Black Stripes has 10 Reviews
Below are the reviews left by other members on Black Stripes. Jump to review form?
Chachafance gave it
on 2nd Feb 2009 and said:Being a person who kind of straddles in between the whole Web 2.0 crowd verses the younger bright colors small fonts loving crowd, I can appreciate & understand what you've done with your site.
Usually it's the older generation of readers that don't like sites like this so I think you're very brave to add your site here to begin with. But I also applaud you for being so brave.
Now your site is not my style but I do think it's a decent looking site & layout and I know a lot of young people who would kill for a site like it. I think you did a really great job, especially on the header.
Lastly, going by your overall style I wouldn't be surprised if you were an avid IMVU user b/c your site fits into that crowd of Internet users - which is not a bad thing at all, just being observant. :)
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OMGalarm's Response:
Thank you, it's good to see someone who manages to see further than their own likes. I understood pretty fast that people here bash and stump on everything that isn't in their particular style, and I guess my style is like rock to Web 2.0's hip hop :b I don't mind, I don't fancy their sites either.
I don't know about young people though, I am 20 after all :b And I don't know what IMVU is.
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Baohan.jpg)
Baohan gave it
on 6th Jan 2009 and said:Hello, I'm Baohan and I am now going to review your website. (This was copied from Scott from below :))
First Impression: Oh my god, I thought my website was colourful. Your was even more colourful! I'm not saying that it's bad to be colourful but I think that it's kind of like blinding me. I think that it's a little too much. I think that if you set everything down just a little bit, it'll be less bright and more colourful in a good way. The image of the girl isn't my favourite thing either. I saw it too many times already and copyrighted materials is what I don't really like to see on websites (unless it's THEIR websites). I don't like the background either. I think the dots doesn't work very well, it takes the glory away from your main header ( I am serious because I stare at your background way more ).
Coding: Your coding is a little scary as I really like website which the owner takes into the littlest details ( such as validating their websites ) and doing other stuffs that is very visible yet making the visitors feels like they have put a lot of effort in to it. Therefore, I think that you should validate your website.
A glance at your blog: Are you serious? You like Cutenews? I know that it's cute to use but it's not very cute when spam comes and get you. Jem even thinks that it's more "holey than the bible" and it's very unsafe! Wordpress ( is it what you are using? ) is already safe. I know that it's hard to use but after a while, you may just get use to it!
About: There is a lot of details here. But I really like something as a paragraph to describe yourself (since I will the know about the writing style...etc ) over a list. Yet a list is good because it encourages people to read it more.
Site: Some hosting, some credit, some affiliate. The norms' stuffs.
Portfolio: I was just wondering, why don't you put your past layouts in your site bit as well? It associate with your site! Also, I don't think that it's right to put stolen celebrities images on your portfolio page. Portfolios usually includes what is made by you and you only. All you did here was spatting some brush over and put it in your portfolio. It screams lazy. Though I have to admit, I think that you have nice skills. Maybe try something more original?
Contents and other pages I will excuse off. :) Sorry but I'm not very interested in reviewing contents. They are too long/ too much. But I do see that you have interesting things up and I think that it's good for the website
Overall, I think that as you are a talented designer, I don't think that you have used it right. A more original and creative path is what I would recommend for you.
P.S: As you are older, you might think that I'm rude. Well, I'm sorry as I'm just telling the truth.
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paintedskies gave it
on 31st Dec 2008 and said:Hello, I'm Scott and I am now going to review your website.
First Impressions - The whole layout is awful. The background is a mess. Firstly it blinds me, and secondly it doesn't align correctly in my resolution. The little image of that girl is okay, but it's old. Everyone does things like this and it feels like you're following the crowd. I like the way you have set the image and content up, though. However it could be a little wider, it's all a bit squished at the moment. I'm getting an error on your footer which is really bugging me, too.
I feel you need to increase your font size and line height, because at the moment I am finding it pretty hard to read. The aqua and pink writing is terrible because the colours don't contrast eachother and they are also very hard on the eyes. I've said this a lot to other people, but scrap Cutenews - WordPress or Fanupdate are great replacements!
