Featured Zcar Article Feedback.

[gav240z]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted some feedback on the articles we have on the website.

I'm still working out a format that we should stick to consistently and thanks to a fellow member I now have an indepth questionaire for future featured rides.

 

In particular I'd like your opinion on the image format. I am referring to the lightbox effect when you click on an image. Do you guys like the effect or would you prefer a simple popup window?

 

I am currently experimenting with a few image layout options. You can see the two different styles in action on Nigels Car and Mark Rolston's.

 

I am thinking of having articles in the following format.

 

1.) A bit of a write up about the car and it's outstanding features

2.) Followed by the story behind the car from owners perspective

3.) Specs table showing mods and details

 

However I'm not sure if images should be spread out throughout the article or placed at the end start or middle of an article in a gallery like format.

 

Cheers

Gavin.

 

PS: Do you enjoy reading the articles?

[Toecutter]

I really enjoyed the last artical on Eiji ZG replica. Goo dwrite up mate! The vid at the end was a nice touch.

Great pics on Mark R's silver rb feature car.

 

Whats the traffic like on the articals?

 

Sulio

[gav240z]

Hey Sulio, yeah thanks for the feedback. I've spent some time putting a nice table together to list mods and other technical specs on each feature car.

 

The original image gallery plugin I was using was a bit buggy and same with the Google Ads plugin. So I've gone with something a bit more refined and easier to configure.

 

I'm still working out how it all works together so the featured articles are a slight mess in terms of layout at the moment. I'm hoping to make some stylesheet changes and learn a bit more about how the images go together in articles.

 

Once everything is sorted I'll bring Mark Rolston's and Nigel's articles up to speed to be more like Eiji's ZG article.

 

Eiji's car is great though, I have to say the amount of work gone into it and just how fast it is for a carb'd L28 is amazing .

[620Z]

Great work Gav. We have all seen the stock standard Zeds with the usual L28's (Not that there is anything wrong with them). But those last two cars you have dug up are fantastic. Truely unique and help to inspire all of us to push the Zed development to the limit here in Aus. I always enjoy looking at and reading about Zeds that are true master pieces like those.

[modular9]

Gav240z : I blame you for everything. I am now bidding on a rb26 halfcut and spent most of the weekend with a tape measure and the bonnet open. 

 

So keep 'em coming if you can find 'em. I loved the zg article.

 

Cant think of anything else maybe a tutorial type of article sort of like a "It's nearly summer and what should you be looking at doing on your zed ". I know it isnt a featured car so maybe i am snapping off on a tangent here. I'd like to hear more war stories of zed restoration as well. Nigels one was cool. Or a  tutorial on setting up the car for optimal handling on road and track? I got some other ideas but they are probably even more unworkable than that.

 

I too hope you get the advertising up as i showed at least 5 people the mark rolston story. Dont know much about adwords but if it is on impressions then you would have got at least 7.5 cents just there! 

[gav240z]

haha thanks guys for the feedback.

 

We are going to have a technical articles section and Craig has provided some material already, it's just a case of getting the time to put it into a structured article on the site. I had a couple of bugs to work through last night, but with the excellent help at Joomla.org I've been able to resolve it for now at least.

 

There are still plenty of cars to do features on but it would be good to have some local cars. I met a fellow by the name of Frank about a month ago with an L31 Turbo engine in his S30 Fairlady Z (yes Japanese import) not HS30. He's done alot of very very cool mods and I'm hoping he will be able to get to our next meet to show off his Z to some enthusiasts. I mentioned we should do an article on his Z and he seemed warm to the idea.

 

That should give us some Aussie Z development stories. Adsense income is based on clicks not impressions. The ads are there really to more or less try and cover our expenses for hosting and the website in general but there is no mega bucks in it .

 

I'm looking to get some banner ads running on site though so hopefully that will be a little bit better.

