Ultimate McLaren F1 website

If any of you have tips on what you would (or would not) like to see in a comprehensive McLaren-related website, please let me know. I already have a site plan, but I don't want to influence your ideas...so please post away. I will post my site plan in a couple of days.

All input will be greatly appreciated. I sincerely mean it.

Thanks! :)

OMG!....nevermind...

Sorted by serial, pics, locations etc

A link to this forum would be nice.

How about the standard list of chassis numbers seen here: http://www.qv500.com/indexmclaren.php but with any extra information we've got on the vehicles - current owner, HDF kit fitted or not, color change, location, license plate, etc. That would be nice although it may be difficult to put together unless you get help from someone with a list like that.

Good suggestion. I don't know if it's a good idea to publicize who owns the cars, unless they are public figures. Even then, I am not sure they want their names on such a list on the web. For instance, we know Ralph Lauren owns three, and we can deduce which chassis numbers they are. But I am sure he would not want his chassis numbers listed on the web. If the knowledge is already in the public domain, I am comfortable publishing it. If not...I will respect their right to privacy even if I have the "inside" info.

Everything else, I can do. I had not thought of the "HDF or not" tag...thanks for the suggestion. And the license plate...ok, I suppose, but since they are from all sorts of countries and I know the guy in AZ switches his around (seems to use at least three) it would not be terribly helpful. As a matter of interest to the McLaren enthusiast though, I think it would be worthwhile having the info online. Thanks for that suggestion as well--another thing I had not thought of.

I have the pages specced out, now the database guy has to do his stuff and make it happen. Hopefully within the next week.

I have also not forgotten about the vids on the Japanese site...just haven't found anyone willing to register on that site and get the files. It's in my mobile phone though, so anytime I run into the right person, it will happen.

Hello,

humm, I think we have to go beyond and add pics and vids with each chassis :) Also related stories if they exist.

I think so a page each for :
1) history of F1 developpement
2) history of F1 career with GT/LM etc...
3) Le Mans 1995 & GTR history
4) news
5) articles, quotes etc....
6) chassis index with pics vids etc...
7) forum or link to this one
8) links

To be continued...

Ciao
Phil
7

History of F1 development...I am going to do a little of this...but I will create a form where you can submit your information so it will continue to grow. A lot of it is already documented and I dont' think it would be useful to type all that in. But you can all add in what you like. In chronological order or just as tidbits that I can try to organize.

GT/LM...just have small amount of details. Yes, you will be able to add your information.

Le Mans, GTR...very comprehensive racing history that you should be able to sort as you wish, by date, car, driver, team, etc.

News...yes, you will see. It will be great. And with logins, I will be able to tell you if there is new stuff since your last visit, and link you to it.

Articles, quotes...yes.
Chassis index...very comprehensive, with all sorts of searchable fields. It will be a database that will get better as you all add whatever information you wish to share.
Forum..will just be a link to this. I don't want to get stuck moderating a forum. I might put in quotes from this forum, if they're interesting.

Links...there will be a lot.

Keep em coming.

Forgot to mention, it will have one surprise feature that I think you will find very cool. That feature costs over $1,000 per month to implement, so I don't know ...I am thinking of charging a subscription fee for this "premium" feature. Maybe something like $50 a year. Hopefully, I can offset some of the costs with this. If I don't make money on it, then it won't stay. But I think you will all like it. That's all I can say at the moment.

I wouldn't mind seeing something on prices. I'm well aware that probably no Mclaren has been sold for the same price twice, except maybe from the factory (even then options and such would alter the MSRP) but assuming the figures were known, it'd be nice to see what they are going for nowadays.

well, the problem is, the figures are not known. except for the ones sold at auction. i have been thinking about this a bit. i will put up something, and i guess it will improve with time. thanks for the suggestion.

Feel free to snag anything from my gallery, but don't hotlink please.

umm...I'm bad at suggestions, but what's this really expensive feature?

It will be optional, and I can't spill the details yet.

Can't wait to see your McLaren F1 site.

Thanks, just got back from talking to a couple of web developers...it's going to take some time--I hope to make it really incredible. I looked at Mambo server, which is a content management system (CMS), but it's not exactly what I need. Mamboserver is more a way of managing multiple people's text contributions, sort of like an online magazine. The other thing you can do with a CMS is manage a normal website somewhat efficiently.

