Looking for feedback on design (and if possible, content) of my site JavaWithUs

What is the software used for the website ??

I didn't want to use any CMS like Blogger or Wordpress. Initially, I thought of using Java ( JSP ) to build the CMS myself so that I will have full flexibility but I realised that the cost for Java hosting is too high - after buying a Level 1 VPS and then knowing that a level 1 VPS can't support the resource requirements of Java. Currently, I have used PHP to give common header and footer to all pages. Other than that, there is no role played by PHP also. No database also. A difficult job! 

In the future, I wish to transition everything to Java. 

I think you have better idea than me but still suggesting, bro, better to shift to CMS and database as early as possible.. as you never know, if it takes off, later, converting a static website to dynamic database driven, would be a big challange..

Yes, I agree that converting everything to database driven would be a challenge and will definitely take much more time in the future than what it will take now. 

Hope to do it as as soon as possible.

@Ranjit..

I think you know already but still suggesting, if you want your own very simple CMS type solution, try scriprs from hotscripts.com 

Actually, for me, creating a simple CMS using Java is very easy as long as I don't require a sophisticated admin area. In fact, I find it more difficult to adapt external scripts rather than creating my own.

Anyway, thanks for the link. It appears to have some good resources. WIll definitely use them in the future when I require them. 

@Ranjith..

We have another Ranjith  So confusing when same names are allowed to use 

http://www.indiblogger.in/forum/review.php?id=15721

Even I saw the other Ranjith a few days back and got confused! 

Identify me by my Indi Id : 34101 - It's unique! 

IB should not allow using same name twice, like email or such... 

Hope that I won't be asked to change my profile name. If I am asked to do so, the only name I can think of is 'Indi Ranjith' 

You are planning to use a static home page? wow would love to see that

The home page is already a static one.  In fact, everything else is also static. Right now, the home page contains only an image. I will modify the page to a somewhat better one when I make the site richer with more content.

Yep I visited the site yesterday, its very good.  Are static pages hard to maintain?  Because every time you post something you will have to edit the homepage right?

Content is way over my head.  One more suggestion add a good H2 with nice adjectives like Premier site for Java tutorials(just an example) because search spiders love that.

Wish you luck with your endeavour 

If I want to update that latest posts links on the home page, then yes - some time should be devoted to maintaining the page. Other than that, everything else is fine. In fact, I find it easier not using blogger or wordpress as I no longer need to bother about how to modify the templates to suit my needs. And thanks for your suggestion - I really forgot to put some h tags on the home page. Will do it very soon.

Thank you! 

your website design reminds me of a time when people used to make such pages in Geocities. For such kind of content, such layout made more sense.

Thank you Sorc 

Wow! I'm not a techie so the content of your site is like Latin and Greek to me but as a complete layman I can say that your site is clean, easy to navigate and I'm sure will be of great use to people interested in IT

Thank you. 

Hey Ranjith, after that eye opening review of yours for my blog, I was compelled to review yours, you can consider this as a courtesy call, otherwise I'm a brat too lazy to open people's blogs and review them for whatever reason (including for a contest like this too).

Anyways, coming back to your blog, Javawithus - Here's my review of it. I hope it is helpful:

I'll go on in a topic-wise detailed manner dealing with all the aspects of the site.

DESIGN

Design-wise, your blog is just good. Nothing of the sorts of bells and whistles and jingles. I see you've paid a great amount of attention to functionality than eye candy. That approach is quite a good one considering the niche you're targeting. However, as per the current standards of the web, it's a bit too basic a design. I'll suggest you to kindly consider adding some eye candy, just a bit of it will do, maybe, an animated JQuery slider, or something like that. Other than that, since you have the flexibility since you're running your site on your own custom web server, why not try and put up customizable colour themes for people to choose from? This will add a component of interactivity with visitors and your site.

