How About Some Website Advice?

For day four of Nihil's One Interesting Post a Day for 28 Days Challenge I've decided to ask for a little advice for my website.

Check it out: http://www.jeremydean.co.nr

I would like to know -

What can I do to improve the layout?

What do you think of using the .htaccess/.htpasswd system like I have setup in the downloads section? Secure?

How can I improve my Google ranking - I'd like to be in the top five when someone Googled for "Jeremy Dean" - is that setting the bar too high (with all of 55 hits in a month. :P)

Is there any simple code to enable users to add posts and upload files? I have WordPress installed, but I need to spend some time getting it configured.

What I'm wanting to do is to basically set-up a little private facebook-like site (based around me of course) and also provide a place for registered users to securely share files w/out having to worry about "the man" :P

What are your thoughts? Be critical - hell, be outright mean! But try to be helpful. :D

Thanks!
-jeremy
[edit]
If you find any gaping holes in security, please PM me rather than posting here - shouldn't be any, but then what do I know? ;)
[/edit]

Ok are you using any SEO related plugins?

When you say add posts. Do you mean like being able to make comments to what ever topics you post? Or do you want pretty much a integrated forum into your WP?

as for the file uploader then i would recommened http://www.celerondude.com/php-uploader-v6

Reserved this post spot. Will edit latter with a few idea's running through ma'h head. :)

using the .htacess is an alright measure it would be better used if say the "Users" were on static IP's that way you can just enter in there IP/username etc and only those with the relevant IP can enter.

At a quick glance, I like the look. The expression on your[?] face is priceless. Is there supposed to be a gap between the logo [top.jpg], and the nav bar? It might look a little better if you closed that up. You also might look into having a recent posts section, so I don't have to scroll all the way down to look at the titles.

I will post more if I get time to look at it more in depth.

Edit: .htaccess is alright, but remember... it is only as strong as the password they are using. Which, by the way, is transmitted in plaintext.

Thanks guys.

HYBR|D: No, no plugins. And yeah - I want people to be able to make posts and comment on my posts. I thought I would just modify WordPress, but I don't really like the setup - it's too much. My registered members will only have to be able to submit posts, comment on posts and upload/download files. I like how the comments are added on Facebook - where you just click "comment" and a little textbox appears under the OP.
I'll definitely check out the php uploader link. Thanks!

westin: Yeah, that's my ugly mug. I took about twenty photos just fooling around trying to get one that would be "fitting" for the top of my page. When I saw that one, I was like "yep. That's the one!" Glad you got a kick out of it. I made all of the page graphics using GiMP. I ought to write a letter of thanks to whoever wrote the "cubism" artistic filter - that's an awesome effect, and I used it on every graphic. And I like my gap! I went to some trouble just to get the "y" on my signature on the navigation graphic! :P
And I'll definitely change the format up so that it only shows three or four posts per page, with "older" and "newer" at the bottom of each page. I was thinking I need to write a "post-maker" applet that will do all that for me as well as append the main page everytime I make a new post. Or I could just make the transition to wordpress, which already does all that... I don't know - I just really don't like the wordpress layout - too many options... I want to keep my site simple.

Thanks again guys.

"Liberty Guard has determined that you have entered a website that does not have a domain name , but instead it uses an IP address.

Some criminals use IP addresses instead of domain names.Although there are a few legitimate websites that use that use IP addresses, we feel obligated to warn you when you access a website via its IP address"

So I just stuck you on the whitelist :p

Yeah, it looks OK to me and I just love the expression :D

Would of popped that error up Johnno because he's running the site of he's home server. ;)

mehehe for ****'s n giggles i was going to herd my zombies to he's site.. :lildevil:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HYBR|D

mehehe for ****'s n giggles i was going to herd my zombies to he's site.. :lildevil:

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:eek:

Might improve the hit counter. I've had all of 82 unique visitors in 22 days... that's 3.73 visitors a day... :(

But please don't DoS my connection - it' slow enough as it is, and I'm not the only one that's surfing teh intarwebz here...

Also, no one ever posted on how to improve my Google standing - I guess I just need to Google "Google Standing" and go from there huh?

Also - my apologies for not keeping up with Nihil's One Interesting Post a Day for 28 Days Challenge - I've been a little under the weather - but I'll make up for it tonight or tomorrow... :D