Archived Review

Hi Allie, I believe that I've reviewed your site on here before, but since you've re-added your site and it was the newest one when I checked, I'll be reviewing it again!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
An interesting setup - I don't typically see affiliates and advertising next to the header image. Text is legible, and links are clearly distinguished from regular text. Navigation is easy to find. If I were a first-time visitor, I don't think I'd know what the site was about.

LAYOUT & OVERALL DESIGN:
I'm always a fan of pastel colors on gray (it reminds me of chalkboards), but nothing seems to 'pop' or even interest me much. Try changing the background color so that it's not the same shade of gray as the container. Even with the purple border, the container still seems almost as if it's part of the background. Make it stand out.

The header image doesn't seem to make sense. I don't understand how the brushes you chose go together with each other or the font. Therefore, it seems like you hastily put this graphic together without much thought into creating a cohesive design.

As I noted previously, it's unique to have your affiliates and advertising right next to the header. However, since it's in such a prominent location, are you inviting your visitors to leave right away? If you're going to put some kind of information up there, perhaps you should put something that directs the visitor to something you want him or her to look at on your site (e.g. latest updates, or even that contest information that's always at the beginning of your blog post - which I will mention later).

Your navigation is also in a prominent location, which is good. I can find it right away. Consider rearranging the links. It would make more sense for "Ask Me" to be after Webmiss, since usually people ask questions after they've gone through all of the available information. Although it's not a big deal, maybe you should try adding a different background color to the navigation bar, too. Like I mentioned before, nothing seems to stand out, and your navigation is one thing you want to strike the visitor immediately, so they know how to get around your site!

BLOG:
I have to scroll through a huge block of text about your mini-contest before I even get to the actual entry. I personally find this kind of annoying since I want to read your latest post, and not the same old contest info that has been at the top for a while. I imagine most of your visitors have seen it already, so a better location for it would be at the end of your blog. We can still read it if we're interested, but if not, it's not in the way of what we are here to see.

I think your blog is interesting, and you tie each of your ideas up pretty well. I don't usually feel like I'm left hanging after reading. Your grammar is also quite good, but I did catch a few errors. For one, you spelled "Michael" incorrectly, and there should be a comma after "well" in the fourth paragraph.

You might want to tone down the smiley usage, as it's borderline excessive in the latest post. Also, try to keep it consistent - some smilies are images, while others are text.

VISITOR:
Although this also isn't a big deal, but more of a semantic thing, try not to put things that aren't quotes inside of a blockquote. You could just as easily style a paragraph in the same way.

Graphics/Sitely Stuff
For one, I would recommend that you change the word "Sitely" to "Site-Related," since it's not actually a word, and usually the -ly suffix indicates an adverb, which are not to be used to describe nouns. Anyway.

- Coded Layouts:
They're all simple, neat, and clean, and I could see people using them. However, the navigation links in "So Lovely" are a little hard to read, as are the regular links in "Vintage." The purple layout is good; I actually like it better than the layout your actually using.

- Desktop Wallpapers:
Try to make actual thumbnails of your wallpapers instead of just resizing them in the browser. The file size isn't any smaller when you just display it as a smaller image, so it still takes just as long to load as if the full-size images were loading. This could be a problem for people on slow internet connections.

Try adding more variety to your wallpapers. All of them are essentially some generic quote with brushes on a solid background. It would also be a good idea to offer them in other sizes, too, since there are other screen resolutions that are common nowadays (more common than 800x600 now, at least!).

- Icon Backgrounds:
I'm not really sure what these are for since I don't use Iconator. But anyway, some of them seem kind of low quality, and others use dated trends (some of the swirls and splat brushes are very 2006 or earlier). Think about if you would use these now. If maybe they were cool in times past, then consider getting rid of the older, lower quality things. Some of these are nice, but it's hard to notice them among everything else.

- Name Signatures (Siggies):
Again, make actual thumbnails that are smaller physical and file size will help the load time. One of them has a broken Photobucket link. A few of them have credit text that doesn't blend well with the image, so they're not as visually appealing. I think the transparent ones are better than the ones with a white background.

- Pixelations:
The bullets are certainly usable, as I've used one of them before. The heart bullets don't have transparent backgrounds, so make sure to fix that. The new/updated blinkies flash kind of obnoxiously, so perhaps you should have a slower animation on them. The other pixels are cute, too. Keep working at these and adding more variety!

- Scribbles:
I'm also not sure what people would use these for, but they're kind of cute. The hamburger one is pretty good! If you're going to add more, keep them at this level of quality or better. Remember to stay consistent with transparency, too; the peace sign and pencil still have white backgrounds.

