rev.iew.me

Muddy Stream has 6 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Muddy Stream. Jump to review form?

1. kkickball gave it on 10th Dec 2008 and said:

   1. Definitely needs some work. The headers for your blog and sidebar blend in with the background, so unless you know they should be there and highlight them with your mouse, you can't see them.

   2. I think it could use some work. The sidebar from index should be a little more drastic. Maybe a border around them or maybe different color backgrounds...

   3. The huge thick dark green border around the header looks messy. It definitely makes the layout look very messy. I would get rid of that outline.

   4. The colors in the header are "eh" and the fonts do not match to the theme. Well, the "Winter Wonderland" can match because the font is pretty generic, but the name of your site is very off because of the hearts and "girly" look to the font itself. I also think the Title of your site (site name) should be bigger than the sub title or layout name.

   5. Your sidebar is organized weird. Why is "Poems" set off so far to the middle than the other links? I think you would need to work on that and group them better. Maybe like "Visitor Goodies", "Writing", "About Me" or such.

   Using Firefox on Mac | Report This?

   muddystream's Response:

   Firstly, the main text area has a background colour so the "Welcome to Muddy Stream" and "Navigation" shouldn't have to be highlighted.. Secondly, there are headers in the sidebar. There is a header for poems but you obviously can't see it because you can't seem to see the background colour for the content.

   The "girly" look that you called the site title font is actually "frosty" and they are snowflakes.

   You didn't comment on the content?

2. 

   Ann gave it on 9th Dec 2008 and said:

   Note: I wrote this review on Friday night/ Saturday morning, on your old layout and site, but due to a technical error Jem's just fixed, I couldn't submit it earlier. I realise most of it might be pretty redundant now, but I'm not about to re-do it all. I hope that some of it will still be helpful, and I've taken a quick look at your re-design which looks much better, so I've upped the rating I would have given it. If you would like me to write a whole new review on your current layout then let me know ;)

   Hey there! Your screenshot caught my eye, so I decided to review your website. I tend to give very long and detailed reviews, because I think they are the most helpful – I hope that you'll find this one so.

   First Impressions:
   *Eye catching layout. But why is it at the side of my screen?
   *Ah, default FF text. CSS issues I expect.
   *You use Cutenews, would not recommend.
   *Your validation is screwed.
   So, let's see how we get on with that, for starters...

   Layout:
   Like I said, your layout is very bold and eye-catching, I like it a lot, well done. It attracted me to review your site after all, and it stands out so well that people are naturally attracted to see it. I'm impressed. Perhaps it could be a bit “neater”, maybe smoothing the edges of the green lines (you can see that they're a bit pixelly). On the right hand side, where the lines look like they're supposed to have a shadow, it's just black – try introducing a few more tones to this. Did you create this in PSP? You should check out Photoshop, it's a lot easier to create smoother, shinier graphics in.

   Another issue I have is that the layout only takes up half of my screen (I have a wide screen), and so I have an ugly white space covering the right hand side of my screen – such a turn off for your site. You should look into centering your layout – so that no matter what screen size your visitors have, your site looks almost exactly the same for all of them.

   Okay, so now I'm coming to your blog. “Welcome to Muddy Stream The home of resources, gaphics, tutorials and blogging! News – Updates – Blog” - I'd get rid of that, because it's unnecessary, there's a typo (graphics) which will put people off, and it's pushing your actual blog further down. Now we get to the real problem – all of your text shows up as default Times New Roman, black on white, default text size. This can only mean that your CSS is screwed up, or you're requesting a font which I don't have – or both. I took a look at your CSS, and you're only specifying two different font types, the first of which, Centaur, I'm pretty sure I don't have. Basically, when you specify a font in your CSS, when a visitor sees your website then the CSS tells your computer to look for that specific font, and display it on the website. If the computer doesn't have that font, it goes along the line of CSS finding one that it does have, until it runs out - so the computer displays the default. You could add so much more to your CSS in general, being so specific so that even if the viewer has a computer out of the stone age the web page still looks customised neatly. For example, take a look at my font styling here:
   body {
background: #FFFce4;
font: 0.7em/1.5em Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #32383c;
}
   You really don't have much styling in your CSS at all, which I suspect means that you put it all in HTML on the actual page itself. You should be aiming to put all of the styling in your CSS, so it's only the text you want displayed on your page that's written down on the separate pages (I hope that made sense). For example, take a look at my CSS here (I think it's pretty self – explanatory) in comparison to my website here. You can get a lot of good CSS tutorials which explain how to do this in places like this and this .
   Another thing I don't like about your blog is that you use Cutenews. It is such a poor script, very easily hacked, and it putting your website at risk of all sorts of things. It's listed on Jem's list of Unsafe PHP Scripts, and I recommend you switch to something like FanUpdate, or if your host has a MySQL database to lend you, Wordpress. It could be down to Cutenews that I can't see your CSS.

