Neo-Reality

Neo-Reality

***-- (Rated by 4 people, viewed by 109 people)

Neo-Reality is a neopets fan / graphic / tutorial website. Since we started out as a graphics site, I chose that as the Category. I'd love to hear your feedback :-)

Added by Kathrin in Graphics

Neo-Reality has 4 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Neo-Reality. Jump to review form?

  1. [img: avatar]
    reeshas gave it ***-- on 28th Mar 2009 and said:

    Wow, what a cute Neopet site! Alright, I kind of like Neopet sites because they are somewhat like graphic sites, but they aren’t taken as seriously as graphic sites are, which isn’t fair. I’ll be giving you my opinion on what I think about your site, I will try my best to help you out where I can and give you pointers to things that you can change for the better. If you find anything offensive with my review, remember to message me or just forget whatever I said. I don’t mean it. First, the stationary background is kind of cute, the yellow though makes me feel a little drowsy, a clipboard layout, that’s the first time I’ve seen such a thing, it’s a big blurry and looks pixilated for some reason… not good at all. Have something sharp and detailed otherwise your content won’t look good when it shows up on a blurry site. It’s a question people ask themselves: if the site design is blurry, what more can I expect from this sites graphics and resources? The colors are so cute, they’re like the absolute angelic heaven colors that cute baby cloths come in. lol.

    INFORMATION
    ===========
    …News/Index: your updates aren’t detailed as much as they should before a regularly active neopet site, add some comments on what you’ve been up to, what the staff is doing, are you busy with some big site project? Any new linkages or ideas come up? I do like the spaced out content, images are scary yet adorable, the fonts used and their colors and sizes are easy to read and hold high contract against the white. I really like the pink solid headers that have another purpose of separating the entries. Tells me you guys planned this out even if you didn’t.
    …About us: wow, there is a lot of stuff to talk about, I don’t see any errors with the content or any aligning. The images are super cute. It wouldn’t hurt to highlight some of the important words for extra emphasis.
    … Awards: are nice but it would be even nicer if you could link those awards. List them with bullets or something. Have the name of the person that took their time to make the award and give it to you, their site if they have one, make sure to link their site too. And a text link to the award. Its better that way and it shows you REALLY DO IN FACT APPRECIATE the person’s award. Have you known that some of the images are broken? You should remove those or find out where those awards went to. …Affiliate Gifts: same deal for their gifts to you, and you should really really link these back since they are your affiliates! They mean more than just someone stopping by to drop off a gift.
    …Contact Us: the contact page is perfect. Haha, that nospam is kind of funny but I was looking for typed out emails, not linked. This page also has FAQs, you should mention that on the menu somewhere. …Credits & Dedications: Even if it takes you forever, you should try and mention some of the most helpful sites you used, that’s just be polite, you should consider adding some of the major sites that helped you out. Oh sorry about that, I clicked on the Dedications page when I was trying to view the Credits. Forget what I said. xD its all good!
    ... Link to Us: simple, cute, and friendly, what else do you want me to say?!... Staff: very nicely executed. The best page I’ve seen so far. Is Jen the evil mean webmaster we’re all going to have for a boss someday?
    …FAQs & ToSs or Use: you have so many FAQs aha, its driving me crazy, are people really that slow!? I like how you separated sections of your site and categorized them on both of these pages. So I can get to the graphics rules and questions right away instead of reading a whole lot of other stuff that I’m not interesting in. I don’t want to be staff; I just want to see how the credits policy works. Again, impressive. But man, that cat at the bottom, SADDDDD!
    …Wall of Shame: this page kind of started when one site did it, it’s a very negative trend that I wish neopet sites would stop exploiting, it’s very bad for you and others. Kind of shows that you’re too egocentric and you take way to much pride in you work, so your constinaly looking for sites that look like your or steal from you, well guess what, I’ve found over 5747 sites that copied and used my stuff, my exact site sometimes and removed the credits, said they made it and it took them forever! Wouldn’t that make you mad if I stole your entire site you worked so hard on, when to piczo, made an account with your site name, and said I made the site. That would KILL YOU WOULDN’T IT. but I didn’t pay attention to those sites, they actually do me a favor, I have a mobile tracking status, so anywhere on the web, if someone uses anything of mine, they’re helping me get hits xD and mostly people use my layouts, I catch these people but I’m not going to kill them over online stuff. The point is, don’t take this stealing stuff to seriously, because you’re never going to win that fight. You’re also kind of shaming these people, if you don’t like them, ban them using IP or computer sectors, don’t waste your time and put bad people on your site like that. You could warn people of these people but don’t go this crazy over them, what if you find 20 more sites today that stole from your site. What are you going to do? Add them all to the WoS? One word: Stupid. Fight fire with ice xD don’t waste your time with these losers. It’s better to forget about them but call them SCUM when you see them.

