rev.iew.me

Annen has 12 Reviews

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

1. 

   stepherz gave it on 1st Jul 2009 and said:

   Hi Anne. :) I'm going to be reviewing your site today since you did mine a while ago.

   Layout - The layout's really nice and clean. Your name is easy to read, and the color scheme is nice. :) Its clean and easy to get around. The navigation is easy to find and and nicely done. It might look cute if on hover the colors changed to the different colors that are in your header besides just the green. :) The footer is kind of plain as well. It serves its purpose, but footers are often the most ignored of all website parts. There's some pretty neat stuff you can do (http://www.cssbake.com/ingredients/footers/)

   Blog
   You haven't updated in a while, so I don't really have much to say. Hopefully you'll be back soon. :)

   Content -
   Anne - Nicely written. It's a good amount of information about you and organized well. The anchors are a nice way to further organize them. Three languages? Very cool. I wish I knew another language. I took 4 years of French, but I forgot a lot of it; I should have continued with it.
   Gallery - I'm not particularly fond of using the drop down menu as a way to organize these, but I can't think of a better way to do it. This section's pretty self explanatory and easy to navigate. You use Fantasy by Britney Spears as well. It's such a pretty scent! :) You've been to the white house. It's kind of sad I live here and have never been my own capital. Lol.
   Graphics - Anchors again. I think the anchor to the notice is a little superfluous though. Since it's at the beginning of the page, I don't think you really need the anchor to it. I love the first collage the best. The colors are really pretty. I don't think I've seen people use purple and yellow together without it looking blinding. Both the icons and icon textures are nicely made. Very crisp and colorful. The download all link is a nice touch.
   Site - Nicely organized again. I'm glad the credits section is organized by who did what. Too many people just have a big long list of links.
   Plugboard - Nothing really to review.

   Coding
   The validator couldn't check your index page so I ran you anne page instead. Only one error which isn't bad. I doubt its something that would interfere with the overall look of your site. I might consider validating it for better cross compatibility. :)

   Overall
   Your site's really nice. I enjoyed my time here, but I'm not sure I'd come back for anything. I don't usually use graphics, but might come back for your blog, but looks like you're on a hiatus right now. I think spicing up your footer would look really cute and add to the layout as well. :)

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   Annen's Response:

   thank you very much for your review. I'm sorry the respond has taken so long to get to you, but I've been so bust and rev.iew.me hasn't been a priority for a long, long time :)

   My site has changed quite some since then - especially the blog part which I'm currently trying to improve :) I want to do more blogging and I hope to attract visitors that way instead of through my graphics (that currently aren't available on my site) :)

2. RachelL gave it on 27th Dec 2008 and said:

   Hey, I'm Rachel, and I'm going to review your site since you reviewed mine :D

   First Impression: I love the simplicity of your layout; it's easy on the eyes yet not boring at all. I also like your navigation because it's easy to find, and I also like how it looks when you hover. I like how you have a little thing under your navigation telling little stats about your site, but since you last blog was on 12/11 yet it says that your last update was 12/27, I wish there was something that told me what the last update was.

   Anne: For this section, I would have links at the top that link to things farther down the page, such as your "meet me online" section. That's just because your "knock knock who's there" thing is kind of long, and someone who is wondering how to contact you but doesn't want to read the knock knock thing might not think to scroll down. (your English is excellent for someone who doesn't speak it as their first language, and even better than a lot of people who DO speak it as their first language. Congrats on that =D)

   Gallery: I love how you have organized your pictures with a little drop-down menu! Mind if I borrow that idea? I'd love to put more pictures on my site but I was unsure how to sort/organize them. So yeah, overall I love this section, good idea =D

   Graphics: I love your icons, and I also like that you have a download all option. (same with your icon textures).

   Site: Nothing much to say here, everything looks good.

   Plugboard: Again, not much to say, except that I don't really understand the point of the list of other plugboard sites.

   Overall I love your site. Your domain is awesome because it's nice and simple :D I also like the border you put around every picture, because it makes it look very clean.

   Okay, that's all! And now I'm mad at my dad because he stayed in the shower too long again so now my shower is going to be freezing again. Blech!

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   Annen's Response:

   Thank you for your very kind review :)

   In the sidebar you'll find a sentence saying: "Updated" followed by a date (which must have been Dec. 27th '08 yesterday), because I did change something yesterday ;D

   Sure, you can borrow the idea - it's actually very simple and you could've figured this out yourself anyway. It's not like I own the code xD

   UPDATED 28 Dec 08:
   Oh, and the point of the list of plugsites is very simple - When people plug on a plugboard, it's mainly to promote their sites. I provide links to even more places. My personal idea with this is, that people simply bookmark my plugboard, and when they do that, they won't have to go anywhere else to find A LOT of other places to advertise for their site.

3. 

   bubblez gave it on 27th Dec 2008 and said:

   Hello Anne! I am Bubblez. During I'm reviewing, I will be using Firefox 3 on Windows XP service pack 3. I might be too harsh or too honest but I hope my review will help to make your site even better than what it is.