   I see that you are using an Image Map for your navigation links (presumably so that they blend in with your layout). I strongly recommend that you stop using Image Maps too. They interfere with your SEO - how Google views your page (Google does not “see” images, only links, and the order in which they are in), and so your site does not rank highly on Google. Another thing is that they mess up your validation, and if the image link was to suddenly break then there would be no way of browsing your site. It is quite easy to get good looking navigation incorporated into your layout using CSS – check this out.

   Lastly under the “Layout” heading, I am going to check out how your site Validates – I suggest you read this article on why you should validate your site (Cutenews doesn't validate, by the way).
   ...or not. You don't even have a Doctype, so I presume that you've never heard of validation. Again, this is something I recommend you look into, for the reasons given in that last article.
   So, onto your content.

   Site:
   You've ordered your navigation in a bit of an odd way, by the way. If your site is a personal site the “about you” link should be first. If it is a resources site, then that link should come first – just a general tip.
   Having a “home” link first is kind of redundant – I want to click the first thing I see, but I can't because it will take me back to the the index. Plus, you already have a “clear” link in your nav for that.
   About – short, and to the point. Nice. Maybe write a bit more about what inspired you or something, it just seems too short, and I'm nosey.
   There's nothing else I can really review in this section.

   Resources:
   Oh dear. You do know that taking and redistributing images is illegal, without the photographer's written permission, right? You've only credited Google Images LOL, seriously, please take these down. They're tacky, and not even good quality.
   For your codes and stuff, you should be looking at putting the codes in customised “code” tags (CSS again!) and not in texareas. Apart from this, I find these really basic and boring, the kind of visitors you should be looking to attract won't be interested in this.
   I doubt people are going to be taking your advice on CSS seeing how little you seem to know about it yourself.

   Owner:
   Again, all of this is really well written, and to the point. Off topic: I'm doing Music AS too! Nice subject choices, if I wasn't a science geek I'd probably choose what you have.
   Anyway, nice info. Since you write so well, I really want to see more!

   Overall:
   Something I forgot to say earlier – I've skimmed a couple of previous reviews after starting this review, and I see you've changed from iFrames to using PHP includes, right? Nice one. I also see that you've taken Jenny's advice in other places, which shows me that you're keen and willing to take criticism advice to make things better, again, nice one.
   So here's where I stand. You have a site which seems out-dated with crappy tutorials and a rubbish blogging script. Any regular visitor would simply click out because it makes your whole site just seem so unattractive. However, I was reviewing so I checked the rest out, and so now you've got your About Me/ Site pages done up really well, it convinces me that you really are interesting, and your site could be great – from your blog I can tell that you enjoy writing and sharing your opinions – a typical “blogger”, so I'm going to tell you what I tell other people in your situation. You shouldn't feel that you need to display (poor) code tutorials and layouts to attract people to your site, or bulk it up a bit, the best sites out there only have blogs, and they get far more hits, because people are interested in them, and their opinions – not some crappy illegally manipulated pictures. I know you can do better, and I'm sure that you want to as well. I really hope that this review has been helpful – if there's anything that I've said that you don't understand then please Google it, and I'd be happy to help in any other way if you would like me to. Good luck!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   muddystream's Response:

   Thanks for youre review. I realise that you reviewed before I changed my site but I can assure you that the layouts and 'illegal copyrighting' issue has gone. I'm glad I joined rev.iew.me because I didn't realise that was illegal until now. I no longer need to credit for images becausse they're all my images.
   Thank you for upping the rating but still a 3? I thought I might have received a higher rating after the change but then again, you are reviewing it on before the change.
   Thank you!

3. 

   verarorato gave it on 5th Dec 2008 and said:

   Your layout is very simple. VERY SIMPLE! I already saw layouts that was simple, but they was cute and beauty. I'm not saying your layout is ugly, but it don't is beauty. Your colors are very contrasting and it for people as me it confuse a lot. You have saved the image in JPEG, Ok? I don't know what editor you used, but I recommend save it with 100% of quality.

