RUofficial Entertainment : Please Review!
 

Please give me honest reviews on the site, speed, setup, layout.. etc

SPLASH : http://www.RUOfficial.com
MAIN : http://www.RUOfficial.com/board/cmps_index.php
BOARD : http://www.RUOfficial.com/board

Ok I like it - really like it... one thing I would do is on your front page with the image where you click to enter put border="0" of whatever the code is so that there is no big blue border around the image - that is just my opinion though other than that I like what you have done - still cant get enough of the Kayne West and Taylor Swift video.

Hey Merk.. I appreciate the response, and I added the border.. I think it works, Im on a MAC using Firefox so the blue border will not show for me, I usually go in Windows Mode to verify, but its acting up at the moment. And yes, I cannot get enough of that video either.. lol

That's funny, I have a very similar website (in terms of idea and a few functions) that's been on the background (never continued development) for quite some time. I like your ideas and structure as well.

Have you worked a bit on the calendar system? Gallery? etc. Work on certain pages like usercp and what not in order to reflect a more familiar system? The index is a great use of vba, "splash page" is not so bad (considering it's a splash page :p) The forums may use just a bit of work in terms of the forumbit.

It's a great start but as I went and saw about 1-2 people online, it isn't the easiest to promote. What marketing techniques did you have in mind if you don't mind my asking?

I really appreciate the in depth comment first off Gio. Well the site, although open. Has not been "Officially" launched due to a lack of finished content. Because the site will be based on Southern California Nightlife (for now). Club/Entertainment listing, a shortened but very broad forum index, my models listing, etc.. I have yet to officially launch. However, as far as promotion techniques, here is what I have in mind.

I am currently in talks with Gotham City Ravers Ballroom (a 5,000 packed event to due a full launch party for the website in their arena)

a 2.000 dollar Socal Modeling Contest

an nX Calendar (in 2010) to promote the hottest people and trends in California for 2010-2011

The site though I am planning to be based more around the content than the community involvement, because it is MAINLY ran/promoted by myself. I have been looking for partners, staff etc. I recieve alot of return hits and unique hits on the site, I just need to develop something better to urge them to sign up. (Consistent Forum postings, better interactive topics, etc).

Have any ideas, I would love to talk to you more and see what you have in mind.

edit.. the provB listings.. can that be used to search clubs? City, ZipCode, County, age range, etc?

I am looking for a review for my community and new forum Layout : just integrated the new "TWITTER BOARD"

FORUMS
CMPS

Description : California Nightlife and Social Community

Thanks Guys (and Girls!) :D

First site I have come to in a while I really liked :D great job some stuff needs touching up and update your CMPS to 3.2 and your good, I'll let everyone else nitpick it to death but it seems fine to me as-is so if your OCD like me take a break and wait for feedback :D

S-MAN

I really like it!

Thanks! More advice/thoughts/ideas/feedback would be greatly appreciated guys!

can you post screenshots? Malwarebytes reports the site ip as malicious.

Screenshots Attached (EDIT* DEC 1, 2009) SCREENSHOTS DOES NOT REFLECT NEW LOOK, MINOR UPDATES AND CHANGES MADE/ADDED

On a Government Computer, so the YouTube video does not display (i.e., the white block)

Looks great, but is dreadfully dreadfully slow to load

I am working on the load issues tonight... that is a major problem. I am starting with deleting erroneous products, files and scripts. Hopefully that will open up some server load.

Any additional server load suggestions? I launch officially tomorrow and would hate to lose members based on this fact.

Yea i was going to say i am on some pretty quick internet and its taking up to 30 seconds to load a single page. It's most likly a problem with the server not the website itself. The website is very nice i love the theme *the ladies in the bannerr are beautiful xD*

Suggestions
Are there any real forums? I am unable to find the forums if there are any.
the breadcrumb is very squashed because of the ad. You might wanna try placing that add in a different spot.

I will check back on this thread tomorrow and see if you have the website loading fixed. As of now i am unable to load the pages at all.