[George]

 

That should give us some Aussie Z development stories. Adsense income is based on clicks not impressions. The ads are there really to more or less try and cover our expenses for hosting and the website in general but there is no mega bucks in it .

 

I'm looking to get some banner ads running on site though so hopefully that will be a little bit better.

 

please don't gav. ads are the bane of the internet. set up some paypal buttons with a widget showing how much we need to donate each month. we're all doing ok financially here so im sure it won't be a problem.

[JP240z]

we're all doing ok financially here so im sure it won't be a problem.

 

speak for yourself thanks george.

im not replying from toorak 'mate'.

[sco_aus]

Well, donations are exactly that, a donation, otherwise its called a fee.  Not everyone can afford it and whilst I will be donating, if someone doesnt, then shit happens, im not going to lose sleep or hold grudges over it.

[George]

we're all doing ok financially here so im sure it won't be a problem.

 

speak for yourself thanks george.

im not replying from toorak 'mate'.

 

obviously someone had to chime in with a comment like that. no need to be offended, i wasn't speaking for everyone but i do know there are a lot of generous people within the aus z community because i've seen it firsthand time and time again.

 

if you guys think ads are a better way to go then by all means try to cover costs that way.

 

think we should get back on topic though.

[modular9]

I know all about hosting costs. One of the companies i help run is on 129.95 USD per month ( we have a terabyte of traffic a month so we needed a us company)

 

I know gav240z and Toecutter arent making money off this if their hosting costs are anywhere close to ours.

 

If the addition of advertising helps hosting even for one month then do it. I would prefer to have banner ads all over the place than not have a helpful forum such as this around.

 

I'd also be down to buy a carton (or a gasket /conrod bolt/SU linkage/ or whatever) for the blokes who are spending time and money on this forum so put a paypal thing somewhere when you get some time.

 

Gav240z : I most certainly didnt pick this as a joomla based site. Are you gonna switch to 1.5 or is the site already on it ? 

[gav240z]

I know all about hosting costs. One of the companies i help run is on 129.95 USD per month ( we have a terabyte of traffic a month so we needed a us company)

 

I know gav240z and Toecutter arent making money off this if their hosting costs are anywhere close to ours.

 

If the addition of advertising helps hosting even for one month then do it. I would prefer to have banner ads all over the place than not have a helpful forum such as this around.

 

I'd also be down to buy a carton (or a gasket /conrod bolt/SU linkage/ or whatever) for the blokes who are spending time and money on this forum so put a paypal thing somewhere when you get some time.

 

Gav240z : I most certainly didnt pick this as a joomla based site. Are you gonna switch to 1.5 or is the site already on it ? 

 

First of all I'd like to say that the only advertising would appear in the top banner and in the Google Adsense area like that of the front page.

 

I understand where you are coming from George and I'm not about to compromise this site with ugly adverts everywhere. I didn't want to put adsense on the site but I think it's current location is ok and it looks neat unlike the first attempt.

 

Our hosting costs are not that high Modular9, thankfully. We are on shared hosting so it's significantly less. However I did buy one or two commercial components for Joomla which I was happy to wear the cost for as setting this site up has given me great exposure to Joomla and a really good understanding of what it can do and how it works, as well as configuring to achieve what I want.

 

What it has cost me is lots of time, all at my own free will and all for the benefit of helping to shape my own web site development / management / modification / customisation / marketing skills etc. So it's not time lost infact time invested.

 

Like anything though it would be nice if this site could help me with my own Z project and so far it's been great because I've met some really cool people who have lots of knowledge and great looking Zcars.

 

I have placed a PayPal button on the front page and any donation size is welcome.

 

Modular9 not running Joomla 1.5 yet not until it's a final release and moved out of Beta. Even then I'll probably hold off until I can modify it to my needs which will take time for the community to catch up. Joomla is great and the best part is customisation I guess that's why you didn't pick it.

 

The front page and articles are using Joomla, the forum is SMF and the Gallery Coppermine. Joomla is not bridged with either for simplicity and security FYI .