   Your Css is with one color: black. You layout has colors like green and blue, and your css is totally black. You should change your css, because it is like you don't use a css.

   Comming Back to your layout, it is out of alignment. I recommend for you put it in center. Normally the visitant when enter in a site look at the center.

   Maybe you should put a sidebar. In the sidebar, you can put things how a menu, a small description, and other things. I guess that a sidebar let the site UP. UP. I know sites that put thing how the feed link, link to others sites an many others things.

   The posts are short. I was reading some posts and I saw you write about the resources att. How you site is of resources, Why do you don't write about css, tutorials and others subjects like that? Again, the visitor likes news.

   Your menu is a map menu ok? Good. I don't like this kind of menu. Why Vera? Why do you don't like the map menu? Sometimes the image can't to load, and the menu don't appear. It's not a good thing, it's a bad thing. you can to made a javascript or a simple css navigation menu. It's simple.

   Pages:
   The site is a page about the site?
   You resources are organized but, they're copyrighted?
   =D

   Owner? ? ? It's a page about you? You're a webmiss?/

   I think you blog need some work....
   You need a new lay...

   Hey... It's my personal opinion!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   muddystream's Response:

   I found your review quite hard to read but nevertheless I thank you for your comments. I'm making a new layout soon so I'll ditch image mapping ;)
   Thanks!

4. 

   Michelle gave it on 4th Dec 2008 and said:

   Hey Steph! I'm Michelle and I will be review your website today (:
   -First Impression
   Looking at your layout I can only say one thing: OH MY GAWSH WHITE BACKGROUND. I'm not a fan of websites with a white background. it just seems so... default and plain. No.
   -Layout
   Eh, I don't really like your layout too much. It seems like you put some effort into it, which is really good and I applaud you for that. OOO, imagemapping! I love imagemapping! But I don't really like the font you used for the navigation. Sorry.
   It doesn't even seem like you have CSS in your layout! The font in your content area is default (Times New Roman, 12pt) which i don't like at all. Change it and it will improve your website greatly. Each blog has a border around it, which seems really tacky.
   Oh look, you're using CuteNews! Hopefully you realize that Cutenews is extremely easy to hack into, not to mention dangerous. People can install malware into your CuteNews which could affect your visitors when they visit your site. At least use FanUpdate, or better, WordPress. Ask your host for a MYSQL database.
   Also, are you asking someone to hack your webmail and cutenews? Why do you have links to them in your sidebar? I know a lot of sites have this, and it's annoying because it's practically screaming to me, "CLICK HERE!"
   -Site
   ...Why is there a link to your homepage here? This isn't necessary, considering the fact that you put a link to the same page in your layout which is shown on every page.
   Why do you have a guestbook when CuteNews allows your visitors to comment on your website?
   Your plugboard is unoriginal and useless, in my opinion. I suggest you take it down.
   In your credits page, you credited Cutews for hosting. Why is this? Should CuteNews go under "software" or something like that?
   You don't credit a search engine for images. Google didn't give you the pictures, unless, of course, you took the Google logo fro their homepage which I doubt you would do. Google just searches them for you, thus the name search engine.
   Where is the site you got your layout image from? Huh?
   -Resources
   Your coded layouts have no CSS other than the CSS for links. Why is this? I certainly wouldn't use them, especially if I were a newbie at coding layouts. Default fonts are ugly.
   Also, you didn't give the links where you got the pictures you used in the coded layouts. How come? Are you claiming them as your own? (Excuse me if you actually did take these pictures though)
   For your banners, where did you get the images from? They aren't your, you know.
   A lot of your backgrounds hurt my eyes. They're too bright, so I suggest making new ones with darker colours.
   You know that coloured scrollbars can only be seen in Internet Explorer, right?
   On your "web pets" page it says that they hatch on the 31st of October. It's not December. Why haven't they hatched?
   -Tutorials
   In your HTML Basics page, you shouldn't be linking to Wikipedia. People can put false information there, you know. It's not a reliable resource, but then again, who cares? this page, along with most of your html tutorials, are unnecessary to me. the bold tag is common knowledge, even among piczo users.
   Same goes for your CSS tutorials. Maybe you should put up tutorials on other topics, like photoshop.
   -Owner
   Good! I'd like to know more about you though (:
   -Overall
   You generally need a lot of work on your tutorials and crediting image sources properly. However, you should really not be using celebrity images because you don't own them and you do not have rights to re-distribute them, especially if you're asking for credit on an image you didn't even make. It's like you made a painting of a girl, and someone took it and painted a mustache on it and sold it, claiming it as theirs. Not nice.
   But, like I said before, it seems like you put some effort into your layout which is a good thing. Keep it up!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   muddystream's Response:

   Thank you for your review - I really appreciate your opinion. I already have plans to make changes so your views really do count!
   As for the image layout, I took that picture!

