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oh-blarg has 6 Reviews

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Shadow gave it on 2nd Feb 2009 and said:
Hi there! Since you asked nicely, I decided to act upon your site review. I also said that it would be done tomorrow, but since boredom has driven me to distract myself long enough to be productive, here it is. :)

First Impression
I'm not a huge fan of this layout. It's an interesting scheme, yes, but there's no reason for your site name to be repeated three times. I would say to leave the blue and pink scheme, but eliminate two of the repeats. Maybe put one word in one color then the other in the other color. On top of this, since it would definitely look boring, I would add a little design or something as well. Nothing too big, but something so that there is more than your site name to look at.

I always say that Times New Roman or Georgia as a main font does not work with every layout. In this case, you nailed it. It works here, and I guess it's because of the simplicity of the layout. It's also readable, so that's a plus.

The bullets for the Twitter and navigation don't have the same background color as the main background. Some people might not notice it, but it's pretty evident. I love that RSS button; maybe you can use the sketchy concept of that button to create a sketchy type design to add on to your main image.

Your footer doesn't seem to stretch all the way out to the end. I had this same issue (along with other people), and I found a fix to it, but I can't remember it at the moment. Remind me to give it to you.

Blog and Sidebar

The world's shortest sidebar. That's a good thing, don't worry. Not only that, but the text is big. Throughout the whole site the text is big enough. Great job on that.

I can't really tell where the padding is on the sides, but it can use a little more from what I'm seeing. But this whole thing is fine. I know that you have a tag for Hot Crutch Guy, but in case someone doesn't make it down that far, maybe an <acronym> tag would work here. Abbreviations are hit and miss.

The other pages

Before I go on to this, I noticed that you have your resources link before everything else. I'm into prioritizing, so this is probably the last link people should see in your navigation. Now, let's move it on.

Resources: Now, I love how people say that all resources/graphics/anything they make is copyright to me. I also love it when they say that, and they have copyrighted images and copy/pasted reads in this section. I usually tear this part apart.

I'm going through your articles first. Great job on writing these! They're well written. I also noticed that the subnavigation on these pages is running into the twitter section. I know that's unintentional.

I think your brushes are okay, but nothing to rave about. But then again, there's only two.

I was a bit confused by the button bases. Well, three of them anyway--the last three. I think this was an attempt on glossy, but it didn't work well. What is Web 3.0? I thought it was 2.0? :) Since you don't have any decorative buttons, then you can get rid of the "decorative" text after the button bases you have.

You spelled "favicons" wrong. But I rarely see any site offering favicons, so original points are scored right there. I particularly like the pixely ones.

I am very drawn to your light icon bases. I'm not a huge fan of the grunge ones, but I've actually grown out of that trend--if I saw them a year or two ago, I would have picked them up. They are nice though--but I would use the light ones.

Is that ice in the river?! Wow, wicked picture right there. I love stock photography areas. I love photography as a whole. I hope you expand this soon!

I was expecting the site reviews to direct to another page on your site. Although, I will say that this is a great way to advertise rev.iew.me. :D

The owner: I...can't believe you're 15. You come off as older, and that maturity actually shows up in your bio picture. 15? No, I would have pinned you as 18. Anyway, "freshmen" should be "freshman". French should be capitalized. And I think I need to read up on who this "hot crutch guy" is. But yeah, this is a nice sized bio. I've learned quite a bit about who Liz is, a Christian who aspires to be a creative triple threat, likes to speak French, and has a love for "hot crutch guy", among things.

About the site: Generic, but informative. I like the explanation of the name.

Oh, and since I love non-sequiturs, I think that the subnavigation should be before the Tweets. :)

Coding

Your coding is clean. I had to check to see if it was all valid, as you indicated in your footer. It sure is. Great job.

All in all...

Other than a few grammatical errors, the bullets with the white background, and the kinda boring layout, you have a great site here. You are really sticking to the "quality over quantity" thing for resources. I would switch around the subpages' sidebar. Make it so that the subnavigation is before the twitter stuff.

This is a lot shorter than what I'm used to writing, but there really isn't much to say. Good job so far, and good luck!

UPDATED 02 Feb 09:
Liz, I don't know why, but now there's a horizontal scrollbar. :(

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Liz's Response:
Thank you for a great review(: lots of criticism so I now have somethings to work on. -Liz

UPDATED 02 Feb 09:
That's the only way the footer will stretch all the way across in all browsers and screen resolutions D:
DollieKizz gave it on 2nd Feb 2009 and said:
Hey =] I'm Catherine and I'll be reviewing your site today. C:

Layout:
I love that you've stepped out of the box with the colours it's very creative. However, in the footer, the background colour is too dark and makes it harder to see the links. Your layout also seems a little plain, as well as the navigation. You should try stepping out of the box a bit more. Your coding is fine, but the CSS is also kind of plain.

