Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

[Beck]

Hi there!
Question #1) anyone know how I can add a simple guest book to my sites?
It doesn’t have to be super fancy, but it would be nice to be able to format it to match my page schemes.
Q - #2) where can I get a page counter?
Again, just a simple one for the home page that I can use to keep track of visitors without the link to advertising?
**Most of the FREE ones I have found come with ad-links & most link to on line casinos. I do not want the advertisement links or the link back to the Hit counter's websites, being as it will take visitors off my site.
??? Does BV have some counters hidden somewhere in its program?

Oh - and for those of you who helped me with my first website www.candcshires.com & were wondering what I’ve been doing lately, I've been working on my other website - it’s not all done yet, nor is it close to perfect, & most likely will be a work in progress for it’s entire lifetime… As I’ve already changed the home page too many times to count! (you’ll notice if things sell - crossing fingers our home goes soon... that will change it alot too)

But if you would like to take a look, here it is... www.hitchhikinghorses.com
And I always welcome you ideas and input!
Beck

[FPRob]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

I might bemistaken but Voda may supply some of the things you are looking for, I dont use the BlueVoda software but I cannot be sure so I woud definitely recommend checking first as it is Vod'as service that you are using but... If you cant find the things you are looking for try searching the net for

Free guestbook
Free hit counter
etc etc etc

I will have a look at your site too and see if I can see anything to say that will be constructive and helpful :)

A company that instantly springs to mind is bravenet.com

[FPRob]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

Sorry to double post.... I had a visit and only noticed two things that stood out immeidately.

1)
Because you have a black background with white text the site has a massive amount of colour contrast. This isnt too bad on th index page but you will find that when reading more than a few lines of small text (or even worse massive paragraphs) that it will begin to hurt your eyes. Your web visitors wont like this. I would recommend using a grey text or a coloured text that isnt a loud colour, nothing too bright or you will just have the same problem as with the white text.

2)
When hovering over your left hand menu you will notice that your buttons change from a square to an oval shape. A good idea that produces a good effect. Visitors like this kind of thing. But, if you look carefully outside each oval (but still on the button) you have little white square corners making thebutton still appear square but with an oval line on the inside. If you used a white background the buttons will actually appear oval in shape because those corners will match the background colour.

Good luck, hope I have been helpful

[bill2006]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

You don't want a counter, they are out-of-fashion.
Go to cpanel and use the stats for what you want.

[Beck]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

bill2006 - Thank You, But yes I want a counter...
the candcshires.com site is for my friend, her daughter and everyone else she knows has one... so of course she wants one too! Plus I don't want to have to email her the stats daily... So if I give her a counter it means actually less work for me :) & theres no way would I let her try to manage her site. she has a hard time just getting her email - I would hate to have to redo the thing! :) I have way too many hours in to this...

Thanks to FPRob for the bravenet.com idea. Months back I signed up with them, but have never really check them out... Thanks again, I like that they don't link to on-line-casinos!
I get what you mean about the fonts white on black backgrounds.. but it will be a while before I can fix all of that.. but as I have moments, I'll work on it.
Oh about the navigation bar.. I used the BV ones provided in the program... and haven't tried to do it individually... seems simpler to just use BV's template. But I'll take a closer look at it.

[FPRob]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

On the nav bar Beck.. It isn't too important, just a thought that crossed my mind. the buttons are just fine, the hovering is just fine as well. Swapping to a white background behind the menu will simply make the buttons match better (when hovered over).

[bill2006]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

If you insist: http://www.statcounter.com/

[Beck]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

Thank you bill2006... I will check that out, but for now I found one that seems to fit from bravenet.com - I just hate the ads that come with it. But at least they aren't for on-line-casino ads :)

Hey by chance do any of you know where I can get a simple guest book? Of course free would be nice & WITHOUT all the ads!
I've tried installing and using the ViPER Guestbook in bv's fantastico,
but I suppose I am still too new at all of this, because I wasn’t able to figure out how to get it to work.
Any help for that?

I want a fairly simple guestbook that I could change the format – color schemes so it would match any of my websites...

but I would really like it to be easy for people that don’t know much about computers to be able to use – like older folks who barley know how to turn on a computer, not just a rocket scientist or our wiz-kids teenagers ;) lol
Please let me know if there is anything like that out there...
Beck
www.hitchhikinghorses.com
www.candcshires.com

[FPRob]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

You will find it impossible to get a free guestbook without adverts. the companies that provide them have to make their money some how and revenue from the adverts is the only way they make money, without the ad's you would be paying for your guestbook mate. the service they provide is a usually a good one for the small price of displaying a few ad's :)

[bill2006]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

Thank you bill2006... I will check that out, but for now I found one that seems to fit from bravenet.com - I just hate the ads that come with it. But at least they aren't for on-line-casino ads :)

Hey by chance do any of you know where I can get a simple guest book? Of course free would be nice & WITHOUT all the ads!
I've tried installing and using the ViPER Guestbook in bv's fantastico,
but I suppose I am still too new at all of this, because I wasn’t able to figure out how to get it to work.
Any help for that?

I want a fairly simple guestbook that I could change the format – color schemes so it would match any of my websites...

-I used bravenet in a blog. If I had to use a counter, the one I gave you doesn't have ads.
-Check out this post on guest books:

http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/general-support-issues/4530-guestbook.html?highlight=guest+book

Hope it works.

[Jeremy]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

Hey!

Listen to Bill, hehe ... stat counter's on a website are completly un-professional and makes your site looks sloppy. cPanel offers a great list of option's to view your stats of your site.

[FPRob]

Re: Need advice on guest books how to's & counters for my pages

Page counters are a little cheesy. However AWStats in your control panel (as everybody is saying) provides outstanding info on almost every aspect of your website.