5. 

   Jenny gave it on 4th Dec 2008 and said:

   Hello!

   I've never come across this website before, so I must warn you that I write a lot; if there's anything you don't quite understand or something you just want to get into the open, feel free to let me know. I've been doing this for a few years now and it seems I usually slip on elaboration (or further development on points). I kind of fail at getting back on track. ;)

   All right, let's start with first impressions: I'm not entirely impressed. I think you have a good concept, but the visuals are unappealing and I'm thinking of a far from complete design. The green is quite neon and blinding; the turtle (tortoise?) seems to be put there for the sake of putting a turtle there. The site title isn't that impressive, it looks rather mediocre. The left-aligned layout is unprofessional and highly inaccessible (the eyes are trained to focus on the middle of the monitor -- generally -- instead of the left, so the eyes must avert their focus to the left on left-aligned layouts -- obviously. I also see no necessary need for your layout to be on the left either); the usage of image mapping is outdated and, again, it's inaccessible -- I can also see nothing which might even sway my "coding" mind to think: "Hey, well, how else are they going to link their navigation?" In addition, if I was viewing with images disabled (which is frequent for mobile visitors), I wouldn't be able to click, well, anywhere!

   Now, with all that negativity in mind, here are some suggestions and solutions. :P I'll start with the main problems and work for the more specific of this design. The primary issue with this layout, as stated, is that it's left-aligned. It would look a lot better if it was centred aligned, and you'd also be able to eliminate the issue of trying to make it "fade" into the background, by not making it fade at all. With centred layouts, I often use a block basis, whereby everything is centred aligned -- the layout is the foundation of the website, everything is in the centred box. So everything outside the centre aligned box is either for pretty decoration (the background, basically) or nothing at all. You're using the header, sidebar, content set-up, ergo I highly recommend taking a look at creating a tableless layout. With the actual image header, it's hard for me to criticise because in recent times I simply use a text-based title ... however, I'll try: I do think I understand why the turtle's there now! It's a muddy stream, right? At first glance, that isn't -- as is evident -- clear enough, and it does seem rather random. The green "squiggly lines" contrast a lot with the actual image itself -- as does the site title. Short of recreating the header image from scratch, I recommend lowering the tone of the lines, at least. I'm not very sure why you have your site URL up in the top left corner -- surely that's redundant if you have it as the site name too? I've also mentioned, briefly, the issues with the image mapping (I'll talk about that in the coding section of this review) -- it doesn't make much sense to have the navigation attached to the header. With structures, you need to think in blocks and specific elements -- for example, a set-up for your current design would be: header, navigation, content, and sidebar. In the future, for effective structures, you need to think in those "terms" and blocks -- the content can not be part of the content, for example, the navigation, likewise, can not be part of the header. Of course, that's not a law or anything, but it's immensely useful. ;)

   Other things to mention:
   

   The home of resources, g[r]aphics, tutorials and blogging!

   Firstly, what exactly does that mean? Let's take it in a non-cliché way and think literally: the home of resources, graphics, tutorials and blogging. First of all: what resources? Second of all: what kind of graphs? Third of all: what type of tutorials? Fourth of all: blogging? Eh? My point is that it's not specific enough for your website -- it's a slogan, at the very least, and if I, say, Google it, there are countless of websites already with those keywords on their website. I'm not suggesting you write down a paragraph, but you need to make it more specific for your website -- what kind of resources, graphics (wait, doesn't that fall under ‘resources'?) and tutorials do you offer? As far as I can tell, your blogging is quite personal (congratulations on that Clarinet exam!), and from looking at the slogan, I'm expecting blogging to be specific about your website, and your website only (for example: "Two new tutorials added!") -- or, even from the "home of [...] blogging," to be some sort of group blog.

   Secondly, why do you need ‘News -- Updates -- Blog' as the updates' title? It's redundant. I'd just pick one; for the link back part of the sidebar, the code should be encased in code rather that textarea for semantics (code holds code, and textarea is, ooh, a text area for people to type text in); rev.iew.me doesn't really fit the protocol to be under the vote heading. The credit heading should really be ‘Disclaimer' or something -- and that and the staff heading should typically go under a footer, away from the main bulk of your website. Is the staff section needed, also? It's only you, as far as I can tell, and it's sort of a security problem -- those URLs are pretty generic, but do visitors need to know those, anyway? I'd bookmark these instead. :P Thirdly, the way you've styled your blog entries is quite "log" based -- I feel with the layout, it doesn't suit it that much. It might be better to scrap the border, give your title a heading of its own, and use an entry divider to separate the entries.

