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Paused Life has 6 Reviews

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1. 

   Vera gave it on 2nd Dec 2008 and said:

   = First Impression =
   ----------------------
   Somewhat disappointed, given how much attention the header image attracts I was expecting something more exciting.

   = Layout =
   --------------
   I'm one of the first people to advocate for header images with a clear focus point, with the role of attracting the visitor's eye. Yours does indeed have a central focal point, it's vibrant... well the blue is, compared to the somewhat faded colors used in the content area. Still, even though it immediately attracts my attention, I'm not entirely sure why I am supposed to look at the site title. Yeah the text looks interesting, and the butterflies are a nice touch... but all in all "Paused Life" doesn't really tell me anything. Well it does, but the the message is rather morbid. Maybe a subtitle would be useful... or just some small icon which you feel is representative for your site's content.

   Your sidebar is fairly close to the "dangerously thin" side. Considering that most of the content here consists of one word per line, it doesn't seem such a big deal. Nevertheless, in the last section (the take note part), it seems as if you had cramped a lot of things in there. Speaking of which, shouldn't this be more toward the top of the sidebar? After all that's a rather important detail. I'd suggest you make the sidebar a bit wider about 180 - 200px, and rephrase the Take Note part a bit. For example:

   Asterisk (*) indicates external link.

   When it's about telling visitors to heed certain navigational rules, it's best to keep things as short as possible.

   On the whole, the organization of your sidebar annoys me a bit. It starts out well, but then it seems like you didn't really know how to organize the rest and just threw everything in there as you went. Also, it looks as if the font size in the sidebar is smaller than the one in the main content area? Doesn't the sidebar contain important information (ie main menu)?

   The main navigational menu being first is a good move, so is the following recent updates. I'd change the list style type though. They're different links after all, different categories too. At the first moment I thought you had two sets of navigations, seeing as they were styled the exact same way. My personal suggestion would be to not use any cute pixel for the main navigation. Perhaps have the current section highlighted (a different background) for ease of navigation. The hover link effect is not a very good choice. You're making the links lighter in color and thus harder to be read. People with small attention spans (coughmecough), might just browse away. To me, it always seemed logical to put more emphasis on a link if you hover over it. Make it clearer to the visitor what he's going to see, not confuse him.
   Your affiliates are other sites, so why exactly are they taking precedence over other details relating to your site? You should only send your visitors elsewhere when you've run out of things to say. You clearly still have things to say, seeing as you provided people with a search box, and you have the external link related notice. The affiliates section would be much better suited at the bottom of the sidebar. The search button looks rather odd glued to the text input above and so far on the left. Either center it, or use an icon for search, which you'll place on the same line as the search box. What icon? Well the most used on it a magnifying glass, but if you have another idea, go for it.

   Oh you have a current location information (you are here). Very useful, but badly placed, as the overall symmetry of the

   All in all your site has the main basics down, but the color choice is really not the best. The light blue background all around attracts more attention than the light brown/beige text in the main content area. Use a darker shade for it, otherwise some people's eyes might easily just slip over it.

   = Content =
   ---------------
   Home - You're one of the few people who actually has a welcome message on top of the main content area. You do need to take it out when not on the homepage. You can do this in Wordpress, by checking if you're on the home page. For more info see http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags#The_Front_Page .
   The list containing the comments (ol.commentlist) could use a bit more differentiation. Perhaps alternating comment backgrounds, or just a background which contrasts more with the site's background. It would separate them better, and make it somewhat easier to read.

   Webmiss - you disabled right clicking? I wanted to open an external link in a new tab and I couldn't. Disabling Javascript of course fixed this... but still. I don't like to have my browser restricted.
   If you're English "to the full", you should know that it's spelled with a capital E.
   In the Webmiss Extras page, rather than having the "top" links would be better placed at the end of the paragraphs. I assume that you want people to return to the top of the page AFTER reading them, right?

   Running, coding, and smelling food before I eat it are also very activities I really like doing.

   Very activities? I'm assuming the "very" needs to go, unless of course I'm misunderstanding what you wanted to say.

   I'd have liked to read more in the about you section. What you have there is good, but it felt slightly incomplete to me. Then again, the extras page does make up for it.
   Oh you have made lost of pixels. They're cute, I especially like the commissioned work. I admire anyone who has the patience to do this art. I can barely make myself draw a basic shopping bag... let alone a pixel drawing of a wolf. XP

   Website - in the "credits" page there are two screenshots missing (Hayden in White and Roses). Is this intentional or did you mess up the path to the image files? If you don't have a screenshot anymore, maybe use a sort of generic image that says "not available" or so. It's a bit odd to see a blank rectangle, when everywhere else there are colorful layouts.
   I greatly enjoyed the interview. You write in a very entertaining way. I'll have to stop by sometime, and read some of your blogs.

