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Crestfallen has 14 Reviews

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

RigRag gave it on 29th Jan 2009 and said:
I'm Jack, and I reviewed your website on a 13' MacBook using Mac and browsing with Safari (if you really wanted to know...)

First Impressions? Wow! The layout is very smooth and simple but has a real good feel about it. Just to be annoying I checked to see if your coding/CSS was REALLY valid, and it was.

The navigation with the 'pop-up' if you like looks really effective.

OWNER: Lovely. You've got loads of information, nothing is messy and the images are all perfectly bordered and aligned well. Looks great! I might sit and read through that all one day; if your website is anything to go by, it'll be fascinating! The sidebar with other links also looks great; and those extra pages are cool, too.

ABOUT: Nothing to say about this really. The whole thing is set out in the usual way, including the sidebar/sub-pages, which again looks fine. Very neat and tidy.

WRITING: The links and subheader things in the main seem a bit bland; you could maybe bold the links or add a thumbnail to the right? You seem to have alot of interesting articles/etc here, which is great for the visitor. The sidebar links are, as usual, very neat, and the sub-pages are great. I really like all your poems, and the fact you can navigate between poems when on one of the poems from the sidebar. (That goes for all of the sub-sub-pages)

POLICY: Very brief; better than reading a load of crap.

LINKS: Lovely how you also have links to your social networking. I've followed you on twitter. But the websites you've linked too are great!

ARCHIVES: Nice how its all listed. Nothing to say, really!

In all, you have a fantastic website, and i'm really glad I reviewed it. Well done, *finds name* Nat Marie :) Haha. Thanks for reading (:

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pitchxxblack gave it on 19th Jan 2009 and said:
FIRST IMPRESSION

Well I can tell off the bat that you love writing and that most likely you write about sad and depressing moments that you've experienced. To be 100% honest it comes across as a little boring. No offense. I dont usually review blogging sites and i dont because of this simple fact - theyy usually dont have something to offer the visitor except vague memories of someones life. Okay your bottom navigation is cool but one question...what is a tweet? You should explain what that is so your visitors would want to read it. I'm going to click on it now... okay it goes to your twitter blog but it doesnt say anything at all. Boring much? I think so. You should edit that post or take down the link so people won't waste thier time. I'm trying to be as honest as possible so please don't take offense. All your links/affies work.

Site Section

Interesting read i must say but you sound like a grown woman... Like 40 something. I can see that your about 20 but others may not. Visitors don't want to feel like they're in the same room with thier english teacher. Tone it down a bit so people can get a chance to see that your not so old without reading your bio.

About Me Section

Whoa that bio is huge. I'm not going to go through everything (sorry) I have too many other reviews to do. Nice though. I like your Random Facts section. I thought that was cute... Moving on.

Writing Section

Thats great that you explained every aspect of what you write about so people can better understand. :]

Policy Section

You should put that at the end of all your pages but if you had no choice then its fine right there.

Link Section

If you want to get noticed you should have an application for affiliates but thats only if you want.

Archive Section

Your very organized and i like that in a site. I'm not gonna read your writings now but i might stop by to do so later.

Overall

Good for a blog site. Just try to keep it at a friendly level. thats all the advice i can give you.

- PitchxxBlack

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Shadow's Response:
Thanks for the review.

My writing spouts from depressing (not so much anymore) to downright strange. Don't let the site name fool you. There's a reason for the lack of visitor content. Hey, you said it; my layout is boring no? It's because my strength is in my writing, ot my graphical prowess, or the lack thereof. And the Twitter stays. I use Plurk more, but there really isn't a great WP plugin.

It's a first to hear that I sound like I'm 40 (!). I guess depending on who is looking at my site. The main demographic of my site (older, 20-somethings) actually thinks that the mature voice is fine. Those who are in the younger demographic may think that I sound like their English teacher (haha, something else I never got). It all depends on the person.

And the policy actually has to be on a separate page for what the purpose of it is in the first place (I think I confused myself saying this).

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I usually list the links that I visit on an at least semi-daily basis. If they're on my RSS feed, they're on that list. Quality over quantity.
sassa12489 gave it on 4th Jan 2009 and said:
Viewed in: Safari
First impression: Not bad. Not really wowed but Iâ€™m not turned off. Itâ€™s good enough for me. The positioning bothers me a bit. I think if you centered it, it would look a lot better. Well, it looks like your content is centered, you header is not. Hmâ€¦center the header. :D
ROTF! Good owner section. I love how you talk about cream cheese and rice cakes. Haha. Beautiful way to express your point. However, I donâ€™t like the mini sidebar. It looks weird to me with navigation across the top.
Once again rotf! If the site was a personâ€¦I love it. You are quirky.
Ah, writings. Not going to read them now but Iâ€™m definitely coming back. I love writing too but itâ€™s always the first thing on my hobby list to go vs. playing around with photoshop. I love how you have wtf moments lol.
I donâ€™t think your policy page should be all alone. Maybe include it within the site link. Thereâ€™s not much on this page so thatâ€™s why I feel it shouldnâ€™t stand alone.
External Links: Cool. Nothing much to say about this.
Archive: Goodness lol, you blog a lot. Cool. This comes in handy since you do blog a lot when you maybe refer to a previous blog.
Last notes: I really enjoy your site. Iâ€™d defiantly come back.

