# Website Design Help - DarwinPetrol.com



## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

I'm trying to create a service for Darwin, NT, Australia that shows the daily prices of Darwin Petrol Stations so that people have a choice. Unfortunately I'm not a good webdesigner and this would require more skill than I have.

The image would need to have scrollovers, where when you move your mouse over a petrol station icon, it shows you a photo (which I'll upload daily), and the prices of; Gas, Super Unleaded, Unleaded, Premium Unleaded, High Octane, Diesel. I'm more than willing to do a predawn run to every petrol station in darwin and collect the prices as well as photographs of them.

I'm going to have a link there for donations to support running of the website and petrol costs to pay for running around town to collect the prices. I'm more than willing to go 50/50 with anyone who helps me by building the website.

The Right hand Banner would show four things
1. a drop down option that asks "Sort By; LPG, Super Unleaded, Unleaded, Premium Unleaded, High Octane, Diesel"
2. Top 10 Cheapest Stations (by choice)
3. Top 10 Most Expensive Stations (by choice)
4. Show All (cheapest to most expensive)

I need help in two areas...

Making a good graphic for the banner that's to read "DarwinPetrol.com" as the title, and as the byline, "Keeping the bastards honest".
And in website development, it needs to be developed for these browsers; Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Konqueror. (if it doesn't work on IE, I don't care)
Display Res - 1024×768

*UPDATE 1: * I've had my first offer for official advertising. The petrol station I regularly fill up at has offered to pay me to have advertising on the website. I wouldn't change their prices on the site or do anything unethical, because let's face it, they're the cheapest place in town. Hell I pass 4 different petrol stations just to go to them. If someone helps me by designing the site for me, they'd be getting a passive income which would be very decent.


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## Ellipsis (Oct 13, 2008)

First Rule of Web Design: Copy people who are doing it right!

For example my city has this site: Edmonton Gas Prices - Find Cheap Gas Prices in Alberta

Rather than rely on your own updates it relies on the public which is over all a better/cheaper/sustainable way of doing it.

Now the way you can succeed in a more noticeable way is by offering mobile applications (iPhone/Andriod etc.) that will display this data. If you for instance produced a general (world) site for gas prices, and launched a iPhone/Andriod app in conjunction with the site...well then you could be making some mighty dough .


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

and far more open to stores lying to you to drum up business. It's also far too crowded, that's the Yahoo to my Google. I'm willing to let people send in prices, but they'd have to be confirmed.


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## Ellipsis (Oct 13, 2008)

Shai Gar said:


> and far more open to stores lying to you to drum up business. It's also far too crowded, that's the Yahoo to my Google. I'm willing to let people send in prices, but they'd have to be confirmed.


...communist. 

Trust the People!


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## Zulban (Nov 11, 2008)

That's a neat idea, though I now offer you some unwarranted advice: If you can't web design, learn to do it, otherwise stick to what you're good at.


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## Viktoria2 (Feb 15, 2009)

I would help you, butthis might require javascript, and im not quite that advanced yet.
Sorry shai. 
Maybe you could hire someone to do it? Theres a lot of people who design sites free lance.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

Zulban said:


> That's a neat idea, though I now offer you some unwarranted advice: If you can't web design, learn to do it, otherwise stick to what you're good at.


Here's a neat idea, since "what I'm good at" is creating profitable ideas that can make money for a few parties, what I should do is create a profitable idea, put it out there so that someone who wants to do an hour or twos work could set themselves up for quite a substantial passive income.


:shocked: Oh wait... That's what I did.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

Viktoria said:


> I would help you, butthis might require javascript, and im not quite that advanced yet.
> Sorry shai.
> Maybe you could hire someone to do it? Theres a lot of people who design sites free lance.


I don't have the money to hire someone. Web designers are notorious for wanting to be paid hundreds of dollars for simplistic work. What I'd rather do is partner with someone who's willing to do a few hours work for an equal share of the profit. After all, I own the domain name and the hosting already and will be the one doing all the leg work.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

*UPDATE 1: * I've had my first offer for official advertising. The petrol station I regularly fill up at has offered to pay me to have advertising on the website. I wouldn't change their prices on the site or do anything unethical, because let's face it, they're the cheapest place in town. Hell I pass 4 different petrol stations just to go to them. If someone helps me by designing the site for me, they'd be getting a passive income which would be very decent.


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

Shai Gar said:


> I don't have the money to hire someone. Web designers are notorious for wanting to be paid hundreds of dollars for simplistic work. What I'd rather do is partner with someone who's willing to do a few hours work for an equal share of the profit. After all, I own the domain name and the hosting already and will be the one doing all the leg work.