   Subeta - so far I haven't really payed any attention to the breadcrumb links, but for some reason, my eyes suddenly fell onto it. And to my surprise it says that Subeta is a sub page of the Weblog? Your navigation shows them both on the same level. So which is it?
   So from what I gather a virtual pet community site... well a fansite for it. I clicked on a few links and I really like the achievement icons. Did you make them all?
   Can't really say much about this section, as I've never really been into Neopets, and now I'm a bit too old for it. But from the looks of it, you have plenty of fans. So you must be doing it right. ;-)

   Graphics - your pixels are really cute as I said. Though some pages might take a while to load... meaning I'll see the alt tags for... ugh... 10 seconds. Unforgivable, you know? :P
   In the Avatars and buttons page, what are the "Others" supposed to be. I only see: + + = is there supposed to be something more? Because I'm not really getting the meaning of these.
   Gah! Textareas for displaying coding?? I'm sure a lot of people have already pointed out Jem's tutorial on customizing the code tag, as well as her handy HTML code converter. Use those!
   In the website templates page, don't load the full template as thumbnail. It takes way too much time to load. Use a lower quality jpg/gif image for that, and only load the full image on demand.
   Click on the first image, I'm brought to a 404 page. Check your link there, you left out part of the filename, I believe.

   Color pickers are always useful, still Firefox has a plugin which I'm happily using.
   The color palettes are nice, but the text in the images is killing my eyes. Have mercy!

   Read - your writings are very interesting to read. I'll have to come back to browse around more. But now I think I should finish this review.

   = Coding =
   ---------------
   Unlike others, I don't validate coding. Anyone can pass their sites through the validator, and I like to think I'm more than a piece of code.

   It looks largely semantic and correct, though I'm not entirely sure why you're not using more than two heading tags (h1 and h2). There's six of them after all(h1, h2... h6). So instead of
   
Title


   You could have
   
Title


   Or, if you don't like using that many header, you could style the headers in the sidebar differently to the ones in the main content area.
   eg
   
#menu h2 { ... }

   #main h2 { ... }


   In your CSS you have
   
overflow:auto; /* clearing floats so that container wraps all divs completely */


   The comment near it is incorrect, actually. Overflow: auto causes a div (for example) to scroll (similar to an i-frame) if the width/height of the content is larger than the one you specified. It doesn't clear floats, in any case.
   To clear floating, you use:
   
clear: both;

   Instead of both you can have left or right, if you only want to clear the left, respectively right floating.

   On the whole, your code looks clean and semantic. You know (for the most part) what you're doing.

   = Score: 3.5 =
   In some places, you have some really small text. Your main text, unless bolded needs more contrast compared to the off-whit background, and you have some coding tweaks to make.

   On the whole I enjoyed reviewing your site, and despite the fact that pixels are not a particular interest of mine, I'll probably come back sometime. So see what else you're up to.

   UPDATED 02 Dec 08:
   Styling the button - just give a class to it, and you can specify a width, height, text color, background etc for it

   Highlighted navigation - I use www.dassnagar.net/website_design_articles/navigation_with_PHP.htm for mine. Sure it's a horizontal tabbed navigation, but the general idea is the same.
   Although, if you use worpress, you should be able to check the current page parent.

   Cut off text - whoops sorry about that :P Seeing as you have your headings displayed a block lines, having plain text for the bread crumbs breaks a bit of the symmetry between the sidebar and the content area. It looks a bit off that the content area heading, starts some 5px lower than the one in the sidebar.

   No right click - oh I see that this is not the case on every page. It is on pausedlife.com/webmiss/joanna, though.

   Textareas, I did notice that the textareas had classes, so I was wondering why you were still using them.

   Subeta sub page of weblog I'm assuming it's a page, right? Well then, you can set this wp page's "Page Parent" to "Main page (no parent)", and the plugin should automatically adjust itself.

   Colour palettes - isn't that a bit too much hassle? I mean, I don't suppose they actually use those pixel images as they are in graphics. Visitors would just make use of the the colors suggested... So I still don't exactly see the why anyone would have to go to the extra effort to magnify those pictures in their image editor.