This website is going to be different--a ton of databases keeping track of a ton of stuff and able to provide the data to the user in the format he wants. All done within a pleasing layout and with nice graphics. On top of that you need to layer several levels of security and access. So I think it's going to be all custom software written specifically for this site, and possibly for other car-related sites. Once it's all in place, it should be easy for people to contribute, and the appointed moderators can approve the submitted content for everyone. This should avoid duplicate submissions, and keep errors to a minimum.

It's a big project, and I can't wait for it to be done!

A nice Mclaren F1 wallpaper.

A nice Mclaren F1 wallpaper.

There will be a ton of pictures you can download, and you can filter what you see by things like chassis no., color, setting, picture resolution, etc.

Is this what you mean? Or do you mean those active screensavers that switch pictures every so often. I asked about those as well, but it seems you need to get a development kit to create .scr screensavers. Anyone have experience with those? Once I find out more about how to create those kinds of screensavers, maybe I can provide them as well. In the meantime, certainly, a ton of nice hi-res pictures will be available.

OK, did some more research, and it seems like you can create these professional screensavers with a variety of programs. But there's none available (that I could find) that let you do it online, ie. you select a bunch of pictures and movies, select a soundtrack, select how long each should play for, and whether it should move around to prevent screen burn-in if there's a logo, and then let it generate the screensaver for you to download and install. That is a neat idea, so I will research it some more and see if we can get something like it...it would be cool to have people make different screensavers and share them, and we could probably have a contest to see who can make the best one.

Trick seems to be finding software that will let you assemble it online.

Until this is possible, I can certainly set up a page where people share screensavers they have created on their own machines (the .scr, professional versions, not just pictures), and set up some kind of voting to see whose is the most popular ie. you download it, check it out, then come back and give it a number out of 100 and the website sees which one has the highest number and presents them in order of rank.

Don't even try to create them online. That'd be a monster of a coding job and a bitch for resources. I think directions on how to make and user submits would be cool, though.

OK guys, please take a few minutes to think long and hard about what you would like to track...the programmers are hard at work on the database portion right now, and I hope to give you guys a URL soon.

Right now, we are creating the database for the cars. Things like whether they have high downforce kits or not, where they are, who owns them, etc.

Next, we will do the picture and multimedia database so that you can pull up pictures (or a subset of all the pictures for one car) according to your criteria.

Then there will be a racing database.
Sale data (cars listed, sale history, contact info, etc.)
Then there will be a performance and production statistics database.
Then there will be a database of models - mostly who sells what, and how good they are, and what price you can expect to pay.

There will be a few more after these, such as memorabilia, hot stuff on Ebay, screensaver exchange, etc.

Along with this, the pages of the website are being designed.

And the "special feature" is coming along.

If you have suggestions, please post them. We can modify stuff in the future, but it will be easier to have as complete a picture as possible from the start.

I will respond to each person's suggestion(s). Thank you.

F1

If you do a screen saver.. don't do a plain jane one where the photos go scrolling/fading/disintegrating. Windows XP can already cycle through photos stored on the hard drive as a screen saver.

A friendly suggestion is to have the car come out of the image as if it were leaping/driving off the page for each cycled image.

Look forward to seeing what your camp comes up with!

Regards

Yes, agree fully. Plan is to have some motion. This will help keep it interesting, will make it more than a trivial, pointless effort, and also stop screen burn-in if the logo doesn't move, even though the images do.

Problem is, the only things I have seen are where the whole picture moves...Apple's iMovie does this easily. So should most Windows packages, therefore. I do plan on doing a few of these, but you are right in that they are barely worth doing.

The other kind I am envisioning,where only the car moves within the picture, or moves much quicker than the rest of the picture (which would still move a bit to avoid logo burn-in) would be a flash animation, I would think. Can this be a screen saver? In a manner, yes, although it's more along the lines of a movie/animation. I will do a couple of these, too. Their value might be marginal, but considering the lack of good footage out there, it might be a good way to visualize an F1 in various settings. No matter how cheesy or fake it appears, it ought to be good for one viewing and one laugh. Who knows, it might spawn a whole new genre, like anime (I'll stop dreaming now).