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Shadow's Response:
Thanks for the review.

The header is off-centered on purpose. The original idea of the layout called for it, but since then I've strayed from it, but it still works enough to keep it in that position.

The same thing with the mini sidebar. With all of the sections I have on this site, it kind of calls for a sidebar.

I don't really care for the policy page to be all by its lonesome, but for paid blogging reasons, it has to be there on its own page.

It's good to hear that you'll come back. Honestly makes me feel that my work isn't all for naught.
rainbowpool gave it on 14th Dec 2008 and said:
Ok I am using IE

First impression:

Interesting layout...
I am not extremely fond of it but it is ok...

It is kinda plain though. You could add a little more colors couldn't you?

Other:

Your site is taking awhile to load...you should really fix that. If I wasn't reviewing your site I would leave right away.

Ok well I am going to leave your site now...

i find it pretty boring...but that is just me because I am not into blogg-ish websites.

But stuff you could add are:
More appleaing colors...the ones you are makes me think of the feeling 'Sad' or 'dispressed'
And maybe add a few pictures...not nessasarly of yourself but maybe a few designs or shapes.

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Shadow's Response:
Wow, for someone who was complaining about wanting to be deleted, you're sticking around pretty long, no?

I like the color scheme--and 10+ other people can't be wrong. I'm not mucking it up with 4692631953196 other colors. You like rainbows, and so do I, but there's a difference between liking rainbows in moderation and puking the stuff.

But thanks for the review.

PS: It's "depressed".
Muse gave it on 11th Dec 2008 and said:
Shaddoowww. <3 I am strongly biased in favour of starving caffeine-addicted artists, but this review will (hopefully) be quite impartial. And helpful. ^^

Dum de dum de dumâ€¦

General Design/Aesthetics:

The site name/logo knocked me out. Seriously. My first once-over of the site I hadn't noticed it, and then my eyes slowly drifted up there and I decided it was lovely and I loved it and I want to marry it, but maybe that's going a bit far?

In any case, it's gorgeous. It's such a distinctive silhouette. And the typeface you used adds a certain bit of class that many websites don't possess. It seems rather fitting, since you did call yourself a writer. It looks like the logo of a creative person.

Not to mention the cute little hover effect. ^^

I am quite fond of your colour scheme, which is just as sophisticated, and most of the layout works quite well. I just have a few problems with it:

> the rounded tabs. They don't fit, somehow. For one, if you look at the tabs for 'Writing' and 'Archives', it almost looks like the text is a bit crammed in there. Perhaps make the tabs a bit wider? And alsoâ€¦I'm not too fond of the rounded corners. It doesn't quite seem to match your site and general design (or maybe it's just that I'm sick of rounded corners being overused). I'd prefer either a more subtle rounded corner (so, a bit more squarish) or just have the rounded-ness abandoned entirely.
> they also look a bit odd on hover, kind of stretched. Perhaps having them just change colour or seem to 'move up' a bit less? Otherwise it's slightly jarring.
> in the sidebar: personally it looks a bit weird to me to have the blue box right next to the border of the white box, as opposed to having it floating sort of in the middle of the white box (I hope I'm making myself clear?). It might look better to have the blue column of the sidebar extend all the way down the white box for continuity; I know you're not using a fluid layout, so it should be fairly easy to make a background image that sort of 'fakes' a blue background for the sidebar (via the faux columns method?).
> in the sidebar no. 2: the text 'Latest 3 Asides' looks like it needs a bit more padding at the top.
> in your footer, ditto for the padding; the 'Hi There', 'Recent Posts', and 'Links' all seem to be too close to the top border.
> I'd like there to be slightly more delineation between one blog post to the next.
> observe the links to previous pages of your blog near the footer. The numbers aren't properly centred in the little boxes but are leaning to one side. =/
> in footer: the content underneath the headers 'Hi There', 'Recent Posts', and 'Links' seem a bit too close to the headers. More padding?
> thank you for having a favicon. Unfortunately, I can't actually figure out what it is.
> in both sidebar and footer, more padding seems necessary to me at the bottom of both. Of course, if you extend the sidebar's column of blue down the length of the page you won't have a padding issue there anymore. (If you look
> the search module: the 'Go!' button should be right next to the search box, not the next line down. And I'm not a huge fan of the bevel-y thing it's got going on right now, it looks a bit dated. A simple blue box will do.

Some lovely things (besides the logo, unless you want me to wax lyrical on it again):
> the tooltips you've used. I want them.
> just, erm, layout in general. Clean and sharp, and the details are reserved and tasteful.

