Forums | MacLife

Rik, you'll find there's already all sorts of comments about the Forum over in the Forum Forum Forum forum.

And in order to avoid opening up yet another thread to handle these, I'm gonna go ahead and lock this puppy up and direct everybody over there. Anyone who wants to comment should make a point of reading the posts alreay made so as not to just repeat the same thing too much.

Rik, the new website looks pretty hot. It is certainly easy to use, with those meaty tabs up top.

Upon closer inspection, there's one thing that I missed over the past week. I didn't realize those big Reviews, Create images were part of the magazine, figured they were ads or something. Very nice, but very big.

Congrats

I missed the talk about the move over, are you now in charge of the website as your main job?

tito

Btw, it's fast too and I love the commenting feature.

This is much better. Real headlines.
That litttle paragraph with all the cute links was ok for a while, but it was getting old.

BTW, is this where I can comment on Niko Coucouvanis' how-to: Make Your Own 'Book Bag?
from duct tape.

Hey, Rik:

This is me -->

Sorry...
:: backs out of room, eyes cast downwards ::

mahakali wrote:

The page title on the home is messed up with the keywords meta, but I assume you're aware of that already.

This is actually kind of interesting.  It seems that the vast majority of search engines no longer even bother with keywords metadata anymore -- currently, they're spidering titles more than anything else.  So, in order to get them to notice us a.s.a.f.p., we decided to make that junky home-page title.  How long it'll stay there is uncertain, but we need to live with it until things settle out a bit.

mahakali wrote:

The page titles of other pages can use a space before the dash. Currently, they look like this: "Mac Reviews- MacLife".

Good catch! Hadn't noticed that.  I'll see if I can fix it on Tuesday (Monday's a holiday). Thanks!

I posted this over in ForumForumForum so I will repost it here

I want to congratulate Rik on an excellent transition.

The new site looks great! It is obvious that a lot of effort went into the rebranding and it works well. Home page is easy to read and vibrant.

I love the blogs and reviews!

I love the big section link to images on the home page. I see they have different colors on their name tabs and it would be nice to see those colors carried through to the sections.

My only comment is about incorporating the ads into the page. Right now your logo is secondary to the banner ad because it is so small and giving the ads their own spacial area on the page gives they the same weight as your content area as a whole. Do what http://www.macworld.com/ did and incorporate the ads into the site so they don't compete and that will help your logo take ownership of the whole page and let your content have more say.

I like this one over the old site.  Very much so.

But why are the dates for some of the posts in Feb. '07?
http://www.maclife.com/articles/Listen
(Cube Travel Speakers - FM8)

And some of the comments on the posts have links to, erm, inappropriate addresses.

Overall, I like it.

Yeah, but you run the website now. You can now purge yourself of all those print paradigms

hed's  dek's  Bwhaaaaaa!

I also left a comment somwhere else on here about something that would be nice to see.

how about a feature that enables the user to break out of pagination in the online articles/blogs?

Need an example?

Note that it's paginated but the user has the ability to just view it all on one page if they so desire.

It seems that the vast majority of search engines no longer even bother with keywords metadata anymore

That's not really true at all.  They are still part of the equation. What is really important is how they actually relate to the content on the page. What this means is that the ideal scenario is that your page title, keywords and actual content all match up and relate.  So what that does that mean?  Keywords need to be unique to each "page" of content, meaning they need to be dynamic and pull from the content so they match.

Last edited by TonyPrevite (2007-01-16 6:03 pm)

titok16 wrote:

Rik wrote:

Someone in charge of keeping the website frequently updated? Hell yes! Since when does the magazine have enough money to do that?
tito

Sorry to say, I quit visiting the home page several years ago because it was never updated, and frankly just forgot about it. It's going to be hard to get back in the habit of checking it out, but the following experience may help remind me:

Rik wrote:

DukeofNuke wrote:

BTW, is this where I can comment on Niko Coucouvanis' how-to: Make Your Own 'Book Bag from duct tape.

Sure, check out http://www.maclife.com/article/make_your_own_book_bag and add a comment.

Every once in awhile there is a tip or a trick that is either too complex, or I need infrequently, and would never be able to find again in a back issue if I need it. This time it was the article about improving cell phone pictures. I was able to navigate back and find the article. I saved the pages as pdfs in a folder.

I really like the new website: It's purty easy to navigate around, better content- it's great. Though, I have yet to receive my Mac l Life magazine, but so far it's 1 for 2. Keep up the good work and continue to be entertaining and informative (unlike some other Mac magazines I know of.)

Hi, Mr. Rik.

I had to leave early last time and didn't get to finish my comments.

When I got the first issue of MacLife I wigged out a little because I thought MacAddict had died without warning, and the new one was some sort of consolation prize and since MacAddict is my favorite Mac Magazine, my heart did a little pitter patter. Especially when I went to the Letter to the Editor page and saw a lady's picture, and not Mr. Rik's, I was doubly sad since I was sure everything had changed. I thought it had turned into a candy coated, dumbed down, lowest common denominator, magazine for the can't-be-bothered-to-think masses. (Remember MacHome magazine?)

How giddy was I to find I was wrong! There were all the little pics of the rest of the usual gang of id---experts . My heart leapt and my sigh was one of relief!

I can understand growth and change, in fact, I like it very much. And in this case, it's a very good thing.

The magazine has an open and airy layout, making it very easy on the eye. The other thing I noticed was it seems that the majority of the magazine is devoted to actual articles, not advertisements, unlike many other magazines.

I'm still feeling my way around the website, and thinking I am going to find it excessively useful. I had been saving my old issues to reference, but now I think I can safely recycle them, because I can use the website as a sort of reference library. The technology changes so quickly, that keeping my old issues would simply be an act of sentimentality, since by the time I would get around to needing the info my OS would most likely be obsolete. How much better to help the planet and recycle.

When I first came to the Mac, I understand that some of us called themselves Mac Evangelists. With the advent of your new, very reader friendly but still technically savvy magazine, I think I'll take this opportunity to spread the word a little more. I'm a hygienist in a pediatric dental office and when I'm done with my issues I'm gonna take them to the office so folks who are stuck using that "OS That Shall Not Be Named" (tell Leslie that I LOVE that phrase), can get a look at a more desirable alternative. And see how cool your magazine is!

Okay, I'm done. Thanks for listening.

~Deb