   When viewing your source, I can't say I'm that impressed. It's clear, from first glance, that this is what needs the most work. The warning is redundant and incorrect. It is not illegal to copy and claim the code as your own -- it is quite simply morally wrong. The masses of returns won't stop anyone who wants to steal your code, either. So, let's get down to business:

   (NB: I've seen some self-ended tags, so I'm going to assume you're going to be coding in XHTML. I code strictly in XHTML 1.1 so any solutions will probably be given with those standards established.)

   You need a doctype! This is the first and foremost important declaration for a HTML document -- it's the set of "rules" for the browser to present your webpage. There are several reasons why you need a doctype, and people might say "Oh, well, my website still looks good without one ..." but that is, quite frankly, a shoddy excuse and incredibly bad practice. You need to declare a specific doctype otherwise the visitors' browsers will ‘guess' at the doctype, which will result in slower rendering of your webpage; it might also be rendered differently between browsers; each doctype specifies how box calculations are made (the box model), so if you're not declaring one, and the browser picks one for you -- how do you know if your website is being rendered as you want it to be? You don't. So! I do highly suggest adding a doctype. When you do pick one -- I'd suggest running your website through the validator to check for errors and ways to fix them. I think it would be silly for me to run your website through it now and complain about the errors and warnings that are bound to come up, so I won't -- I'll leave that for you. :P

   I've already mentioned the description issues ... You'll need to self-end those meta tags. A simple ‘/' mark after your last greater than sign will do. For consistency issues (and me generally being anally retentive), you should probably lowercase the name attributes and the values for content (if they don't need to be capitalised, like your name). I suggest you make an addendum to the link to your stylesheet and include type="text/css" after the rel content. :) I'm not sure why you've capitalised head ... it should be lowercase, anyhow.

   OK, thus begins the part which makes me cringe. The body needs to go below the head tag. Semantically speaking, everything you want displayed to the browser (the body of your website) should be between body. Your image map and header should, therefore, be below the body (which should be in lowercase, by the way). The problems with image mapping are basically all up there -- and, to stick something you'll probably want in, it's bad for SEO! Shitty, right? My solution? Use CSS image sprites or use a text-based navigation. Glancing at both, at the very least, will introduce better and more concise concepts to you. You should definitely start experimenting with using ul for your navigation. Oy, and I've never understood the significance of linking ‘clear' to the index page? Hm. Furthermore, I recommend using CSS images, and, as such, putting your CSS at much greater control -- I've always maintained that the HTML is your furniture, and the CSS is decoration. The HTML shouldn't hold the aesthetics -- the CSS should. Your website isn't well-structured or presented in terms of skeleton -- putting it through the semantic extractor only gives me a small portion of what it should give -- and it'd be impossible for me to brief through the points. I will, however, talk about the header level 1 and the other headings because this is quite elementary. The headings are used to, obviously, define headings; so if you want to define a heading and, say, bold and underline it -- it would be incorrect to style that heading with b and u, rather, you need to encase it in the suitable h# and style it via CSS. This is my hierarchy of headers (these will most likely differ if you talk to someone else): h1 is for site titles only, the most important of a website; h2 for slogans and then entry titles; h3 for sidebar/additional headings; h4 for dates et cetera.

   Brief nit-pick: although I eschew inline styling and absolute positioning (I'm a relative girl ;)) it's silly to define the units for a measurement of 0. Zero centimetres is the same as zero metres is the same zero ... light years. It's just nothing, so the px is superfluous.