CONTENT

Resources:
Articles ~ I love that dancing smilie ;) Instead of '-`s', you should try creating proper bullets and adding a space between the bullet and the word. *Reads a few articles*, I like the trendy teen one. Actually I like all of them, I'll continue to read them after this review =]

Brushes ~ These are nice.
Button Bases ~ Good too.
Fav Icons ~ Nice
Icon Textures ~ Amazing =P
Stocks ~ Nice. I think I'll be coming back to use the landscape ones. ;)

SITE & About Me :
Fine. You should center your about me picture, and also put the text directly underneath it.

Overall:
You have a nice site, I like your visitor content, all I suggest is working more on the homepage layout and stepping out of the box a bit more with it. Good luck! :)

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Liz's Response:
Thanks for taking the time to review my site(:
Greykitty gave it on 2nd Feb 2009 and said:
Layout

Starting off it's very very simple and there's a bottom scroll bar...pet peeve of mine. Not sure why it's there. Might have something to do with your bottom credits...I don't know. I like the colors, but the drop shadow you have added to your header image kind of drives my eyes nuts when I look at the font for any length of time, I would suggest adding a white border to your font and then having the drop shadow so there is more of a break between the darker font and the dark drop shadow or make the drop shadow and overlay so it's just a darker shade of the background. It would make that header text stand out better.

Font is a great size, the header font is nice, I think it could even be just a teeny bit smaller. Maybe push the font size on those down to about 140%-130%? I also might suggest adding more then just one blog entry to your main page. Otherwise nothing else to really add. The layout is very simple, not a bad thing. It would be nice to see maybe a bit more added to your header...even something simple, maybe use a couple brushes on it, or vector type images. The shape tool in photoshop could be handy add some stars or one of the other shapes that are in their library.

I haven't got much else to say about your layout, maybe re-arrange your links a little so the about pages are first and then the rest of your content with home page last. Anywho...moving on!

Content

I think I'm gonna be browsing your site for a while. So much content! I love reading articles since it gives me other opinions on things so this is awesome.
I love your little review articles, especially that 'is your site trendy?' one. Nice! XD

*start break*

Dude you just changed your navigation in mid review. Great Scot! XD Ok I like this better. Though I still think the About Me section should go first, that's just me. :P

*end break*

I will continue by saying I am loving your articles still. XD You give me more motivation to re-write my old ones and re post 'em. I like how you have them organized, it's not just one huge block of intimidating text.

I really have nothing more to say on that other than keep making articles!

Your brushes look nice, you haven't got too many button bases but the ones you do have look pretty nice. I think I would suggest uploading some ps templates for a icons that have some transparent parts in the bg for gif buttons...if that made any sense. Since those are usually pretty neat to have around. Favicons is something I have not seen before offered, I have seen tutorials but never actual icons for it.
Stock photos are grand, that rabbit is very cute. :)

Off to the site section! Your about page is fairly short, not a bad thing at all. Though I would almost suggest making this a sub section in your About Me and just call that section About. All the other information is organized fine, doesn't interest me that much though so having so many links to different pages for each section is a bit tedious. If it were me I wouldn't make so many separate pages for all that, and just go for anchor links, maybe making Hosting and Hostees one page, Plug ins, site map, credits, and about all on one page, and then just make your links a separate section completely.

Now the About me section! I think right off I would suggest either making that image inline or making it a header type thing. The info is pretty good. A bit on the short side but again that's not a bad thing. The links you love could be put into your links page and just star them out or maybe use small image banners to link your top favorites, I do that with my affiliates. Portfolio is very small but the graphics look ok. I think I would rename Where You'll Find Me to just contact info, then add the sites you are a part of to your links page.

Overall
You have a very nice site, and I enjoyed browsing it quite a lot. Your articles are nice and it gives a good picture of how you are. I would suggest adding some more articles about say your beliefs, opinions on current topics, maybe a few vrs type articles. Book vrs movie, digital vrs non digital, and stuff like that. Keep up your great work I'll definitely be stopping by again. :)

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Liz's Response:
Thanks so much for the review(: it's very helpful!
The horizontal scrollbar is bugging me because if I make my footer less wide it gets rid of that but for some people it doesn't stretch all the way at the bottom but I do want it to look like that just not with the scroll bar UGHHH D:
daNNiiil0vee gave it on 31st Jan 2009 and said:
First Impression
Nice, the header is very simple, and I love the color scheme. I absolutely hate the color yellow, bit you definately pulled it off.