   Introductory message - It's not enough to have it on the index page. If I browse the archives/pagination, it's still there. You have to put it in a conditional php statement. As shown in the example below:

   
<? if(is_home()): ?>

   <p> this is where the welcome goes </p>

   <? endif; ?>

   I'm glad you found my review useful. :-)

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   Joanna's Response:

   Hello Vera! :)

   I've made the sidebar bigger and "Take note" has been rephrased using your suggestion, then put first, with the friends (affiliates) last.

   About the different font sizes, it was actually a suggestion from a previous reviewer! lol I think it was to not distract, but help the visitor concentrate on the main text area.

   I've taken down the bullet point for the updates navigation. Although I'm not quire sure that's what you meant.

   About the navigation having a highlighted area depending on which part of the site the visitor is in will take a little longer to look at and implement. I'll need to look up a few tutorials to learn how to do this. :)

   I've also made the link hover colour a lot darker, rather than lighter like it was first. Thank you for pointing this out, I hadn't see it under that angle!

   Now that the sidebar is wider, the search box has space to spread it's legs and breathe a bit. Still need to learn how to style the button. Shouldn't be that hard though.

   I think your text might have been cut off a bit when you say:

   Oh you have a current location information (you are here). Very useful, but badly placed, as the overall symmetry of the

   I'm still very interested to know what you had said here, if you have a moment to update. :)

   The main text should be darker now, and I'll try to remember your comment for the next site theme.

   The "welcome" message? Normally you should only see it appear on the front page, as it's actually included into the index page rather than in the wordpress page template.

   The comments on blog entries; ah; yeah. This needs some serious attention. A challenge! Yay! I'm going to need to fiddle around with this a little bit I think.

   I was surprised to read about the right clicking problem you had, because I right click all the time, including on the Webmiss page and all it's sub-pages. It's actually really important that visitors -can- right click because I've taken out all the target="blank" parts in the links! Can you tell me if there is a page in particular or if you get this on the whole website? Because I have no problems what so ever and I still have JavaScript enabled.

   If you're English "to the full", you should know that it's spelled with a capital E.

   lol Good thing I'm not vexed too easily! As you will now know, I've spent most of my life in France, in French schools, not in England, in English speaking schools. But I'm slowly catching up with people of my age. :) And yes you're right, English has a capital E. I've corrected the numerous typos on that page. Thank you for pointing it out! :)

   "Back to Top" links: Good idea! I've followed your suggestion on this too.

   The strange sentence that includes "smelling food" amongst other things: Um... It was two sentences squished into one. I missed that extra word though.

   Commissioned work: He he! Thank you! Although the wolf is actually an item drawn by one of the artists for Subeta, the on-line game. Keith Kurson, the creator and owner, has given permission to use official Subeta art. :) Oh and the creature is called a Pompom and it's a dog based on one of the artist's Pomeranian dog! :D Cute, ne?

   Credits page with 2 blank layout "previews": I hadn't got round to adding a "Not Available" image yet. I've done that now though.

   I greatly enjoyed the interview. You write in a very entertaining way. I'll have to stop by sometime, and read some of your blogs.

   If only I could write like that all the time! I'm afraid I will disapoint you. The pieces written like that are rare. They just pop into my head at the most unexpected times and I try to quickly jot them down. Same with the "I Discovered Wordpress Today". But until I have another moment like that, I just have to do with the rather boring stuff. I'm really chuffed though that it's liked! I feel encouraged to try and write some more. This reminds me that I do have a few blogs like that, spaced over the past year. I should perhaps link to them because the rest of my blog entries really aren't worth the read. They're website updates for the most part.

   Subeta is a sub page of the Weblog?

   Ah. Not sure how to change this. n_n"

   Graphic pages taking a long time to load: Aww, really? Hmm. I need to rethink that then. I have them hosted on my own domain rather than Photobucket for example, and this reduces the loading time by a lot. But I did, just this week, merge pages together hoping to reduce the clutter. But that won't do if it takes ages to load, will it?

   The forgotten remaining textareas used to display code: Ahhh! I forgot about those! I hope you noticed that the rest of the site uses a styled class made to resemble scrolling textareas. Anyway, I've updated that page now.

   Website templates page: Yep; and the whole page needed a good facelift too with old content to be removed. I've updated this part as well.

   Color pickers are always useful, still Firefox has a plugin which I'm happily using.