ABOUT - this page is very basic and therefor, boring. I would suggest adding more information about what you would like to do in the future... and maybe how you currently spend your time. This page is here for the visitors to get to know you, but at the moment I am not really learning much except for the basics. I know I'm not the best for writing about pages, but I try to vary what I write and include information in which other people will find interesting. Run a spell check through your website because I'm not sitting her all night correcting the errors. I understand your first language isn't English, but using a spell checker could really help you to improve.
I'm not going to review all of your pages, but I'm going to pick a few pages from your "content" and "tutorial" sections.
Backgrounds - I know that you didn't make the fifth background in. I used this background a couple of years ago and it has been on many peoples "content" sections before. This is the same with some of the textures, too.
The tutorials are what I have seen everywhere. They're extremely boring and un-needed. I suppose you've just copied and pasted them from another site to yours, right?
I'm sorry if you have found this review a little harsh, but I really wanted to let you know my opinions.
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TiffanyBee gave it
on 30th Dec 2008 and said:Layout
I adore this layout that you have, Bee! It's very simple yet it doesn't make it seem like you lack graphic designing skills. You obviously know your way around photoshop and it is obvious you can tell what looks good and what doesn't. A lot of the time people often can't tell the difference between good neon colors and bad clashing neon colors. The usage of the polka dot background and the model you chose go very well together. Pink never looked more fabulous! I also like the blue that you used for your site's title. It's the perfect size font and we can see that the blue is from the picture. I would've suggested maybe tossing in a texture or a brush or so to make the layout a little more interesting to look at but nevertheless, I can appreciate the simplicity of it. The sidebar is easy to navigate and the content is perfectly placed. The font colors aren't off so everything is easy on the eyes. The yellow links might be a little too bright but I do like the contrast of blue and yellow. Hrm, but it seems that "blackstripes.net" doesn't have a dash in the middle of it. It might confuse people since your real address has a dash and your header doesn't.The Bee
This page is all about you, of course! It's fine, I have nothing bad to say about your about page. It is about you. I was going to ask you where your contact area was but it's on your sidebar which is very convenient for visitors. Everything on this page is short and straight to the point. There's no life story so it's pretty much anything a curious person would like to read.Site
History - I really like when sites have a history page. It's always interesting to see how people got their start into the web designing world. I'm pretty impressed that your English is so excellent for someone who claims that it's your second language. The only other language I know pretty well is Spanish and I couldn't imagine making a site completely in Spanish so I'm really impressed. The grammar is probably around 99% correct.Hosting - Pretty typical hosting. Simple, clean cut, straight to the point. The form is a nice touch. It makes it a lot easier for people to apply for hosting.
Link Black-Stripes - These are great link buttons. I think you should display the dimensions of the buttons. You should make two distinct sizes: 100 by 35 and 88 by 31. Your link buttons are 100 by 35. I think most people use 88 by 31 buttons, so maybe you should go ahead and make buttons that are 88 by 31 as well.
Affiliates - This page is very neat and organized. Displaying the site owner's name makes it seem as if you have personal relationships with your affiliates which is always a good thing. The worst kind of affiliate is the one who never keeps in touch.
Previous Layouts - I also really like seeing previous layouts as well! To see previous layouts is like watching a time line of the improvements of the web designer so it's really great that you put this up. From your previous layouts which are still fabulous, I can tell that you have improved greatly in creativity and design. I don't think you've updated it recently though.
Resources - Not much to say about this page. It's pretty straight forward, you really can't mess this page up.
Portfolio
This display of your work is great. I love the thumbnails! It makes it really easy to preview what you're about to see. The colorizations are wonderful! To improve this page, you should download Lightbox so that it's even easier for people to browse through your work.Content
You have a lot of content! That's really a great feature for a site and it will definitely bring a lot of visitors.Backgrounds - They're great. You should definitely add more.
Brushes - You have a ton of brushes and they're all great. It's even better that you have included an imagepack for those who may not have photoshop.
Fonts - Really like the fonts that you put up. I'm still a little iffy on fonts because it's always better to put up fonts you created yourself but I also like the idea of putting up fonts you think others would like too. I don't know if you're allowed to redistribute the fonts so I can't say anything negative about this section but nevertheless, I'm sure your visitors enjoy it.
Header Styles - I'd like to see more header styles because I think that people on Myspace would really use this.
Icon Textures - The ones you have are kind of similar but again, I'd like to see more. Diversify the icon textures!
