(Rated by 5 people, viewed by 117 people)
SimplyInsane has 5 Reviews
Below are the reviews left by other members on SimplyInsane. Jump to review form?
Chachafance gave it
on 2nd Feb 2009 and said:I'm not here expecting the best & greatest layouts so I'm not sure why people are making big deals about layouts not be "spectacular" and all that kinds of stuff.
I personally like your layout. It's simple. I also LOVE the blue you have used! Midnight blue is my favorite color & it's the prettiest color my eyes has ever seen! :)
For someone your age & running a site like this BY YOURSELF, I think you're doing an amazing job! Just keep it up, don't let people get to you. We should be encouraging our youth, not discouraging them.
I think all your graphics are great. Just keep working on it & you will improve & succeed. Good luck!
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sassa12489 gave it
on 17th Dec 2008 and said:Well, your layout's okay. Nothing amazing but it will do. The color scheme is very plain too. Just two colors. I'd say spice it up a bit with another color somewhere. Nothing crazy, keep it conservative.
I won't judge your neopets because I don't use the stuff. I'll start with desktop backgrounds:
I'm staring at the top with the yellow roses. Very plain and bland. The quality is bad but that might have been a graphical move on your part. I don't know. But it's pretty boring.
The next one is somewhat nicer. I like the reflection. It makes it look sleek. It's still a bit weird for a desktop (maybe a blog header or something) but it's definately better than the first.
The third one is my favorite.I'm a music junkie (and so is alot of others) so this is very smart. I'd use this if I didn't share a computer with my family. It also might be a good idea to mention you might want a back button on the bottom of every page.
Moving on to your emoticons:
The first set was fine. The second set is unnecessary. You just turned them on their sides to add more content. If that isn't the case, write a note on top on why you think they're different.
Brushes:
They're not very good. One thing to avoid is what every has already made and what everyone can make on their own. Everyone can download fonts that are beautiful so your written brushes are useless. The swirls are unique but are bad quality. I'd say redo them but make them sharper. Not much to say on the speech bubbles. I guess you can keep those, no problem. The grids are so tiny they're almost useless. one thing about that is if they're icon grids, specify. People like me look at 50 different sites a day prowling for resources but we like to see specific links like icon textures or large textures. The hanging stars are a definite keeper. very creative. the moon's quality isn't very good but the stars are good.
Stock:
Nothing much to say. Good camera. Nice quality. Make sure when you take pictures and post them, ask yourself how could I see someone using these. If you can't, dont post it.Hiatus signs: are these for neopets? myspace? clarify
Welcome: No one but maybe neopets will use these. When people have sites, they like to coordinate their splash pages with their layout so if they are for something specific, clarify.
I'm happy you've validated your coding and acheived cross browser compatibility.
tutorials: be careful, you're getting too literal with your meanings. i have a similar tutorial onpath to text but I didn't know what the heck you were talking about. Be simple, if someone's looking for a specific tutorial, they most likely won't click through a bunch of confusing names so simplify simplify simplify. Ive read a couple of your tutorials and they're very clear. nice job. its very good you have pictures.
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Fan's Response:
Thanks for the review.
I'm sorry that you didn't like most of my content, but I'm always open to constructive criticism and I'm definately taking that to heart. Thank you.
And about the spiral brushes: They're supposed to be the way they are. I'm sorry if you don't like them. I'll try seeing if they look better sharper, so thanks for the suggestion.
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/squigglybee.gif)
squigglybee gave it
on 17th Dec 2008 and said:First Impression: Your site seems clean and organized at first glance. I like the sismplicity of your layout and am happy not to see flashing graphics all over the place. I also like how you have your CBox blend into your layout and not stick out with obnoxious colors. Good for you. I don't really know if I like how you have your content centered though. Also, I'm viewing your site with a 1280x760 resolution, and your layout is aligned more to the left, and I think it would look better if that aspect of your site was aligned to the center.
Your layout is kind of too long for most of your pages. Why the need for it to be so long?
I agree with what has already been said about the Neopetss images. It is good you give credit to Neopets for the images, but they don't really say, "Yes, take our images and turn them into whatever you want."
I don't really use GIMP, so I can't say much about those tutorials. I took a look at some of your Paint ones, and I learned a couple of new things. I didn't really know you could turn a pixel grid on or that you could drag things around for that "slinky effect."
I would consider getting rid of CuteNews if I were you. I used to use CuteNews and then one day it just crashed. It's not the most reliable thing out there to use.
Overall, your site is okay. I would like to see more personal information about you though. Oh wait, you do have some personal info. I didn't even see that "More..." link on the sidebar. I would link to this page somewhere else too perhaps. And, a little more in depth info. would be good too.
Good luck with your site. :)
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Fan's Response:
Thank you for the review~
The reason my layout is so long is so that I can [try] to avoid double scrolling. I use iframes (yes, I know. I should get rid of them. Trying) because I do not host my own Cutenews. I use Freewebs, and unlike a lot of web hosts, Freewebs does not support PHP.
I personally have never had a problem with Cutenews, so, no offence, I don't really have any want/need to change my news posting program. If perhaps one day I do have a problem with it, then I guess I'll have to change it.