Hellbomb, I really appreciate your input! I will probably make the banner smaller.. I am looking for the HACK that allows a BG image in the breadcrumb/Navbar area but cannot find it, it just looks so bland without someting there..

concerning the server issues, I do not have any server heavy mods or scripts on my site, I cleared up my files of erroneous DOC's yet the site still goes a bit slow.. so I will contact my host "GODADDY" tonight and see what the issue might be.

haha, yes there are real forums...The Forums are available through the navigation (see screenshot) "FORUMS" :) I will design a more visible link to the community however.

My site is currently down as I am getting the site ready for its official "GOLD" Launch tonight.. new splash page, updated header design.. and I was going to remove the girls (photos I took) but I recieved a lot of feedback on them, lol.. so they will remain.

Contacting GoDaddy now.

GoDaddy.. me too on one site of mine your stuck in slow motion I'm afraid they are the WORST for forums as they oversell waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much and they have no clue about vBulletin :(. If you have any other problems with them I might be able to help throw me a PM but your sites speed is not going to get better however if you find something else out and prove me wrong calling once where I have called over 20 times I will find you and hug you good sir :p but ironic their Godaddy girl commercials and statements about speed when your forums crawl like a snail but a plain old website w/ just info and graphics is fine. Also you do know they limit your database size to 200MB right? If not start keeping an eye on it O.o

Mike

Leave godaddy now...that will help a lot with the load issues.

haha, I called GoDaddy and they ran a speed test.. they said my sites speed was good, and they saw no potential problems.

then said they recommend I move to a "GRID" hosting, so where my site lags, the resources will be pulled from another hosting account. But I will basically have to start everything from scratch!!! and I cannot yet afford to move to a dedicated server!

Any recommendations as far as better hosting?

The only thing I can do now is convert my jpg's to PNG's where applicable.. thats honestly all I can think of.. and GZIP compression.

I appreciate all the thoughts/feedback..

Try hypedhosting.com. Thats what i have been using and my website loads very fast. As far as the postbit mod for the image you can just edit the postbit by and add the image on the background. BTW i LOVE your website :) Keep up the great work.

More tips.
Turn off the archives. It can have negetive effects on search engines search results.
Add a online radio.
The footer it kind of bla and all the copyrights are all grouped together, they can be easily changed to make it look alot neater.
Instead of on the bottom of the forums the little upcoming events add like a calander on the front page.
Could use some custom images for the icons for statistics and whats going on.
Since the forum is new turning off anvanced forum statistics would probably be good.
Get rid of the all albums link on the navbar, if you dont get rid of the mod all together. I found that is causes alot of bandwidth issues slowing down the website by a good ammount and alot of members dont even care for it. It also clogs up the nav bar.

what do you mean by this?

and I have taken alot of your tips into consideration! I am working on an online radio, also added a T.V channel.. somewhat "sO.Tv"

I saw a footer mod on here I will search for and utilize to clean the footer up a bit.
I removed the albums, you were right, noone really utilizes that at all. and it made a good improvement.

I removed alot of unused plugins, unused styles, etc.. so its helped a bit also. I really appreciate the feedback!

also looking for the custom images for the statistics section or just may design my own.

Tell ya what, in a Private message send me the code that is under postbit legacy and send me the link to the image you want in the background of the postbit and ill wright the code for it myself :). Make sure the image is on your server.

Also when was the last time you optimized tables? That might help also (Admincp>maintenance>repair/optimize tables>select all and click continue, when it loads click it again and the page should have a list on the right side should say

should say that for each thing. Depending on when the last time you did it was it could help ALOT, also rebuilt everything before you open the website. It will clear up alot os stuff, and not much should be effected since the forum is very new, but should help speed up the website by a long shot. Depending on when the last time you did that stuff.

Also vBulletin.com does vBulletin.com optimization might wanna check it out. Im short on time and cant post the direct link but here is the link to that category where they have it. Read around there to figure out how it works then request it and yea.
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum...-Configuration

If you give me a idea on what you need i think i might be able to get my buddy to get you a few good images, he is amazing with photoshop.

