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My Site: Micromuseum.co.uk

Deathshadow, I strongly suggest you consult Wheaton's Law. You've taken it to a level in which I'm pretty sure your shirt collar is hiding circumcision scars.

Experience has taught me that those that are best at criticizing are usually the worst at doing.

g.
 
Some time has now passed since the flurry of input on my website and although my first instinct was not to bother having a website anymore, following appeals from a few people (thanks - you know who you are) I have re-done my website from scratch.

Deathshadow - Whilst I wasn't overly happy with your comments given the fact that I'm not a web developer, and was only doing a site to convey information about my collection and experiences fixing it however I can assure you I have read and thought about each of your comments. I did look and think about your implementation of my front page and whilst the overall look was similar having spent quite some time testing your design alongside mine on a variety of devices I felt that mine preformed better on the devices used. I appreciate my solution does use jQuery which you hate - but I have gone to some lengths to minimize the size of the pages, and to test the site on some slower connections.

The site is far from complete - in fact I wrote the initial "new" version of it using MySQLi database objects and have already totally re-written all the pages using what will hopefully prove to be higher security and higher performance methods - but oddly I have quite enjoyed actually doing it. There are a few things not yet implemented such as the downloads section, and the ability for people to leave comments on articles but hopefully as I get time they will happen.

Hopefully for the majority of you, or perhaps I should say the majority of those who look at my website, the experience is now improved and I do welcome comments from each and every one of you.

There are still a few residual articles where there are odd squares in the text. I'm getting rid of them as quickly as I find them. If you do find any articles with them in, please let me know somehow.

Thanks for reading this anyway! And If you haven't seen my website please take a look!
 
Certainly looks better than it did, looking forward to seeing the end result :)
 
Initial impressions is that it is indeed a marked improvement -- it just "feels" way better than it did... I'd consider shrinking the max-width as the full width paragraphs are a bit hard to follow, but apart from that on the surface it's way nicer.

Peeking under the hood, a few suggestions:

Code: 
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
If you have to say that, you've screwed up somewhere -- though most likely that line came with one of the scripts or layout frameworks you're working with... so they screwed up, not you.

Code: 
<meta name="keywords" content="MicroMuseum,Micro Museum,UK,1980s,1990s,collection,museum,virtual,vintage,old,retro,micro,PC,British,restoration">
Overstuffed keywords meta. It should be seven or eight words (proper names like "Micro Museum is acceptable") that exists inside BODY as CDATA... what you have there mostly has zero relevance to the page and is far too many terms. It's also redundant as the separate instances of "micro" and "museum" would in fact also catch "Micro Museum". A lot of people say it doesn't matter as no engines pay attention to the keywords META anymore, but they only ignore it if you don't use it right. 7 or eight words totalling 90 characters or less that exist inside the BODY as plaintext. It's simple, shocking how many tutorials and even books get it wrong; so most people get it wrong as they blindly copypasta.

Code: 
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes">
I'd suggest removing user-scaleable, as that's the default state (just a tiny waste of code, not a big deal) -- I'd suggest adding height=device-height as some Android devices incorrectly report faux-height as width when rotated to portrait. (pain in the ...)

Code: 
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico"  type="image/x-icon">
Lose the "type="image/x-icon" part, it will in fact block the icon from loading in IE and some versions of FF (a regression that comes up every other version). Much like the viewport meta it's another thing that you in fact declared it correctly, but that doesn't mean browsers implemented it right.

Code: 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="js/flexslider/flexslider.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/basic-style.css">
Those should all also have the type="text/css" declaration on them, and they should likely also be declared as media="screen,projection,tv" so you aren't sending them to UA's where it doesn't make any sense... like print, handheld, aural... Media targets are the stepping stone BEFORE media queries.

Code: 
<script async src="js/libs/modernizr-2.6.2.min.js"></script>
<script async src="js/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
You have these in the head -- you could likely lose the async on the first one and move it to right before the other scripts in the footer, it will actually load faster there. The second one? Well, you see down at the bottom where you have this?

