Starlyts has 18 Reviews
Below are the reviews left by other members on Starlyts. Jump to review form?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/bubblez.png)
bubblez gave it
on 10th Dec 2008 and said:Hi Rachel. I am bubblez. And I hope my review can help make your site better than it is already is=) In
some areas, I may be too harsh/honest. But like I mention before, I hope I can help to make your site better :)000. Site Name Originality
It is unique. Easy to remember and type in.001. Layout
Overall: There's so much going on. It looks so full. =D I don't really like the "you here" images on the right
side of your layout. The affiliates images are unique but takes some room of your layout. Maybe resize it a bit.
Your affiliates are ALL over the place. Make them in one area. :)
Images: It's okay but like I said, it's too crowded. >< The content box is way too small.
CSS: Not bad. But I am sure you can do a lot better.002. Sitely Content
Affiliation: Easy to understand. However, like above, make them in area. You can still do your 3 categories but
instead of being scattered all over the place, it is in one area. It will save room for sure =)
Affiliates: Wow. A lot of affiliates! I think you should do an affiliate check since not all of them might be
active.
Contact: Interesting. Easy to fill out form. But you should make website optional since not all of your visitors
might have websites.
Credits: Good job on crediting:)
Link Buttons: These can be done in a much-better quality.003. Content
Myspace: I don't use myspace. I won't review these. :)
Tutorials: Yay, they are in ABC order. So much tutorials. Some of them are easy to understand while others are sorta hard to understand.
Downloads: Brushes and textures are unique.
Graphics: Nicely done. The graphics with celebrity are illegal by the way. Some graphics ae not original.004. Overall
Overall, I was amazedd by your site. It is very packed with content. Some content are low-quality. Just remember
that quantity is not everything but quality matters the most. Just fix your errors and the site should be fine :)005. HTML/CSS Validation:
I can't validate your css. This is really bad. For HTML, you have 103 errors. That is outrageous. This will affect how fast your website loads up. You should fix it and validate your HTML!Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/ShadowedLife.png)
ShadowedLife gave it
on 1st Dec 2008 and said:I will be straight out honest and say that your website does take a tiny bit longer than usual websites to load, however, being a patient person, I don't mind that. Just might bother some other visitors of yours. =) Your layout is extremely unique all the time and amazing. Very interesting way to sort your affiliates o.o
Two things that bothers me personally well maybe not just me, but people who has a screen resolution of 1024x768 will see a side scroll bar which isn't a really big deal, but when the music starts to play automatically, they might get irritated every time they visit your site XD.
Hmm.. yes I'll just make this one really short and say that your website is very inspirational. You have a different style and you definitely seem to put a lot of effort and time into your site. Your current layout is a lot better than the one you had before =) and yea, good job!Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/lillie.jpg)
lillie gave it
on 30th Nov 2008 and said:Hiya Rachel ! :]
First Impression:
It took a long time to load which made my whole computer lag. Once loaded (it's still isn't completely loaded now), honestly I didn't know where to start. The little houses on the side instantly confused me (although I give kudos for the originality). Also, the rollovers ("refresh, myspace, content, tutorials") are a tad sloppy. When rolled over, the text moves (I'm not sure if it's supposed to). The text move (all of them) in different directions (up, down, stays the same), while "content" doesn't move at all. Your blog and right sidebar are too close together, just separate by about 10px. Overall I think the bar where the houses and affiliates are, is simply unnecessary.Pages:
-Rachel:
I like how you describe yourself, it's not a personal site so I wouldn't be picky about this. But the picture of Hayden looks seriously scary. Also, I don't think you should put "site name" on your about me page, it practically throws everything off.-Myspace:
Umm. I really think you should have fixed this page before adding your site here, I think this page hurt you a bit (the overall appearance). Another thing is, all the myspace layouts you offer are basically the same thing with a different background. They don't appeal to me and if I was searching for a myspace layout, I wouldn't use one of yours. Also, the backgrounds are simple and look like beginner's work on Photoshop.-Graphics:
What can I say? I was completely lost. The text in the boxes are a little too big and they were hard to read with the background in place.