CONTENT

You're posting tutorials and snippets for Java (I believe J2SE) programs. Given your capability to write code and resolve logical problems, and your ease with Java, I have no doubt that the code you put up on the site has been checked for functionality, so, that for example, if I go and copy code and put it up in the compiler and run it, it'll work as you've described. The site, with the amount of content, seems to be missing out on the vast potential such tutorial sites have. You need to work on with the site and add up new contents, thus helping people learn from your site.The biggest point I noticed with your blog is the frequency. The last posts on your blog were on 22-04-2014 at 12:00 am (there's no reason to believe that you didn't schedule the posts), and since then, there's nothing till date. You can't keep visitors loyal with your blog with such a posting frequency, where you post 4-5 posts on a single day, that too, by scheduling and then go into hiding without a reason whatsoever, leaving the visitors wondering whether you still blog, or have packed up your bags and have migrated to the Himalayas.You need to work on your posting frequency, and come up with one that you think you can honour. Try doing it, and you'll definitely succeed.

SOCIAL INTERACTION

The world is increasingly moving towards social networking sites, and now (as per my experience), people who do not even know how to open MS Word, type and save a document can easily access pretty advanced features of Facebook, Twitter, and a host of other Social Networking Sites (at times, much more than people like us, who stay in front of the internet for a large part of out day). I found your site integrating social networking via Facebook and twitter. The number of Friends/Followers for your site's FB page is impressive at one glance, however, moving to your FB page paints a whole different story, and I was quite disappointed seeing literally no content on the facebook page of your blog. I understand it's quite difficult to single handedly manage everything - out daily lives, studies/jobs/sleep, our blog(s), a host of other things like maintaining our position on IB forum heroes, keeping up our social life outside the internet healthy, to name a few, and thus, updating a page on a social networking site takes a back seat. More so, because, we usually don't see enthusiastic activity on the content we post. When I started my blog, I created the FB and twitter pages, and used to post on atleast the FB page quite often, only to be disappointed by the outreach of the page, where I chose the page to be independent of my FB identity, and thus, was on a lookout for some solutions. Solutions to automate the updating my FB and twitter pages everytime, I make a new post on my blog. I believe you know about that front quite well. In case you don't, it's achievable using some plugins and the RSS feeds, and now, everytime I update post a blog post, my fb page and the twitter handle gets updated itself. Why not try it, and see the results.

SOMETHING SPECIFIC TO YOUR BLOG (TECHNICAL PART)

Something that someone expects from a tutorial blog is - that it'll help him/her get accustomed to the new technology and help him/her learn it from scratch. For some reason, I missed that part on your blog. Nowhere did I find any mention of how one should go through writing the java codes you've for posted. Maybe, you posted some helpful posts, that I missed on reading/skimming through. An easily accessible post or two, helping beginners get accustomed to Java, its features, and such, and basics of writing code and starting off with a new program, even the first one - Printing the Hello World, which is the basic in almost all the programming languages I've been exposed to. You can't expect the beginners to already know how and where to write the java code, how to compile and how to save it. Neither the beginner has to know what the Java Compiler does after you put in the code and pass the command to compile the code. You can tell about some security features Java Compiler provides in converting the lines into ByteCodes and creating the Java Class files. There are a number of other stuff, which one needs to set up properly for a java code to run properly, atleast for the first time, like setting up the System Environment Variables to accommodate the Java Compiler, setting up the Localhost port numbers and stuff, when you're going towards web applications. I'll suggest you to try and make a few posts outlining these very basic details, (including some screenshots, if you could) then only will you be able to achieve the true status of a tutorial site for your blog, in my opinion.

Additionally the code you put up looks like plain text with a different colour scheme. Why not try Code Highlighting (Syntax Highlighting)? There are applications that let you customize the code like some of our IDE's and advanced text editors like Notepad++ and such, which highlight the syntax and keywords and such, for easy understanding) There are applications, both web based and downloadable standalone that can do the task for you. Here are some online and offline applications to achieve this. http://tohtml.com/, http://markup.su/highlighter/, http://alexgorbatchev.com/SyntaxHighlighter/download/I hope, you don't mind the language, which, at places seem to be a bit harsh. However, I like being straightforward, and blunt, so, it is what it is.

PS: ALL THESE ARE SUGGESTIONS OF A FELLOW BLOGGER. PLEASE TRY IGNORING ANY SUGGESTIONS THAT YOU DIDN'T LIKE OR YOU FOUND TO BE HAVING ANYTHING WRONG WITH. I DO UNDERSTAND THAT BEYOND A READER'S EYES, LIE A WHOLE COMPLICATED MESS OF CODE THAT HAS TO BE MANAGED, AND AT TIMES, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE/FEASIBLE FOR A WEBMASTER TO DO WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE BEST.