Code: 
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/libs/jquery-1.9.0.min.js">\x3C/script>')</script>

If you're going to use the bloated train wreck of how not to write javascript known as jQuery, lose the load in the header as it's redundant to the load after the footer. IF you're going to use that init method to detect if Google loaded it properly, change that to load the newer version thus:

Code: 
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/jquery-1.11.0.min.js">\x3C/script>')</script>

Normally I'd rail against using document.write since it forces a reflow, but since that's before </body> in the markup as a loader it's fine... still though, such a simple slider shouldn't need 220k of scripting (doing 8k's of scripting and CSS' job).

Basically the way you have it now you're loading two, possibly three (in some browsers) versions of jQuery at the same time. Bad enough using it's 94k of extra "code for nothing" without loading it multiple times.

Code: 
<div id="banner">        
  <div id="logo"><a href="index.php"><img src="images/logo.png" alt="logo"></a></div> 
</div>

Should probably be a H1 with a image replacement method... all the rest of your h1 on the page should be h2... of course if you went that route you could axe all the "section for nothing" -- but to be frank all those HTML 5 tags serve no legitimate purpose other than code-bloat; same for the aria roles.

Code: 
<header class="wrapper clearfix">
There are more than enough ways to wrap floats, this is 2014 not 2004, you don't need "clearfix". (NOT that we ever did really)

You have a lot of comments:
Code: 
</div><!-- end row -->
	</section>
	<!-- end content area -->         
</div>
<!-- #end div #main .wrapper -->

That could trip rendering bugs. Avoid placing comments between sibling level tags.... the first two in that are ok as they are wedged between closures, but that last one is before a sibling level tag and that can trip the "disappearing content" and "double render" bugs in legacy IE, particularly if positioning and/or floats are involved. It's usally better to put the comment before the closure preventing the chance of that ever happening.

<!-- row --></div>

For example. You also don't need to say "end", that's what the / in </div> means.

Normally I'd not make a big deal out of that on modern browsers, but since you're wasting time including modernizr just so you can add the pointless HTML 5 bloat to the site on legacy browsers, you might want to avoid potential headaches in IE8/earlier since that's the only reason to include that script.

likewise:
Code: 
<!-- footer area -->    
<footer>
	<div id="colophon" class="wrapper clearfix">
    	<p>© 2014 Chris Long.</p>
    </div>
</footer>
<!-- #end footer area -->

Really, <footer> is the start of the footer and </footer> is the end of the footer? Whoddathunkit? Avoid making comments that are painfully redundant to the code. Likewise not sold that you need the DIV or the inner P... (one or the other) but that goes for most of your DIV and the classes for nothing everywhere.

But for all that, it is far better than it was. Sorry if I took you to task before, but it pains me to see people new to making websites being repeatedly led down the garden path to failure by bad tutorials, bad books, and general bad practices... sadly much of said rubbish outdated practices are being treated as new and bleeding edge by the "HTML 5 generation"; pitching the past decade and a half of progress in the trash so they can have a new higher digit number and PRETEND they are using less code and making things more "semantic" while doing the exact opposite. They say HTML 5 means less code, it doesn't... they say using jQuery makes less code and makes things easier to follow, it doesn't... they say layout frameworks that rely on presentational classes like "grid_7" or "rightFloat" makes layout easier, it doesn't...

Really makes me wonder if it's intentional, or simply ignorance. You're new to this, it's hardly shocking with all web-rot misleading crap that it's so easy to be led astray.
 
deathshadow said:
Initial impressions is that it is indeed a marked improvement -- it just "feels" way better than it did... I'd consider shrinking the max-width as the full width paragraphs are a bit hard to follow, but apart from that on the surface it's way nicer.

Peeking under the hood, a few suggestions:

Code: 
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
If you have to say that, you've screwed up somewhere -- though most likely that line came with one of the scripts or layout frameworks you're working with... so they screwed up, not you.

Code: 
<meta name="keywords" content="MicroMuseum,Micro Museum,UK,1980s,1990s,collection,museum,virtual,vintage,old,retro,micro,PC,British,restoration">
Overstuffed keywords meta. It should be seven or eight words (proper names like "Micro Museum is acceptable") that exists inside BODY as CDATA... what you have there mostly has zero relevance to the page and is far too many terms. It's also redundant as the separate instances of "micro" and "museum" would in fact also catch "Micro Museum". A lot of people say it doesn't matter as no engines pay attention to the keywords META anymore, but they only ignore it if you don't use it right. 7 or eight words totalling 90 characters or less that exist inside the BODY as plaintext. It's simple, shocking how many tutorials and even books get it wrong; so most people get it wrong as they blindly copypasta.