Sub pages under 'Graphics' :
I believe there are two links for "affiliates button". So I would suggest putting everything that goes under "graphics" to be on one page. There isn't much content under "forums and downloads" so in conclusion I think it's pointless.-Website Layouts:
There isn't much that I can say about these. They're easy on the eyes (the picture preview) but they all look like your current layout to me. Also, the previews (pages) for them take a while to load. When clicking on the last layout (Hilary Duff), I saw the weirdest thing ever. Then I took a look at the other layouts and realized the CSS for all of them were the same as the CSS currently used on your site. This made me conclude that you didn't take much time to change things up for your content. And if you ask me, some of the things used in the layouts look like saruna.net stuff from their previous layouts. Overall, the layouts have a bad color scheme and the textures used in them don't make sense.-Tutorials:
Well this page is just the same as your 'graphics' page. The hard to read and makes my eyes spin. I strongly recommend putting it all under one page (loading reasons).-Sitely:
Well the title of the page isn't a word, so I'm not so sure you should leave it like that. The page is self explanatory so I won't go through every page. But, I did look at "past layouts" and I see that one of your old layouts is being offered for usage in the "Website Layout" section. That was smashing to know.Overall Conclusion:
The whole site is basically cluttered and most obviously busy. There are some coding mistakes but I see in your past reviews, people have already mentioned it. All in all, this site would be great if the problems mentioned were fixed. (In all reviews).Good Luck! (:<
UPDATED 30 Nov 08:
the new layout's cute (:
but if you're going to make the layout scroll in a tiny box like that, you should take out the affiliates part on the bottom. I thought you were using iframes for a second there o-o; just a suggestion :]Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Anthonyash.png)
Anthonyash gave it
on 30th Nov 2008 and said:This is going to be short because I have to get off. The site doesn't look very organized. It gives off a feeling of cluttered and messy. I think you should make a new simple layout and get rid of the affiliates pictures at the bottom and just provide a link.
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Jessica.png)
Jessica gave it
on 29th Nov 2008 and said:(This review is going to be a little short!)
At first glance, your layout kind of looks like the layout on Saruna.net. I like the colors and textures you've used, however.
The navigation links on the sidebar look a little messy, and I don't think you should center everything! To me, centering things makes them look a bit unorganized, but that's just me ;D A lot of other people seem to disagree with that, aha.
Graphics: This page looks pretty decent, although the text underneath your header images are a little too big and plain looking. Try adding more style to it!
Tutorials: Same as above!
The other pages look pretty decent, as well.
Quality: All of your graphics seem to have good quality, and that's always a good thing!
Overall, your site could be great if you just organized things more!
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/nickolena.png)
nickolena gave it
on 29th Nov 2008 and said:First I would like to say that I review mainly on esthetics. I am not an expert on CSS but I always enjoy a good design.
Your header is slightly messy. I may think that because I am very big on simplicity. The vector is beautiful though! DId you make it yourself? Its gorgeous! Your title for your site is hard to find though. I had to squint to make out what it said. I believe you should of kept it all one color instead of the mix of blue and white. Then their is a black stripe at the bottom....its huge! I looks like it is suppose to be their on purpose sense the brushes go over it...I am not really digging it though. I honestly think that black stripe needs to be cropped out.
On to the rest of the layout. Oh dear, your header goes on top of the rest of your layout. It makes your "navigation" title hard to read. I like how your headers are neutral colors that go with your header. Your navigation links are a little to much. The colors match but your header is already so busy. The links add to much to the rest of the layout. Its a little crazy.
Some people like underlined link, but I am not one of them. It makes your site look unprofessional. Your affiliates area is a little crazy. It appears that you have a world link and a picture link for them. You should go one way or the other. I personally would go with the picture links and make them stop marqueeing. Haha I do not know if that is a word. Probably not.
All in all your colors all go together. Great color scheme. The only thing that bothers me is that your layouts is just to busy.
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dinomyte gave it
on 28th Nov 2008 and said:Your background looks... a little dirty, and you can see the lines from where you repeated the pattern. You'd be better off either going with a plain background or ones where the background colors don't change; that way, you wouldn't get the line.
The actual image took forever to load and looks strange. You have an incredibly light area to the left, and the rest is swallowed up by a dark brown/black. The vector's left arm is fuzzy, and it would look better if it was a regular image, rather than the shoulder being blended in with the bridge. I think it looks very rushed and as though you haven't really thought about it.
On your blog area, you should move the title of the blog down, or change the colour; you can't read it through the brush. (I'd say the same for the title of the navigation area; the text is a tad hard to read) I'd also recommend moving the links down, rather than having them overlap on the title.
On your graphics page, I'd change the font on the description of each area to make it match with the font on the rest of your site. It would just make everything look neater.
Looking at the website section, your web layouts are okay. The textures you've used are quite nice, but I think sometimes you went a bit overboard with the colours and textures, especially on the 3rd one. I'd recomment sticking to a 3 or 5 hued colour scheme. Some of the images either don't load, or take forever to load. You might also want to fix the coding on some of them in some layouts, you have a coloured background and at a certain point the background suddenly goes white. The header images are also a little out of proportion to the rest of the layout.