   The content should really come before any additional information such as the affiliates and how to link your site back. For example, if I'm on a limited browser (such as a mobile), then it's not going to be that appealing for me to trawl through all the static information I don't care about to get to the content, which I do care about. I've already mentioned the tableless layout, right? I recommend this strongly. And the thing about headers and the sidebar header definitions? Yep. I'd recommend putting your sidebar blocks in to their own div blocks, too. For example, you have a lot under the ID affiliates -- it'd probably be sage to use individual blocks for each bit of information (as they're pretty much styled the same, you can just stick them under a ). It's bad to define your own targets because whether a site should be opened in a new window or not should be the user's own decision and choice -- not yours. The content should also be encased in a top level block element -- for example, the information underneath credit should at least be in between ps! It's also bad for search engine optimisation (and general user accessibility) to link a "HERE". What's "HERE"? I'd suggest rewriting it all, actually; perhaps to: All content (text, graphics, other forms of media, et cetera) is copyrighted to [your full name here] at muddystream.killtheriot.org 2008 unless otherwise stated on the credits page. So, hey, it hasn't changed that much and it is even that sophisticated -- but the expression's better. (Also, note the title in the a.) Javascript should be in the head ... either way, it doesn't really need the preceding p because, as far as I can see, it doesn't display anything!

   The content section needs quite a bit of reworking. As noted with the information in the text, the "slogan" of your website should be in, at the very least, p. You should not be using a table to display your entries for the simple reason that your writing is not tabular data! It comes recommend that you use divs to style your entries instead. I'm not sure why you have an avatar for each entry -- it's the same for each entry! I'd understand if it was, for example, like LiveJournal wherein you can change the icon for each entry, but I'm not sure what the point of an icon for your blog is. The title of your blog should be highlighted as the title of your blog; I'm thinking of giving it a h#, maybe? Same with the "posted by" and entry date. The styling should really be controlled via the CSS. :S It's unwise to style your content with HTML because people might be browsing sans CSS or images, or even with their own default styles -- things that are HTML styled can't be changed, making it a nuisance for the visitor.

   Also, CuteNews is insecure, and you're allowing a lot of potential risk to your hosting by using it -- the script is easily exploitable, and crappy, anyway -- the good thing, however, is that there are good alternatives masquerading with the names of: Textpattern, Wordpress, FanUpdate, Chyrp, FlatPress (which requires no database) and quite a few others!

   I think I've covered most of the coding issues ... You do have a lot, but there're mostly problems you'll be able to fix when you get the knowledge on the main points I outlined above: semantics, rules and doctypes, and semantics. Let's get on to content. :D

   Site
   It is redundant to have: (i) a link list (should be coded as an actual list, by the way) (ii) a link to the home page. It'd probably be better to move the "about the site" content to the main page, and merge it with the credits and link back page (you can use page anchors to differentiate between sections). Then you can link the guestbook and the plugboard on that page. Just an idea to make it more organised/neater, s'all.

   With the actual about content, why is it centre-aligned? Text should be left-aligned for easier reading. :P We, left-to-right humans, are used to it that way. I don't have much to say on the spelling and grammar, I don't think it's really useful for me to go Nazi on it -- I will note, however: "I guess it[‘]s fairly unique" Apostrophe for contractions! On the actual text, you can improve it a lot. You didn't actually talk what the site was about -- you only talked about the history and the origin of the name. It isn't just "that" really, there's such a lot you could talk about in this section: what your website contains, what the aim of the site is, what you hope to achieve with it, why you created it, what you hope to bring to people via it ... lots of things. :D

   Resources
   Ah, the resources. I'll redirect you to Jem's article on copyright violation here. Those images you credited with Google (very, very bad -- Google is not the source of those images; it's just a search engine ...) are copyrighted to certain photographers and people. What you're doing is redistribution, and as a resources website, you should understand that redistributing copyrighted material and passing it off as your own is bad. Plus it's so generic. If you really want to stand out as a resource website, then you should try and use original material -- it'll give your creations more edge than all the premade tacky celebrity layouts out there.

   All that being said, I'll comment briefly on what you have to offer ignoring the big problem with using the copyrighted material ...

   For the layouts, all you've done is offered a thumbnail preview and the code. I'm not very impressed. Why not offer a clickable full screen preview? Or, hell, why not a live preview? Secondly, there needs to be some sort of indication about the layouts, or the page as a whole. For example, what are the features of it? What's the good, bad, and the ugly? Thirdly, please clean up the code you're offering out -- it's disgusting, and it's wrong to spread such inaccuracy about. I would consider a big clean up with these. As a whole, the layouts, I think, need to be much more original with your flair, rather a generic: "Here's a premade layout." None of the layouts I've seen have impressed me thus far, and I probably wouldn't use any of them.