I am just now realizing, though, that the greenish-blue and pale blue don't actually quite mesh together (in the footer and sidebar). They seem a bit off together, but that may actually be more personal preference, because I don't quite have a suggestion to make about it. The grey and either of the blues looks so sophisticated, though. Lovely. ;D

On some of your inner pages:
> your 'Owner' page (actually, it has about three names that I can see), the left-aligned and right-aligned images need some padding to separate themselves from your paragraphs.

Usability-ish:

On the homepage, what's with the "Home » 1" thing? I had no idea what it was doing there for a while, and then I realized it was a breadcrumb trail. But. What is that 1 there for?

Content-wise:

(I'm going to do my best to go through most of your pages, but I probably won't comment on them unless there's something particularly remarkable/annoying.)

So the one issue I have with your site at the moment is that you have a habit of naming your pages with creative (but slightly metaphorical and uninformative) names. That are a bit inconsistent, as http://www.crestfallen.nu/shadow-of-herself/ is not actually titled 'Shadow of Herself', or 'About Me', or anything of that sort. In the breadcrumb trail and title it's called Under the Microscope. Odd, to say the least, and it puzzled me for a while. It's linked as 'Owner' in the main navigation as well.

But the page reminds me that I still haven't finished Twilight Princess. I'm such a lame person, I've had it for months but I can't work up the urge to actually finish it. =P

The Site/About Crestfallen.nu sectionâ€”has a disclaimer, which I was actually hoping would be a short sort of '1) All rights reserved, credit given where credit is due; 2) Swearing involved; 3) and et cetera", rather than a paragraph per item. This is a fairly small thing, but the disclaimer would be more useful if there was a tl;dr version as well (for quick reference). Also a rather grammar-nazi sort of thing, but you've neglected a few spaces after the list items (e.g. "4)Since I was" as opposed to "4) Since I was").

I'm rather fond of your inclusion of a 'Past of Crestfallen' and 'Future of Crestfallen'. Great idea.

Writing sectionâ€”while I did enjoy reading the work you've put up, there's just something about the way you formatted the links to different categories of writing on your main 'Written' page, and the individual pieces for the subpages, that kind of makes it look like a Google advert. Sans-serif text, blackish, indented, first line underlinedâ€¦I seriously thought it was an ad block. =/ It's the combination of the underlined first line and indented block of text, so you might like to get rid of one of them. I think it'd look good if you got rid of the underline in favour of slightly larger, italicized text, because there are good reasons for keeping the links to your writing indented.

Oh, also, erm:

Writing projects Iâ€™m currently working on. (May contain works that Iâ€™ve been working on for years.)

What's with the backslashes before the apostrophes?

I particularly liked your article on common fatal errors of website owners. "'Walking Lawsuit' Header Images" is the perfect name for it. ;D And 'layouts that can be accused of retinal manslaughter'. <3 Are you planning to expand the article sometime?

Linksâ€”really, considering your masterful use of those lovely serif caps, the uncapitalized sans-serif headings for 'i read these:' and 'you can find me:' really seemed kind of out of place, and they don't quite match with the rest of your blog. Also, it seems fairly pointless to note at the top an asterisk denotes your hostees, of which there areâ€¦none. Icons are supercute, but perhaps (I'm actually seesawing on this, because I'm not sure if it'd work better or not) consider removing the underlines for these links. You've already established the icon as a link to an outside site, and since the whole page is basically two lists of links the underlines all over the place are a bit overwhelming.

So, conclusion:

Thank you so much for having a page that says what plugins you're using. Now I know where to snag that lovely footnotes one.

(Non sequitur, much?)

Aside from thatâ€”I loved your site, and I'm still in love with your header/site title/logo-y thing. ;D Cheers.

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
An attempt to explain properly:

About the colour scheme, I can't say anything particularly useful except to perhaps make the light blue a little more on the grey sideâ€”that might help, so they colours work together a bit more.

I stared at the favicon a bit and I can see the cat now. ^^

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Pretty much perfect. ;D I was going to bump the rating up half a star, but apparently 5.5 is Not An Option. DD:

UPDATED 11 Dec 08:
Personally I like it this way, but you might have to see what others think. ^^

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Shadow's Response:
Yay, a long one! I had a feeling that when you said that you're so nitpicky and stuff in your reviews so they take long, that it was this site you were reviewing. Intuition can be a blessing and a curse. :P

The navigation tabs were not my first choice. When I first did this layout, I actually wanted the navigation to be on top, with the silohette in the background on hover (faded of course). It didn't work the way I wanted it, even after resizing and everything, so I neglected that idea, went to this one. While it's growing on me, it wasn't my first choice.

As for this: > in the sidebar: personally it looks a bit weird to me to have the blue box right next to the border of the white box, as opposed to having it floating sort of in the middle of the white box (I hope I'm making myself clear?).

No, actually you lost me there, lol. Please explain further.

I was thinking about changing the owner page's link to something less cryptic/metaphorical. This was me trying to be different.

The underlines under the links are annoying me a bit, so I'll get rid of that.

The backslashes are from where I used the...hold on as I look for that word I'm looking for...here's some holding music.