   But not everyone uses Firefox. C;

   Small text for colour palettes: Oh there is a simple explanation for this. They are made to be opened up in any graphic program next to the piece the person is working on. And you zoom in. That's why I deliberately made them so small, because those who like to pixel will blow up their piece to the maximum. I need to explain that on the page though I guess. I also wrote the text pixel by pixel so that it doesn't become distorted when magnified.

   I don't recall why I just stuck to the two first headers. I will take note to change this.
   .................................................................
   Well, a big thank you Vera, still a long way to go for my website and I, but I will happily continue to work on the areas you've pointed out. Thank you for taking the time to do such a thorough review! Oh and if you get a moment, it would be great if I could know where the no right-clicking problem occurs because that really needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
   Take care!
   ~ Jo

2. 

   Tracy gave it on 16th Nov 2008 and said:

   First Impression: I'd like the site more, if the background wasn't there. Or... if it weren't so busy. Like on the screenshot: http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pausedlifewq6.jpg
   I think the header is a little busy as well, but it's not so bad. So, first impression: The site is cute, it would be cuter without the busy background.

   Navigation: It's there - twice. Seeing you have it in your sidebar AND in your header image, I'd remove the navigation from the header image. I think that makes the header quite busy. And my eyes went automatically to the navigation in your sidebar rather than the one in your header.

   Sidebar: I like it. It's not to wide and not too long. I wouldn't click the "Save my boys" picture though. Other than that it has a nice hierarchical structure - the most important on top.

   Main Content: Your breadcrumb trail is a little confusing. I know what you mean, but maybe you could add a "you are here" or something similar before it. I like that your content area is nice and big. I'd add the "welcome to my website" notice into the sidebar though, either before or after the navigation (before I guess). I don't think it doesn't look to good where you have it now, seeing you're using the same heading as in your blog titles and the welcome h1 doesn't really stick out.
   Your blog entries look nice and are longer than your sidebar, which makes the site look nice as well.

   Webmiss: On a first glance - wow, a lot of information. In "the essentials" section, I'd change the link "I" to "My Bio" or "About me". Just "I" doesn't sound so nice.

   The Website: If you write that it's a boring title, you can write the same to Webmiss. ;) I'd remove the first paragraph of yours.
   The Website section has basic information about your site, which is fine.

   Subeta: I have no idea what that word means. And after I browsed the site, I still don't know what that site is about. You have a * after some links, but nowhere explained what that little star means. Maybe explain to your visitors what that section of your site is about. I'm guessing it's a game or something but I have no idea.

   Graphics: It's nice that you name Free image hosts. You have a lot of content there. Very neat.

   Read: I like the "My Writings" section. The "Mice Keeping" is interesting. I'm not too interested in the other articles, some might be though. I find it more interesting to read articles the author of a website wrote.

   Internet: Maybe you could explain what those buttons on your main Internet page mean. What are they about? Why should I click? The internet section is just a basic Links section. You have some nice resources and I like how you keep watch on which websites are closed, yet still have their link there. Brings up memories of some old websites and some people might not even know they don't exist anymore (like H4P - I didn't know it closed...)

   STYLE: The colors go together quite nicely. Everything ok there. The sidebar and the main content area have the same font size (I think?). I'd enlarge the content font size a little bit. I always like it when the sidebar and content area have different font sizes. I'd like to see a color change in the "visited links". If you keep your welcome message on your index page, I'd change the heading (welcome to my site) and make it different from your blog title headings. I'd also create a footer, maybe in the same style as your header. You don't have to write anything into it, but I think it would complete the layout.
   Your CSScode is fine.

   CODING: You have some errors in your coding. In your html coding, your image sizes are not defined correctly. Also, there are a lot of < p >'s you didn't close.

   All in all I think your site is nice. It's a little cluttered, content wise, as well as design wise. I'd change some things here and there. Keep it up!

   UPDATED 16 Nov 08:
   Cool Cool :) I like the footer, it's nice. And your other changes too, of course.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   Joanna's Response:

   UPDATED 10 Nov 08:
   - Background: gone.
   - Header: no image map for site theme.
   - "Navigation" has been changed to "You are here". n_n
   - "I" became "About Me". (Goodness knows why I titled that page like that..)
   - I've added an "id" to the title header so that I can style it differently from the rest.
   - "Mice Keeping" was interested, the rest boring. Needs more work.
   - Those buttons on the "Internet" page do look odd just posted like that. I deleted some pages yesterday and just stored them there. But it wouldn't kill to write a few words about their meaning. Added to my to-do list.
   - I'm glad you enjoyed seeing those old website names. There were really good and I just didn't want to forget them even if they no longer exist. (H4P closed; I know, how sad! The web just won't be the same.. :| )
   - Good to know the style colours match! n_n
   - I've followed your suggestion and changed the font size of the main content area.
   - Visited links colour change: also on to-do list.
   - Footer: in the works.
   - Unclosed paragraph tags: will be hunted down.