   000. Site Name
   It's unique, easy to remember and type into the address bar.

   001. Layout && Components.
   Image: I love the image but I do not like the color of the text. I think it should be blue or something.
   CSS: It's nicely done but the colors don't really match up with the header image. But it's good.
   Color scheme: Nicely chosen.
   Overall: It's centered which is great. The sidebar and blog area is spaced out neatly. :)

   002. HTML/CSS validation.
   ** Having these validated will affect how fast your site will load. Validating it may take some patience and time but after it is valid, it is worth it=)

   CSS: Congrats! No errors! :)
   HTML: You have 11 errors. Most errors are from your images. All images need to have a 'alt' before ending the image tag even though it doesn't need one. The other errors are not that bad.

   005. Anne
   ** There are some punctuation errors but they do not interfere with what you are trying to say. For this sentence: As a child I was probably a little weird, you need a comma (,) after the child. This sentence: When I was asked to choose between French, Spanish and German needs a comma as well. But besides that, I think you are fine :)

   006. Gallery
   Wow, lots of photos from your personal life!

   007. Graphics
   ** Collages: Cool Collages. Some of them are really nicely done while others can improve. The credits on these should be in a smaller font or use a pixel font.
   ** Icons: I love your icons and their captions. They are so nice especially #13 xD I don't really like the icon with the text: getting the feeling. :P
   ** Icon Textures: Original. It's great that you showed the previews and then a download link.

   008. Site
   Wow it's organized into sections. Great. For this sentence: Me and two of my friends made this website that actually got pretty populair.. it should be: Two of my friends and me made this website that became pretty popular or something along those lines. :)

   ** Link me: nice buttons. The text on the sixth one is sort of weird but it's not that bad. But I think it would look better with a pixel font.
   ** Exchanged buttons: Wow, many buttons. Are these 'Link Exchanges' or 'Affiliates'? If affiliates, you should put them in your sidebar. But if not, that is fine.
   ** Credit: Organized and neat but the categories should be in ABC order.
   ** Plugboard, Wow nice form but I think you should elaborate on your rules. Some rules don't make sense. For instance, plug each site once.. it should be: Plug your site once.. :) You should also elaborate on why people should visit two sites if they are plugging their site. But it's great. :)

   009. Overall!
   Well well well, from looking at all of your pages, I enjoyed browsing your site. It is original in a way and also, it showed your personality quite well from your photos to your about Anne page. I think it needs some more content (ex: tutorials, more graphics, etc. ). You have potential to make this a bigger personal blog site with visitor content. :)

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4. 

   Mimi gave it on 22nd Nov 2008 and said:

   Reviewed with:
   Mozilla Firefox 3.0.4 | 1440 x 900 Resolution| Windows Vista
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Hello Anne! I am going to review your site tonight. :) I write super long reviews so I thought I would warn you ahead of time, haha! Let's go!

   First Impression:

   I like the colors and the general set-up but there are a few things that bothered me. The first is the font. It's big enough, which is grand, but the lines are smooshed together and with the letter spacing, it makes it so hard to read. Also I noticed that the header image isn't as wide as the rest of the content? Perhaps that was a mistake, I don't know.

   I will get into further detail down in the design section. I really did enjoy the fact that I didn't see a big celebrity layout on your site, that shows me that you are creative enough to work around those kinds of graphics (for your layout at least, I haven't gone into content yet. XD)

   Coding:

   I checked your CSS with the W3C validator and it passed! :) I would like to mention that the use of shorthand in your CSS would make it even better and that in turn makes your site easier to index. That means more hits (essentially) and faster loading times! In this day in age it seems like everyone has fast internet but that's just not always the case. In my Google Analytics I see several people still using dial-up! I feel so bad for them. :(

   Anywho, let me just show you a section that we can shorten up (straight from your CSS!) by using CSS shorthand. Let's use the body section. Here is what you currently have:

   body {
   background-image : url('background.png');
   background-repeat : repeat;
   font-size : 12px;
   letter-spacing : 2px;
   font-family : Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
   color : #000000;
   line-height : 15px;
   }

   We can use shorthand to make the background and the font sections shorter by combining them! Here is how we would do that properly:

   body {
   background: url('background.png') repeat;
   font: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;
   letter-spacing : 2px;
   color : #000000;
   line-height : 15px;
   }

   Although my humble opinion would be that you should make the line height much larger so it's easier to see. The fact that you are using 12px text is nice. You might want to think about converting from using px sizes for the font, though, and use em. I found this super cool converter that you can use to change from px to em! All you have to do is enter the number you are using in px and it will automatically calculate and show you the equivalent next to it in em! For example, your 12px = 0.75em . :) Here is the px to em calculator.

   The reason using em is better is because em is a relative measurement. If you set fonts in px, they stay the same size that you set them at. This could be bad because a person who has bad eyesight might want to increase the text on your page so they can read it better, but they won't be able to if it's in pixels. :( Using em allows more accessibility! That's always a good thing, allowing more and more types of users to come to your site. ^^

   Oh also, before I forget, Jem has a handy little tutorial that's easy to follow on CSS shorthand. It's really the easiest thing to do but it's kind of cool because it also reduces the amount of stuff you have to type when you make layouts. WOOHOO less work! :D Anywho, here is Jem's CSS Shorthand tutorial.