Layouts - One word: Amazing. Although I really think that you should create a separate page for each of the layouts with the codes on them. There's a lot of coding going on so I guess it might be easier for the visitors to see that. It's also really great that you let them see a preview of the layout as well and not just a picture. You should definitely add more when you get the chance to!
Patterns - These are really great and I really like that you can download them!
Photoshop Actions - These are all great but they're too big for your actual content area so you might consider making your content area bigger so that they can fit these pictures of making the pictures smaller.
Pixel Fonts - I think you should've included these on the fonts page. Maybe put a sub-category: Pixel Fonts.
RGB Color Scheme - I AM SO SHOCKED. THIS IS AWESOME.
Stock Images - All great.
Textures - Again, wonderful.
Wallpapers - You have such a great selection, they're all really beautiful. I think you should somehow integrate the size of each wallpaper though. Maybe even add some 800 by 600 or even bigger wallpapers.
Icons - Hrm, not exactly sure why you had this as a pop-up but the icons are great!
Signatures - These are all great, but like I said before, they don't fit in your content area.
Tutorials
You have so many! It's really great you have so many tutorials. Again, some of them don't fit your content area but some of them lack some pictures. It's always nice to see pictures of where to click and what to do.Conclusion
Your site is very pleasing to the eye and worth revisiting, especially with all of those useful tutorials. It is definitely 5 star material, but for now, you're almost there. The only thing you need to do to get to that 5 star rating is just fixing your content area or making the pictures smaller. Everything else is really great. Maybe changing to a more secure blogging system but that's not really a problem for the visitors..just as long as everything is easy to find and well put together, it's a great site.Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/megan.jpg)
megan gave it
on 28th Dec 2008 and said:I must start with your layout, I can‘t take my eyes off it! It‘s soooo gorgeous! The colours and quality is just amazing. Wish I was this good, one day I will hopefully :P And it‘s all so pink too. Pink is my favourite color.
The coding looks spotless with Mozilla Firefox and all the colours match perfectly with your layout. I went through your portfolio and I must say that you‘re one of the best designers I‘ve seen for a long time. Your colorizes are very realistic, absolutely gorgeous.
I love the fact that you have tutorials. I love tutorials hehe. You‘ve got so many useful tutorials. I will definitely recommend your website for others. From now on I‘ll be a regular visitor! ïŠUsing Firefox on Windows | Report This?
rockcandy gave it
on 20th Dec 2008 and said:I think that overall it's a pretty good site, but let's break it down.
Your layout is good and eyecatching, which is what made me click the link to your site. That's a good thing, so keep it up! :)
The Bee-I think your "about me" description could use a little more actual talking about yourself, rather than just listing some of your interests. Your visitors will feel more "connected" to you if you tell them about yourself personally, rather than saying "Loves ___. Is from ____.", and so forth.
Site-Your site history could be broken down into paragraphs. It looks like you're rambling on in a huge paragraph.
For your affiliation form, just make sure that the words are in a more contrasting color. It'll make it easier to read for the visitors, and they won't have to highlight the text just to read it.Your porfolio is nice! Consider using a pop-up box script for your portfolio pieces, but overall, it's nice.
Content-Nice! I like your brushes. For some of the scanned brushes, just make sure that the background is completely white so it makes it makes neater, cleaner brushes. Your tutorials are easy to follow too, which is good.
Blog-Try using image thumbnails, instead of posting a lot of images. It makes it look cleaner. Moreover, also try to use more formatting for your blog, so it doesn't look as boring, and the reader will know what each paragraph is talking about.
Overall though, it was pretty good, and you have awesome layout skills :)
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flashglam gave it
on 20th Dec 2008 and said:Heeeeeey :)
I'm slightly hyper right now, but I'm sure I'm still capable of writing a review. . . hopefully ;)
Anyways, I'm not amazing with coding, but I can lend a helping hand with spelling, grammar and punctuation if needed. :D// FIRST IMPRESSION //
The layout is very pink, but very feminine and pretty - I love it.
The girl is so pretty, too. He he he!