   Likewise, for the image banners, phrase signs, MSN icons (pretty sure the URL credit isn't needed -- I mean, they're MSN icons, and they make the icons look ugly), AIM icons, and names. There's nothing special about them. The only resource pages I'd look at personally would be the wallpaper backgrounds, stock images and webpets. The wallpaper backgrounds are okay, nothing impressive; the stock images get a thumbs up from me -- although it would be nicer to get larger resolutions of the photos. The webpets are "original" to an extent -- it's a nice idea, and I can see this being pasted onto some MySpace. The pixels are OK, they must have taken a long time to do -- although they do seem quite standard. The premade scrollbars is, um, certainly something I haven't seen before. Primarily for the reason that being able to "customise" the colours of your scrollbar is something only for Internet Explorer. It doesn't work in any other browser, unfortunately, and invalidates people's CSS which makes them even more undesirable.

   On to the tutorials ...

   You can expand so much on these pages, but you choose not to. These really aren't "tutorials" in the sense that they explain, give and show, your pages simply give code in a textarea (the correct format would be code) and that's about it. In addition, some of the code is obsolete! They can be worked on a lot. Check out tutorialtastic as an example of doing tutorials right.

   HTML -- Basics: I'd probably link to w3.org rather than Wikipedia as a "reading more" link -- w3 is much more expansive, considering it created HTML.

   HTML -- Text, font, links: These are all pretty much: "To do this, paste this!" which isn't helpful at all -- these are more like reference points, but then people would be more inclined to visit w3schools.com instead which is much more elaborate.

   HTML -- Table: Yay for having some instruction, nay for doing what countless other websites do out there but better. You're teaching someone how to create the "perfect" table. You need to also explain the usage of tables -- you don't use them for layouts, you use them to present tabular data.

   HTML -- iFrames: Noooo! Please don't promote iFrames. They're inaccessible, crap for SEO, and it's such an outdated form for "layout making," I'd only seriously use it for something like a remotely hosted tagboard, and that's hitting 2001 pretty well. Did giggle at "If you have read the HTML Basics tutorial" however, because, well, there isn't much on that page to read. :P Also, you don't use iFrames on Muddy Stream, do you? I fear this page is outdated too. There's also the statement about "middle column," who said anything about the iFrame became a middle column?

   CSS: Both tutorials are pretty pointless for me -- and I could never consider recommending someone of an amateur level to look at them. Again, you do not take the time to explain it in depth, and the certain semantics and concepts involved. Sure, it's just a code snippet, but there's a lot to go on the material you currently have. You're trying to pass them off as tutorials and they simply aren't.

   It's clear that all of the tutorials lack structure, and this was a big disappointment to see in your otherwise "I've put the effort in" website. Perhaps it's down to your ignorance of the actual knowledge involved, but they do making a mockery of your own skills, and your intelligence on the subject matters. I would suggest taking time out and looking at the other, more prominent tutorial websites and see if you can do better. Article websites such as A List Apart are great websites to gather inspiration from on webdesgn aspects. You do need to re-look at your current tutorials and compare to the better tutorial websites -- you can do better; you have the potential -- you just have to look and think about what you're writing.

   Onto the Owner section. Likewise with the site section, I would consider forwarding "owner" straight to girl.php and then giving links to the pets and contact pages. Your about page is informative, but I do believe you give too much superfluous information about yourself -- we want to know what makes you you, we don't need to know your hair and eye colour, or your height. A name, location, general age statement and current education would suffice for your general make-up. There is a lack of structure within the first paragraph, too. The sentences clash, and the nationality and born in comment shouldn't be in the same sentence -- they're both different phrases and such stand alone as independent clauses. Your hobbies could be expanded to give a more in depth look at your you as a person and personality -- what do you read? What do you write? What type of music do you listen to? Which side of linguistics are you more familiar with? The favourite films, food, drink, band and singers are all types of things I'd consider seeing in a LiveJournal profile or something -- I do want to know why the films are individually quoted? It might be well to give them ratings, or even link them to their respective imdb.com pages; likewise with the band and singers -- perhaps an official website might suffice? As a whole, the lists could be expanded and you could maybe state a reason why it's considered a favourite.

   The pets page is cute. The grammar starts to fail though, I've briefly skimmed over it and corrected/rewrote some of it here -- the changes are bracketed:

   "[For] most of [our] li[ves], my sister and I []only had goldfish as pets. We must have gone through [at least] ten goldfish []together, and they always had similar names like Lucky or Spot-Luck. They seemed to last longer if they had 'luck' in their name.

   Towards the end of August[] 2006[,] we decided to get some guinea pigs. I had a silver agouti called Storm[,] and my sister had [an] [A]byssinian called Skyla. They were both babies but [unfortunately] Storm had an [abscess] behind her ear[,] and had to have an operation. She died a few days after the operation [—] only a few months old. Skyla was very lonely and seemed quite distressed over the death[,] so we got another guinea pig to keep her company.

