New webpage, comments welcome
After lots and lots of procrastination, I finally have a workable version of my webpage online: https://sites.google.com/site/achkostoulas/. I expect that I will eventually populate it with abstracts, papers and presentations that are already scattered across the web, and I may be creating versions in other languages as well. But I am reasonably happy with it for the time being.
For the time being I’d appreciate some feedback on the functionality of the page. Also, could you confirm that you are happy to be listed in the ‘People I work with’ page? If you could also provide me with a link to a personal webpage to be attached to your name, and a one sentence description that you are happy with, that would be great!
Achilleas
Thanks for the links Mariam – the websites your recommended are a goldmine!
Hi Again. The Contact box is a wordpress ‘plug in’ that I downloaded. It works with wordpress.org but unfortunately not with wordpress.com. Of course, the alternative is to add your email address (as we have on the ‘researching multilingually’ website). I am still exploring which of the two options is more user-friendly.
I now understand your rationale behind keeping both domain names and it makes sense. However, you don’t really need to upgrade to any paid service with wordpress if you already have your own webhotel, for you can host both domain names as well as the content of your pages on it (and your server provider should help you do the transfer).
As for the images I use, I find most of them on the following websites:
– Morgue File (not a very romantic name but it has some really good images once in a while especially if you check under ‘cover’ images, the large shots to the left – No references are needed for using any of the photos) http://www.morguefile.com/
– Stock.XCHNG (is copyrighted but provides free images) http://www.sxc.hu/
– Flickr (also copyrighted and also provides a good number of free photos. Many times you can get the same photos in different sizes with the same clarity) http://www.flickr.com/
I agree with you that you should be very careful in selecting your images. Honestly, I think your website is fine with just one or two for it is already very elegant the way it is, and you have all the right to be happy with it. Really 🙂
By the way, Mariam, how did you make this?
Thanks for yours Mariam. This is a WordPress.com site, rather than WordPress.org, so there’s not that much flexibility in customising the look of the pages, but I am reasonably happy with the way it looks.
My original plan was that I would create a site hosted by WordPress, which is free, and then map this onto my http://www.kostoulas.com domain name, which is already paid for. Essentially this means that the content of the site and the domain name would be hosted by different servers, which would -in theory- work together. Then, if I was happy with the way the site worked, my reasoning went, I could upgrade to a paid service.
However, it appears that for the cost of mapping a WordPress blog to an existing address, I could as well register a new domain name. Plus, I was told that mapping could interfere with my achilleas[at]kostoulas.com email, and I wasn’t feeling terribly confident about my skills to manually reconfigure it if things went wrong.
So, I eventually decided that I’d register the new domain name (www.achilleaskostoulas.com), and keep them live both until one subscription expires. Then, I’ll probably transfer everything (site content, domain name, email addresses) to a new integrated service.
Achilleas. What a change! I think your new website looks serious and academic yet sleek and elegant. Both the color code and the site layout gives it a pleasant professional presence. The site is also user friendly thanks to an efficient navigation system and I like having your name in Greek up there. If you wish to insert photos, there are several royalty-free image websites out there (will send you the links to the ones I use). I also found wordpress forums and You Tube very helpful in changing minor design aspects (e.g. reducing the size of the header, removing the space above it, changing fonts, deleting site description..). Further, I wanted to ask you if changing your website is associated with the change in your domain name for, to my information, you can change the former without changing the latter.
The easiest way around that is to take your own photo – I did. 🙂 Le Elephant was taken in Nantes when I was touring the Jules Verne “Museum” sometime in 2009 I think).
Thanks 😀
I agree on the image thing. I really like how visually distinctive your’s is. I just haven’t found something that I like, and which is not copyright-protected. Not yet, anyway.
This looks brilliant – much more reader friendly! And very easy to navigate! Good point on the CC licence add – I’ve got to do that on mine as well.
Perhaps an image on your landing page to warm it up a bit? 🙂
Website Mk.2 is now online, and I am happy to say that its aesthetics rather please me. You can take a look at: http://achilleaskostoulas.com/ Comments and feedback are always very welcome.
The previous website (www.kostoulas.com) will remain online for a while, until I figure out how to redirect visits to the new one. Besides, with two websites online, I am that much closer to taking over the internet.
By the way, a very great thank you to Mariam, whose meticulous attention to detail and commitment to aesthetic perfection continue to inspire. 🙂
Hi Achilleas
I liked your page very much and think it’s definitely user friendly. Also veery happy to be listed in the people you work with 🙂
And I just mapped it onto http://www.kostoulas.com, by changing the Advanced DNS settings. Not bad at all for someone who originally trained as a linguist!