The affliate buttons are okay as well, but some of the backgrounds are either very busy or a bit tacky, in my opinion.
The bullets and cursors are cute and the buttons are nice, but I'm not sure that using images from your own layouts is really the best decision.
The colour chart is too wide for the content area, and I'd try having it on an off-site link, or at least on a page where you don't have the rest of your layout, as it would be confusing to have to scroll along to see the rest of the colour code.
The dividers are nice enough, but again, I'm not sure that using images from your own layouts is the wisest decision.
On the image templates page, I'd make sure that the font is consistent with the rest of your site's font. You've repeated yourself when you're explaining about the divider template,This is 300x16. It is a good size for a divider, so if you are making dividers, this is a good template for you to use.
You've already said that it's a good size to use for a divider, so you don't really need to say it again.
I don't really see the point of the mood indicators; at least put faces or somethin to show the emotions on the blocks.
I think you should decide where you put your content, because it's a little silly having the some of the same content in different sections; do they belong in the website section or the images section?
The larger images are fairly cute, but the glitters are a bit of an eye-sore, they glitter so much! I'd try and turn it down when you're next making some!
The scribbles are too wide for the content box, so I'd try using thumbnails to display them.
The myspace layouts are okay; again, I wouldn't use some of your own backgrounds for them. You could change some of them.
On the tutorials page, try to keep the font consistent. You certainly offer a huge variety of tutorials, but I'd put all of the PHP ones into a separate section.
You certainly show potential at your site, and I enjoyed reviewing it!Using MSIE on Windows | Report This?
kkickball gave it
on 28th Nov 2008 and said:First Impression
When I first clicked to your site my impression was, "Wow! I like the layout!" and I do! The top graphic is really great looking! I do like it a lot. I especially like the "welcome" right in the header. It makes it look clean and adds a little more to the header! I also like how the Navigation is on the side. The colors all match well and compliment each other well. I can't complain about the layout at all. :)I can't say anything about the blog since you are on hiatus, so I just will leave that out.
On the "Rachel" page, it would be great if you put your picture instead of a picture of Hayden Panitierre (sp?) SO people could get to match a face with the text/blog.
I also don't think putting ways to support the site and help you make money (such as clicking on links, etc...) should be so large. I really don't think it should be there at all, but if so, make it smaller. It ust looks tacky.
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Michelle.png)
Michelle gave it
on 27th Nov 2008 and said:Hi, Rachel! I'm Michelle and I'll be doing a review on your website (:
-First Impression
Looking at the little blurb in your layout, I can't help but wonder who the "we" are. Is there someone else who owns the website? If so, are they credited? It's kind of a pet peeve of mine when people write "we" and "us" on their websites when it's only one person maintaining it.
I dont really know what to say about your layout. It's not ugly, but not pretty either. I'd say it's in the middle. The good thing is that you sliced it, which I like! Thumbs up for that!
YES! YOU USE WORDPRESS! HIGH FIVE! Dudette, I'm already loving most of your website because you're not using Cutenews. (: Yaay.
I dont really like it when people offer advertising for real money, but that's just my opinion. Why are there a bunch of links underneath the "Your Site Here?" banner? Shouldn't you use a button rotation script for that? The links make it look kind of messy. Eh.
-Rachel
Why is there a picture of Hayden Panetierre (spelling?) in your "Rachel" page? I'd rather see a non-celeb picture, or even better - a picture of you. By putting this image of Hayden you're kind of implying that it's a picture of you, which is kind of weird in my opinion.
Put more info! I'd love to hear more about you (:
-Myspace
I dont know how to use MySpace so I won't review this.
-Graphics
You're aware that it's illegal is use celebrity images, correct? Good, because some of your content has them and I don't think it's appropriate.
Especially when you're asking for credit to yourself and not the photographers who took the picture. Also, I don't really like how you put your website url on the actual header image of your coded layouts. I wouldn't use these layouts because the credit is too big. But maybe it's just me, I don't know.
Again, you should tell your visitors to credit the source for these images in the coded layouts by giving them the link to the website, at least. Or even better, take them down and use your own images.
Your colour chart section is useless. People can just download Pixie or something to get colour hex codes. And you didn't credit the place you got the table code for the chart, unless you made it yourself or I'm overlooking it.
Your image templates are also useless. People can make their graphics 100x100px themselves using PS/PSP, or even MS Paint.
I don't really understand how to use your mood indicators.
Your cursors page is pointless, but only because I can't see any of the cursors when I hover over the "HOVER HERE" box. I'm using FireFox, by the way, so I might be a factor. I'm not too sure, though.
I don't think anyone uses dividers anymore, but I'm not going to force you to take them down.