    APPLICATIONS
    ============
    …Affiliates: your rules are basic, and you have a section that explains what it takes to STAY your affil. Very nice! Uh instead of the emailing, why don’t you make a form right there, or bold your email? And please kill the [@] it’s not effective really. If you bold the email, people can pinpoint it right away. Because I didn’t see it at first, I was looking for a form, but that was a ‘fail’.
    …Staff: that’s how the email should be, bold: kathrin433@yahoo.com. GREAT! Again, you could add a form on the staff page instead of telling people to do it manually.

    SERVICES
    ========
    Hmm. What can I say about the services page… I like it, the avatars link should stay on your site, but I did like that blue layout so whatever. You offer many services I bet you have tons of request that explains all the staff you’ve got huh Jen? Anyway, you’re very kind for offering so much to the online community. We all do our services differently so I don’t like to judge too harshly on that section which I won’t.

    INTERACTIVE
    ===========
    Wow, again, you have a lot to offer here, some of the things I saw were new to me so I had to read up on that section, but it all sounds so fun and interesting, great way to keep viewers on your site busy. The pictures really draw the person in; the rest is done through words. I really enjoyed the Polaroid album and the trophy room.

    STAFF ONLY
    ===========
    The staff only section is short and basic; you don’t have a logging in database for staff? How selfish, it’s like you use them but don’t trust them enough with your site…

    ADVERTISEMENT
    =============
    So here is the google money making deal haha nice matching, carry on Jen!

    NAVIGATION
    ==========
    Menu: what I first noticed is that the headings hover white links, when I clicked them, the sub links are gone, that’s very cleaver and a great way to clear up space and organize the layout. So what I’ve done is close all the menus, and will view them one by one. I’ve already explained all the site content, so now the bottom menu is left. You have a forum which sounds delightful but I’m tired and I really need a break. I’ll comment on the forum colors, you could customize it a bit more like you did with your Google ad. You have lots of exchanges, there’s not really a difference between TOP and regular affils. I don’t know why you make it so serious, they’re all just affils, that’s how it should be, to top affils get something extra or special? Since regular affils are LIKE FAMILY, what does that make your top affils? Lovers?!?! Ohh very popular site I’m guessing cuz I see the hits. But then the bottom image of the layout is so bad and blurry, makes me wonder… I can clearly see the footer cut off. I don’t like it. I’m sorry.

    Thank you for adding your site to the reviews. I hope you enjoy reading what is good but also think about the negative aspects to your site. the ups and downs.

    reviewer: ReeshaS
    date: 3/28/09
    etc: Windows Vista 2007: IE7

    Using MSIE on Windows | Report This?

  2. [img: avatar]
    wiwaneko gave it ****- on 22nd Jan 2009 and said:

    First Impression/Layout
    Neopets...I'm not sure what the copyright law on this is, but oh well. The graphic quality of the clipboard is kind of blurry and bad, but it does put the content more in focus. I like the way everything is laid out and especially the post notes for the navigation. One thing is that you probably shouldn't use i-frames. Other than that, the layout's really cute.
    4/5

    The Site Section
    Pretty normal so far...I see you're using Cutenews. I suggest you switch to Wordpress, as it's less hackable and a looot better. Whatever floats your boat, though. A Wall of Shame...I haven't seen one of these since my doll days. It's a little immature. Everybody has stolen before, and they steal because they don't know any better. This kind of thing just causes even more hate in the world than there already is, and people eventually start ganging up on the "stealers." I suggest you take it down, but again, whatever floats your boat.
    4/5