Finally, true screensavers (.scr extension) are also planned. I have seen where dolphins appear to be filmed naturally, even though it's all generated graphics. With a "helicopter view" of a few rolling hills, we could approximate a McLaren blasting around some nice country roads. That's one idea I have. Another is to play some video games that feature the F1, and capture the footage and see how good a screensaver they make. Be warned that I am terrible at video games, but there's gotta be a demo mode, or I could record it while going real slow and then speed it up. Ain't video editing grand :D

Another idea I have is a sort of CAD/CAM visualization, floating in space, rotating and morphing between wireframe and fully skinned, in various colors. That could be a good screensaver. Problem is, I haven't seen any F1 wireframes. Hopefully they can be constructed at a local art college where I have some contacts, or they can be imputed from the virtual renderings that some people on here have already done.

Now all of the above is a LOT of work, and I have limited time. I hope to create an environment that motivates everyone here to try their hands at these "projects" and we can share them through the website. It will only be as good as your contributions, and only as big as you make it by adding to the site's offerings.

Thanks for the input. I will ask around and see what's feasible...what are your thoughts on what I have written?

Incidentally, on my site, within each section, there will be a place to submit requests for enhancements, additional features, etc. This will allow me to organize the requests by area, rather than have a jumble of suggestions to sort through. At this time though, I welcome all suggestions, pertaining to any area. So, just because screensavers are being discussed, don't let it stop you from raising anything else you think of.

Thanks,
F1 Monsta.

Hi,

Looking forward to the site.

Would be great to have an owners section, where visitors could go to post messages exclusively to owners, and owners could contribute information etc etc as is done on this forum???

Sorry, I don't think that would work. Only three or four owners have ever posted on this forum...only one of them somewhat frequently. I also don't want to be bogged down in moderating forums, as it often gives the wrong people a chance to speak out. And besides, it would be duplicating this excellent forum, so there would be no point in doing that.

I will have a section where I will quote owners' and drivers' comments about the driving and ownership experience--and I will give the opportunity to submit questions. I know quite a few owners, so I am sure I will eventually get the answers, and I will post those. That's what we're really after, right?

If you want to openly pose a question on a forum, whether to the general public or directly to an owner, this is the place to do it.

Update on the site...it's coming along nicely. I hope to give you a guys a preview by the end of this week. :)

Its lookin' good man :grinno:

Ok folks, progress! I am gonna give you a sneak preview.

There's a lot of work that still remains. We are less than 1% done--to give you an idea, just within the picture search area, I want to provide the ability to search for all low angle pics, of a certain car, of all cars, of roadcars only, of racecars and GTs, etc., that have the color blue in them and are parked with the doors open.

To do this, I also need to provide a way to quickly input such information for each and every picture in the database--ie. generate a page that shows you a thumbnail, and provides a places for you to fill in the information with some error-checking, and drop-down lists, etc.

And I need to provide several ways to browse the pictures, via thumbnails, arrows to move to the next big one, etc.

All that is a little ways off, but in the meantime, enjoy the ever-growing picturefest. I have 3,000-odd pictures, although only 500 or so have been updated to be part of the database so far. Once I have uploaded them all, I would like to invite you to share any and all of your pictures and multimedia. I will credit you, and/or the rightful owners for anything you submit. I got a lot of my pictures from people I have forgotten--you know who you are, and if you see your picture up there and would like to be acknowledged, please give me a shout.

Another part that is being worked on--I need to give you the facility to upload a picture at a time, or a batch of them, and then update the information in the database. If the info is not provided within a specified amount of time, then everyone else will be give the chance to update the info. Finally, the site admins will have the ability to edit any info at any time (to ensure quality control!).

To encourage people to contribute, and to keep the database complete, I plan to have contests and prizes, and each person who uploads pictures or data earns points that can be redeemed for these.

Thanks for your patience and suggestions so far. Please keep them coming, and in the meantime, enjoy!

www.mclarenfreak.com

:)

PS. The Google Ads are not for my site...they belong to one of the developers. At some point, I will have my own ads and all proceeds will go to charity.

PPS. I welcome any criticism...please don't hold back if you want to point out anything at all (yes I know some pics are in the wrong areas and there's duplicates).