   Moving along, I also checked your site for validation for HTML or XHTML on the validators but you aren't currently set up for validation. It's a good idea because once again it's an accessibility issue. When you validate it's telling you that your code is good and will work right in all browsers essentially. This way your layout won't look messed up in one browser but work fine in another. It will always look good! Once again, our lord and master Jem (haha) has made a couple of tutorials on how to validate your site properly! It's also a VERY simple thing to do and it's just a little added assurance that your site is looking it's best. :D I recommend making it XHTML 1.0 Transitional, so here is the link for that: Validate XHTML 1.0 Transitional

   Your coding is very neat, I applaud you for that. Only one other little thing would be (for the future) maybe look into using all Divs instead of tables for your layout.

   There are a couple of tags that need fixing but I really think I've given you quite enough to think about for one day. ^.^* Once you get into the XHTML validation (if you choose to, of course) the validator will tell you what needs fixing and it will also tell you exactly how to fix it! If you get stuck, message MIMI! :D Haha, I mean it! I'd love to help out if you need a hand. I only learned so much because of people like Jem and Bubs (and Louise and Aisling and Melissa and and and... the list goes on. LOL), they helped me whenever I had stupid annoying questions every 30 minutes. -.-*

   Now all of that being said, please don't feel discouraged. I don't think your coding is bad at ALL! I am just here offering suggestions to make it even better or dare I say... best! You don't use horrible messes of code things everywhere... Your design is aesthetically pleasing for the most part and you have a good head on your shoulders. I think you can really push yourself to become an awesome coder! Oh my, we better move on before we die of old age here.

   Design:

   There are a few color changes I feel would make the layout even better, I'm just going to point them out in a list-type manner so we can move on to more important things. :P

   - The background seems a little too bright of a green and it's definitely competing for my attention. I think the header and the content area should be the main focus, so why not just use a lighter shade of that same green?

   - I think the green line under the pink doesn't match quite right. Why not switch the green with the blue color? I think the blue and the pink would look nice together. Or even better, use a darker pink! Oh yeah, I think darker pink would look great!

   - The comment number link being blue right on the pink like that makes it very hard to read. Why not make it that dark pink? :)

   - Last, on your navigation... When you hover over it and it turns blue, the blue and the green don't work well right next to each other. Maybe change the blue to a lighter green, like the background color suggestion? :D

   I love the giraffes, they are divinely adorable. The rest of the header is cute, too. I have always liked your simple but colorful layouts.

   I did mention in the beginning that the header isn't matching the size of the rest of the layout, if you would like to see a screenshot of what I am seeing, click here. I checked it in Internet Explorer and it works fine, so I am going to assume it's the tables. I can show you a way to make your layout without using the tables that is just as simple as what you have, and the header image won't do that in Firefox for sure. :) If I keep linking to Jem's site, it's going to explode but she offers those exact templates for free on her site, all set up. You just have to fill in your stuff. The one you would need is the one titled Two Columns, left sidebar, w/header. Easy as pie.

   Oh wait, I just noticed that there is a comment link in the footer of the post, too. I love the way it looks down there, so why not just get rid of the comment link in the header altogether? :)

   One last request would be to remove the text-align: justify; from your site completely. It makes it that much harder to read when it's all spaced out like that. I hate articles in newspaper for that very reason. *sigh* I say just let the text rest on the left, it's natural position in English, and let our eyes do their thing!

   Alrighty, let's move on to the content!

   Content:

   Might I suggest that you put your favorite bands in a list so they are easier to read? :)

   Oh my Anne, you are ridiculously pretty. :o :o I am officially jealous! I love the gallery thing your friend made, that is way cool. I also like how your photos fit in the layout, even if they are a little small. Nice, bright colors on them. There isn't too much about you which makes me sad, but I wouldn't say that it's a crime or anything.

   I love your icons, which you are saying a lot of people like. I would love to see some more that you made with your own photos, instead of celebrities. Actually, I rather enjoy ALL of your graphics. The collages especially. You have a style that I really like but can never achieve. Mine always ends up looking all rounded and polished. Sometimes I want a little GRUNGE!! *sigh* I'd say more of those delicious textures, too. I like how they aren't all almost identical like most sites. You know how they have just little differences in them and then they offer like, 25 of those textures that all look the same? I hate that. Yours are nice.

   ... Anne, I want to tell you something. I have been using Photoshop since version 4 was RELEASED... which is an extremely long time, and I had no idea that I could make .ico files with it until just now. So apparently, you have made an effective tutorial right there. ^.^*

   I think it might be helpful if you added some "Before" and "After" text to the tutorial images, though, because at first I didn't notice that the Gaussian Blur tutorial image had two sides.

   This is silly of me but I absolutely love, love, LOVE the way you haev your Deviantart credits labeled as each individual person. You might think that is a no-brainer but SO many people just say something like, "Thanks to people on Devinatart(link to DA) for the brushes" and the individual creators don't even get their name mentioned. Is that dumb or what? Well, I'm glad to see you give proper credits.

   Final Thoughts:

   All in all I think your site is just dandy. I am giving you a 3/5 because you could definitely make the site more accessible (which is what alll that gibber up there was about, haha) and you should have some more original content! It's good stuff, so share some more!

   Don't forget to message me or email me if you need help if you decide to validate and shorthand and stuff. :P I'd love to help!

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5. 

   afscom gave it on 13th Nov 2008 and said:

   My first impression of your website is 'woot, cute site'.