    Graphics Section
    Again, I'm not sure about the copyright rules on Neopets, but if you're not sure either, you should probably find out. You have animated backgrounds...that's usually discouraged because the movement bothers the viewer. The rest of your graphics are cute and have awesome quality.
    The templates and stuff you provide for Cutenews would be really helpful to beginners (especially my friend Beckii...my God). Your brushes are on the verge of being un-original, but are cute nonetheless.
    4/5

    Tutorial Section
    Wow, your "websites" section seems pretty helpful for beginners. I'll have to recommend Beckii, haha. In the "coding" section, I checked your CSS code that you provide for validation and you have 24 errors! You should fix that. Also, you provide a tutorial on a table layout. You aren't supposed to use tables for a layout. The MS Paint tutorials are also helpful. I wish I would've found tutorials like that when I started out! Your other tutorials aren't exactly unique, but they're still good for people who don't know how to do that stuff.
    3.5/5

    Coding Section
    In the "page format" page, you say that every page starts with <html>. That's not true. It actually starts with <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">. Visit Tutorialtastic for more information. I won't look through every tutorial, but they're okay, I guess.
    3/5

    Conclusion
    You have a great site with a lot of quality content. You should probably work on valid coding. My site's semi-validated, but that's 'cause of all the Wordpress crap. Uh, anyway, nice job on the site and I hope this review was somewhat helpful for you.
    Site rating: 3.5/5

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

    Kathrin's Response:

    First of all: thank you, of course, for your review :-).

    Oh goodness, I've been meaning to delete the Wall of Shame.. It is as of now gone xD.

    We do use wordpress -.- We simply also offer cutenews content because 1. used it a year or so ago and 2. a lot of neopets fan sites use it so it is of help to our visitors.

    Neopets allows their images to be used if 1. that copyright is on the bottom of every page and 2. the graphics that use neopets images are not being sold for money or anything else. So that is all perfectly fine :-).

    You are right: validating our coding is currently our main focus.

    Thank you for reviewing^^.

  3. [img: avatar]
    Vanesa gave it ***-- on 18th Jan 2009 and said:

    Hi there Kathrin, I'm Vanesa, and I'm going to review Neo-Reality. :) I've been to your site numerous times before but I'm going to try to nitpick at every detail. (Sort of.) I use Opera on Windows XP with a screen resolution of 1024x758 pixels.

    First Impression
    Wow. I love the colours you used, although the underline and overline hover on the links doesn't look very nice. It looks like there's too much going on. The clipboard background looks too blurry, and the Raindorf and picture of Fyora on the lined paper doesn't seem to match the whole clipboard/office/stationary or whatever theme. Maybe change those things?

    Layout
    Since I use Opera, I can see coloured scrollbars, and I can see Neo-Reality uses coloured scollbars. You shouldn't use coloured scollbars, because:

    - It isn't valid.
    - You shouldn't intefere with the browser.
    - Visitors might get a little confused.

    I don't get the yellow as the background in the footer (affiliates, topsites, etc.). Maybe a lighter shade of green? Speaking of the footer, there are also a lot of moving things. If you MUST have a counter, then you shouldn't have it animated, because it's kind of distracting and overwhelming. The 3rd topsite image is broken. And the text is too small.

    Every time I hover over a link, I get the default mouse. Maybe it's just me, but you shouldn't change the cursor that hovers over a link. Keep it the same. Visitors can get confused.

    The black text on the sidebar and footer look a little out of place. You should make the text colour much darker than the background, but not too dark.

    Like I said before, the clipboard looks too blurry. You should fix that. And make the title text bigger. I didn't notice it.

    Oh! And looking at your source code, I didn't realize you could show/hide the sidebar menu. You have an external javascript file, and the code is something like <script src="javascript-file-name.js" type="text/javascript"></script>. You're also using tables. Tables for layouts are bad. You should use a CSS layout. And while you're at it, validate your home page.

    Still looking at your source and reading the FAQ, I've noticed you can't right-click. Well, it isn't worth it.

    Browsing around the site a little, I see three different headers: a blue one, a brown one, and a pink one. I suggest you stay consistent and pick one.