Some of your backgrounds hurt my eyes when used. Maybe you should change the colours of them. And the link button/image you included int eh code for these backgrounds is broken so you should fix that. Also, the link of the image is hosted by your website and if people use them they'll be taking your bandwidth. It'd be better if you hosted them at imageshack or tinypic.
I like your pixels - very cute!
Your icons are pretty good too.
-Tutorials
I dont really think that your "basic html" page is useful. Everybody knows how to make a word bold.
UPDATED 27 Nov 08:
(ctnd.)
Everyone knows how to code using bold tags and linking tags. Its not necessary to make those tutorials.
-Overall
I think you work hard on your site which is a good thing but you should work on making better tutorials. They aren't that helpful considering the fact that most, if not all, of your visitors already know basic html tags like the bold tags.Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Nadine.jpg)
Nadine gave it
on 27th Nov 2008 and said:Frontpage/first impression: I really like the layout! But the black under didn’t look so good. The navigation didn’t fit in. If they were normal text it would look better. The coulours are nice. Good that you used white background under the layout or else it would have been to much. I like the coulor on the text, but I’m not so sure if i like the brown one. And headline ‘hiatus’ and the other ones stand on other text.
Site/me: The Rachel page is a little messy I think. With some text really bigger then others. And I don’t see why you have Hayden Panettiere there.
Content: On the myspace layouts it’s hard to see the text, you just see the background. But I think they’re really cool. Graphics page looks not to good I think, either the tutorial page. The pictures and the text is too big. You have lots of good content. The coded layouts are nice. But you could maybe have a little bit smaller layouts.
Tutorials: Lots of them! But I wont check them out.
Graphics: I think your graphics are really gorgeous!! You have a really nice effect on them!
Over-all: I think you have a good site, but there is some things you need to fix. Like some places there is too big text. Everything need to look neat and well together.
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Celery gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Design/Layout
The layout took longer to load than I would've liked. You'd be better off using .jpg of .gif (while still keeping the quality) instead of .png. And while the header is nice, it is a little busy and big. I don't like having to scroll too much to get to the content (as a visitor, I'm lazy). The color scheme isn't bad. The layout would look better if it were centered though.The text is far too small and lacks sufficient padding. It makes me feel a little "claustrophobic." Also, are the colored bold, italicized, and underlined text really necessary? It's difficult to tell them apart from your links.
What are the links at the top of every page? They should go in the sidebar instead.
Content
The section about you doesn't really tell me much. I'd like to know what makes you different from other people.When linking to your individual tutorials and graphics, you should be a little more specific. That way visitors don't have to click on everything just to find out what they are (which gets frustrating quickly, in my opinion). What kind of image templates are they? What is "dazzling HTML?" Titles for what? It's hard to know what they are without having to click on them. As I've mentioned, visitors are usually lazy.
It looks like you only have about two different textures, but in different colors. The colors could easily be manipulated by the user.
Many of your tutorials are either on a million other sites or are common knowledge.
There were a few errors and missing pages around your site (like "making a website" under Website Tips, and "php your ip address").
Coding
Why isn't the "Home" link styled like the rest of your navigation? It looks a little awkward.
Other than this, the main concerns have already been addressed.Some other things I'd like to point out:
- Google isn't a creditable source for images. It's only a search engine.
- If you're the only one running the site, there is no need to use "us" or "we" the way you have in your disclaimer and welcome message.
- The services aren't really services. They just seem like links to random things.
- There are many (many, many) sites out there like yours, also with redundant visitor content. I'd like to see you offer something unique in terms of graphics and tutorials.I can tell you put some time into this, but there's always room for improvement. :)
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Anna_Kirstin.gif)
Anna_Kirstin gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:---- First Impression -----
My first impression was the same as Theresa's. It took a while to load even with my internet being very fast. Most sites don't take that long to load for me. Anyone visiting for the first time on a dial-up connection (and there are still people who are) would probably not wait around for your site to load. Visitors are impatient - especially first time visitors. If you want visitors to keep coming back you've got to hit the mark with the first impression.Your layout is extremely cluttered looking. You have so much going on that it's hard to focus on any one thing. I have little idea where to look for what.
The background you have tiled is adding to this problem. For one thing it is a massive image which takes along time to load and for another, parts of it aren't necessary. You don't need the solid color behind your content area to be in the image. Your site would load so much quicker if you removed the large background image and broke your site down into div layers using CSS. This way you could specify background colors for areas like your content area where the image is almost a solid color anyway. Only use images in design where you must to achieve the effect you want. Don't rely on them for the entire design.