   DESIGN
   The first thing that I noticed is that your header image isn't as wide as the rest of your content, it's as if you're content is around 10px too wide at either side; you can correct this by adding padding to your header.

   The justified text doesn't work well with your site as it's creating too many massive gaps between your text. For instance your sidebar looks a bit like this in my browser:

   Thanks______for
   stopping_by_this
   personal____and
   graphics____site....

   only with the underscores being spaces. There's nothing wrong with using left or right aligned text and it's a hell of a lot easier to read than the text that you're currently using.

   The other thing that I've noticed is that you have no way of viewing your previous blog entries from the front page - you're only showing the most current entry with no links to go back (like in LiveJournal pages) or a calender / list of archived entries by month etc. It would make it a lot easier for your visitors to read all your previous entries.

   ANNE PAGE
   I'd love to see a picture of yourself on the page about you - without having to click through a dropdown to view your gallery - you're a pretty girl so there's no reason not to include a wee picture (maybe I'm just weird but I love knowing what bloggers look like).

   You mention that you're not sure what to write about but have included the section because others have mentioned that it would be a nice addition - you could expand on your hobbies (why you do them, what you love about them, when you started them?), details about your boyfriend (again, where you met him or something), information about the things that you're studying at school, what you want to be when you're older - anything and everything that makes you you.

   I love your photographs, they're great. In fact, they're so great that I'd move them into a page of their own from your main navigation and share the goodness with everyone! You obviously have an eye for great pictures; I love the magazine one in your 'random' gallery. What I'd love to see though is an option to see a bigger version of the image, maybe like Lightbox?

   You have awesome taste in music by the way :)

   DESIGN PAGE
   The first thing that I'd say about your graphics page is the first sentence is a bit vague. You could have 'If you use any of my graphics please credit annen.dk, thanks!

   All of your images are awesome, you are really talented. The colleges are extremely good.

   TUTORIALS PAGE
   At the top of your tutorial page it says 'articles', not 'tutorials' - you might want to fix this to avoid confusing readers.

   ++ Getting traffic
   A great tutorial to include for your readers, everybody has different ways to increase their readership and traffic so I love reading how other bloggers do this for themselves.

   Your link to your plugboard doesn't work (it's pointing towards http://www.annen.dk/tutorials/plugboard.php instead of http://www.annen.dk/plugboard.php)

   Your other suggestions are great - and there are others that you could add to your list, like signing up for sites such as despair.nu or even simpler ones like ensuring sites are listed by search engines and using the correct meta tags to attract visitors searching for similar interests etc

   ++ Favicon
   You suggest readers to leave this page and go and read a tutorial on making a .ico image. I'd include this on your original favicon tutorial to save readers having to click through several pages to learn how to create, upload and include a .favicon.

   ++ Photoshop
   You're photoshop tutorials are pretty basic and standard - are there other things that you're awesome at in Photoshop that you can teach your readers to do?

   SITE PAGE
   Only thing that I have to say about your site page is that I'd have your exchanged link buttons on a seperate page for links, as they are related to your site but are usually contained within their own page on other websites and blogs.

   Overall, I quite like your site. It's cute.

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6. 

   Joanna gave it on 10th Nov 2008 and said:

   Hello Anne!
   I love that little gallery feature you have included on the page about you. n_n
   I see the photos have descriptions to them. Would it be possible for you to add a "title" tag as well as the "alt" tag to each photo? I know it's a pain but it would mean that people using the Firefox browser like me will be able to read your commentary or description for each photo when we hover the cursor over them. I would enjoy reading those. And a little detail I liked was that you have made sure your gallery photos are all the same size in each category. It's not that important if they weren't but it's sure nicer and neater when they are. So thank you for that extra little detail. n_n

   I do have a suggestion for your rule number 1 under "Graphics". At the moment it reads "Use them if you want to". Perhaps you could jump that one as it's not really that necessary is it? Oh and I was wandering if one day you would be willing to make icons from your photos? You've been to some interesting places and your own photography would make unique icons. n_n

   I think someone else might have already mentioned this but I am a bit unsure about it myself. I hope you don't mind me asking about it too. You have some very pretty collages in your graphics section, however the rule at the bottom of the page gives the impression that they aren't supposed to be used. Are they not for visitors then? If the collages are an exception, maybe you could consider making a new page to act a bit like a portfolio, separate from the visitors content. That way people could still admire your work but there would be no doubt as to their use: on display only.

   I would like to make another suggestion if I may. On the "Gradient Effect" page my eyes immediately jumped to the screen shot. But then I couldn't help notice that the text seemed to be glued to it. It's not a huge problem but aesthetically it wouldn't take much to give the picture a bit of space to breathe and make it look great. n_n You could add a few pixels of margin to it and voilà! Your text will know that it can't suck up all the screen shot's oxygen like that. I mean c'mon, everyone and everything needs a little space in life! And that includes images. n_n

   I was a little surprised by the link in the Favicon article that, when clicked, seemed to pup up out of nowhere. I wasn't really expecting a link to jump without warning, especially when it leads to another page on your site. Perhaps you might consider differentiating (ouf, tough word! Thank God for those spelling dictionaries! n_n) on-site and off-site links? The system I've been using on my own site is to add a little star (*) next to links that open a new website and to which I have given a "target" attribute.