Layout
As I said earlier, it's a great layout. Though, it's a little to simple, maybe add some brushes in the background. The < h1 > and < h2 > are a bit big, well actually, really big. You might want to try making that smaller.

Resources
Articles
I really like your webmaster articles, they seem useful, but I have to disagree with you on Firefox. On my computer, it's actually slower than Internet Explorer. Actually, I don't like either of those browsers, Safari is my favorite. The music reviews: the twilight soundtrack is amazing. The song "Never Think" by Rob Pattinson is really retarded, though. I completely agree with you on that, and I don't really know any of the other artsits. Wow, I'm so behind on everything. I have no comment on the old movies, but I absolutely love reading! You definately have a great list of books there. I think you mean "Roald Dahl", not "Ronald Dahl". Oh my god, the book "Speak" was fantastic! Glad you have it there, "Fever 1793" was also a great book. I think that Laurie Halse Anderson is just a spectacular author. I've been dying to read the "Uglies" series, but I haven't had the chance. I'll definately be coming back to see what other books you recomend.

Brushes
These are nice, nothing I haven't seen anywhere else.

Button Bases
These are neat, I haven't seen glossy ones before. Where are the decorative bases?

Favicos
Though, I think you mean "favicons". These are cute. I like the "pixely" ones.

Icon Textures
Lovely! You should larger textures for larger graphics, too. I love the pink grunge one.

Stock Photography
Beautiful, definately add more.

Reviews
Nothing much to review here.

The Owner
Nothing to comment on, nicely written.

Conclusion
You're a great webmaster, and your site is fantastic, but here are my suggestions:

Make your < h1 > and < h2 > a bit smaller
Change "Ronald Dahl" to "Roald Dahl"
Either add decorative button bases, or get rid of the heading
Change "favicos" to "favicons"
Add more textures, maybe some larger ones
More stock photography

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Liz's Response:
Thanks for the review it's very appreciated. -Liz
Vanesa gave it on 31st Jan 2009 and said:
Hi there Liz! I've been meaning to review this site for some time now (I've been through it a couple of times and really liked it), but I didn't seem to have the time. Now, here I am! I use Firefox on Windows XP with a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels.

First Impression
I have some mixed feelings.

The good sides are a nice, large serif font - I despise squinting, highlighting, and/or copy/pasting into Wordpad. This, I can just read, which is absolutely perfect. Somehow you managed to pull of a serif font, although I've read somewhere that serif fonts are better for printing and sans-serif for websites. But this is fine.

You have a valid XHTML layout - yay! You really know your stuff.

I can navigate the site easily, which is good.

Now the bad sides:

It's all accessible, readable, blah blah blah... and even a nice header. But overall, it doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't look... all pretty together. The bullets have a white background, which is getting on my nerves. (Make it transparent?) And I don't get the hr after the "comment on this entry?"... maybe you can mix the date and comments link together? I dunno.

The blog headers are capitalized, but the sidebar headers are all lowercase - you should stay consistent. I reccomend having the sidebar headers capitalized, too, or just add text-transform: capitalize to the sidebar headers.

The colour scheme is so-so. I think it will only look good if you can pull it off very well, but in this layout, it just didn't work out.

I hate how a navigation is in the sidebar, and very few people can pull it off right. I would just say to move the navigation to the header. Or make the navigation links bigger.

If someone didn't see colours on this site, they wouldn't see words change when you hover over it, therefore they won't know it's a link. You should have a change other than a colour change - usually I just use text-decoration: underline;.

Coding
*goes to view source*

Oh... XHTML transitional. If you're just going to use that temporarily and switch to strict - great! But if you're not, you might as well not do the job halfway.

Hmm... <a href="/">? According to Jem's Top Five SEO Tips:

Link to yourself properly, too: don't link to your index page as index.php or index.html; instead, link to your domain name. This allows Google to properly assign page rank to your domain (that everyone else links to) giving you an overall higher page rank. Link to everything, baby!

So change the link to http://oh-blarg.net/, and same with the navigation.

I'll tell you the second reason I hate navigation in the sidebar - for text-only browsers, people have to scroll pass the content to reach the navigation. (It's good you have the sidebar after content, btw!) So now I'm going to force you to move your navigation to the header... or somewhere else.

Other than that, your coding is neat and tidy. :)

Content
The Latest Blog Post:
Who's "HCG"? Maybe you should link to an old post or explanation on who "HCG" is. (It was posted under "Hot Crutch Guy" so I'm assuming that's what it stands for?) But LOL - this posts makes me want to subscribe to your blog to hear more about him!! I love "stalkerish" blog posts. (That's just me, though. :P)

Articles:

Youâ€™ve been reviewed now what?

should be "You've been reviewed. Now what?"