Need your help...

For the section on scale models, I would like to provide a searchable database of the following:
------------------
Product description
Product picture(s)

Product colour
Scale

Prices
Product quality and notes (packaging, etc.)

Customer service rating (response to order, complaints)

Manufacturer
Contact and website info

Other sources for this product/retailers in your area/online

What else would you like to see?

This is chassis #20, not 002

http://www.mclarenfreak.com/cardetail_9.html

You sure? Chassis 20 is mid blue pearl?

Chassis #020 was Mid Blue Pearl. This one has seen a refit obvioulsy with the HDF kit and the color was changed at the same time. I have a picture I can share later of this car in its original configuration. Hopefully it will be new for everyone.

>8^)
ER

Thanks!
Info being updated.

Looking forwards to it.

For your viewing pleasure I give you the original #020 in Mid Blue Pearl.

http://a8.cpimg.com/image/AE/FD/46663598-c954-028001D0-.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Peloton25/McLaren%20F1/Mclaren_F1_020_lg.jpg)
Clickable... :naughty:

That is the only shot I have of it unfortunately. The larger version is a little grainy, but still nice I think. Hopefully new for all of you.

>8^)
ER

thanks. much appreciated! lovely ferrari 250 swb in the background, too.

maybe this has already being pointed out to you but, one of the photos of #14 is, if i am right, actually a picture of the clinic car, so far looks like a good website and i carnt wait to see the finished product, keep up the good work!

If you let your mouse "hover" over the picture, the bottom of your screen will show something like photodetail_xyz. I need that xyz identifier so I can find the picture and reasssign it to the appropriate car. I appreciate your help in keeping the site accurate.

Thank you!

If you let your mouse "hover" over the picture, the bottom of your screen will show something like photodetail_xyz. I need that xyz identifier so I can find the picture and reasssign it to the appropriate car. I appreciate your help in keeping the site accurate.

Thank you!


hi, it says photodetail_262.

one of the photos of #14 is

hu ?! I don't see photos :screwy:

the only picture I see is :

www . Maclarenfreak . com (anti hotlink protection)

everywhere :banghead:

what's the problem ?

photodetail 389 is listed under 01r, but it's actually the french cesar F1 in its 95 le mans livery

thanks guys. i am working on it. jkbon, your problem should go away soon, as the whole site might change. so no point trying to tackle the problem, as we might end up leap frogging it. hang in there.

jkbon, maybe you have javascript disabled? try enabling that.

if that doesn't work, what operating system and browser are you using? try a different browser, ie. firefox or mozilla, and see if that helps.

Great pic, thanks! I'm using IE 6.0, had no problems viewing the pic.

Some feedback on the screen saver suggestion: it is a huge security risk, as the files are executables. They can hurt my servers and they can hurt your computers.

So, I probably won't be having an area where you can download them off my site, but I can certainly have a page full of links to other sites/servers where you have uploaded them. I will also provide links to other sites where you can upload your stuff if you want to share, and I will also provide an easy mechanism for you to post a link on my site, so that anyone else visiting the page gets a description and a link of where to go.

F1, that is really great so far. I love the pics of the Electric Blue...I've been looking for more of those. can't wait for the higher res versions.

Good suggestion. I don't know if it's a good idea to publicize who owns the cars, unless they are public figures. Even then, I am not sure they want their names on such a list on the web. For instance, we know Ralph Lauren owns three, and we can deduce which chassis numbers they are. But I am sure he would not want his chassis numbers listed on the web. If the knowledge is already in the public domain, I am comfortable publishing it. If not...I will respect their right to privacy even if I have the "inside" info.

On this topic, perhaps it would be wise to only allow access to people with memberships? Is it possible to have kind of a private site and you have to register to get in or something? That way only the real knowledgeable, helpful people can have access to the information that I know some owners would be concerned about.

Thanks, much appreciated. It's not going to change for a few days, as we are doing some back-end work before I add more data.