   Overall I actually did enjoy your website and would be interested in reading more of your entries. And the header is definitely unique. Even your favicon matches your current site theme! I do have one last question though. On the "Plugboard" page, there is a section called "Subsites". What does that stand for?

   UPDATED 10 Nov 08:
   Yep that's the one. n_n (alt="lalala" title="lalala")

   For the padding around your image, does your code look like one of the below? Because I think I'm correct in saying that this code should add padding to all your images normally.
   And if you only wanted to give padding to a select bunch of images, you could use a class attribute (img.classname instead of img). And all you'd have to do would be to add a few words more to those images (alt="lalala" title="lalala" class="classname")

   img {
padding-top: px;
padding-right: px;
padding-bottom: px;
padding-left: px; }
   or
   padding: px px px px;

   Oh and thank you for the "subsite" explanation. n_n

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   Annen's Response:

   To begin at the end, I concider a site a "subsite", when it's actually a plugboard site, but it's hosted on another domain (: It's a subsite to the main site.

   You're talking about a title tag for my images? I'd love to make things work in all browsers. Should i just add title="TEXT HERE" in my image tag?

   I've really been bothered by the way the image is in the article about gaussian blur. I might just add the padding to the picture itself :b

7. 

   Sewwy gave it on 10th Nov 2008 and said:

   First impressions:
   I quite like the design, although i'm not sure on the overall colour scheme. The header image is very cute. I personally would increase the width of the design significantly, and perhaps lighten the background colour. A pale green would provide sufficient contrast without being overly distracting. I also think your links in the sidebar are far too light for the background colour you are using. Perhaps just use white as a background colour, or darken the links.

   Blog:
   It would have been nice to see additional blog entries. It's not difficult to create an archive page or a "next post" link. It makes the website more enjoyable too. At this stage I feel like i've kind of come to the end of something all together even though i've not moved onto the content yet. Complicated, but my brain works in weird ways. The blog entry listed was rather generic, too. I'm not fond of day-to-day blog entries: I would rather see a day-to-day-events entry surrounded by blogs which talk about thoughts, opinions, and so forth.

   About Me:
   My first thoughts are that the "a few paragraphs" title is redundant, as you only have the one paragraph. Furthermore, a few paragraphs ... about what? It would be better titled "An introduction" or better yet, removed all together. I feel that you could have written a lot more about yourself in this page, specifically, what you're like, your hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes, things you've done, things you want to do ... There is plenty more to write about yourself than just one paragraph. If you're struggling to think of what to write, visit a few websites and read their about me page to see what they talk about. Of course, don't plagiarise, but just draw some inspiration from it.

   Graphics:
   I'm not too fond of the drop down, to be honest. Simple text links would have been suffice. A drop down alone on a page seems to be a waste of a page, as drop downs are normally used for when there is too much content, or when an option needs to be picked, generally not used by themselves. Your graphics are also rather generic, I feel like i've seen them before only because every man and their dog creates the same things.

   Articles:
   Your articles too are rather generic. It's disappointing to see a lack of originality. All these articles have been created multiple times before. Perhaps consider creating something useful that is unusual or not seen before. Ask your visitors what they'd like to see from you. After all, you're creating content for the visitors specifically.

   Site:
   Normally, site pages are to explain the purpose of the website, how it came about and why you have it. Whilst you have done this, it's a bit unnoticed by the abundance of buttons and links ontop of this content. Perhaps move the actual content links to the top of the page and have affiliates linked later, or on another page completely.

   Overall, your site was quite simple and rather generic, but it was nice. You could make some improvements here and there.

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8. 

   Aisling gave it on 9th Nov 2008 and said:

   Okay, so, number one: your layout is FAR too small. Even for a resolution of 800x600 it is too small, and nearly nobody uses that resolution anymore. I think the smallest you can get away with these days is 780px width.

   I love how big your font is, but you need to add more padding to your content area. Give it room to breathe, please! I think you should also make the text in the sidebar smaller. It shouldn't be at the same focus as the main text. The navigation link colour is hard to see against that background. Not enough contrast. In fact, most of your layout seems to be at the same contrast level, which is hard on the eyes. A good way to check contrast is to copy a cap of your layout into a photo editor and turn it to a grayscale image. I did this with your layout, and the header image, sidebar background, and sidebar headings are all the same shade of grey! Not good.

   You also have no footer, which makes for a rather abrupt end to your site.

   Moving on to the content end of things, your Anne page is typical. Nothing horrid about it, but nothing special. And it's very cramped with all the big pink headings and very little padding. The inclusion of the gallery is kind of cool.

   I really really like the way you've organized your graphics section. It's really neat and organized. And your icons are pretty cute. :)

   Your articles aren't really anything special. I mean, they're not brilliantly written, and most of them detail things that most people can figure out on their own. Most of them I figured out by playing with Photoshop in 2001.

   Your site page is more of a links page. I would make a separate links page, and make your site page start off with something more like the "History," page. Links tell me nothing about your site, so to call it that is misleading.

   I would like to know how you organized your graphics section, and I couldn't find a credit for it. If it needs to be credited, it should be. If you did it yourself, THAT is an article I would like to read!!!