   Woohoo! I'm kind of excited! I knew there were things that just didn't quite.. you know... Some things just didn't "go". But I was lost for ideas on what to change and how. I now have clear pointers from all of you so I can concentrate on working on those particular areas. So a big Thank You to you too. n_n

   UPDATED 10 Nov 08:
   - Background: gone.
   - Header: no image map for next site theme.
   - "Navigation" has been changed to "You are here". n_n
   - "I" became "About Me". (Goodness knows why I titled that page like that..)
   - I've added an "id" to the title header so that I can style it differently from the rest.
   - "Mice Keeping" was interested, the rest boring. Needs more work.
   - Those buttons on the "Internet" page do look odd just posted like that. I deleted some pages yesterday and just stored them there. But it wouldn't kill to write a few words about their meaning. Added to my to-do list.
   - I'm glad you enjoyed seeing those old website names. There were really good and I just didn't want to forget them even if they no longer exist. (H4P closed; I know, how sad! The web just won't be the same.. :| )
   - Good to know the style colours match! n_n
   - I've followed your suggestion and changed the font size of the main content area.
   - Visited links colour change: also on to-do list.
   - Footer: in the works.
   - Unclosed paragraph tags: will be hunted down.

   Woohoo! I'm kind of excited! I knew there were things that just didn't quite.. you know... Some things just didn't "go". But I was lost for ideas on what to change and how. I now have clear pointers from all of you so I can concentrate on working on those particular areas. So a big Thank You to you too. n_n

   UPDATED 15 Nov 08:
   - I've hunted down a lot of those open paragraph tags.
   - and I added that footer you suggested. It's a little.. weird... just now though. But the footer is there. And it does look much better too!
   - I completely got rid of the internet page.

   ~Jo

3. 

   Ann gave it on 14th Nov 2008 and said:

   Hey! I think that you've changed a few things since your last review, so let's see how it is now.
   Firstly, your header takes a relatively long time to load, and I'm not exactly on a slow connection, either. Since the header contains your main navigational links, you really want this to be loading as fast as possible, so it would be an idea to save the image as something other than .png. Most people save web images as GIFs since they load quickly and generally save the colours to the nearest one that will look the same in all browsers, and I think that your header will look absolutely fine as a gif.
   In general, though, your header is quite pretty (although the butterflys look fake - you need to rotate them or something). Usually with headers like yours I have a thing about the need for symmetry (making sure that there are roughly equal amounts of colours/ stars on each side etc.), but with yours, I think I can cope. The one thing that is really bothering me, though, is the fact that the "Read" link is completely vertical, and needs to be tilted to the right a bit more, for ease of reading as well as for a bit more symmetry. Maybe you should try out having the links the same on each side, just to see what it looks like, although I think you've got away with it how it is pretty well.
   Another thing about your navigational links is that you need to make them stand out from the header a bit more - it's all kind of the same light browny and blue colours. You have pinky - red bullets, so maybe you could incorporate a bit of that into your header?
   You don't need two sets of links though, so get rid of the ones in the sidebar (having said that, I noticed them before I noticed it in the header... see above).
   In your Welcome it should be "a twenty one year old English girl".
   I like the way that you've set out your pages into different sections (although you do have rather a lot of stuff so I won't look at it all). In particular I like your "Extras" page, it's refreshing to see something different from the general "likes/ dislikes" list you so often see. It's all set out well, and you write it in a nice style that's easy to read. This doesn't make sense though, and I'm not sure if you've merged two things into one or missed out some punctuation: "a nose on the big side which is a trait my family is rather well known for and a terrible memory". It would also make more sense if you wrote "and when I eat/ drink it I become hyper and act like I am drunk", "their on their sadness" doesn't make sense.
   I like the way you've listed different films together, but in genres. I love a lot of the movies that you've listed. And Delirious? *hi fives*
   I really like the way you've done an "interview" to give information on your website, it's original, and well written. ("pleasure" at the bottom of the page). The names and dates page seems a bit redundant since you've already given us half that information. If you really want to keep the page, maybe you could explain why you chose the name(s)?
   "Subeta"??? After considering this for a while, reading your other reviews and considering some more, I've come to the conclusion that this must be the mini fansite part I think you mentioned in your welcome. Good to see you're going to explain all this soon, maybe you could put the message that is currently at the bottom of the page at the top? And maybe a note that the asterisk means that the link opens in a new window (or you could swap it for an outgoing link symbol or whatever the thing's called).
   Graphics - I'm not into these, but they're cute :)
   Reads - generally I'm only really interested in stuff the owner of the website has written themselves, but I guess I can see why you have a lot of different things here, and personally I like it. Maybe, if it wasn't written by you, you could check to see if it's on an official website (such as the author's) somewhere, and you could link to it there instead of having it reproduced on your website.
   Internet - I found this a bit pointless and unnecessary.
   Overall, I think that you have a great site - you seem really nice and you have a lot of things which I really like on your site. I hope that I've pointed out some areas where you can improve and that you find it helpful - I really think that you have the potential to add the "wow" factor to your site. Good luck with it, and have fun! :)