Well if you have time for any changes:

photodetail 87 & 88 = XP5

photodetail 262 = Clinic Model (previously mentioned)

photodetail 66 67 68 69 & 70 = #002

photodetail 397 & 398 = #07R

photodetail 414 = #09R (the Sultan's LeMans winner)

photodetail 391 = diecast replica

photodetail 389 = #05R (previously mentioned)

photodetail 81 = #15R

photodetail 426 427 & 432 = are only in the right spot if my hunch is correct. ;)

Thanks again for putting this all together. We've kicked the idea around in here several times before, but you are certainly the first one to make a real attempt at it. I am happy to help in any way that I can, as I'm sure others here would say as well. :thumbsup:

>8^)
ER

Wow, that's looking nice! I like the "McLaren FREAK" logo. We are so cool :smokin:

Heh, thanks! I like the logo too--the programmer whipped that up in just a few minutes.

Gather up your cameras, everyone--I am going to have a section where you can upload pictures of your McLaren shrines. If you have a room full of pictures, a nice display of models, some brake discs or calipers, or a bunch of event tickets, whatever it is, take some pictures and be ready to upload them.

I also hope to have a rating system so you can vote on the best shrine. :)

This will all take a while, as we are dealing with some performance issues right now, and we can't unveil any other sections till we have dealt with that.

When the final version is complete, will the pictures be available without the mclarenfreak.com watermark?

What's the matter, you don't like my logo???!! :D

To answer your question, not easily--it would require the maintenance of several sets of pictures and make the database more complex. The next generation of the website will show where the picture came from, so you can always email the owner for copies if they leave an email address, or you could try contacting them through the website if they register as a user. To pass on pictures without watermarks might piss off the people who took them, as I am sure they want to be acknowledged in some way. They can decide if they are ok with you having the raw image in full resolution, and if they are, they can email them to you directly.

The watermark will change to say "Hosted by McLarenFreak" so that people don't think that it implies that I took the pictures or that I own them (except for the ones that I did take, hehe).

The website is coming along. The three biggest and hardest parts are done, which are:
- The installation of the framework software on the server
- The design of the database schema
- Data and type definitions.

The framework software is needed by the developers to make future development and extension of the website easy, otherwise it would quickly grow too large to manage.

The design of the database schema, or the set of tables where you store data, is absolutely critical, or the data will need to be put in again and again. For instance, if you are putting in info about the cars, you don't want to have GTR repeated or F1 Roadcar repeated. Instead, these should just be values in a separate table. You don't want to then go and enter racing information and put in car chassis number and again have to enter that it was a GTR--it should be able to connect the dots if the database schema is designed properly.

At the same time, you want the design to be efficient or you will have serious performance issues...one part of this making sure that you don't allocate too much space. For instance, there's no need to allow for 4 billion numbers in the chassis number field, as there's only 100-odd chassis numbers to track. And since they are all numbers, it would be silly to have the server process them as alphabet characters, or allow for negative numbers.

This is probably more detail than everyone is interested in, but I just wanted to let you all know that extensive work is indeed going on behind the scenes.

It should be just a few more days until version 2 of the website gets rolled out.

OK, major progress today...look for something to be up by end of day today. I will post the link here. :)

OK, major progress today...look for something to be up by end of day today. I will post the link here. :)

I Can't wait to see it.

I was thinking about making a site a while ago.. good to see someone is finally doing it with expertise, I look forward to seeing it all up!

It's almost midnight, California time. We are close...but not quite close enoough. I plan to work on it all night with my programmer, if I can get him to stop doing 50 other things at the same time!

Thanks for keeping the faith. I will give you an update as soon as possible.

is it just me, or is the www.mclarenfreak.com come up a 404 error?

It's not just you. There's major testing going on behind the scenes, so the old site has been taken off. New one will be going up soon, but it might not be for a day or two (or longer). It all really depends on how quickly we bang out all the things that have cropped up.

The proper way to do this is to define the site and then build from a corner out, testing and stabilizing everything before moving on to the next step or putting up another page. I am going about it completely wrong, working in fits and starts, and trying to quicly bang out a lot of items all over the place without proper testing. Understandably, it's leading to problems. But it's the best that can be done with the time limitations faced by my programmer and me.

You should at least put an "Under contruction" sign on it so people don't think it's a dead site.

Very good point. Will do.

Edit: Enabled the old version of the website so there's something nice to look at. We will just swap in the new site when it's complete.