Glad to see you using the Auto Scroll To Top :)
Nice forum.

yeah, I think thats cool.. haha, the only issue is when you collapse the modules, it scrolls up.. haha, but not a big issue to me just yet. and thanks for the compliment
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and hellbomb, the message has been sent. please check when time is convenient.

anymore feedback? I'm trying to find out how to add rounded borders to the forums and CMPS modules.. any ideas.. also cleaned up the header, and looking to a different hosting provider now as well.

Lunarpages is expensive but very very nice, most likly the fastest server you will EVER find. the shared hosting will be able to run your website as fast as your members can load your website. Check it out, its very nice, if you decide to buy it, let me know ill give you an affiliate link you will get a discount and i will get paid :) And for adding the border you will need to make png images and use those images for the background.

Please give me honest reviews on the site, speed, setup, layout.. etc

SPLASH : http://www.RUOfficial.com
MAIN : http://www.RUOfficial.com/board/cmps_index.php
BOARD : http://www.RUOfficial.com/board

Loose the splashpage - use a redirect and direct the main domain to your cmps_index.php vBadvanced page ;) -- There are some who don't like music loading on the page load - but I have a video automatically play on my WLSJourney.org forum.

Interesting design though - I like the 2 column layout on the main forum index. The icons are a little large for my liking though. Perhaps you might consider making unique icons for each forum? Nice "Featured Models" page - are you using GARS?

I just browsed very briefly - but I like the style you have for that niche. It works quite well IMO - Three things to note: your "About Us" page is not linked to anything, your 468x60 ad rotation really squeezes the board navigation (perhaps move the ad elsewhere or put the navigation right beneath the header?), also you have broken images on your "Gallery" navigation.

Anyway - Nice job. Nice looking dark theme.

Jacquii.

wow Jacqii! I really appreciate the comments!
first off, I will take the Banner placement into consideration, my only issue is that area looks so bland without something there and I cannot figure out how to add a background there.

The forum icons were "purposely": enhanced with the idea of eventually putting unique icons per forum, I will go ahead and finish that now :) since you pointed it out! haha

Thankyou, I did not notice the broken images, I need to put the full path so they can show.

----
Also, I love your sites, I browse your poetry site because I am a writer by trade, I am publishing my first poetry book "The Impressionist" and Poetic Novel (sexual) "32 Chapters" soon. I will sign up there (same username) so be sure to say hello to me! I like attention! haha..

and the only reason I am keeping the splash page is because it will soon link to our major calendar events, which will be a plus for sponsors and promoters we collaborate with. I may do a redirect until that happens though :)

I usually don't do the "I did it because "I" like it" design and placement method. but I did do it with the auto music player :) I just like going to the site with it playing directly. I am working a MOD to have it in the members options to play automatically if they choose.

Again, I really appreciate your thoughts, it means alot.

No prob LOL - People around here will tell you that I'm quite adept at running my mouth :P -- Publishing your first book are you? WOW! That must be so exciting = Congratulations on that!

Registration on JPiC has been closed several months now. I'm considering opening up new registrations again in January. There was an issue with too much traffic for my previous hosting and it made it a bit difficult for my Members to browse pages with such heavy server load + I've been immensely lazy with promoting participation :blush: -- Fortunately I have a new robust VPS and have not taken on many design jobs the past several weeks - so it looks like I'll have a bit of time to concentrate on my own projects finally! PM me if you like - I'll be happy to create an account for you. We have a few regulars who keep the place a little active. I'm kinda looking forward to opening registrations again though in January.

I'm rambling... Just wanted to say nice work on your forum - I really like the artistic touch you put on it with the custom graphics. Some don't like such graphic "overload" (so that I've been told) - But I do. So keep up the good work ;)

Jacquii.

What music player do you have on the portal page? that thing is very nice.

@ Jacquii - The PM was sent a few days ago :)

@ HellBomb - I purchased the audio player, I was googling "Wimpy Player Templates" (I custom design them) but had too much on my plate... then I came across that one. I will try to find the link again and send it to you. Wait until you see the video player I am adding though :)

Oops - I forgot ==> Bad bad Webmistress... Anyway - PM answered ... finally :P

Jacquii.

new layout! new design new features! Please leave an honest review on what you think of the new changes.

Thankyou.

Your layout is still the same from when i registered to your website. I see no changes at all. Just background images on forumhome. & A new logo.