Pffft... if its so simplistic work why can't you do it. It takes hours even days to design a professionally looking website not to mention the coding skills needed to do such a thing.:dry:


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

because my skills lie in finances, botany, sociology and now i am putting skill points in healing and first aid


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

Shai Gar said:


> because my skills lie in finances, botany, sociology and now i am putting skill points in healing and first aid


Exactly.:dry:


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## cryptonia (Oct 17, 2008)

This is a _fantastic_ idea... and I absolutely love what you want to do on just about every level. If I knew how to design/program for webpages, I'd do it for you without a second thought. Unfortunately, I have no idea..... but I'm on the computer a hell of a lot as it is, and found a site that teaches javascript. You're much better off if you can find anyone else... but it you don't get any offers, I'll try to learn enough to do it (I'm going to be learning anyway, because quite frankly, website design is something I should have learned how to do by now). It might take a bit of time, so don't wait up for me or anything (I definitely wouldn't expect you to, and doubt you would anyway)... but if I can learn how to do it and code something up before you get any other offers, I'd definitely do this.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

Lance said:


> Exactly.:dry:


Which means what exactly?

I could easily sell my skills for top dollar. But I'd probably just help for free anyone who wants me to help them. My hydroponic garden will produce far more product than I am able to use on my own, I'm going to be giving away the excess. Hell, if I see someone who has had an accident I'm more than willing to apply the first aid and my medical training (current ongoing), to assist them. I'm not even going to charge them.


@cryptonia - Awesome. At the moment I'm going to be building data until Friday of the 20 petrol stations prices twice a day. If you want to cram the knowledge and attempt to build the site, you're more than welcome to. add me on msn if you want to talk to me about it. I got another advertisement offer today, and i'm considering running the advertising like this:

The Advertising party pays each week, for a months contract, four weeks from Saturday the 28th, until Friday the 27th, and so on. The winning two bids are accepted and locked in on the third Saturday of the current contract period to begin on the next. Winning bids are public (bidders are private), with emails sent to notify all other bidding parties.


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## ruyr (Jan 18, 2009)

For this to work properly you would need a custom cms. Data needs to be collected automaticaly so you could spend your time working on the business side. If you're serious I would suggest hiring a programmer, the going rate here is around £150 a day. I wouldn't work for free on any projects that might or might not provide an income.

Free UK fuel prices. 9,662 petrol stations covered - PetrolPrices.com is very popular in the uk and is now worth a lot of money, it generates thousands in advertising revenue. They collect the data from fuel cards.


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

Shai Gar said:


> Which means what exactly?
> 
> I could easily sell my skills for top dollar. But I'd probably just help for free anyone who wants me to help them. My hydroponic garden will produce far more product than I am able to use on my own, I'm going to be giving away the excess. Hell, if I see someone who has had an accident I'm more than willing to apply the first aid and my medical training (current ongoing), to assist them. I'm not even going to charge them.
> 
> ...


Thing is, this is not a "good samaritan" kind of job. It is not like someone is going to die if you do not voluntarily help them. You need special skills to design a website and like I said, it requires hours or even days of work.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

Oh wow, days of work... Gods, not actual _Days_.

I'm working on the database myself. I don't have the level of skills necessary for the map itself. I've got the skills for the rest of it.
It was an offer open to anyone, that'd result in a partnership. I guess since noone else wants to, I'm going to go it alone, and take all the profits myself.


@Ruyr - Darwin has no such system. We might be a capital city, but that doesn't mean that we're not as technologically backward as Tehran.


@Lance - So what if it's not a "Good Samaritan" job? From now on I refuse to save lives with my training and skills unless I'm being paid to. I'm not an NF. I might lose the warm fuzzy feeling a person gets for doing good with absolutely no profit, but that doesn't mean I won't be able to sleep like a baby after watching a man I could have saved, bleed out. I'm no Christian, if the world is to revolve around money, so be it. "Special Skills" are also required to save lives.


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

Shai Gar said:


> Oh wow, days of work... Gods, not actual _Days_.
> 
> I'm working on the database myself. I don't have the level of skills necessary for the map itself. I've got the skills for the rest of it.
> It was an offer open to anyone, that'd result in a partnership. I guess since noone else wants to, I'm going to go it alone, and take all the profits myself.
> ...


My argument is that your saying webmasters are asking too much for their service. I could say the same thing about doctors who overcharge their patients. Days of work for someone who thinks its not hard work is demeaning.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

this isn't days of work. I've a web designer friend who said it's possible to do in a few hours. He wants to charge me "mates rates" of 2k. Since he ordinarily charges 5k a site.


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

Shai Gar said:


> this isn't days of work. I've a web designer friend who said it's possible to do in a few hours. He wants to charge me "mates rates" of 2k. Since he ordinarily charges 5k a site.