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   Joanna's Response:

   Hiya Anne! Yes, you've pointed out some really useful areas here. I've worked a bit on the site since my first review so there're a few things that I've been able fix up, take down, or turn around. n_n

   Header: I've uploaded the header image in .gif format instead of the original .png. And you're right about the butterflies! lol How embarrassing! I didn't keep the original file I made the header with so this isn't something I can fix. Not for this header that is. I'll keep it in mind for the next. I have a thing for butterflies and love to squeeze one in here and there, but having two in exactly the same potion, that screams TUBE! :P

   I've corrected my welcome/intro message and have gone through several pages using the spell checker. Still quite a lot more pages to check (and completely review the utility of), so that will be an ongoing project.

   Extras: This is an area that I'd started to work on since learning to use a critical eye (thanks Rev.iew.me!) and saw some things that just.. Ugh. Cringe. So I'd started reworking on that page. And I'll even go as far as to admit that it was a page full of bullet lists. n_n The sentences you pointed out were missing a word or two, or hadn't been made into proper sentences yet. I've done a bit more on that page since, although I feel there're still things that can be improved in that area. Work in progress.

   Names and Dates: Thank you for pointing this out! I've completely zapped that page now, spell checked the interview page, and last night I started to write out the meaning behind the name. I don't know if it sounds like to random words put together but there is actually a reason as to why I chose it. To be honest I've put off writing about it since July. Was about time I started to put it down into words. That page too will need some reviewing when the time comes. I feel I lack quite a bit in writing skills. So I've been reading a bit more about writing too. Anyway, this is turning into a letter so I'll hop onto the next point. :P

   Subeta: Brought paragraph at the bottom, up to the top. This needs a lot of attention and thankfully no one so far has dared to venture amongst those pages, so I just might get away with working on these before someone reviews them. He he!

   Internet: Since the previous reviews, I've slowly deleted, moved, replaced sections from this area. And after reading your review, I deleted it completely. I've also taken down the link to that page from both navigations. (I had the second "text" nav. because I knew I wouldn't be able to get away with only having the header. Image mapping is pretty knew to me but I just had to at least have a go at it. Can't blame me for wanting to try out the unknown. lol But next site theme: it's gone.)

   The links with target attributes are a dilemma for me right now. Personally, I like websites that use the target:_blank for example and I like it even more if there is a way of knowing in advance that the link opens in a new tab.
   I think I know what you mean by the "outgoing link symbol". It's like a little pic just after the link isn't it? Yeah, I have yet to learn how to do that. I also find it really distracting from the text. Yet if I take down the target attributes, I'd like a way of my visitors knowing if they're leaving my site or not. I'll need to think a bit more about this.

   As for the reading section, I have in fact written some emails and tried to contact people who I found to be some of the earliest people to use a particular poem or story. So far no luck. I was half hoping they would be able to tell me if they were in fact the author or where they found it. For other texts, I've managed to locate a page where they can be found and I've linked to those pages instead.

   Yet again another helpful review where I feel I have improved my site a little bit. Still loads to do, mustn't rush though. n_n As to that wow factor, that won't be for just yet I don't think! xD I've got a long way to go! But I enjoy doing this, improving, learning, listening, and right now there is no reason why I should stop. So I'll continue working at it, little by little. Thank you Ann for taking the time to review my website! I hope you see some improvements here and there if you visit again. n_n ~Jo

4. 