    I'd tell you to convert to PHP includes or something, but I once read somewhere it would take you a long time. Well... maybe someday you can try. :)

    Content
    The Site - Not much to say here, actually, although it would be nice to see old monthly newsletters in an archive or something.

    Graphics -
    Woah! A big page with a lot of paragraphs. Most visitors wouldn't bother trying to read it all. Shorten it, maybe? And read this article about why you shouldn't use textarea for your codes. Don't use textarea. I'm sure it might take a while, but it will be worth it. Some graphics on there aren't worth using... like animated backgrounds, because an animated background is really annoying.

    Neopets -
    Wow. You have a lot of guides here. Suggestions:
    + Like I said before, make the text bigger. I have to squint to read it.
    + Maybe add a list of all of sections in the main page, too?
    + The neoboards guide has no CSS.
    + Use proper headers, h1, h2, h3, etc., not p class="head".
    + Don't have a list of links in a show/hide menu. Just have the same headers, but link it into the main frame so it shows a list of guides. Or maybe an image-based menu on the side?
    + Don't have just shopkeepers aligned to the side. Maybe other images (items, cut-out TCGs, etc.) too.
    + People who use a browser that doesn't support Javascript or disable Javascript won't be able to access the menu, but have to search in the paragraph of links for what they want. Make it more accessible, please.

    Tutorials -
    Websites: "Download Fonts" doesn't exactly belong in "websites". Rename the section into "Computer/Internet" or something.
    Coding: Shouldn't this belong in the "coding" section? Anyway, in the coding blogs tutorial, it's not working in Opera. The PAGE works, but the example has the text too much to the left. In the Javascript tutorial, in "Make us your homepage", you're missing a <br> before the paragraph that explains the code. Again, like I said before, don't use textarea's. And don't promote disabling right clicking, it's not worth it.
    Proboard Forum: I know it's in alphabetical order, but it would make sense to put a newbie guide in the beginning.
    MS Paint: In "Grunge Textures", "Coloring", and "Transparency", it doesn't have the difficulty bar. You should stay consistent and add the difficulty bar to those tutorials, too.

    And since I don't use Photoshop, PSP7, or PSP8, I'll move on. (I checked it over still, they're really great!)

    Coding -
    HTML Basics: In the "page format" tutorial, you should show the overall code and an explanation. Most visitors, when reading tutorials/guides/articles/etc., just skim through, and if I were new and did that, I would've only picked up meta tags and the title tag, because they stand out.
    CSS Tutorials: Good job on mentioning that CSS filters don't work in all browsers. Scrollbars can be nice, but like I said earlier, don't use'em. In the "color scheme tips" section, it can get a little confusing, so you should provide an example. You shouldn't reccomend changing the cursor, since, like I mentioned, it could confuse the visitor. But the list is fine and useful.
    PHP Tutorials: You mention in the end of the the login system tutorial that it in't the safest login system. You should also mention it at the top.

    Conclusion & Suggestions
    You have wonderful content, but it's not very accessible. You should validate your site, get rid of the irames, textarea, tables, and colour scrollbars, and make it more accessible. I reccomend Dive into Accessibility, which is a wonderful site that can make your site more accessible.

    Fix up the layout, more accessibility, and Neo-Reality can be one of the best Neopets sites out there! (Well, it is, but more accessible. :D)

    Using Opera on Windows | Report This?

    Kathrin's Response:

    Thank you for the review :-).

    Validation is our next bigger project, but with a site as large as ours, it takes its time. It will be done within the next month or so, hopefully.

    I personally do not wish to convert away from textareas, because to me the reasons against textareas seem to be not so much practical reasons, but more reasons of definition, which to me do not matter much (I don't want to change because it is more "correct", I want to change because it is "better" for me / the visitor). But again, I might be ignorant to any important reasons to change, so if I am, please tell me :).

    Iframes fall into the catagory of validation, which will also be attacked soon. I do want to keep the colored scrollbars, however. What speaks against them?

