AndrewDuffell 
28/11/03 3:49PM |
Urgh... Their new website is terrible  They have used fixed widths instead of percentages, so you need a minimum of 1024x768 to view it. I usually browse with the window at 800x600. |
andypoole (+1.0)
28/11/03 4:08PM |
:balloons: Happy birthday Iyonix
Although the castle website does need to lose the fixed widthness, it is still an improvement over the old one IMHO.
Andy. In a totally unrelated annoyed mood. |
fylfot (+1.0)
28/11/03 4:42PM |
I was rather upset when I rang Castle to claim my free Iyonix after reading your sub-headline "Free chocolates, bubbly and an Iyonix from Castle". They seemed to want my credit card details for some reason! 
Perhaps you were just referring to their competition? |
JWCR (+1.0)
28/11/03 7:24PM |
I thought that its web site was an elaborate practical joke when I first say it twelve months ago. Castle managed to surprise everyone with the Iyonix pc. With this computer reaching its first birthday with no major hitches, I am wondering what project Castle are currently working on and if they will be able to pull of a coup of a similar proportion. I suyspect that they might have missed the boat on a RISC OS laptop, as most people who want a laptop will have bought one of the emulation :pukey: solutions. Maybe a RISC OS based PDA (although some serious work is apparently needed to get the RISC OS GUI to work on a PDA). |
TonyStill (+1.0)
28/11/03 8:13PM |
Blimey, my computer's a year old! That's the warranty expired then. Happy Birthday Iyonix and well done Jack, John and the crew.
As for the web site, I think it's quite smart in an understated kind of way - it looks fine on an Iyonix at 1280x1024 
Tony |
simo (+1.1)
28/11/03 8:14PM |
website looks great to me, kinda lacking graphics (or any real product specs) but on my laptop at 1024x768 it looks fine. why would anyone still be using 800x600?
sometimes you have to use fixed width's if you are going to be positioning things in that "jigsaw" kinda style castle are using, the alternative would be to have the entire site in a table, centred to the page, but then it's still going to be over 800 wide..... |
takkaria (+1.0)
28/11/03 8:31PM |
The new website is apparently fixed width so it doesn't cause problems with Oregano 1, according to a comment in the main page's source code, so they have got a reason for it.
If you turn off images and replace them with alternate text, it looks fine. Three of the main links from the front page take you to pages with completely different designs, which loses the site lose some continuity, but other than that, it's pretty good.
(BTW, why are comments still displayed to users in a monospace font?) |
takkaria (+1.0)
28/11/03 8:34PM |
The site also reminds me of ROL's - front page wonderfully content-free, with big images to make it look impressive. |
moss (+1.0)
28/11/03 8:48PM |
Plenty of people still use 800x600 - my friend's setup is fairly old and can only do that. Designing something that doesn't work in this resolution is pretty silly. (Believe me, I'd love to design my websites for 1024x768 - it would solve a lot of problems. But I'm not prepared to p*** so many people off...)
And fixed-width websites are inherently stupid. |
Jaco (+1.1)
28/11/03 8:58PM |
I like how they broke tradition in the RISC OS world by bringing out the computer shortly after bringing out the news. For years there was always some much faster and better computer anounced to be launched, keeping people waiting instead of buying. |
SparkY (-0.1)
28/11/03 10:01PM |
In reply to takk:
you think ROL's front page looks impressive?! |
andypoole (+1.0)
28/11/03 11:53PM |
In reply to moss:
Indeed, my RiscPC runs at 800x600 in 32k colour mode.. It really does get annoying when websites are optimised for 1024x768.. It's a very bad assumption to make about someone.. Then again, any assumption about any user on the Internet is a bad one..