Your text could use a little extra line height to breathe, but nothing too serious.// THE BEE //
A little bit of mistakes in the following paragraph:
"Nineteen year old girl from Norway who yearns for a bigger pond. Is addicted to coke, tha intawebs and her iPod. Wants to color her hair pink, because it's awesome and it would provoce her friends. Likes to say awesome, fuck and nifty a whole fucking lot."
coke should be Coke
provoce -> provoke
and whatever you mean by 'tha intawebs', he he he!
And under "Random Facts", 'mac' & 'english' should be capitalised.// SITE //
All of this is good. I didn't find any errors or problems :)// PORTFOLIO //
Wow. Your designs are really good and cool. I like them. I like them a lot! :D// CONTENT //
BRUSHES:
I really like a few of these, I might download a couple later :)FONTS:
I guess I never really understood the point of redistribution fonts - let alone, the fonts everyone else has on their site, too - which can be found on www.dafont.com (a site that has a much bigger selection, at that).
Quality over quantity and in no way do I find fonts useful or quality content.HEADER STYLES:
Because people would rather use these because they don't even match their layout. . .ICON TEXTURES:
These are cool, not going to lie. :) You need more variety with the colour, though.LAYOUTS:
I'm going to skip these because they make me furious; on any site, don't take it personal, please.PATTERNS:
The first set is mediocre, but the second is cool. Might download that, too! Ha ha ha!ACTIONS:
Some of these are cool.PIXEL FONTS:
You know how I feel about these already.RBG COLOR SCHEME:
Um, okay. I don't see the point of this as I highly doubt anyone has ever used it, but if you want to waste your disk-space, be my guest.STOCK IMAGES:
Ouuuu. These are amazing. I looove them. I don't really use stock images, but if I did, I would definitely use these, ha ha ha!TEXTURES:
Really cool. Again: I don't usually use textures, but if I ever do, I'll be sure to come check see yours. :)
*bookmarks site*DESKTOPS:
I just looked at a couple and they are amazing. You should make some Twilight ones. :) I'm in need of a good, hot, Edward desktop. Ha ha ha (L)SIGNATURES:
I guess I missed the boat here. I've always wanted to ask why they are called 'Signatures' when clearly, they show no name on them. Either way, these are hot. ;]TUTORIALS:
Here's a quick little overview of what I think about them. I am nit going to look at them since I find it would be a big waste of mine and your time.
I like advanced picture tutorials. They are my favourite and I will more than likely end up using these.
All of your Adobe Photoshop tutorials are useless. Every other site has the same, redistributed: "Use the freehand selection tool on feather @ 30 and delete." or "Take the eraser brush and put hardness at 0 and opacity down to 50; erase all parts of the picture."
The HTML/Javascript is pretty much the same crap everyone else has.
Same with the CSS, FTP, Cutenews - which I wouldn't even be promoting as it is highly insecure - Wordpress and Haloscan.
Don't you want to be the person with all the original and unique content? You need to fiddle around with programs and try and find new and interesting things.
Your site can have so much potential. You just have to work up to it.// FINAL //
Well, that's your site. I didn't find very many things with spelling, which is great since English is your second language.
You have lots of talent with graphics and such, but not so much the tutorials. I would delete all of the tutorials except the advanced picture and start from scratch.
Your site is very cute and funky. Very unique. Just remember to work up to your potential.
With that said, I gave your site three-and-a-half stars. There is still room for improvement, after that, I'm sure Black-Stripes will definitely be a 5 :D
I hope you've enjoyed your review and I also hope it comes in handy for something - anything!!!!
Happy Holidays! ~~ :)Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
sassa12489 gave it
on 19th Dec 2008 and said:Viewed in: Safari
First impression: I don’t know what to think about the layout. I like the coloring effect but in a way it looks as if you just combined a bunch of textures and hoped they’d work but it’s not displeasing to the eye. Pretty colorscheme
CSS: Its weird that you didn’t choose the brightest pink for the text header instead opting for a blue that’s shown on the bottom. I don’t like your css for that reason. The colors seem completely random because they’re not exactly the main colors in your layout so they seem out of place. Also, the big text clashes with the text shown in the header and what that means is that the css doesn’t mesh well with the layout.
Bee: Did you copy that off myspace or something lol? Naw jk. I like it. Very simple, gets to the point. Nice.
Site: the yellow border in the blockquote is not only really really bright but it’s really random. You might want to stick to the colors in your layout since you have so many to choose from.