The background image you're using also seems to clash with your header image. It also causes your affiliate's buttons to blend in too much. I would remove that background image all together. It doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the site and is slowing down loading big time. While I'm discussing your affiliates, your page would load much faster if you removed the buttons and linked to them using a text link.
The tiny clickable browser you have in your header image is unnecessary. I'm not even really sure why you have it there. It's very random without an explanation. You would achieve a much greater effect if you used a small button and a button rotation script that allowed one button on the page at a time. The same goes for the box things next to it. I'm not sure why they are there and for this reason I have no interest at all in clicking them. You would probably do better if you removed these from your layout completely and placed them in a section of your site somewhere with a small explanation as to why I should click them. Give your visitors an idea as to what things are.
Think of your visitors as idiots. This idiot waltzes into your site and the first thing you do is over-whelm him. He doesn't know in which direction to turn, so he turn in circles until he gets dizzy and leaves. If this same idiot waltzed into a site that was laid out so that he knew exactly which direction to turn to for what. He wouldn't be lost and would be much more likely to stay and browse. Point in case, design as if you were going to be faced with an idiot. Don't have so much going on that you confuse and confuddle your visitors.
Your header image as a whole just has too much going on. You would achieve a much better effect if your simplified things.
------ Coding ------
I notice that you don't use an external style sheet. Using an external style sheet would be another way to decrease the loading time of your page. Tutorialtastic has an article on Separating Style from Content that I think you should read. It gives information on how to achieve this and lists resources if you need further help.I'm not going to go much further into your coding because it's all over the place. You have your style attributes listed twice. You only need it listed once. You also use too much javascript. This in itself will also slow your page down on loading. My suggestion would be to remove the large majority of your javascript. Remove all of it, if possible.
----- Text ------
Your text size is way too small. I would highly suggest increasing it. You want your text to be large enough to be easily read without having your visitor have to focus on every single word to try to make it out. This is what your text does at the moment. It makes my eyes have to focus in on the words too much to read them because the text is so small. Over time, the strain this causes my eyes will make me tired and I will just stop reading. You don't want that, so increase the text size. Take a look at some of the other sites listed here and you will get a general idea of what a good text size is. :)I'm not finished with this review. I have to be somewhere in fifteen minutes so I will finish this when I get back. I'm posting it now so that you can have an idea of what you can work on in the mean time. (If you see this.)
UPDATED 26 Nov 08:
Wow. I'm gone like 2 hours and I can already see that you've made some improvements. It looks a lot less busy now. You're doing a great job. :)--- Back to the Text -----
The headers in your entries and your nav-bar could stand out a little bit more. The first one on your entries div is very hard to see because it blends in too much with the background behind it. You'll either need to give it some more padding so that it is off of the background or change it somehow so that it stands out more and can be more easily read. The first heading on the side-bar has the exact same problem with it being on top of the background and hard to read.Your over-all text could use some more padding from the left. It's too close to the border on the left side. Giving it some more padding will help make the text stand-out more clearly and will also help get rid of some of that "cluttered" look.
----- Navigation -----
I'm glad to see that your navigation has been simplified some. I like how you have the border on the left side change colors on hover. I just think you need to add a little bit more padding between the border and your text. Right now, the text is right next to the border. Again, a little padding would help give it a more well-spaced, less cluttered look.----- Rachel -----
I go to this page to learn more about you and the first thing that catches my attention is a celebrity image. Celebrity images are illegal to use with out the permission of the photographer. They are copyright to the photographer who took the picture and your use of it is a break in copy-right law. On top of that, if there are any pictures on this page, I would much rather them be of you or a pet or anything else actually related to you.Your table with the things to do to make you happy is a bit distracting with the large text. It seems out of place to have such large text when all of your other text is really small. I would suggest getting rid of the table and using an unordered list to just list the information.
I'm not going to review your tutorials or layouts or anything. There are others who are better at that than I am. :)
------ Over-all ------
I would continue to work on giving the site a less cluttered look. I would also highly consider removing the celebrity images. Copyright infringement is a no-no. I would suggest that you increase the text size and add some more padding to a few areas to help achieve a more-spaced, less-cluttered look. I would also suggest that you read up on some tutorials on how to improve your CSS and HTML. Tutorialtastic is a great place to start.Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Susanna.png)
Susanna gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Hey! Just seen your site on the new sites section so thought I'd give you a review. I'm only going to review the homepage part of your site, because I don't have much to say about your content
First of all, your layout is SO busy. It has so much going on all at once, it's really... stressful! To make it less busy, I have some major advice;
1. Get rid of the badly tiled vertical section to the left of the page - it's not adding anything other than more colour to your layout, but the colours are already visible elsewhere.