ROFL what a scam.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

He's incredibly talented and a fucking huge rip off artist. I'm not going to be going with his "payment plan".

I know it's not much work because I've seen him do this stuff before. Most of the work is in the database creation and the data entry. I'm going to do that myself.


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## ruyr (Jan 18, 2009)

Shai Gar said:


> this isn't days of work. I've a web designer friend who said it's possible to do in a few hours. He wants to charge me "mates rates" of 2k. Since he ordinarily charges 5k a site.


I agree that is far too much. Freelance websites are best, the going rate here is quite a lot (cost of living) but there are many very skilled people throughout the world who do work for very, very low dollar rates. Many agencies will take big sums then pay these freelancers from poorer countries to do the work. 

If you are looking into learning to do it yourself  Rather than go into lots of programming to begin with - You could use an image of the map and place 'hot spots' over where each of the petrol stations are, when the mouse 'rolls over' the hotspot it would display the information containing the price. This method is no good at all for search engine optimisation but may work to get you up and running until you could afford a proper cms.

Grab yourself a copy of dreamweaver and do a search for 'hotspots' or 'imagemap' tutorials. Dreamweavers pretty easy to use


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## ruyr (Jan 18, 2009)

Heres an example of hotspotting 

Hotspot Image Highlight


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

I do all my website coding in notepad. always have, always will.


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## ruyr (Jan 18, 2009)

Shai Gar said:


> I do all my website coding in notepad. always have, always will.


Ok, good luck with your new site


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

Changed my mind and I'm using Joomla


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## cryptonia (Oct 17, 2008)

oh'k... y'dont want/need any help on it, then? I realized (after I offered) that the college I'm at offers dreamweaver for free, so I wouldn't have even had to learn anything to do it. I was gonna see what I could come up with tomorrow, but if you're already doing it yourself then I won't worry about it.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

I'm using Joomla as a stand in until I can get the site, as described above, completed.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

I'd love a hand, and if you're willing to offer one, extremely interested in your assistance.


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## cryptonia (Oct 17, 2008)

gotcha. ok, I'll try to work ahead so I have as little homework as possible for the rest of the week, then start messing around with dreamweaver tomorrow.

Do you want me to basically just try to copy the screenshot you had on the first page as closely as I can? (with the various added "top 10" features on the side, of course)

also, do you have any idea whether or not you're allowed to use something like a screenshot of google maps, or some other satellite picture, as long as you credit them? I'd probably make the main thing just a photo with little gas pumps (or stars or something to mark the location of pumps) superimposed on it, then have information on each station pop up as you dragged your mouse over them, but I'm not sure what the copywrite laws are on satellite images.


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

I've got to find out the name of that petrol station without a name.

I'm not sure about the copyright law either. I'll find out. Hell, I'm going to ride my scooter over there now to find out.


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## ruyr (Jan 18, 2009)

Google provide developers with content. Maps and satellite images contain copyrighted data so use the Google maps API to program your custom overlays, marker points. All copyrights are then handled by the API.

The developers info is here Google Maps API Concepts - Google Maps API - Google Code 
You will need to sign up for an API key to use it.


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

ruyr said:


> Google provide developers with content. Maps and satellite images contain copyrighted data so use the Google maps API to program your custom overlays, marker points. All copyrights are then handled by the API.
> 
> The developers info is here Google Maps API Concepts - Google Maps API - Google Code
> You will need to sign up for an API key to use it.


Google does not provide API keys anymore.


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## cryptonia (Oct 17, 2008)

ok.... until we figure out what's up with being able to legally use a picture, I started messing around with getting the sidebar to work. At the moment I have a drop down box (it looks right, at least. Doesn't do anything yet), and started poking around and trying to learn how to program for it. Apparently most coding is done in PHP or javascript or perl, but Java works too. Since it'd take me about 30 minutes at most to write a java program that reorders based on price, I'm going to code it in that. If there's any major efficiency issues, or it turns out to be a dead-end or something, I'll learn how to do it in another language instead.

just giving a quick update... I've got class again soon (was doing this during one of my breaks), but by the looks of things I might be able to have the side part up and working by this evening, so that all you'll have to do is change the prices in a textpad to make the site sort them and change accordingly.


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## ruyr (Jan 18, 2009)

Lance said:


> Google does not provide API keys anymore.


You need to be logged into your google account then go here:

Sign Up for the Google Maps API - Google Maps API - Google Code

Agree to the terms and provide your website url then the key will be generated


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## Shai Gar (Jan 4, 2009)

ABQIAAAA_afxTPPhhzpgXCb02e19wRSDK_o5-G-KYEm9yoaCr5eesU0YKxQLJ46oEQ4xZnXFe-BJcXrDPYo3Qw


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