Behind the name: Cool enough.
Blog archive: I guess that is in Norwegian? Might want to clarify because I thought you were just banging on the keyboard before I happen to glance at your mini bio. Btw, there’s little question marks there so your smilies I guess are gone.
Hosting: Talked about the block quote. Good rules. Looks like you covered everything in your list. Nice rules.
Link Back: You might want to make sure your button text is actually readable. Ex.) your first button is kind of hard to read
Affies: Why are they listed twice? They’re already in the sidebar.
PL: You’ve got some good art to showcase. My fav layout is Oct 22-Nov 5. That is amazing.
Resources: looks good
Portfolio: Uh, the Twilight one is crazily amazing. My favorite right after the last one whatever it is lol of your school work. Why do you have premades in your portfolio section????
Content: Wow. Pretty strong feelings but I run into the problem of downloading image sets labeled 1, 2 3 and then later on I don’t know where they came from. It’s YOUR responsibility to label your resources. For example black-stripes_net_brushpack1.
Tutorials: Wow, your first advanced pic is my favorite. Nice. I might use that. You have a lot of tutorials. Some I’ve seen everywhere, some I haven’t. I just hope the ones that are everywhere that you’ve made them easier to understand. I find your css tutorials the most appealing. Verticle navigation blocks are now very popular so a tutorial on that is good. Colored first letter is cool too.
Brushes: I’ve found most of these good. Why are some of your sets on grey paper? You stopped making image packs? Why?
Fonts: You didn’t make them so why are they on there? I know it says you didn’t make them but it’s the same as redistributing material. If I redistributed your brushes even while giving you credit, I’d say you’d still be pretty ticked.
Tutorials: Why is this on your side bar and in your content? I think its better suited on your sidebar.
Icon textures: Your icon textures are just a bunch of gradients. Get more creative ;D you’ve got the skill
Layouts: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.black-stripes.net%2F&profile=css21&usermedium=all&warning=1&lang=en You might want to validate your own coding before you code for others. You only have two errors but zero is even better :D
:The image on Urie is not my cup of tea but I like the css.
:The image is not very impressive at all but the css wows me. Very simple but I like it.
Patterns: I never use them so I won’t critique.
Photoshop Actions: I find that actual tutorials are more helpful then these things. You could have this and tutorials but for the bulk of the young web designing community, photoshop is just too expensive and so you’re limiting your audience by only providing ps actions.
:The first action is bad. Theres not much of a change. The second one is phenomenal. The last one blows me away. I’m downloading that!
Pixel fonts: same as other fonts.
Stock: Nice stock images. I want to use some of these. These are great. The first is my favorite.
Textures: Hm. I don’t like the first one. Looks a bit like puke. The second one’s colors are better. The purple is really dark. The black one is horrid. The yellow is very bright but pretty. The purple is amazing. The beige doesn’t look that great. The pink’s is blotchy instead of gradient like. I like the bluish green in a way. The wrinkles kind of ruin it for me though. The yellow has the same verdict.
Desktops: You might want to specify the dimensions of these. The Brody one is nice. Baby Shambles is just like the Brody but not as good. The Greenday is A-MAZING! Woah! I couldn’t take my eyes off for a second. That should be at the top. DD is not very good. P@tD is a broken link, and the strokes layout is mediocre compared to some of the art on this site I’ve seen. I don’t like the WM one. The textures do nothing to help the picture.
Icons: Theyre okay, nothing spectacular.
Signatures:
>>MCR: First one’s cool, second one is pretty bad
>>SQ: They’re okay. The image coloring effects push these images along.
>>Models: Nice, Cool effect. That’s great
>>Brendon Urie: Once again, you’ve wowed me. You need to go through your site and reexamine your artworks because this sig is what you’re capable of and you need to show it more often. Amount isn’t everything. I’d rather see a couple of these vs. some of those premades in your portfolio.Overall, your site’s okay. One of the primary reasons I’m giving 3 1/2 stars is because your site has literally forced me to the 1000 word mark which means you’ve got some visitor content but now the question is, “is it up the quality standard I want it to be.†You need to revamp your portfolio section unless it’s one of those “how far I’ve come†ones because some of the art sucks majorly compared to art like your desktops, signatures, and even this layout.