CUSTOM FIELDS! That's it. Yeah, I used a custom field to add on a description to some pages, namely the writing ones. I thought I got rid of them all, because I was wondering the same thing--why is it there anyway. I'm going to scour again.

Eep! Don't worry, I have a Grammar-Nazi side of me as well, so the list items that I somehow overlooked will be fixed.

A lot of people happens to like that article. It was on a whim. Yes, I am expanding on that. I'm writing them all down on paper, so it's gonna be a little while, but don't worry, it will be expanded.

I don't know where that 1 came from in the breadcrumb, but I think it's easy to fix.

I'm scared to mess with the color of the sidebar and footer. I was trying to keep with the blue scheme but I didn't want to go way off on the blue. I don't know what I mean by that, but it's the same thing with the links--it doesn't go as well as it should, but I'm as a loss there.

And if it makes you feel better, I haven't finished Twilight Princess yet either.

Holy crap, I think my response is longer than your review. ROFL! Anyway, thank you for that. :)

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Oh, and the Favicon is of a cat and a butterfly inside the cat. I made a layout featuring it at one point--his name is Cresty.

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Oh! Okay! I gotcha now. I'm gonna try that.

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Like a gray-ish blue type thing? It might work. Let's see.

(I need a to-do list now.)

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Okay, I tried the sidebar thing. It actually works. On my end anyway. Is it okay?

The 1 is gone, my about me link is less metaphorical, and I fixed the listing on the Disclaimer page (and added a tl;dr area). Now I'm going to try the color thing (and hope to the powers that be that I don't screw it up!)

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Excellent. ROFL! 5.5? And to think that I had a 2 1/2 star site tops.

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
Larger, italicised writing links. Too much? Should I have kept it Sans-serif?

UPDATED 11 Dec 08:
Okay, I like it this way as well, but I'm open to more suggestions.
Kaylee gave it on 10th Dec 2008 and said:
As I've commented on your blog, I really like this layout :D The colours are nice, and I love what you've done with the site name.

I'm not sure about your reasons for using images for your navigation tabs and the headings in your sidebar and footer -- you might want to consider using text only if there is no "good" reason for all the images.

There's a ton of padding around the date/word count/category/comments for each blog entry. You might want to have a light background behind this, or change the text colour, to separate it from the actual post text. I would say the same for the tags under each entry, too. They kind of float between two entries, I think they need to be closer to their own entry :P

The left/right padding for the sidebar should be equal; it's noticeably off with the aides on the index page and all the links on other pages.

Nothing wrong with the breadcrumb, but the word "Home" on the front page looks really random. It would be nice if you could find a way to get rid of it just for the index page.

I would reverse the external link images so that the lighter one is the default, and the darker one shows up on hover. It's too dark and noticeable now, I think. Those little images always distract me from what I'm reading, so the lighter the better!

___

Owner - The Writer
The conversation is very funny XD I think the cool T shape in your blockquote background isn't dark enough; it needs to blend in more in the background because right now the text on top of it is a little unclear/hard to read, and it distracts me from the text.

In the longer quote, the background images looks weird aligned in the middle. I think it could look good in the bottom right corner, but just picking top or bottom would be fine, too.

Owner - Very Useless and Random Facts
I randomly snuck a peek at your source code for this page, and oh my... Please consider just use a list, or even paragraph tags. Why bloat it up with around every fact?

Site
The "7 Items to Remember (Also known as the Disclaimer)" and Disclosure Policy could be combined, methinks.

"The Future of Crestfallen" -- I think this stuff could be on the main site info page, or at least labelled something other than "The Future" (because I didn't find it to be about the future of the site, other than mentioning that you're planning on sticking around). I like this page, though.

And I know I'm being annoyingly picky when I say this, but I would prefer to see "The Past" before "The Future" in the sidebar XD

Writing/Written
The list seems like it is indented too much, but you've used list tags! That makes me happy :3

I'm not very good at judging writing, but your WTF moments are original. I like them.

Policy
This page is already linked from the site section. I don't think it needs to be in the main navigation bar, but I'd keep it somewhere in the footer.

Links
All the links have the little external link thing, except Twitter!

Archives
You have a huge space before "Category Archive" in the sidebar. And in the page itself, I think the list is indented too much.

Footer - light blue background part
The empty space on the right side looks strange and unbalances the footer. Consider making your "Hi there." column slightly wider so the links list moves to the right, and there isn't as much space/padding there.

Footer - darker background part
Aisling once told me to "pimp out my footer" and I think you need to do so here. All the plain text and plain links just look boring :(

The reason I haven't subscribed to your blog yet is because the RSS link is barely noticeable in the footer! It would be nice for it to be bigger with one of those RSS buttons, and possibly even in the sidebar.

Stylesheet
You have a bit of superfluous css in there. For example, you repeat margin:0; padding:0; for body, even though it's already there in html,body.

___

On another coding note, you have a random around many (all?) of your pages. Might want to get rid of that.

If you'd like me to go through your coding (HTML and/or CSS) thoroughly, I'd be glad to do so; just let me know :) I just don't want to point out coding issues if you're not really interested in hearing them, or if you're already in the process of fixing it up.