   Sewwy gave it on 10th Nov 2008 and said:

   My first opinion when loading your site was that I wasn't quite sure what to focus on. Between the listing buttons, your navigation and your header, my eyes were struggling to find something specific to focus on. The design itself also looks rather cluttered. Some extra padding could work wonders.

   I didn't find your blog particularly interesting, I'm sorry to say. It is full of updates, none of which I have any relation to, so I suppose that made things a little difficult to find some common ground.

   Despite this, I am quite impressed at the amount of content that you have provided to your visitors. Although some of the content is relatively generic, it is still nice to see a webmaster providing something back to their visitor (I, myself, am too lazy to sort that out, so I give you props for the effort!)

   There is something that suggests to me that there is a slight lack of personal touch. The blogs which i was able to view seemed to only be updates, rather than a reflection of who you are personally, so maybe it could be worthwhile to pop in some personal blogs in between updates? It helps the viewer learn who you are, what you do with your time, and what you're like. (This has only bothered me slightly as you've listed the site as a personal site, yet from what I can tell the only real personal aspect of the site is your ME pages.)

   I hope you don't take this review too personally. I'm just a fusspot. :)

   UPDATED 10 Nov 08:
   I understand why you've put it in personal. It is a mild contradiction at the moment, but it's not entirely unfactual! :) Hope to see some nice changes, feel free to drop me a line once you've made some, and I'd be happy to review again!

   :)

   Using Safari on Mac | Report This?

   Joanna's Response:

   No not at all, thank you very much! So I've taken note that it's good to have one specific focus point, and also that the general feeling of the navigation/front page is of clutter. That definitely will need looking into. I don't want to stress and tire out my visitors! n_n

   And you're right about the blogs being more about updates than anything else. A real blog to me should take a certain amount of effort and I don't want to do a half-well written one, there'd be no point to it. I do miss writing more personal things though and I'll write that down as one of my goals.

   As for the reasons why I chose to file my site under "Personal", it's because I feel that graphic sites or any other form of website at the service of others is a huge pressure to keep updating all the time. And there are times where I'm just exhausted and I don't want to feel bad for "letting down" visitors in a way. If I make sure to say it's a personal site, when I'm particularly under the weather I can just say "hey well look, I'm sick, see you in a week or two" without feeling guilty because of some obligation towards visitors.
   But I will truly try to work on the more personal aspect.

   The content is a bit generic isn't it! He he! Yeah you practice with what's easy until you can hop on to the next level. My aim is to continue practising and little by little, replace and update the content.
   Well a big thank you Sewwy, you've been a lot of help here. n_n

   UPDATED 15 Nov 08:
   I wrote a real true blog entry. *feels very accomplished* Now to keep that going though might be a little trickier. :P

5. 

   belinda gave it on 9th Nov 2008 and said:

   I'm not particularly thrilled about the background, it seems to clash a little with the actual layout. Maybe put a border or something around the layout itself so it doesn't cut immediately into the background tiles?

   I'm not sure why, but the layout looks a tiny bit messy to me, even though it displays well in Firefox... I think it's the distinct lack of separation of elements. For example, the date of each entry might do better with a border to make it stand out from the entry itself, and maybe each entry could be distinguished more easily from each other with a line or some other marking.

   Regarding content I had a skim through most of your pages. In your "The Story" section of your blog information, it's a cute idea to have it in an interview format. Just so you know, "HTML", "CSS" and "PHP" are acronyms and not proper nouns, so spelling them as "Html" and "Css" and "Php" is not really correct. Also you might want to run your pages through a spell checker in general, on this page alone I noticed you spelt "pleasure" and "practise" incorrectly.

   A lot of the content you have are rather generic, e.g. jokes and articles from the internet. For example, via google I discovered that "Billy Graham’s Daughter" article already exist in online petitions to bring back school prayers in the US. I encourage you to continue to expand your own writing section. There's no real problem with having this external content on your site, it just gives a vibe of mediocrity to your blog.

   Overall, you have the workings of a potentially nifty pixel site. I do like your art and I hope to see more of it in the future. The only recommendation I could give is to perhaps trim back some of the generic content and maybe have more of a focus on your own content to make your site stand out that much more.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   Joanna's Response:

   UPDATED 10 Nov 08:
   I went with the "better not enough than too much" philosophy and got rid of the background. Unless it was "less accessories is more"... O_o In any case it's just a solid colour for now until I find or make a more suitable image that tiles nicely.

   I've been troubled by the lack of separation between entries too. I've thought of using a divider or adding a background to the title or even the entire post. I'm using the background behind title method right now. But it's still really ugly. I will take note to search for a rounded corner tutorial. Perhaps that would help.