- Stock Photography:
Again, resizing images with a little code doesn't make the file size any smaller or the loading time any quicker. There are a lot of images on this page, so people on slow connections will have to wait a while to view all of them. Resize the images to 100x100 in your graphics program and upload them separately, and then link those to the full size photos. The page should load a lot faster.

I like that you have a lot of variety. The city ones are really nice, and I like a lot of the nature ones, too.

Competitions/Interact
- Guess the Number:
An easy contest to participate in, and I suppose a decent prize for a moments worth of thought. Not the most interesting contest, but it's something to do for a minute.

- Pixel Contest:
Closed, so I won't comment on this.

- What Is It?
I think it's kind of a fun contest. Instead of the more common "What is it?" contests where an image is grossly distorted, this is a close-up!

Services:
- Advertising & Plugboard:
Self-explanatory.

- Request:
I advise you to specify what sorts of things visitors can request. I don't think they want to waste their time asking you to make something if you don't know how to make it. The rules are very vague and don't give much of a guideline - do you make layouts, icons, what?

Tutorials:
- Log into Core FTP Correctly:
The first image is too big for the content section.

I would just like to note that the first way that "doesn't work" worked just fine for me when I used Core FTP, so perhaps you should rename your tutorial "Alternate Log In Method for Core FTP" or something like that.

- Make 3D Text Using Paint Shop Pro
A basic tutorial. I think this is kind of an easy effect to figure out, too. Perhaps you should add tutorials on things that a lot of people wouldn't know how to do. Anyway, it is an easy-to-follow tutorial. Try to sound more definitive though - instead of saying something *might* pop up, say that it will or should.

- Turn Image Packs Into Brushes Using Paint Shop Pro
Another basic, easy-to-follow tutorial.

Something I want to comment on for all of your tutorials is that you have an excessive amount of "Copyright Shockwave" notices all over the images. It kind of distracts from the information a reader actually needs from the image. Try to keep these small and simple, away from the main information that people need to read. Having it written so large makes you look kind of amateur-ish and paranoid about stealers.

Articles/Written Work
- Best Friends:
A cute poem. Nothing much to say about it; it's a creative work.

- Gay Marriage:
A common subject of debate. Try to add a few more points to support your opinion and elaborate on the ones you are trying to make. Some of the things you've written make it sound like you're not knowledgeable on the subject. For example, you wrote, "The bible says that gay marriages go against God, or something similar to that." - What DOES it say? You can't refute someone else's argument if you don't really know what it is they're basing their opinion on. You also pose the question, "What happened to the first amendment?" The first amendment gives you freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and the right to petition. It doesn't say you're free to do whatever you want. So make sure you've got all your facts together before you write an article like this; otherwise, people won't take you seriously or they might even debunk your argument mercilessly.

Also, "Bible" needs to be capitalized.

- The Social Classes of the Web:
I think it's interesting that you try to give a background of "real life" social classes to relate to online social classes. I also think you could elaborate more on the subject. You just define in a simple sentence what each "class" is, so you could definitely go into more detail. What do people think of each class? Why are they so popular?

I would also like to note that you speak of times before the 21st century as if they are ancient or medieval times! The 20th century, just ten years ago, had social constructs very similar to today. And there are so many more social structures you *could* talk about in 'old' social classes. Life wasn't the same for all of the previous thousands of years of civilization!

ASK ME:
Self-explanatory.

SITE:
A short and sweet site history (well, there's not much history to talk about anyway).

You could easily combine a few of the subpages onto the main Site page, such as the Link Back buttons. Then there would be less link-clicking that visitors have to do.

- Affiliates, Contact Me, Credits:
All self-explanatory. Nothing to say here.

- FAQ:
Ah! Back to the "Ask Me" section. Why is this linked within the "Site" section, when it already has its own link in the main navigation?

WEBMISS:
Informative and easy to follow. There are a few errors: "Cousins'" should be "cousins" (no apostrophe) and "use to" should be "used to."

Basics covers almost exactly the same information as the beginning, so some of it is redundant. Either put this before the longer description (gradually go into more depth) or remove the information that is a repeat of something you already told us.

Favorites is just a list of your favorite things, nothing extraordinary. Perhaps you should write a short blurb about why these are your favorites.

OVERALL:
Your site can keep someone busy for a while. It's easy to navigate and user-friendly. The quality and variety of some of your content could be improved, but you have a lot of potential, so keep working at constantly getting better! :)

Categories

Latest Reviews