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/carisse27.gif)
carisse27 gave it
on 19th Dec 2008 and said:First Impressions
I like the hover effect and the colors of your blog. However, you're using a celebrity image in your header,am I right? I'm warning you, there's a serious thing on using celebrity images, read this article of Georgina about using celeb images here: http://heartdrops.org/yesthatsmine.php .Anyways, I must say and I shall say, you're good in designing!
Layout
In your layouts, I tried all the skins. There's just something when you select a skin, "You have no changed your skin to Skin #, so keep on surfin' with a flashy new layout!" --this should be "You have now changed your skin to Skin 1, so keep on surfin' with a flashy new layout!" Well, I reviewed all the skins!
-Skin# 1
The header is a little too big. Maybe you should resize it? Oh well.
-Skin# 2
You did a great job in this skin! The brushes are beautiful! You must be good in blending! Although in this part "All content © 2008 Black-Stripes " The "black stripes" part is a little big. If you really want it to be noticed on the footer, maybe bold? or all caps?
-Skin# 3
Ooh. Am I just Dirty Minded? Uhh, nevermind.Your navigation is awesome! But it's a little too light to match your background. I love the brushes effect on your header! Nice!
-Skin# 4
Or should I say default skin?
I love the colors! Perfect! The background is simple but nice.You just got some errors on this layout. This layout is the only one which I can check if it has a valid HTML and XHTML. Results:
23 Errors, 70 warnings
Wanna read about it?Click here: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.black-stripes.net%2F&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0
Content
Now in the sidebar, the girl section is quite confusing. You're only putting words in which visitors don't know what that word/thing is to you.In the contact(sidebar), you shoud just put durlaithiel[at]hotmail[dot]com in the email, you know spammers right? In the Navigation, the bee, site, portfolio, content, tutorials, back to blog. Why is it back to blog? The one's who'll read it is already in your blog. It should be "Back to main page" or "Back to index" or just "Home". So now I'll go with your pages.
-the bee
You got a good introduction about yourself! In the random facts part "Thinks in english, it's so more fluent and convenient that norwegian" --this should be "Thinks in english, it's so more fluent and convenient than Norwegian" By the way, Norwegian should have a Capital letter N, Norwegian is a proper noun.
-site
*behind the name
oh, okay I get it, you just like the name.haha
*Archives
Oh my gosh! What happened in your archives? You need a big improvement in this page. Fix it okay?
*Hosting
Some corrections! "The hostess will get a site with the address www.yoursite.black-stripes.net." --this should be "The hostess will get a site with the address www.desiredname.black-stripes.net." You know why? Simply because "yoursite" is'nt correct, it would be like this if you would put "yoursite" www.http://mywebsite.com.black-stripes.net, weird right? I know.
In the contact form too! "Wated sitename" should be "Wanted sitename".
*Link back black-stripes
I could'nt see any errors here. Anyways, you got nice link buttons!
*Affiliates
Would'nt be okay if you linked them the same way in your sidebar?
*Previous Layouts
Something wrong! Why did you put "Mars" on the other dates? If you meant March just change it. It would be kinda weird if you put "Mars"
*Resources
Oh, a lot of resources! That's good!
-Portfolio
Another error in your portfolio page. "check out my previous layouts (site) too se what I make." should be "check out my previous layouts (site) too see what I made.". Okay?
-content
OH MY GOSH! You got a lot of content for your visitors. I'll check all the pages in this. So why did you put again Tutorials on the contents page, they're already in your navigation. And also the "RBG color scheme" should'nt it be "RGB color scheme" ?
-tutorials
Okay, your visitors would really learn something before they leave your site and it will be permanently in their knowledge.I'm sorry if I did'nt opened all the pages in your tutorials, they're too many. HAHA, sorry for being a lazy, I just got a limited time in reviewing your site.
Extras
Okay, those words written above are just my opinion but I guess it can help even a little in your site. Double check your pages, okay? Hope your eyes are'nt aching in reading my review. Wish you all the luck in your site! God Bless!Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
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Shadow gave it
on 19th Dec 2008 and said:First Impression
I love the colors. It's colorful without being overpowering. I think that the layout is well put together, despite it not being out of the ordinary. However, given that my first impression is that you have a knack for creating graphics, I'd think that you can create something that doesn't feature celeb images. I'll spare you why using those images may cause you problems in the future, but I really think that you can do better than that. I don't like how it's smooshed to the left--a layout like this will look good (if not better) centered.