2. CENTER your layout - not only does it look SO much better, but your layout would work great centered!
3. Your page background isn't great, it looks quite badly tiled and faded. Maybe you could get a better background image?
4. however, I do really like the bit on your background to the very top left corner of your page - where it's kinda faded? I think it would be a great idea to use this sort of thing around the content or layout if it was centered.
5. Get rid of the links on the layout - the "add our myspace" etc , they look like horrible ads!
Okay, moving onto you content area, obviously the first thing I notice is the huge "Your Site Here?" ad on top. This looks horrid! Can't you move this to underneath your content? You should also reduce the width of this because it's too big for the content area. Even if you don't, I reckon you should move it down so it's underneath the patterned part.
Likewise on your sidebar, I think it would look much prettier underneath the pattern/brush.
I don't particularly like your navigation. it looks overdone and it is too spaced out.
Other than that, I don't really have much to say on your homepage. I think the layout is really nice, but could be presented much better if you consider the points I made. I think de-cluttering the layout is your number one issue. Also, like the other reviewers, your site made my computer go extremely slow on a normally fast connection. I've given you three stars (without looking at your content, remember) because i feel that the site has potential that isn't quite being reached, so I'll give you halfway.
Hope you find this review useful!
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Liz.png)
Liz gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Layout/Design
This layout has like 4584895748954890809 things going on all at once! It hasn't even loaded all the way for me so everything is half loaded.It takes foreverrrrrr to load on dialup!
I can't even tell what this background is. If you're going to use a background image use something simple that compliments your layout like stripes or dots but doesn't pull your visitor's attention to the background.
The images you use for your affies are too big and distracting. Then you use other flashy little banners for your "elite" affies. Why not just put them in links on the sidebar there so they match the layout?
There is a lot of junk on your layout like the plugboard which you could move to a separate page. The poll is sort of big and doesn't really match the layout I'd have it in blogs only. Another good idea is to move your "ask me" bar to a separate page as well. What is that happy thing with the little bars? It doesn't match your layout even thought it's small it's sort of irritating. What is it for anyway?
Also why is that screen shot and those big button things there? They don't look that nice and the font in them is very blurry. You just need to clear out all the unnecessary junk from your sidebar and just have your affiliates as neat links. Also the mood indicator thing, screenshot and buttons. A new sleek background would make it look so much more organized.Coding
Oohhhh no:( your coding looks like a mess.
You forgot your doctype and head tags. Your doctype is basically says what type of html it is and it should be the very first thing on your page/header. Then your head tags should go and inside there you should have your title tags and css tags ect so you should cut and paste this in your header.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
See? The doctype first then html tags head tags and body tags(: make sure to close them in the right order html then body.
Ahhh your css is all in your page. Whatcha gotta do is cut and paste all of your css to a new file and name it "style.css" then put this in between your head tags.
Your header should now look like so
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title> sitenamee</title>
<link href="stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>Do you really need all those advertising links? Why not save it as a file and use the javascript that way?
And instead of
<div style="position: absolute; top: 161px; left: 608px; width: 210px;">
Use positioning in your css! For example above a sidebar or something And put all the postitioning things in your css under
#Sidebar
Width: blabhalh;
Left: dkfjldj;
Top: fjkjdf;
something like that makes your coding a ton cleaner. Another tip is never ever capitalize any of your tags! No random tags either like this:
in line<div id=sidebarrr>That tag is doing nothing so why have it there?
Also don't forget to put at the very end of your footer/page
</body>
</html>
You need a ton of help in coding so either fix your mistakes or start fresh with a lovely precoded template from the wonderful Jem's site Hope you understood all that :P if you need any help at all don't hesitate to comment on my site: oh-blarg.netPages
It takes forrrreverrr to get from just one page to the next. Follow my suggestions and get rid of a lot of jun and unnecessary images on your site so it'll load faster. Gahhh now it says page load error because it took to long to load. Looks like I'm not reviewing your content.Overall
You need to get rid of the junk in your sidebars like affiliate banners and those little house things as well as tons of other images. This layout needs some work and the coding too. Looks like you've got a lot of work ahead of you. Need any coding help? Just comment my site: oh-blarg.netUsing Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Becca.jpg)
Becca gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Well,
You're layout, although it's absolutely gorgous, took a trazillion years to load ( well, about a minute but 'tever ) and I've got a pretty speedy connection.Your affies: I had to highlight the title that said affies to read it in the first place - I thought the random houses were a part of the layout at first. Your affiliates are taking up to much space. It's supposed to be a quick link back. I suggest you have your elite affies there, then the others on a seperate page ( like "more" or something )
What is up with your title bar?? Title bars are for your site name ( and possibly the name / version of your layout ) NOT for something that should be the title of a blog. Really, I only noticed because I review the title bar on most sites anyway!