    An image based navigation method seems a little too slow for me. I personally like the hide & show method because it allowes easier navigation in my eyes than to make a big page with all the links. I find it safe to assume that 99.9% of my users will have javascript, because else they wouldn't be able to fully access neopets - and who is going to visit a fansite of a site they can't fully access? But again, that's just me :).

    Thank you for your review, it has been of help :)

  4. [img: avatar]
    Erin gave it ***-- on 8th Jan 2009 and said:

    I am going to be posting this in parts because you have a very large site, and there's a lot to cover. So I'll just be posting my review as I get it done.

    First Impressions:
    I can immediately tell that this is a Neopets-related site, not just because of the name, but because of the images I can see in the content frame as well. I notice that you make use of i-frames, which is generally a negative in my opinion, and the edges of the “Neo-Reality” text at the top are rough. There seems to be a lot of navigation, and I’m kind of confused as to where to start.

    Layout and Design:
    The Neopets theme certainly seems appropriate for the site. I’m not particularly a fan of the color scheme, but I think it works because it reminds me of an old cartoon, and Neopets are kind of like cartoons, in a way. When I imagine a “good” Neopets website, this kind of matches what would come to mind. (By “good,” I mean not made by a 10-year-old who knows nothing about design and providing for visitors.) So I guess the appearance meets the purpose of the website. However, the i-frame is a bit of a problem. I have to scroll down in the i-frame to see all of the content, AND I have to scroll down the main page, too. That is inconvenient and annoying, so if you are going to use i-frames, make sure no one has to scroll twice in order to see everything. I recommend that you don’t use i-frames, and you find a different solution. You could achieve this design using divs instead of i-frames, and then there will only be one scrollbar to deal with. You also may not want to use i-frames because, although the major browsers support i-frames, not all browsers do.

    Also, as I previously mentioned, the edges of the “Neo-Reality” text are rough, so make sure you smooth them out the next time you make a graphic. The rounded corners of the whole container are rough too, so just remember create smooth lines – it looks much neater.

    You probably should find a different setup to your navigation because right now, there is just a plethora of links. There are way too many places for me to click – the tabs at the top, the links under the tabs, the sidebar – it’s boggling. Apparently (and it took me some searching for a bit), the navigation for each section – indicated by the tabs – is in the sidebar. This is not the best way to go, because when one clicks on a tab, the fact that the set of links on the sidebar changes is barely noticeable. If a visitor can’t figure out how to navigate easily, he or she is just going to leave. Websites are not supposed to be frustrating.

    The Site:
    I see your index page, also known as the updates page, also known as the news page, has all of your site updates on it. You update frequently, which is good if you’re running a graphics site. Nobody wants the same old stale content. Most days it seems you just have a daily puzzle though, which I suppose is a fun idea. I’m assuming it’s this Across/Down stuff… so it’s like a crossword puzzle? Except there is no actual crossword with the blocks and everything to fill in? I’m a little perplexed. If you make this puzzle up every day yourself, that’s a lot of effort – so you go, girl – but I’m a little mystified about it, to be honest.

    About Us – This is really about your site. I was expecting to learn something about the owners, but all I got was a long, detailed site history of Neo-Reality. I love details, but I went to this page to learn about YOU, and I looked through all of that (it is VERY long, and most people probably won’t actually read that much) not to find what I was expecting to find! Re-label that link to “Site History,” because that is your site history, not about you. There are also some typos and missing punctuation marks here and there, so make sure you proofread. If you’re going to type up this much information, make sure everything about it is perfect so that the readability is increased. The huge blocks of text are already daunting enough, so if someone starts to read it and finds grammatical errors, he or she might just change their mind about reading.

    Awards for Us – You have a lot of awards, so there is a lot of scrolling going on. I suggest you make thumbnails of all of these images, organize them in rows of 4 or 5 so that there is less scrolling for the interested visitors, and link them to the full-size image. If you could use something like Lightbox to display them, then that would be even better because new windows or tabs would not keep popping up for each award. Also, some of the images aren’t showing up; instead, there is a Photobucket image informing me that the image has been deleted. Clean up those that don’t work anymore.

    Affiliate Gifts – Same deal as with the awards page. You have a lot, which is nice, but you can display them a little more neatly and make it easier to browse.