Blog and sidebar
The sidebar is pretty small. It can be put up another 100px. The padding on the sides is lacking; it's very obvious on the left side of the blog side. You need more line height for the text as well. The font is small. It can be a bit larger. Another gripe is the purple at the very top of the entries that show the comments link. That Courier text is way too small to be readable in white, and the link turns from blue to pink, which wreaks havoc on eyes. Either the background changes to something that will not be bad on the eyes, or the links change to another color. Either way, it's very hard to read.
The navigation should come before your little bio blurb thing, which should be written better by the way, with complete sentences.
The other pages
The bee: By the way, you needn't use different colors for bold and italics--that makes your site seem outdated. The reason why I bring this up now is because it's very obvious when I navigate this.
I'm wondering--do I really need to know your bra size? Or any size for that matter? The height is fine, albeit useless information; the weight is kinda pushing it, but many people are open with their weight online for some reason. Everything else isn't really much of anyone's business. You have a lot of lists and incomplete sentences. I personally prefer paragraphs in an about me page, and I know that I'm not the only one. Ditch the lists; put them in paragraph form.
Site: Where did that yellow come from?! No where in your layout has yellow. Fix that. Other than that, nothing worse gets under my skin than pages with only links on it. An introduction, descriptions to the pages...something! By the way, your blog archive page is all screwy. I'm not talking about the language, but there is no background to the entries.
Portfolio: Now I know you're capable of doing things sans celebrity photos. Great job on some of your pieces in here. Create more that don't feature celebrity images.
Content: Visitor content. Everything on this site is content.
There are a few brushes that are good, but it's nothing to write back to mom about.
It doesn't matter if you don't claim that you created it--if you don't have permission to redistribute, don't do it.
All of your graphics for the exception of the textures and stock images are all featuring celebrities/copyrighted images. You're better than that. Don't use it as a crutch!
Tutorials: I've seen these same tutorials all over the place. It's better to come up with something new. Otherwise, this isn't needed. If you want to keep it though, you don't need to link it in the content section as well.
Coding
No DOCTYPE. If I were to run this through a validator (which I did) it's not going to show the proper errors if any. You have 21 errors and 70 warnings when I ran it. The warnings are easy to fix--they're generally the ones like the Doctype and language definitions. The errors are easy to fix as well, but since you don't have a DOCTYPE, you may have more.
I will admit though, 21 errors without a DOCTYPE is pretty good compared to some I've seen.
<h1>-<h6> tags are used for headers. You use h6 for navigation. You don't need to do that. Center tags are deprecated. To center text or images, you can use this in your CSS.
.center {text-align:center;}Underlining regular text can confuse people into thinking they're links. Hence it's not a good idea to underline text. <b> and <i> tags are discouraged. They will still work, but it is encouraged to use <strong> and <em> instead. You can also bold and emphasize large blocks by using CSS--using the tags above should be used for only small blocks and single words.
Tables. Step away from tables. That is for tabular data, not layouts. You can use divs for the same effect on your links.
Speaking of using divs, I noticed that you're using position:absolute;. If you can avoid using it, then do. In your case, you can use floats for your sidebar and blog stuff. Use float: left for your sidebar and float:right for your blog. It's easier.
I don't know what styling is doing in your "replay" section, but take it out please.
PS: Drop Cutenews. It's insecure.
All in all...
Your strength lies in your graphics. However, I would like to see something created without the help of celebrity images. My favorite site to go for images is sxc.hu. I think you have to log in/register to download images, but it's free and well worth it. You can also take your own photos and use them. You have something there--don't stifle it.
I was a bit disappointed in your about me. There were a lot of listing, but not enough of anything else. I want to see more Stine personality--something you don't and can't show with lists. It doesn't have to be long either--a couple of paragraphs is fine. You have an awesome grasp of the English language--much better than some who has English as a first language. Exploit the holy hell out of it!
The problem with your site lies with the coding. You need to read up on web standards at w3schools.com and brush up on your coding.
You have a site here that can easily be bumped up a star if you ditch the celebrity images and come up with original tutorials. I wish you luck on that and great job so far.
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