Your background; Uhmm, love, is it supposed to look tiled? I don't know if it was or not but it doesn't look very nice. You should perhaps try fixing this, it looks a bit tacky.Why is there a 'be my affiliate' bit at the top of EVERY PAGE?? Seriously?? It's driving me insane! No to mention, you have waayyy to many as it is!
Myspace. Ewwwwww. Myspace. I hate myspace. I feel like killing that Tom Dude (not literally of course). Nice idea though. and the layouts are good :D
Website > Affiliate buttons. Nice. nice. Although maybe in future they should be a tad smaller.. People don't want their affiliates to take over their site now do they?
Website > Backgrounds. Nice. I like these a lot, although there are a couple with celebrities on them which is inface illegal. Also, the icon - y ones aren't very nice. but there rest are fabbity fab. :)
Website > Bullets. HA! That really made me laugh :) "a credit on a credit page" Where else do credits go?? HAHA -chuckles-
Website > Coded Layouts. OH NO! CELEBRITIES! ARGHH! NO! NO! You can't use them. I'm sorry but this is cutting down your rating. :/ The layouts themselves are good, however. :)
Website > Colour chart. Hun, if you're going to copy and paste something, at least make sure it fits on your page. Ok?
Website > Cursors. Did you make these? If so, congrats. they're great. If not, do you have permission to use them? Because if not, then it's illegal content.
Website > dividers. Purdyy. Although, I don't get why one of them has a bit of a starmonkey thing on it. Hmm? ( the sixteenth one I believe)
Website > Image templates. I like this idea, very original. Thumbs up here (Y)
Website > Mood indicators. I'm sure they are good but considering I don't get what they are I can't exactly say yes or no here. :/
Images > Affiliate buttons. Haven't we just had this page? yes. Thought so. Don't link pages more than once - It confuses the visitors.
Images > Blinkies. Wow. See, I have no effort for things like these so they really impress me (Y)
Images > glitters. Eww! Glitters. I'm glad they have their own page, I couldn't bear to have them everywhere. they hurt my eyes. I love the twilight quote though.
Images > I love.. pixels. Well, All good, but you missed "I love my girlfriend" for the blokes out there :P
Images > Image templates. Once again, a duplicate page. Not good missy. :P
Images > Larger images. Very nice ( minus the Mary Kate and Ashley one )
Images > Mood indicators. Ahhh. Duplicates everywhere. Am I on the website page again? Oh, no. Ok. Please change these links :/
Images > Pixels. You make these? Very cute. :)
Images > Scribbles. Very nice. Not very, well, scribbly though. They would be more apropriately named as "paint doodles" or something like that ( lol )
Forum > AIM Icons. LOL. The word AIM makes me chuckle. I'm a Brit so typically, I call it msn :) lol. Nice icons though ;) - Although I didn't miss that celebrity image!!
Forum > Livejournal icons. They were good, until I saw the celebrity images. Then I got disapointed :/
Woahh! Your background just changed. I'm guessing you're editing it now :/
Well, I'm going to continue as though that didn't happen. sorry, gotta continue as I started :)
Downloads > brushes. Preety. :) I like.
Downloads > textures. Wow. I really like these. J'adore them, infact :)
What the hell? The background is back & forth. I think you've missed out a code somewhere...
Tutorials. Well, I'm not reading all of them so I'll take your word for it that they are good. :)coding : The important shizz. The stuff that builds up your site. Is it up to scratch? I'm going to put your site through a validator to see. Ready?
...
...
twenty eight errors and thrity five warnings. Not too good, but not horrendous. I have eighty errors to work my way through :/ View them here xDOverall, Although I skipped a couple of bits because my fingers are cold and I don't want to type anymore, you have a very nice site. I think you need to sort out that dodgy background and possibly sort out the whole affiliates issue. Oh and get rid of those illegal celebrity images. Do you want me to explain why? I forgot to earlier. Well, basically, a celebrity image is copyright to the photographer. Because of this, sites need special permission to show them or edit them. The sites where you find them DO have permission, but you do not (well, if you do, tell me and I'll apologise and boost your rating). Not to mention, if somebody doesn't like the celebrities you have up, they wont re-visit will they? So you lose hits aswell. So yeah, not I've bored you to death with all this copyright poop, do you want my last peice of advice?
Enjoy working on your site. So many people feel their site is a chore once they get reviewed. That they have to perfect it. Don't! Take your time correcting these problems (well, hurry with the illegal issue) and have fun. It's your site, after all :)
UPDATED 26 Nov 08:
oh, and don't take to heart what I say, it's in your sites best interest. :)Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Maison.png)
Maison gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Hey Rachel.