Well, many have you should remove those images before it does happen!

... what? Maybe you mean, "Well, maybe you should remove those images before it DOES happen!"

Why firefox is better than ie end of story!

should be "Why Firefox is better than IE - end of story!" Also, in that article, you should use an actual ol tag, not just typed numbers. Also, instead of dash's and br's, you should use a ul tag.

Reccomended reading list - OMG you have Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli!!!! I didn't know anyone else who read that - but I ADORE that book! :D

The rest of the articles are all good and well-written... with a couple of grammar mistakes, but it's alright. Proofread them.

Brushes:

These brushes are made completely by hand by me credit is necessary if youâ€™re using these for anything!

should be "These brushes are made completely by hand, by me. Credit is necessary if you're using these for anything!"

Button bases:

Web 3.0

? Don't you mean "Web 2.0"? Oh well, I've never seen a site hand out glossy button bases before, so this is new! Good job here! Although there's a head that says "decorative" and there's nothing underneath... are you adding more later?

"Favicos" (you mean "Favicons". At least, I think it's "Favicons".)

These are address favorite icons you can place these in your header using this code:

isn't a good enough description for favicons - you should explain what a favicon (or favico?) is, where to put the code, and what the code means.

Icon Textures:
These are good - a nice selection to choose from and all high quality. Although the description is one long, run-on (I don't know what the phrase is exactly) sentence. A lot of your descriptions are run-on (?) sentences... you should make two different sentences and add more commas.

Stock Photography:
I like these pictures - you should add more. :)

Reviews:
I think you should mention the site reviews open to an external link to your rev.iew.me profile... other than that, your reviews are pretty good. In the music reviews, I don't get why there needs to be a dash in front of each review - you should get rid of it.

About Me:
Align the picture of you to the center and start a new paragraph, align it to the left and have the text on the right, or align it to the right and have the text on the left. Because the picture and then the blurb about you doesn't look all that good together.

Also, "french" should be capitalized ("French"). And the dash list should be replaced with a real, unordered list. (ul)

Other than those things, this about me page is wonderful and it's perfect for those who want to learn more about you.

Links I Love:
I love these links too. :P But like I said earlier - a real unordered list! I feel like a broken record. Okay, from now on, just change all your <br />- to regular ul lists, mkay?

Portfolio:
Hmm... a tad confused about the Typography samples, but your portfolio looks good. :D I reccomend adding more things to it.

About the Site:
Not much to say here, although you should divide your site history into paragraphs.

Conclusion
I use WordPad to write my reviews, and this review is scrolling a lot more than my regular reviews, which must mean this review is over a 1000 words. Let me check the word count....

1124. Wow.

Anyways, you have a wonderful site with wonderful content! I just reccomend:

- Proofreading your articles
- Adding real unordered lists (okay, so I'm using one right now, but it's not like there's bb code for lists... :P)
- Adding more content
- Improving this layout or a better layout

... and you're good to go! I'm definitely coming back to this site everyday. :) Good luck in the future!!

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Liz's Response:
Thanks for giving me some good things to work on Vanessa(: and a very lengthy review! -Liz
sweetsugar gave it on 31st Jan 2009 and said:
Hey! I'm Sugar, and I'll be reviewing you today since no one else would review your site [=

[b]Layout:[/b]
I like it! The blur behind the text is a good addition. Although, it is a bit on the plain side. Perhaps you should consider adding more details? Also, I don't particularly like the stars as bullets, but if you made the backgrounds of them transparent I think it would help a lot.

Resources
>>Articles: *skips* sorry, I don't have the time to look through that
>>Brushes: Excellent job! The brushes are fantastic, but I think you should add some more.
>>Button Bases: Ooooh, pretty! They look very nice. But again, maybe you should add some with more of a design? It's a bit plain, too. Also, I think you should separate them.
>>Favicos: You might want to fix it to 'Favicons' *chuckles* Well done
>>Icon Textures: Thumbs up!
>>Stock Photography: These are fine, but some I doubt would be used. But I love the 2nd one and the last one. The rabbit's eye is shiny and cool!
>>Reviews: I skimmed through these, but they looked fine to me.

About Me
Nice picture effect! Put a space between 'high' and 'school' in the 2nd sentence. The rest looks good to me!

About the Site
Interesting! You might want to take the old site off because it just says 'moved' then moves to a site that doesn't exist anymore. You should still keep the info about it, though.

Overall
You have a great site. There is spots for improvement here and there, but other than that, it's well-done. I hope you enjoy my review and find it helpful. Thanks and have a nice day! :)

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Liz's Response:
Thank you so very much for taking the time to review my site! -Liz