As many of you remember, we had a half-hearted attempt at a decent web forum and site, called Laptops And Tea. Well, it crumbled a little bit, so, I decided; hmm... needs some work. I then took it upon myself to register the domain, and get something productive and attractive on it. It has been reborn as www.laptopsandtea.com and looks splendid now. We seem to have gone in an opposite direction from Decisive Media, where they went to WordPress, we went to flash and SMF installations, with apps being started for it as well.
Hope to see people there, and no, before anyone asks, I didn't log on here simply to post just this. Just wanted to update you on it, and offer our services, because you guys have been a great community to be part of, and I want to give back in one of the ways I can.
Laptops And Tea (http://www.laptopsandtea.com/)
~Joshua
...so it gets moved to advertising, where it won't get much exposure at all...
wow, thanks for helping out another site...
Rules are rules. You are advertising your own site here, so it goes to the Advertising section. My own threads about my music are here as well and you don't see me complaining.
I'm not a fan of flash, because it's hard to tell whether it's dying or not. :/ Basically your site won't work on any mobile device.
I'm having weird glitches with the flash. Most stuff are just black bars. O_o But I love the forum skin and background. Great job on that one.
Moved to advertising where it belongs, and it gets the same exposure as every other forum: a lit up unread symbol. Just in case you were unclear on the reasons it was moved.
I dunno, but, wasn't the name and the entire purpose of this website totally ripped from Niche and Alistair?
Just sayin'.
Well the site is still owned by the two of them and I... So I would say far from ripped from them.
What exactly is the site all about? I only ask because it doesn't seem to have a central theme or purpose that the site revolves around. From what I have personally seen, forums that are too "general" in what their purpose are seem to fail. It becomes very hard to get members to join and stay, when the mission statement is along the lines of "everything computer related!", or "games, music, and movies!".
Sure, sites can evolve into a more multi-purpose forum, but to get started, a site needs to focus in on a specific topic, and that will remain its anchor. Take CP for example. It has boards for entertainment, programming in general, computers and technology, general discussion, and more, but its mainstay is RPG Maker. In all reality, its pretty much RPG Maker XP, since this site seems to focus on it much more than VX, VXA, or any of the earlier ones. Its safe to say that everyone here has used, still uses, or is interested in RPG Maker. That is what gets them to join.
If you want to start a forum about programming, pick a language to be the "base", then allow the site to evolve and expand to other languages on its own. If its about books, appeal to a very specific genre of books, and allow it to evolve and expand into other genres. I'm sure you get the point, but as you can see, this allows you to have a solid foundation that will keep loyal and returning members.
I agree with F0. CP was and is still mainly an RMXP site. We just also have sections for the other RMs and some general sections where people can discuss other stuff.
Quote from: DigitalSoul on June 18, 2012, 10:03:45 am
Well the site is still owned by the two of them and I... So I would say far from ripped from them.
Just making sure, since there is literally no mention anywhere other than your vague use of "we".
Also, you may want to put in the "About Us" page something more than this:
QuoteThank you for taking the time to browse through our website!
You can contact us in several ways, though most of them are via e-mail.
For general purpose questions about the website, you can send en e-mail to digitalsoul88@live.com though please be sure to include a specific question, or address a specific issue.
I'm sorry, but that doesn't seem very professional to just put an email on the about us page, and basically tell people that if they want to know about the place, they need to email you.
Maybe include what the website is about, something about Niche and Alistair founding it, and how it eventually got to its point, or something. Anything that will tell people what it is
without them needed to waste their time to ask through email.
I think it would also be better, say if you did decide to stick with that, make an email like contact@laptopsandtea.com, or something.
Quote from: DigitalSoul on June 03, 2012, 11:04:34 am
We seem to have gone in an opposite direction from Decisive Media, where they went to WordPress, we went to flash and SMF installations, with apps being started for it as well.
Also, I fail to see the significance of adding anything about me and game_guy's website into an advertisement of your own website(let alone what difference it makes to explain the differences between software used in both websites).
Anyways, glad you ditched the flash software you had, as I lost any patience I had to visit the place before it could even finish loading.
Now, you may also want to customize your Zone 99 theme a bit, since as of right now, it looks like a theme for a gaming forum, and nothing at all suiting to what Laptops and Tea is.
And this ends my feedback/constrictive criticism.
I signed up and ended up in some sort of admin panel of wordpress. Is this supposed to happen?
Quote from: Subsonic_Noise on June 19, 2012, 05:12:20 am
I signed up and ended up in some sort of admin panel of wordpress. Is this supposed to happen?
Made a temporary account there just to see if it was anything I could jokingly(and innocently) exploit, and it was not.
No admin functions whatsoever in there.
Never claimed there would be. :P Still it called itself admin panel.
I'm basically saying he should rename it, since it doesn't do what an admin panel should.
I know what you meant. :P
Just to let you know, I am not criticizing the site at all, I am only trying to offer a bit of wisdom from what I have seen. I was never a member of the "first" Labtops & Tea, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
I personally like the theme of the site, and don't think it looks like a gaming site.
Quote from: ForeverZer0 on June 19, 2012, 06:37:49 pm
I personally like the theme of the site, and don't think it looks like a gaming site.
dzinerstudio designed it as a gaming theme, and it looks just like that. But hey, opinions, right?
Theme? The site has a theme? I don't see any theme. I see only text with background color.
They are referring to this.
http://laptopsandtea.com/forum/
Oh that. I already said that I liked the theme for its simplicity. As for the theme, I don't see why it couldn't serve for a non-gaming. It suits a gaming site as well as it would suit other types of sites.
Quote from: Blizzard on June 20, 2012, 07:31:18 am
Oh that. I already said that I liked the theme for its simplicity. As for the theme, I don't see why it couldn't serve for a non-gaming. It suits a gaming site as well as it would suit other types of sites.
Well, I was just expressing my opinion as some feedback. No harm done.
Don't sweat it.