceptional (but I guess only time will tell). Click the title of this post, or go to http://hostjury.com/reviews/tmdhosting to view several testimonials and bits of data on the company. They've offered to transfer all of the Form Meets Function data over for free. I'll keep you posted on how seamless this transition is.

With all of this in mind, the Form Meets Function blog is going to have to remain put at its temporary FMF-FormMeetsFunction.blogspot.com URL. Once I've got everything up and running with TMD Hosting, I'll create a subdomain at blog.FormMeetsFunction.com, and integrate it into the soon-to-be newly redesigned FormMeetsFunction.com

Checking out Blogger for the first time

I'm interested in seeing how easy it is to integrate Blogger into my current website (http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com). Unfortunately FormMeetsFunction.blogspot.com is already taken, so I had to resort to using the FMF acronym in front. Hopefully this won't matter though, since I'm going to try and set up a custom URL to publish to. Now that I've taken the first step by registering my blog, I'm going to try publishing to www.FormMeetsFunction.com now...