Andy. My 2p. |
Jaco (+1.0)
29/11/03 1:46AM |
They're in the bussiness of selling computers so optimising pages for old computers doesn't work for them. Jeez only dusty old computer still work on 800x600, buy a new one. :P |
andypoole (+1.0)
29/11/03 1:51AM |
In reply to Jaco:
But surely people may have to visit the page using an older computer so that they can buy the newer one? |
Fedorenko (+1.0)
29/11/03 6:26AM |
The website needs consistenacy form it homepage to the Iyonix one. Looks really amaturish with the different style. I run my res so high on the 15" screen I use, so it looks good though. |
moss (+1.0)
29/11/03 7:19AM |
The other thing being that the web can be accessed on many different devices - not just high res monitors, but small PDAs, TV screens, etc. Andy is absolutely right when he says that you can't make any assumptions about what people are using to view your pages - not unless you want to annoy them, and have them not visit your site. Surely RISC OS users should know this, what with all the stupid sites around that cause trouble in RISC OS browsers. |
martin (+1.0)
29/11/03 8:35AM |
I've checked out Castle's website at 800x600 - You just need to use the scroll bars a lot - Why is that a problem ?
(Using an old CTRL+ALT+BREAK you-know-what thing)
Looks like a smart, business like and competent site to me.
Anyone know how much the 1GB Iyonix is ?
(It says "call for details" but I'm scared ....) |
john
29/11/03 10:10AM |
simo/jaco: I may be using 1280x1024, but I do so so I can do lots of stuff at once, I'd never want my browser to fill the screen, at least horizontally. Sites are supposed to resize nicely if at all possible (and don't look at my site now please I like my browser to be slightly over 800x600 size and the castle site was too big. I don't really mind because I'm not buying anything from them - at least they don't use big sliding javascript menus! |
epistaxsis@work
29/11/03 1:54PM |
In reply to martin:
a 1 GB iyonix? - where you find that?
& I thought I was getting the spangliest available iyonix next saturday... tsk! just going to have to put up with 1/2 a gig
site looks OK in !O2 here (praps that's why they use a fixed width? !O2 has issues with width) - I am running 2048x1536 so... |
Jaco
29/11/03 4:24PM |
You have to set the boundary somewhere, this site doesn't resize under 700 horizontally and vertically it's much bigger than my 1024 high screen. Can we stop this as it's completely out of topic anyway. |
fylfot (-0.1)
29/11/03 5:14PM |
In reply to Jaco:
Why is it off topic? Castle has changed their web-site, as the article points out, and people are commenting on it. |
andypoole (-0.1)
29/11/03 6:14PM |
In reply to Jaco:
It isn't off topic at all, it's commenting on the castle website being fixed width on an article which points out that there is a new website there. It's all completley on topic.
Andy. |
Revin Kevin
30/11/03 2:07AM |
1st December 2004 next prize draw for an Iyonix.
Maybe next year for me then. |
timephoenix (+0.1)
30/11/03 7:03AM |
In reply to Martin:
The 1Gb full spec Iyonixes (with 21" monitor, optical mouse, USB hub keyboard and 120Gb HDD) are NZ$7000 over here in New Zealand, which works out to £2600.
The Iyonix NZ price calculator, which was http://www.esd.co.nz/iyonix here is now offline. It used to let you customize all the options and get an instant quote online. |
moss (+1.0)
30/11/03 7:50AM |
With regards to where to draw the line with website widths; http://www.ganymede-titan.info/ (looks crap with RO browsers - so crap you won't be able to see what I'm getting at - it uses lots of CSS) really needs a minimum of 800px. That's mainly for the logo, though, and I'm not too happy with it being 800 - 600 would be a lot better. And I could add some CSS rules for other media (TV/PDA/etc) that could rearrange the design to be even smaller, and therefore work on those devices. I'm going to do all that after Christmas.
I think there tends to be a "it's too tricky/I don't know how/it's easier doing it like this" attitude towards websites. Just think though - cutting corners when designing your website is exactly like cutting corners programming - it'll get you into trouble somewhere down the line. |
martin
30/11/03 12:51PM |
In reply to epitaxsis
Click on the link at the end of the artcle, in the Products LHS menu select memory.
In reply to timephoenix
Oh god - I want one - I'm even more scared now. |
MENTAT
30/11/03 3:27PM |
martin wrote:
"Looks like a smart, business like and
competent site to me."
Beige and sky blue? Eugh. :P |
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