   Overall, your site is pleasant, but can definitely use quite a bit of tweaking. Good luck!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   Annen's Response:

   Trust me, as a perfectionist, I wish I could add margin the the pictures, I've tried, and it's odd that it doesn't help. I've also tried to make a more suitable line-height, but it simple won't change :/

   The gallery organizing thing is pretty simple? :p It's a code my friend did, and she's credited in every way possible ;D I adore everything she makes.

9. 

   Vera gave it on 8th Nov 2008 and said:

   resolution: 1280x1024px

   = First Impression =
   ---------------------------
   Small, cramped but with a really nice header image.

   = Layout and Organization =
   -----------------------------------------
   Your header image is lovely, pity it's so small. Of course, I'm one of the most avid supporters of minimal graphical content (so as to improve loading time), but yours is positively tiny.

   It's really admirable that your tried to make your layout cross-resolution, but seeing as it's of fixed with, you could have easily made it wider. The absolute maximum width would be 755px, so you could go till 750px without worry.

   Seeing as my resolution is fairly large in comparison to your layout's dimension, I get quite an eyeful of green. It's not an ugly shade by any means, but it's too much. I'd suggest somehow softening the effect, but using a background image with a bit of a pattern instead. My personal tastes go towards horizontal ones which gradually fade out... but that's just me.

   As far as font-size goes, it's fairly easy to read, without me needing to zoom in. The lack of appropriate padding, however, makes the text look rather cramped, which causes my eyes to simply slide over large portions of text. I'm assuming you chose to use lesser padding because of the reduced dimensions....

   To remedy this, I suggest you move the introductory text into the main content area, right at the top. If you're going to have one, it should be the first thing people read when they enter your site. Furthermore, there is no reason to repeat the welcome blurb on every single page. I'm sure your visitors got it the first time around.

   Clicking around a bit, I notice that aside the welcome blurb and the main navigation, you don't have anything else in the sidebar. Seeing as you're short on space as it is, you should try out a horizontal menu (http://css.maxdesign.com.au has a lot of interesting coding bits for them).

   And we get to your main navigation. It looks as if the individual lines are all but fused together. Why not try a more spaced out look. It will be easier to read, plus it will give a cleaner look. See http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/vertical08.htm for example.

   You know, all this time it occurred to me that even though you mention the site name here, looking at your layout, it doesn't seem immediately obvious. Reason? There's no large text which sports the site title. You should add one over the header image, possibly right -aligned, so that the main pattern is still visible.

   I can definitely see that you tried hard with your layout, nevertheless you've been much too frugal with the space you allocated for it.
   Oh, and as a personal preference, maybe thicken the white border, so as to give the eye a bit more contrast between the green background image and the actual layout.

   = Content =
   ------------------
   -- Index --
   Why do you separate words? This makes sense on paper, when you make notes for yourself, however online you shouldn't cut them into two. This makes reading harder, and anything that is not easy to do will cause your visitors to lose just a bit of interest. Furthermore, you didn't have to separate the words, as they're all at the beginning of the line.
   Incidentally, graphics gets separated as "gra - phics" not "grap-hics".

   Ugh, not another accolade fan! Why do people use them in place of regular parenthesis? It's not a mathematical formula, nor is the comment count a side explanation. Just put this on the next line. And type out "comments" in front. That way, everyone will know what the number stands for.

   -- Anne --
   I like how you chose to let the visitor select which picture he/she would like to see, much better than dumping everything on the page at once. Nevertheless, from an aesthetic and functional point of view, a gallery type of organization, would have been more appropriate. Zen photo, I hear is quite popular and easy to use. I was going to link you some examples... but figures these people would have removed the pictures a long time ago -.-;;

   Also, I suggest you put the pictures at the end of the page, rather than the middle. That way, if the page lengthens, there's no odd "yo-yo"-ing effect, while the pictures load/unload.

   As far as actual content goes, your about page didn't really tell me much. Well aside your name and age. There's nothing really personal about it. The list of favorite things is too long, and made my eyes skip over most of it. You have to build about pages thinking of your visitors. Because let's face it, you don't need an about page to know who you are... or well, you shouldn't.

   In other words, I got a bunch of facts, but nothing that would say look, this girl is witty, look she has a tendency to... Sure lists can be informative, but a self description can tell us so much more, and make you more... well human.

   -- Graphics --
   You should just have an HTML list with the links, instead of using a select. The latter needs to be inside an HTML form tag in order to work correctly (guess that's one reason why your page doesn't validate). HTML forms are used to send the data that a visitor enters to the webserver which will then edit it. In your case, you need to load some images. There's no need to use a webserver for this. A browser can do that. As such, there's no need for a form, and subsequently for a select.

   Another thing, even though I select the category "Icons", the selected option still remains select a category. Since I selected one already, I find it normal to keep seeing it selected, until I select a different one.

   Your icons are not bad, but nothing special either. Most of the images are clearly copyrighted to other people, and while they probably won't sue you, you're still taking stuff that belongs to them. I'm referring to celebrity pictures. Considering this, it seems kind of hypocritical to ask others not to claim your icons as their own.

   Most of your graphics are incredibly overused as far as style goes, plus they don't exactly show much effort put into them. Magazine cuts and doodling lines are not as amazing as people make them out to be. They're just easy to make.