Again, thank you for the review
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/stepherz.jpg)
stepherz gave it
on 16th Dec 2008 and said:Hi! I'm stepherz and I'm going to try to give you a helpful review today! :)
LAYOUT:
This is pretty! Simple and elegant! I'm digging the stars and moon thing going on! :) The navigation is nicely laid out on the top, easy to find, though I'd consider putting site at the end of the navigation after graphics and tutorials because this is a graphics/tutorials site, right? I'm not a big fan of iframes... I think this could easily be made into a beautiful css layout! It would also get rid of the empty space at the bottom of your layout before your footer. I don't know how fond I am of the left bar though... I feel the online now link is useless and am personally not a fan of cboxes. The affiliate links are also a little annoying because their flashing... not a big deal though. And valid html and css, nice! :) Though I don't think Cutenews is a very secure script.CONTENT
Site -
The terms of use page seems out of place. I doubt anyone actually comes searching for a terms of use page. I feel this might be better suited just on the actual graphics page itself. Not much to say about anything else. The about page is nicely written, lots of information. Though I wonder how you chose the name?Graphics -
Downloadable - The wallpapers are nice, though I'm not sure if you really need the instructions on how to use them. Most people probably already know. And definitely take off you don't know instructions for the mac. It's pointless to just have that written. Emoticons - nice. Love to see these in different colors.Makers -
Nice, I don't actually see these very much anymore. I'm glad the templates are not transparent and rather have white backgrounds instead. Though... I didn't think neopets liked other people using their images?I'm skipping over the neopets section since I don't think I have anything constructive to say since I don't know much about neopets.
Resources -
Image packs are nice. Oh! There's your hanging stars! Cute! :) Stocks are nice. Hee hee. A cow.Signs -
Hiatus signs. Once again, I thought neopets didn't like people using their work. Enter signs are pretty, though I don't really see people using these much now a days.Tutorials -
I don't use gimp so I probably won't be much of a help here either. But some of these effects are so pretty! (vintage!) For the blending tutorial, I found it annoying that the screenshots weren't in the actual page, but rather were text links. I think it would be better if they were thumbnails, or even just normally in there. Ms paint tutorials were neat. I didn't know you could do some of these things in paint. Definitly original, as I haven't seen these before. The tricks page was annoying though, because here it became very obvious you were using iframes, as I had two scroll bars now. :(Overall -
I'm pleased by your site, it's nice to look at. I'd get rid of the iframes and focus on a CSS based layout. I'd also find out neopets policy on using their images, I've run across a site before that got a letter from them asking them to take down all the images (though I don't remember which site, which makes me less credible!) The layout is simple yet pretty. I probably would not personally visit again, but tutorial/graphic sites aren't my thing. If you had some more interesting reads (maybe articles?) I'd be more inclined to stick around, but that's not what your site is. Overall, it does a good job of what it's supposed to do, and if I ever get GIMP, this'll be the first place I come. :) :)Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
Fan's Response:
Thanks for the awesome review. ^___^
And I didn't personally know that Neopets had a policy against using their images. They have (maybe used to) a page with images that were open to the public to use in graphics and such. But I also give them credit at the bottom, but oh well. I was planning on taking those down, not to mention I no longer even make Neopets graphics.
The only reason I use iframes is because I don't know how else to make my layout simply CSS, as I am not all that great at coding at the moment and I'm not sure if Freewebs (I should probably switch that too) would support a header/footer layout.
Anyways, thanks for the review!
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Greykitty.gif)
Greykitty gave it
on 15th Dec 2008 and said:1280 x 1024 resolution
The layout is nice and simple, oranised. I like it except for the iframe. You've hit on one of my pet peeves. I don't mind if there is an actual reason to have the iframe, like you have a layout with a small window for the content and you want it to be in that box. There again though I prefer using CSS vrs an iframe.
One major draw back to the iframe is when you do a google search you could come up with one of your content pages but there's no navigation back to the main page.
I see no REAL reason to have an iframe in a long layout like that either. It's just kind of a pain to have to double scroll, because you already scroll on the main browser but then you have to scroll inside the window as well.
I would suggest dumping the iframes and moving to header footer includes on each page. It's uber easy to change your layouts and each page will have it's own navigation.
http://www.choicetemplates.com/tutorials.php?name=headfootMoving on, I like the colors you used in your layout. Only thing I would suggest is that you change your bolded font color it's too close to the background color so it blends in a bit too much. Everything else on your layout looks great to me.
You site section is nice, plenty of info about the site. Your portfolio is looking good, I would suggest making thumbnails for your images so the page loads faster.
You have some nice visitor content. Thank you for labeling what is a pop up! Nice resources and stock photos too. I like seeing more than just half arsed celeb photos blended so your icons and graphics are a welcome break from seeing those. They are fairly nice quality too.
On to the tutorials!
You have quite a few very nice tutorials, I have seen many similar but yours are nicely organised and easy to follow. Though I have not seen many tutorials on paint so that was nice to see.
Overall I think this site has some really good potential. If you keep adding to your graphics and tutorials you will definitely have stuff to draw visitors in and have return visits. Keep it up.
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Fan's Response:
Yeah, I was actually thinking about getting rid of the iframes today during one of my classes.
I try not to use celeb pictures as long as I can, as it IS illegal to use them.
Thank you for reviewing my site~
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