My first impression of your website is that it's very...myspacey.
Your title is quite obnoxious with all of the :|::. stuff and whatnot. Your favicon is a bit weird looking, I don't even know what it's supposed to be a picture of but that's not a big deal.Your layout is very very busy. But not really in a pretty intricate way, it just looks cluttered and it's hard to look at. It's like you had a lot of good ideas for a layout but instead of spreading them out over time through many layouts you decided to make one power-layout of all of this stuff put together. Your background image probably wasn't meant to be repeated like that, usually seamless images are better for that kind of thing. In your navigation at the top (which is a bit difficult to find at first,) you put Refresh, which isn't as bad as "clear" or "x", but I think people would understand more if you just simply labeled it Home.
The sidebar and content look like one huge advertisement, with all of the ads and affiliates and things like that. I'm only okay with having one advertising (small) button on my website, I'm not sure how you stand looking at all of those all the time.
You should probably stick to a color scheme/palette when making your layouts, so it doesn't look so jumbled and disorganized.
I like how you put polls in most of your blogs. It makes me want to vote on some of that stuff and I think now I'll do that, just to make my blogs more interesting.
Your sidebar is very unnecessarily crowded. I guess the top commenters thing is nice if you want to encourage people to comment your blogs in exchange for publicity.
The poll in your sidebar makes it seem like you're trying to take people's money, and find out how much a person is willing to pay just to be advertised on your website. My vote is free, if you were wondering. I would maybe pay to be advertised on a largely well-known site, but I haven't really heard of your website that much so I probably wouldn't pay for it.Tutorials
I notice here that you seem to have an affiliate form on every page which kind of seems a bit like a beg for affiliates.
I think you've got some good coding tutorials. Some people just copy and paste something from w3schools.com and slap it onto their website, but you look like you're really trying to help people out with those.
I'm not going to look through all of the website tips, but from the title it looks like you've got some good topics going on there.Myspace
Myspace graphics won't get you far if you're trying to advance in graphic design, but I guess it's a good way to start out and learn. Your layouts have the same tiled image thing going on. A lot of them seem very similar, yet very simple to make. Like just a few color changes with a different background. It looks like you've got some broken images for thumbnails, by the way.Content
I think its a little strange that you offer affiliate buttons. I was going to do that once, but then I got frustrated because I didn't know what site each button was linking to, and I thought it was unfair since my site name was on someone else's website but I just had a picture with a link to theirs.
I like some of your backgrounds. Your templates page seems kind of useless, but you never know, I guess people who don't know these things might find it useful.Overall, your website is okay. I feel bad saying this because it looks like you could do better if you really tried, like you have the talent, you know what I mean? It's like you're trying to use every effect in the book to make your website good, when I think you just need to calm down with all of the extra stuff for a bit.
Using Safari on Windows | Report This?
Ashleyann gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Oh no, not another horribly put together myspace site! I'll be honest, the design is nice. The first thing I notice is that the background just doesn't go. You should either try a solid color background, or make the image into something that will repeat.
I try to look for the actual content, but all I see are a bunch of links, ads, and buttons for different sites. You have an "Advertise Here" section on both the sidebar and the main content. That just makes you seem like you just want money. In the future try to condense links in one area, and try just one "Advertise Here". Move the ads to the bottom of the page or something. If someone truly wants to click on the ads they will. The truth is that having a bunch of ads on the site just makes it look tacky. :(
I won't even bother reviewing your content as it takes too long to load for me. :( If you ever fix this, I'll look at it again.
Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
starlyts's Response:
Thanks. I'll try to find some tutorials to make everything load faster :)
UPDATED 26 Nov 08:
Thanks for the background tip, it looks better already :)![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Theresa.jpg)
Theresa gave it
on 26th Nov 2008 and said:Aesthetics
This is an extremely busy layout. It took forever to load, and I have a fairly quick internet connection, so I can only imagine for someone on dial-up, it would take even longer. I suggest you lighten it up a whole lot because some people may close your site before it finishes loading.
Your background image doesn't blend together so it looks messy and tiled. You have a ton of affiliate links to the left, but I have to hover over them to see where they go, which isn't good. People will be less likely to click on them.Content
You have a lot of content and your site is on the verge of crashing my browser and it's also freezing up my computer, I really can't view it all without risking this, what's turning out to be a short review.I gave you one star only because your site was so graphically intense.
Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
starlyts's Response:
Thanks so much! I was unaware of this, this will help me out a lot :) I'll try my best to fix this. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
UPDATED 26 Nov 08:
I tried fixing the background, hopefully that will help
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