Code: 
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes">
I'd suggest removing user-scaleable, as that's the default state (just a tiny waste of code, not a big deal) -- I'd suggest adding height=device-height as some Android devices incorrectly report faux-height as width when rotated to portrait. (pain in the ...)

Code: 
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico"  type="image/x-icon">
Lose the "type="image/x-icon" part, it will in fact block the icon from loading in IE and some versions of FF (a regression that comes up every other version). Much like the viewport meta it's another thing that you in fact declared it correctly, but that doesn't mean browsers implemented it right.

Code: 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="js/flexslider/flexslider.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/basic-style.css">
Those should all also have the type="text/css" declaration on them, and they should likely also be declared as media="screen,projection,tv" so you aren't sending them to UA's where it doesn't make any sense... like print, handheld, aural... Media targets are the stepping stone BEFORE media queries.

Code: 
<script async src="js/libs/modernizr-2.6.2.min.js"></script>
<script async src="js/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
You have these in the head -- you could likely lose the async on the first one and move it to right before the other scripts in the footer, it will actually load faster there. The second one? Well, you see down at the bottom where you have this?

Code: 
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/libs/jquery-1.9.0.min.js">\x3C/script>')</script>

If you're going to use the bloated train wreck of how not to write javascript known as jQuery, lose the load in the header as it's redundant to the load after the footer. IF you're going to use that init method to detect if Google loaded it properly, change that to load the newer version thus:

Code: 
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/jquery-1.11.0.min.js">\x3C/script>')</script>

Normally I'd rail against using document.write since it forces a reflow, but since that's before </body> in the markup as a loader it's fine... still though, such a simple slider shouldn't need 220k of scripting (doing 8k's of scripting and CSS' job).

Basically the way you have it now you're loading two, possibly three (in some browsers) versions of jQuery at the same time. Bad enough using it's 94k of extra "code for nothing" without loading it multiple times.

Code: 
<div id="banner">        
  <div id="logo"><a href="index.php"><img src="images/logo.png" alt="logo"></a></div> 
</div>

Should probably be a H1 with a image replacement method... all the rest of your h1 on the page should be h2... of course if you went that route you could axe all the "section for nothing" -- but to be frank all those HTML 5 tags serve no legitimate purpose other than code-bloat; same for the aria roles.

Code: 
<header class="wrapper clearfix">
There are more than enough ways to wrap floats, this is 2014 not 2004, you don't need "clearfix". (NOT that we ever did really)

You have a lot of comments:
Code: 
</div><!-- end row -->
	</section>
	<!-- end content area -->         
</div>
<!-- #end div #main .wrapper -->

That could trip rendering bugs. Avoid placing comments between sibling level tags.... the first two in that are ok as they are wedged between closures, but that last one is before a sibling level tag and that can trip the "disappearing content" and "double render" bugs in legacy IE, particularly if positioning and/or floats are involved. It's usally better to put the comment before the closure preventing the chance of that ever happening.

<!-- row --></div>

For example. You also don't need to say "end", that's what the / in </div> means.

Normally I'd not make a big deal out of that on modern browsers, but since you're wasting time including modernizr just so you can add the pointless HTML 5 bloat to the site on legacy browsers, you might want to avoid potential headaches in IE8/earlier since that's the only reason to include that script.

likewise:
Code: 
<!-- footer area -->    
<footer>
	<div id="colophon" class="wrapper clearfix">
    	<p>© 2014 Chris Long.</p>
    </div>
</footer>
<!-- #end footer area -->

Really, <footer> is the start of the footer and </footer> is the end of the footer? Whoddathunkit? Avoid making comments that are painfully redundant to the code. Likewise not sold that you need the DIV or the inner P... (one or the other) but that goes for most of your DIV and the classes for nothing everywhere.