Overall your site has a lot to offer in terms of writing, which is great. It's very well-designed, despite a few minor things that could be improved on, although I do believe that there's work to be done with the coding.

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Shadow's Response:
The random <div class="">? I don't even know where the heck it came from! I've been trying to find it too. Must...scour...further...!

I actually did make a big RSS button. It was the matter of fitting it in somewhere. Since you said to pimp out the darker footer (lol), maybe it can fit there somehow? I was having a very hard time with that one. I have an idea for it. If I can work it into the sidebar, that'd work too. I'll try both ways.

More stuff about the navigation. It's grown on me, but since it was never my first choice, I'm still not happy about it either. But I'm not even sure what to do with it! I'm going to try the text thing though.

"Hi there." column--a bit wider, m'kay.

The external link image didn't show on the links page because the way that I did it was to exclude any pages from Crestfallen and Twitter (due to the link in the latest Tweet showing it as well). That's easy to fix.

I've been trying to figure out the issue with the tags area. Something else to play around with.

The random facts page was generated via plugin. I'll modify it so that it shows a list rather than in divs.

Speaking of pimping out the dark footer, what do you suggest?
kkickball gave it on 10th Dec 2008 and said:
Design
It's very very simple, but even so I think it looks very professional and very nice. I like simple and clean layouts when they are done properly and the site creator knows what colors to use. I love your little symbol/logo up the top that you used for the "S". It's very creative and very nicely thought out!

About Me page
Your About Me page has a lot to offer. It definitely shares a good amount of information about you so that we can really get to know who we are reading about. It also really is well written. Looks like maybe a few grammatical errors, but not enough to be concerned about.

Writing Page
Definitely has a lot of your writing so the reader won't get bored. I think you are a good writer. Way to go. :) Overall, I like your site! It could use some more content and maybe some more colors in another style, but this is great as it is and deserving of 4 stars

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Shadow's Response:
Hi, thanks for your review! I tend to keep my layouts as simple as possible because graphics aren't really my strong point.
worldangel gave it on 10th Dec 2008 and said:
So, as I have promised, here I am to write a review on your new site :) I haven't been writing reviews lately (getting lazy I know) so I might have gotten rusty...do pardon me if I accidentally leave something out.

First impression:
First impression I got was that the color scheme is really wonderful and matches really, really well. I love this shade of blue. It gives visitors a calming sort of effect, or at least it does for me. I also love how the black contrasts sharply with the blue shade.

I get the impression that the site is clean and organized, with tabs being positioned aptly to ease the navigation. I also like how the side bar is in a different tone of blue.

Layout:
First thing that captured my attention was the header image. I like the way you designed your site name with the phoenix (or is it dragon?) in the middle. It looks really elegant and fits in nicely with the font that you have chosen. I am not sure about the positioning though. I think it might be better if you can shift it a bit to the center? Right now, it kinda gives a lop-sided feel.

I also like the pop-up tabs for navigation; those are really neat. I enjoy hovering my mouse over it to get the pop-up effect.

The font that you have chosen gave a simple yet elegant feel, so no complain there. Plus the size is just right for me because I am not wearing my specs right now but I could still read your posts. Good job :)

Navigation/Links:
As I have mentioned before, I heart the pop-up tabs you use for navigation. I do wish you have an anchor links to bring the visitors right up to the top again in your pages, because some of your entries can be quite lengthy.

The side bar links are well-organized but I tend to think that they look a bit...too simple. The squarish boxes don't really go well with the rest of the site...you might want to consider making the edges rounded? Plus you might want to make the side bar go all the way to the bottom rather than cutting it short according to the number of links you have included in.

The external link page is neat and well-done so not much comment for that, except thanks for linking me :) And oh, just to let you know you missed out an icon for Twitter. Or is it intentional?

The message under "Hi There" in your footer can be justified and aligned so that it looks neater. I do find that the footer looks a bit cramped though.

Content:
I have to admit that your blog is one of those that I frequently "stalk" because I like the way you write. I love the sarcasm behind your lines; I have always loved reading blog entries which are witty and sarcastic lol. It just makes the whole thing more interesting to read. I especially like those intentionally short entries- they are short and to the point. So I disagree with the commenter prior to me (so that there's no confusion, I'm referring to flashglam) because your entries, even those which are intentionally short, have always kept me coming back :) It is also a good idea to include in the post count for your blog entries to let your visitors have an idea of how lengthy/short your post is.

Your owner page is well-written and gives sufficient information to your readers, and is entertaining at the same time (it's because of the sarcasm involved lol). I do have a comment about the placement of the pictures though. I noticed that the first picture (the one with you in it) is a bit too close to the text so you might want to insert a little bit of margin between that picture and the text beside it. The rest of the pictures are not affected though.

I love the Random and Useless Facts page...I didn't know that you are allergic to cats! :(

Next I went on to your writing page, where I spotted a minor error under the category "Current Writing Projects". You have an extra slash in the first sentence. "Writing projects Iâ€™m currently working on. (May contain works that Iâ€™ve been working on for years.)" It is right there between the I and the apostrophe.