   This new guinea pig was a lot bigger[][.] I originally called her Truffle, but my sister kept calling her Fudge [and Skunky]. [It ]had the colours of a skunk[,] and Skunky seemed to stick[;] [ s]o Skunky she was.

   [/r]Both guinea pigs are quite fat[,] but Skunky more so.

   My uncle also has a dog[,] and our house is like [the dog's] second home. He is a [C]ollie crossed with a [P]oodle. [] [H]e is adorable[,] but he is getting old now and finds it difficult to walk. His name is Welly which is short for Wellington."

   The expression on this page needs to be much more sophisticated than it already it is. When I was reading it, it seemed like a five year old had written it. You're seventeen years old -- surely you can do a bit better? You seem quite passionate about the pets, too, so I'm sure if you rewrote it now, as a sixth form student, the page would come off a lot more better.

   The contact page is a little bare -- I thought there'd be a contact form which would call for its own page, but it's just email and MSN. How about changing "contacting" to "e-mailing" though, considering with MSN you don't get to pick subject titles?

   I think I'm done... I apologise for any typos -- it's quite late over here, and I haven't gone through it ... I'm giving you two and a half rating -- based on what I've seen, you just seem a little in 2003, and it's 2008. I'm sure with the right audience and crowd, you'll be able to "mature" in the web scene sense to get into modern concepts. As such, it doesn't seem fair for me to rate you a one, like I would have done if you did seem to have a grasp on modern concepts, so I'm going to give you a two and a half ... You've done what you can so far, and I see a lot of room for improvement -- you have the potential, so I think you'll do pretty well! Hope that's OK. And like I said at the beginning, if something doesn't make sense or you just want to ask a question, feel free to ask me, and I'll reply back as soon as I can. :)

   UPDATED 04 Dec 08:
   You're welcome, I think. :P

   You shouldn't feel like you have to delete your whole site and start again. It has a good foundation. I'm incredibly nit-picky and anally retentive when reviewing, but I do suppose it's because you're of a different calibre than I am; I'm not a frequent visitor of resource websites, for one. Hopefully, when you improve, I can come back again and check it out if you want me to. :P

   I apologise if my review seemed harsh or pretty "raw" in places. I find it hard to review resource websites "complimentary" if they're not doing it right. It's terrible, I know.

   Good luck in the future. :)

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   muddystream's Response:

   Well...that was interesting. Apart from making me feel like I want to to delete my whole site and start again, I thank you for the review.

   I can see where you are coming from on a few of the things mentioned and it has made me decide to steer away from the graphics and tutorials end of building websites. I might just stick to stock images, wallpapers and blogging.

   I will take your advice in and I will hopefully start on the desperate changes needed to improve soon.

6. 

   bex gave it on 3rd Dec 2008 and said:

   I think this site needs some work, but it's a good start. The limited content is organized and there is a clear direction the site is taking. Though the navigation isn't fantastic to look at - it's organized.

   As for design, it could use some work. It's structured well, but isn't very appeasing to the eyes. :) Keep working at it though! If you want your site to look like that, well, it's your site so you can choose. The colours also don't appeal much to me. They seem too dark and contain too much gray. I also think the box around the entries could be replaced with something else (perhaps nothing at all).

   The mark-up can use some improvements too. Sometimes you've written <head> then closed it with </HEAD> or other tags. This code is not valid. I'm also noticing a lot of "DO NOT COPY" remarks across your site. : They're probably unnecessary.

   The content is typical blog stuff, and there are some rather deprecated tutorials. The resources are limited and there isn't much about the owner! :(

   In conclusion, this site says "90's" to me but t's a good start and well-organized. It needs some work with respect to design and mark-up.

   Using Safari on Windows | Report This?

   muddystream's Response:

   Thanks for your review. I appreciate your positive remarks and I can understand your views about improvements. 2 stars?!
   Thank you anyway :)

Write Your Own Review

Leave your feedback for Muddy Stream below, and remember - the longer your review, the more points you receive. Don't forget to look at things like style/design, content, coding and originality as they will all help to improve the quality of your review.

You have to be logged in to write a review.

Site copyright © 2008—10 Jem Turner. Designed by Jacky Gilbertson © 2008.
About ⋅ Terms of Use ⋅ Site Map ⋅ Help ⋅ Contact ⋅ Points Charter