But for all that, it is far better than it was. Sorry if I took you to task before, but it pains me to see people new to making websites being repeatedly led down the garden path to failure by bad tutorials, bad books, and general bad practices... sadly much of said rubbish outdated practices are being treated as new and bleeding edge by the "HTML 5 generation"; pitching the past decade and a half of progress in the trash so they can have a new higher digit number and PRETEND they are using less code and making things more "semantic" while doing the exact opposite. They say HTML 5 means less code, it doesn't... they say using jQuery makes less code and makes things easier to follow, it doesn't... they say layout frameworks that rely on presentational classes like "grid_7" or "rightFloat" makes layout easier, it doesn't...

Really makes me wonder if it's intentional, or simply ignorance. You're new to this, it's hardly shocking with all web-rot misleading crap that it's so easy to be led astray.
Click to expand...

Thanks again Deathshadow. I've taken as much as I can from your post into consideration and implemented quite a bit of it.

I've also added some updates for the first time in a while including site signup function allowing people to comment easily on the articles.

Please take a look if you all have time!
 
Hey Chris, I have a few cases, though not nearly as bad as yours, need significant restoration. What I was going to do was either strip the paint off first using an ammonia bath (I soaked a 100 year old lathe and the paint came right off. Took overnight, but was messing w/an IBM AT case which I simply laid newspaper over, then poured ammonia on top of, and it more or less came off readily in minutes). Or just immediately using electrolysis to remove the paint and rust. Electrolytic rust removal is cheap and easy, all you need it a tub and a 12 vdc battery charger or source (one guy did use an old computer power supply). 10 or 15 amps is needed. I can't remember the details, but I had to limit the current on one occasion (was pegging the meter on my old battery charger) and used a short (very short) piece of nichrome (technically kanthal) wire. You can salvage some from an old electric heater or even hair dryer/heat gun. The element from an auto cigarette lighter could work too. All that would need to be submerged to keep it cool.
I've heard the 1 benefit of electrolyzing rust is that it shouldn't rust in the future. Some talk on a forum, not sure if it's accurate, but allegedly metal that once was rusty is bound to develop rust in the future. Electrolysis neutralizes it.
 
oh forgot you need Arm & Hammer washing soda or equivalent. Washing soda is like more potent baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). Baking soda also works, I've been told, but the washing soda works better. Usually added to the laundry for tougher jobs. There's loads of info on the net about derusting w/electrolysis.
 
Thanks for the ideas Tipc! I should have some more info on the IBM cases in the next few days.

In the mean time here is an article about one of my recent (or not quite so recent) acquisitions!

https://www.micromuseum.co.uk/displayarticle.php?article=128

Thanks as usual for taking the time to read this! I hope you will all have a browse on my site and maybe even sign up and leave some comments!
 
A fascinating site with lots of stuff not found elsewhere.

BTW, you may want to fix some of the IBM Product names PC XT rather than PC/XT and PC AT rather than PC/AT.
 
Today I've launched an all new version of my website. Hopefully people will like the design better - its been a lot of work and its only the second website I've done totally on my own. I'm currently working on replacing missing images which is going to take a while, but the new content should start flowing as of now too!

If you take a look, make sure you look at the Site Settings option on the User Menu. If you have a decent internet connection, opting in to the higher quality images will allow for a better experience. The high resolution stuff is basic at the moment, but as always my sites are always evolving and hopefully improving.

There will be an update restoring the "comments functions" soon!

I hope you like what you see! As always any constructive feedback is welcome!

Thanks taking the time to read this and hopefully have a look!
 
g4ugm said:
The stuff that leaks from NiCads is a strong alkali, snot "battery acid" and you should use ACID to neutralise it.. So Vinegar perhaps..
Click to expand...
I would actually advise against that. Mixing the opposite will cause a reaction, the end result may be neutral, but you don't want the reaction to occur on the board as that could just make things worse.

As with most cleanup situations for acids or base it's far safer to just keep hosing it down with universal solvent, aka that evil dihydrogen monoxide until it's clean and clear. Actively encouraging a chemical reaction on top of existing corrosion? BAD IDEA.
 
I love that your site is more than just pictures; it's your personal observations as well as experiences repairing and using the hardware. You've taken the extra effort and it shows, good work.
 
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