I love the policy page and the various pages that are under that category. I am thinking whether it is more appropriate to put the "The Past of Crestfallen" link before "The Future of Crestfallen" in the side bar. But I am someone who likes everything to be ordered chronologically, so this is really up to you.

By the way, Crestfallen is a great name and I do not think it sounds gloomy, plus most people are familiar with it by now so I think you should definitely keep it! :D

Overall:
To be honest, I like your new layout better than the previous one. I have always thought the previous one a tad too bright on the eyes; I prefer soothing color rather than neon-bright ones :P This one is simple yet attractive enough to attract the attention of your readers in a subtle way. It is a color scheme that gradually grows on you as you look at it more and more.

I also like the idea of you including a vocal version of your blog entry; that is definitely a convenient for those who are lazy to read words and would like to catch up on your entry while they are moving about. I like how you highlighted the text which is supposed to be links to somewhere else either by changing the font color or by underlining them.

I don't have anything much more to comment on but I will definitely be coming back to your site to read your entries :) I notice that you mentioned in Snark that you were disappointed that FlashGlam won't be coming back but I guess different readers have preference for different styles of writing, so don't fret too much about that :)

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Shadow's Response:
I got the thing about the pictures a few reviews ago. I'm going to fix that as soon as I finish with this. Same thing with the random slash--that's not supposed to be there, I don't know why it's there, but it has something to do with the custom field that I used to show the description.

The links were listed alphabetically, so that's why the "Future of Crestfallen" link is before. I need to do some research to figure out how to at least switch those two, but I don't think it's possible.

And yes, since I've had this domain name for so long (this is the longest I've kept a domain name), it's become synonymous with Nat Marie/Shadow. So I'm keeping it. :D

I love this layout better myself; note to self--don't use hot pink again! I fear that I don't think I'll top this one. But that's my lack of confidence speaking.

You mean add a word count, perhaps? It's there. :)

Thanks a million for the review and stalking my site. ;)
flashglam gave it on 9th Dec 2008 and said:
Hey there :)

I have to say, I the colour scheme colour be better, but the layout is centrally aligned and that's all I ask for, almost.
The text looks very, very small in FireFox. I would check that out just incase FireFox users dont have a spare magnifying glass sitting around. Ha ha ha!

~ Owner ~
I'm sorry to hear about the abuse, especially from the teachers. I must have hit the jackpot because all of my teachers treat everyone as equals and no one has ever been bullied in any of my classes.
I'm afraid I would fall under the spoiled rotten category however, I know I'd still do fine without my parents. Anyways . . .

~ Site ~
Interesting stuff here. I like 'CrestFallen'. It sounds a lot different. Really cool! :D

~ Writing ~
Judging by the text on the site, you have no spelling, grammar, punctuation errors so I trust this pattern continues throughout your pieces - I don't feel like reading them all. Too lazy.
:D

Overall, you have a very good site. Your blogs are mediocre, not something that would actually keep ME coming back.

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Shadow's Response:
I'm not sure what version of Firefox/IE you're using, but as I'm using em measurements, it shouldn't be very small at all.

It's okay if you don't read it all. I don't expect anyone to read my blog *and* my writing section in one sitting.
Josh gave it on 9th Dec 2008 and said:
So, I have some free time on my hands, your site is in the "Recent Sites" box and I'd like to give this reviewing thing a shot. Here's my first review, maybe you can review it when I'm done? :P

Ash mentioned it, but for me the Go button is below the searchbar, and it is kind of bothersome. I'm using the latest version of FF3, by the way. Also, the little dragon thingy in your site's name was not immediately recognizable as an "S" to me. It's not too important, since anyone going to your site will know the name of it (it is the URL after all), but maybe you could make it curvier? It currently looks like a J, if anything. I'm worried that if you change it though, it just won't look as good. Maybe you could work the cool dragon thing in without using it as an S?

Your about section has PLENTY of information to offer; it's something I should probably use to model off of, as my about pages are the sucks. And like Ash said, it wasn't boring either. So, this is good, of course! Oh, also the text seems smushed up against the first picture on the page. Maybe some padding. The right-aligned picture isn't too bad, but could probably also use some padding.

As a side note, I kind of feel like the space between your headers and the first line of the following paragraph seems really big. And also the space between paragraphs, I think.

Your site section also has a bunch of information. Not as interesting as your about section, of course, but that's to be expected.

I just remembered this little tidbit: I think for your navigation, maybe instead of the tab going up and the text staying where it is, you could have the text go up with the tab? I don't know what it is, but when I hover over the tabs and the text just sits there while the tab moves, it looks weird. Maybe I'm just weird? Who knows.

Also, when your sidebar is longer than your content, it causes the sidebar to run into the footer and it kinda causes a mess. I only ran into this once, though, on the Articles page. Maybe you could set a min-height for the content area to avoid that? It's not super important, though, because it only seems to occur on the Articles page.