   -- Articles --
   -------------------------
   Get more traffic - 99% of these have been done to death by other tutorials. Come up with something new. Just because everyone has this tutorial, it doesn't men you have to have it as well.
   You have some typos(bold is my input):
   - If you plug your site on just few plugboards you can get a lot of visitors.
   - If you're able to see your referrers, then you'll find out what plugboard work better for you.
   - If you comment on someone's blog, they often reply
   - Most people love to get comments on their blogs
   - if you have any criticism or want to mention an error
   - Otherwise you might as well not exchange with them.
   - This is a very good way, as a lot of people will see your link.
   - Otherwise, you will not get a lot of views.

   Replace "This is way many don't use too often" with "This way is used very rarely".

   I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "good reviews", you might want to elaborate that for your visitors' sake. As for the topsites part, you're basically telling people to suck up to others. No need, if you're interesting, you'll get visitors without the need to suck up.

   Favicon - basically this page says go use another tutorial and put this code in your site... Not only are you the 3079375 to write such a tutorial, it's also a useless one.

   Photoshop - you're basically writing an article for clicking a button in Photoshop? Plus these have been done to death by others.

   ... and a Google search. Obviously if I want to use Google, I'll go to its main page which has a much larger search form, where I can type more comfortably.

   -- Site --
   I'll never understand why you're all so eager to advertise people, before having let your visitors take their fill of your site. You greet me with a truckload of buttons, one shinier than the other which completely detract attention from the rest of the site.

   If anything, the links should have their own page and this here should make a brief history/presentation/etc of your site. You want visitors to spend as much time as possible here. So don't send them away too soon.

   Your current layout is definitely your best, though version one is not bad either, if maybe not quite the best as far as organization goes.

   = Coding =
   ----------------
   You're missing the doctype tag, which should be HTML 4.0Transitional in your case.

   For the most part, your coding looks correct and semantic... well the tables should be replaced by divs for the most part (there's a tutorial for this on Tutorialtastic).

   Your indentation and alignment is rather weird. I'm going to assume that your editor acted up, otherwise I don't see why your lines are randomly zig-zag-ing.

   = Score 2=
   Your layout's cute but things are very cramped in it, and your actual content is extremely overused. Come up with your own, don't parrot stuff that others have done to death before. Do something you don't see on every second site.

   I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes or possible inconsistencies, but I'm too tired to properly proofread now.

   UPDATED 08 Nov 08:
   Notepad is a text editor, last time I checked.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   Annen's Response:

   The reason why I didn't make a giant name on my header was, that it took away too much attention from the header itself. I've tried, and I came up with this way and kept it because I liked it.

   I'm glad you had so much constructive.

   My language isn't perfect, and I'm already aware of that (:

   Some of the things you say everyone has is made from requests, because other people couldn't find it, like the Get traffic article and how to make a favicon (:

   I don't use any "editor", I write eventhing in notepad, which shouldn't mess up anything.

10. 

    Lilian gave it on 7th Nov 2008 and said:

    Please note this is a review purely based on your site's design and not on the content or against you personally.

    The colour scheme lacks contrast. The colours selected are of a very similar value, meaning no one colour acts as an accent. Having many similar values also creates conflict whereas on-screen colours should be harmonious.

    A good way to ensure that the colours contrast enough is to take a screenshot and desaturate it. A greyscale will reveal where contrast is needed. For example, the links on the sidebar and the comment count is faint. The white text in the headers is also borderline.

    For an easy way to understand colour theory I recommend the Well Styled colour wheel. Going by the current scheme I'd say experiment with an analogic scheme, partially desaturated (or pastel).

    http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

    The typography needs consideration. Justified text significantly decreases readability. The flow of words is broken by large gaps (which we subconsciously read), and makes it hard to scan text (most readers skim and pick out key words). Left align, it won't look as bad as you might think :)

    The font stack lacks creativity. Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif? Try this link for a little inspiration:
    http://unitinteractive.com/blog/2008/06/26/better-css-font-stacks/

    The font sizes in the content area need to be distinguished from your sidebar. Increase the content text, or decrease the sidebar text. Going back to colour, the sidebar text should not compete with the content text. Tone it down a notch.

    The links are also indistinguishable from the italicized text. Perhaps you could remove any colour styling to emphasized text, or make the links much more prominent.

    The header is lovely, and the giraffe's are a nice touch, but the site name is completely hidden - again an issue with contrast.

    If you need more material on colour or typography do contact me :)

    Unable to detect browser/operating system | Report This?

    Annen's Response:

    I'll look into it, even though there's an awful lot of things that seem to be wrong (: Thank you for taking the time to review me.

11. 

    Tracy gave it on 7th Nov 2008 and said:

    Reviewing from: Firefox, resolution 1680 x 1050

    First impression: It's cute. Nothing special but also not boring. Nice and plain.

    Sidebar: I'd make the font smaller than the font in your main part. The sidebar isn't as important as your content, so it doesn't deserve to have the same size ;)

    - Welcome: I like the welcome message. I don't like how you wrote the words "grap-hics", "Den-mark" and "Janu-ary" though.
    -Pick content: I'd add more padding to it, it seems a little crushed.
    - Advertisement: I don't like it, but then, I don't like advertisement on sites (esp. personal sites) in general.