    Contact Us – It’s good that you clarify which of you to contact about what, and where to post certain questions. Less confusion for the visitor is a good thing.

    Credits – The list has everything you need, and it looks like everyone is covered.

    Dedications – This is very nice that you’re thanking everyone! There are some typos here too, so make sure you proofread. There are two of you owning this site, so two brains should be able to catch any errors, hopefully. I also think that this and the credits page can be combined. The individual pages aren’t too long, and both are kind of thank-yous in a way. This creates one less link on your sidebar, and let me tell you – with all of the links you have displayed at once, the fewer, the better.

    Link to Us – You have a good variety of buttons, and it’s nice that you have the code for both on and off Neopets. I would advise you to remove those center tags from them, though. Not only is that deprecated code (and I don’t know much about “good” coding, but I know that), but probably not everyone wants your button centered. Just give them the basic code for the image link and let them position it how they want to.

    Meet the Staff – NOW I get to find out more about you guys! The way this is set up is pretty cute. There seems to be a strange break under the Management job description and the info about you and Jen. Look into that. There are also a few spelling errors, so remember to proofread.

    Site FAQs – These are certainly informative, so that’s good.

    Terms of Use – Wow, this is extensive. To be honest, most people probably don’t want to read that much text. Some may find you guys too strict based upon the length of your terms of use and just go somewhere else. Your rules are very standard – no stealing, copying, redistributing, etc. – but you elaborate A LOT. The people who are stupid enough commit any of those acts are not going to read all these rules anyway, so I suggest you keep it concise to be easier on those who actually want to follow the rules. And also, you’re threatening to put people on a Wall of Shame? That seems so juvenile and immature. If someone gives you a problem, deal with it personally. You don’t have to let everyone know who you have a problem with.

    Wall of Shame – I already stated that I think this is a childish idea. Some people did something bad, so you decide to publicly humiliate them? Does that make you the bigger, better person?

    Affiliates – This is a long list of requirements! Sounds like you want to have a very elite group of friends. Or maybe they’re not friends, and you only want to exchange links with sites that are “equal” to yours. It’s your decision how you choose your affiliates, but I personally feel that all of these requirements make you come off as a bit elitist.

    Staff Position – I do approve of your selectivity for staff positions, however. Since these people will be actually working with you, it is necessary that they rise to your standards. That makes sense. Online employees need to be qualified, just like in the real world.

    Site Feedback – It’s nice of you to offer advice to other site owners, and it sounds like you’ll be giving some useful feedback and constructive criticism.

    Test HTML – That’s an interesting tool. Couldn’t people just test out their coding on their own sites though? Also, did you create this tool? If not, I don’t see why those who use it should credit you. I know you say credit is not required, but you think it would be nice if they did credit you.

    Website Help – Helping people with their coding is a wonderful gesture! Because you offer this service, I decided to check out your coding using w3.org’s CSS and HTML validators. You have 48 errors and 5 warnings on your HTML, and you have 10 errors and 1 warning on your CSS. Are you really qualified to help people with their coding? On the surface, it seems that your site looks and works fine, but, behind the scenes, there are problems. I am no coding expert, but I do try my best to make sure my coding is valid – and I certainly would not set up a coding help service if I did not know how to code properly.

    I did not check out the forum because it is away from your site, and I skipped discussing the Give Feedback page because I saw nothing I needed to comment on.

    Monthly Newsletter – This looks like a pretty interesting, entertaining, and informative newsletter, which is just what a newsletter should be like. However, at the top it still says that this is the October issue, so make sure you update that.

    Polaroid Album – This is kind of cute, I guess. The contest seems like it was a fun idea. There is a strange break in the image (Pup’s Polaroid), though. You should look into that.

    Random Giveaway – This seems like a nice idea. I did notice immediately one grammar error: “Where is the items coming from?” should be “Where ARE the items coming from?” Subject-verb agreement.

    Trophy Room – Those trophies look really cute. If that’s any indication of your graphic skills, then I’d say they look pretty promising.

    MY MAIN SUGGESTIONS THUS FAR: Try to find a better way to organize your navigation, minimize the vertical scrolling, and remember to proofread!

    Using Firefox on Mac | Report This?

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