I'm not entirely sure why, but for some reason when I view your CSS, it's all one line. Which makes it really hard to look through. And I do enjoy looking through people's CSS! I don't know what program you use and things like that, though. And it might just be me. If it is within your power to fix it, though, it would be nice.

I'm not going to bother telling you how great your site is, so I'll just tell you that the rest of it is looking good as far as I can see. :) Hope this review wasn't too useless.

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Shadow's Response:
Not useless at all. I need to look at that "Go" button thing in Firefox. I swear that it didn't do that for me. The CSS thing is caused by CSS Compress, a Wordpress plugin. I hate that it does that. I'm probably just going to deactivate it anyway.

I'm going to look into the paragraph space. They are kinda big. I shall also fix that picture thing.

Haha @ the tab thing. I don't think it's you being weird. I might try it out, but I have a thing for symmetry. I swear it; I changed the navigation links a good 5 times before I settled on this.

Thank you for noticing the sidebar/footer thing. That was annoying the holy hell out of me, but I wasn't entirely sure how to fix it. I've never really worked with min-height before, so I need to look that one up. It doesn't only show up in the Articles area by the way--it shows up if you search as well, I believe.

If I didn't use the dragon thingy as an S, how do you suggest I work it in? Because like you, I am worried that if I change it it won't work as well.

Thank you for the review.

UPDATED 10 Dec 08:
I tried the min-height thing, but it wasn't working. Instead, I upped the margin top of the footer section. I think that was the problem all along. Better?
Aisling gave it on 9th Dec 2008 and said:
Off the top, I can only think of one thing I'm not really fond of on your layout, and that is the position of the header image. I think it would look much nicer if it lined up with the content area below. I.E. Make the container reach up to include the header, and align it to the left. On a big resolution, you don't want the title allll the way on the left when the content is in the middle, you want it all together. :)

Oh, and your pagination at the bottom seems a little smushed.
And, your sidebar navigation on your pages could use a bit more padding, as the words seem pretty cramped in those blue boxes. :(

Other than that, the layout looks exceptionally lovely. I love the hover attribute on the title. :D

You have a few minor errors in your coding, however. One is an unclosed p tag, and the other is the footnote div nested in a place where it can't be!

Your Owner page is well-written and fleshed out with plenty of (non-boring, yay) information.

LOL, I love how your site has a star sign. :D

The site page is well-written. Not anything special, but it serves its purpose.

I loved the Future of Crestfallen page. That is such a neat idea. :D It's good to know that you're not going anywhere.

Your Writing section is well-organized and you have a great style which is easy to relate to.

Policy is all in order, it seems.

And, your links list is nicely laid out, and has quite a few links, which is very nice as well. :)

This is such a short review. :( I apologize. I must say that this layout is an improvement in leaps and bounds from your last one. :D

UPDATED 09 Dec 08:
Yes! Much better with the header image and links! Now, just make the "Go," button for your search box on the same line as the text area, and you should be great. :)

UPDATED 09 Dec 08:
http://dreamling.ca/random/cfnuscreencap.jpg :)

I have to make this review 50 words long, or something. Blah blah.

Yeah, it's off for me. I don't know why. I use FF 3.something. :)

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Shadow's Response:
That's what was bothering me, the positioning of the image. Thank goodness I plugged in my external hard drive tonight. Now I can fix it without procrastination.

I fixed the coding before I even read this review. I was like "why is there a &ltbr /> when it should be a closing p?" I added an extra space in my entries to fix that problem, which ultimately fixed the footnote div issue as well.

I also noticed the pagination issue. I'm not entirely sure as to why it's doing that, but I'll play around to fix it.

Thanks a million, and you're right--I enjoy looking at this layout better, despite how stressed it made me!

UPDATED 09 Dec 08:
The image position: Does it work for you? (Please say yes! Haha!)

UPDATED 09 Dec 08:
The links: better?

UPDATED 09 Dec 08:
*squeaks* You mean that the go button isn't on the same line?! It's showing fine for me! Shoot me a screenshot, please?
charliegirl gave it on 9th Dec 2008 and said:
Your rocking the baby blues. Very pretty blue tones you have picked but I think a contrasting color for links of headers. I seem to make that point a lot, it's just that I love colors and think that simple layouts (which I love) still need a little more style to it.

I like that there is quite a few things to get into and read on your website. I like websites that take me longer than just a few minutes to skim through and move me to read more thoroughly.

I am not too big on the sponsored posts unless you are dooce (bleh) or some other major named blog and can make mad cash (although I could be wrong, is decently lucrative for you?).

For your blog navigation at the bottom I think there should be equal padding for the box surrounding the numbers, there doesn't seem to be any on the right hand side. Just a small minor thing but it bothers my so. Oh and I think a tiny bit of padding on the left hand side of each link on Recent Posts, Pages and Links would make it look better.

I think the search bar should be on the top portion of the website, just seems to make more sense usability wise to me to move it up higher on the page.