    Anne: Nice and clean. I love to read about the webmaster, so I'd like to see more information here. You're ten years younger than me but 10cm taller ;) Anyways... I'd like a nice bio here and not only keywords (in the basics section). I'd also like to see more of your likes. You have your favorite bands listed, why not list your favorite food, songs, ... as well.
    I really like the gallery script you're using, it's pretty neat. Lovely.

    Graphics: I'd like a little intro sentence there. When you click that page you just get a white content area and the drop down menu.

    Articles:
    - General website building: Neat. I like your "get traffic" article and how you put your own experience in it.
    - Photoshop: Oh, I didn't know you could make .ico-files with PS (doh) - I've learned something :) Nice tutorials, I don't think they're really needed, but they're nice.

    Site: Nicely structured, all the subpages as well. What I'd like to see though is the subnavigation on all of your subpages. That way your visitors can jump from "history" to "layouts" to "credit" without having to to go back to the main site page.

    Plugboard: I'd change the column spacing size of the "other plugsites" table. The center and right row are so narrow and it looks a little squished.

    Style: I'm not a fan of the colors but I do think they fit well together. The font size is readable, the sidebar is differentiated from the main content area by a background color, which I is nice. I like that your h1 differs from the others by the text alignement. On your index page, I don't think the color you have for your somments {0} suits the background color. I'd make the link colors a little darker in general.

    Coding: You have a few errors and warnings in your coding, but nothing too serious. Things like " attribute "ALT" not specified"... Your css is nice and clean.

    All in all it's a cute little site with some nice content. I'd love to see more blog posts of yours, seeing you've been online since January 2007.

    Unable to detect browser/operating system | Report This?

    Annen's Response:

    For more blog post, you'd have to come by at the end of the month. I only show posts from the current month :) I've got all my old post in my database, and I'm thinking about finding a way to make an archive, but seriously, people wouldn't use it anyway ;D

    I know that my image html could have been better, but I'm a little lazy, so I'm still getting a little done everytime I edit a page.

12. Olivia gave it on 7th Nov 2008 and said:

    Hello! I thought I'd take a stab at reviewing your website. I'm on IE :)

    First Impressions: There's little I can say design-wise as I'm not very knowledgable in that area, yet I really think this look is very cute! The colour scheme is very appealing and stylish - you can instantly see your style which is excellent considering this is your personal site. Personally I adore the header. Some might think the layout to be on the small side, but I think it's perfect.

    Assuming English is not your first language, your writing is very good despite small spelling mistakes here and there.

    Anne: I like that the basic information is presented very clearly, as that gives us a general idea of who you are. This page would be perfect perhaps if you added a short paragraph stating your passions, dreams or achievements or maybe what you study. Details like that give a more rounded idea of the person behind the website, since your list of favourite music doesn't tell me much. Your gallery options are very handy! It's great that instead of clouding the page with pictures you've given the visitor the options.

    Graphics: Again the drop-down-selection makes the page so organised! I simply love your icons :) They're so personal and funky in comparison to celebrity-orientated ones. I would definately come back for these. I'm rather confused about the disclaimer for the Collages page. "These are NOT to be used, redistributed or whatever you may think about." Really? So you really don't want visitors using these, even with credit?

    Articles: Get Traffic is useful, and you make a few nice points. In all articles, despite a few grammer mistakes, you genuinely type as though you really want to help the reader which is lovely! I can't really comment on the graphic tutorials as I know little of photoshop, but I would probably come back to see what you've got to say when I do get it!

    Site: Ooh, you started on the web via school? It's great that you've added this little story as it displays your personal beginnings so well, yet I would suggest re-wording it to get the message across easier. It's interesting that you need to have an English language website to get a larger group of visitors. It would be a nice touch if you were able to display your site in both English and Danish. Looking at your past layouts I really like your style of design. Design truly can be a reflection of one's personality. I'd like to see more about the current layout - why giraffes?

    Plugboard: A nice addition, since you spoke in your Get Traffic article about plugboards. You're providing the visitor with links and somewhere to promote their site, I like.

    Final comments: It was a pleasure to browse Annen.dk, as your personality shone through just as it should in a personal site. Your site is similar to many personal sites at the moment, with graphics and tutorials, but I'm sure you could break the mould with more detail on various sections. It would be fabulous to see Annen.dk sprout more originality with your opinions and passions - give us more of you!

    UPDATED 07 Nov 08:
    Woops! Forget to add the star rating! :) I thought 3 stars was a fair judgement - your site has the potential but needs more content to be a bigger and better personal blog and site. I would suggest a blogging system like Wordpress so that more posts can be viewed by the visitor.

    Unable to detect browser/operating system | Report This?

    Annen's Response:

    Hehe, I wanted birds for my header, but then I found the giraffeshapes first and thought they'd be so much cuter ;D

    You're getting it right - The collages are not to be used by the visitors. I provide some graphics for my visitors, but the page isn't called resources, simply because it's mainly displaying what I've made for myself (most of which I share afterwards) (:

    Oh, I decided to make it English, because a lot of the Danish website-making-girls were snobs and I was so sick of them I needed a distance to it :)

    About the blog script, I use one that one of my best friends coded herself. Uhh, I actually dispaly all blog post from the whole month, but as I've been busy, I've only written one ;D Usually there's more than this :b

    I'll look into some of the things you mentioned. I'm glad you like my icons- It's one of the few things that I've gotten a lot of compliments on xD

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