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Shadow's Response:
Thanks for the review. :)

My intention was to put the search bar on top, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without it sticking out like a sore thumb. I'll do some...testing though and see what happens.
Kari gave it on 8th Dec 2008 and said:
First impressions: Wow, your layout is so pretty! Everything has a really calming look with that blue color and I think the layout is quite well done. Although your layout is simple, it is quite sophisticated. Also your font is nice and big and clearly readable. Your site name is also really original and cute! I love it.

Style/design: As I said, I love the colors of your layout. I also love the hover 'home' on the header - however, when I hover over it a small blue box 'home/' appears - to me that looks a little odd and I am not quite sure what it's supposed to be. Your round tabs are clean and professional. One thing that bugs me, and keep in mind this is just my opinion, is that the navigation tabs don't stretch across the entire content box? I don't know, it might just be me, but I would rather have it centered or have it stretch across the whole content and sidebar box.

Coding/css: Your css is clean and the colors flow well together. Maybe you could make a better contrast between your links and the background of the sidebar but other than that it looks good. I just entered your site at validator.w3.org and there's 2 errors - not many but it's easily fixable! Also I just looked at the errors and they look quite simple to fix. You have no css errors so that's great :D

Content: Your blog was nice - I can clearly get a sense of your personality and your sarcasm :) Your article on That Ainâ€™t Right: Common Fatal Errors That Website Owners Make is nice, but it's a little average - however I did like your point about the em calculator and the WHY for both points on errors are good - I think you should add more to that if you have time. You really know what you are saying :) Your writing tips article is good and thoughtful. Your owner page is nice, a little long but thoughtful and I like how you broke it up into paragraphs.

Overall, your site is quite nice! Everything is neat and organized and it seems like you put a lot of effort into making the site tidy. I think I would work on more content - I love your articles and I'd love to read more about them. Also, your blogs are good but I would work on making them a little more appealing. You're doing great so far and I can't wait to see what else you come up with!

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Shadow's Response:
D'oh! That box on hover wasn't supposed to be there.

Maybe I should try centering the navigation tabs. I usually go the centered navigation way, and this was a way to step out of my comfort zone.

Yes, I plan to expand that article further. I'm actually writing it down in a notebook, which is why it's taking a little longer. It's a bit of a nervous habit I have--I have to write down most of what I write, or I'm scared I'll lose it.

Thanks a million!

UPDATED 09 Dec 08:
Speaking of the links/background: That actually was a thing that I had a lot of problems with. Do you have a suggestion?
Annen gave it on 8th Dec 2008 and said:
First impression
There's something odd about the blue menu area. The square shapes don't really fit in, in my opinion. It's a darn shame, because your logo up in the left corner looks so great! By the way - the name of the site is really, really good! It's catchy + it looks just beautiful. How did you come up with that? ;) Omg, I noticed you have a roll over image up there just now! That's awesome, see details like that really, really make me love it! :p Plus a link back to the frontapge is always useful.

Layout
AS I said before, you would be able to make the menu look nicer (: I think the rounded corners in the menu are really cool, and also the way they pop up a little, but the blue area is just a tad too strange for me. Maybe if you kept the blue in the area underneath the menu tabs? :b Well, we're talking a small change, that'd make everything make more sense. I hope you understand what I'm saying. Maybe it's because I have a farily large screen (22" because I'm currently in the office).

Content
The blog is ok - no big surprises, but I'm fine with that :) You are fairly organized - that is obviously a good skill to have. Keep it up like that ;D I like what you wrote about the site. You make is interesting to read - Wuhuu, thumbs on! :)
I might as well be honest with you, I didn't read all your writing, but I did in fact check out some of it. Your articles are really nice :b You have a good, interesting way of explaining things. Well, the "That Ainâ€™t Right: Common Fatal Errors That Website Owners Make" didn't really help me any further, though ;) I think my 12 pixel font is quite all right and I don't smash pink images all over my site. You could add more to this article though ;D

Final words
I see a really good site here, that I enjoyed to review. I hope you get something usefull out of this ;b IF you have any questions about anything I have written ,feel free to contact me :) Well, good luck with your site later on.

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Shadow's Response:
My, that is a big screen!

I think I know what you mean about the background behind the tab. This was an attempt to not use transparent tabs; they're supposed to actually blend in otherwise. If that's not exactly what you mean, then shed some light.

There's a funny story behind the name. After my first two domain names, I wanted something that was one word, a .nu, and a name that will stick and reflects me. The name I had in mind at first was despair.nu. I saw that was taken, went to thesaurus.com and perused through a list of synonyms. I saw "dejected", then I saw "crestfallen", and it yelled "buy me!" At the time of purchase, it did reflect who I was (the dejected, depressed girl who thinks that the world hated her), but since then I've grown a smidge, and now the site name Crestfallen is almost synonymous with Nat Marie/Shadow.

And yes, I will be adding on more to that article. I'm writing it all by hand. It seems that I'm getting a lot of stuff on that article. That's good, because that was just an on-a-whim-since-reviewing-on-rev.iew.me article.

Thanks a million. :)