   Thank you for pointing out the need for capital letters for HTML, CSS and PHP. I've since changed those and rectified several of my spelling mistakes on that page too.

   I gather from your last two remarks that I may have indulged a bit into quantity over quality. Perhaps I can try to cut back a bit on the "generic" content, and progressively work on adding more of my own work.

   Thank you Belinda! It's amazing how each reviewer notices different things. I've been able to correct a few spelling errors and I've planned to check through my billions of other pages too. He he! I've added a border around the actual layout like you suggested and it does look at lot better. :) My blog entries need more work on style wise as well as content wise like another reviewer pointed out. And too much generic content doesn't make my site a bit tacky. OK this gives me some more food for thought! n_n

6. 

   Aisling gave it on 9th Nov 2008 and said:

   I don't like the background, first off. The pattern is kind of weird, and it reminds me of a background from 1999.

   The header is kind of grainy, the text is not very attractive, and its unattractiveness is emphasized by the shadow. Your navigation is an image map, which means, if I disable images, I can't use it. You also have the navigation in the sidebar, adjacent to the header image. Why have both? Pick one, or the other! Personally, I say go with the sidebar. It's far more accessible, and aesthetically pleasing than the image map. The image map at this point seems like you only used it because you couldn't figure out what to put on your header. Simplicity is sometimes better, and I would suggest axing the little tag things.

   Presuming you ditch the image map (DITCH IT! DITCH IT!), you should spiffy up your sidebar navigation. And your sidebar, in general. Why does only one of the sections have a background colour? That just looks odd. Try to be more consistent!

   You actual content area could use a smidgen more padding, and your meta data at the top needs SOMETHING to make it not seem like it's just floating in the abyss up there. It's all crammed together even though you have lots of space. Let it breathe.

   Your back button at the bottom is virtually unnoticeable. I had to hover over it to confirm that it was in fact a back button. Also, I dislike the drop down menus you are using to flip through blog entries. Drop down menus, especially un-styled drop down menus, remind me off the year 2000, and are just straight up, unattractive.

   With the content, one of my biggest pet peeves is people who link their SITE information before their PERSONAL information on a PERSONAL site. And that's what you've done here. Content should be listed in the order that is related to the most important information. Anyway, the interview bit of this section made me giggle. The rest is pretty standard. I dislike how it says "Comments are closed," at the bottom of pages, because I don't expect comments to be there anyway, thus, I do not care if they are closed.

   Your Webmiss section is also pretty standard. Nothing really stands out to me. My impression of you is that you're a nice girl who likes cute pixelly things.

   I have NO IDEA what Subeta is. No clue. Perhaps a good idea would be a paragraph explaining what it is. Could be helpful. ;)

   Some of your graphics are actually pretty cute, which makes me wonder why your header is not. One of the little fruits from the Layout Graphics section would look nice on your own layout.

   Reads bore me, so I didn't read through all of them. Did you write them? Because, if you didn't, they should not be on your website!

   I find the Internet page to be sort of useless, unfortunately.

   I think you have some work to do, but it's definitely clearly cut out for you!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   Joanna's Response:

   1- OK so the background needs replacing. Not a huge surprise there with those shadow areas that make it look like windows or something. So background: not cool.
   2- The header is the most unlike me out of all the themes I've made. Like the reviewer just before said, my blogs need to be more personal, and I'll add, so does my header.
   3- Image mapping is, if I get you right, to be ditched! n_n
   4-(DONE) Oh and that background in the navigation, actually I've forgotten the reason behind that background. It's easy to take down though so that should be a quick fix to that problem.
   5-(DONE) I hadn't particularly noticed the crammed side bar and main area until you mentioned it. This must be one of the reasons why reviewing is so helpful. This is actually the first time I submit my site to be reviewed too so I'm glad I haven't been stoned yet or something. n_n Anyway, padding, I see what you mean. There needs to be a bit more space in between those two. I can easily adjust that too.
   6-(DONE) Cute little arrow at the bottom is too little. I use it quite a bit but is it actually of any use to others? In any case I can at least make a bigger one.
   7-(DONE) Ack, the order of the links in the navigation. Little detail, huge pet peeve for my reviewer. Doesn't cost me anything to change that around too.
   8- Um the webmiss section.. I took out as much personal info as possible after some huge raids on Subeta (9- that will need an explanation on the Subeta part of the site) but I haven't put anything much back up since. I guess I could make a little effort in writing a bit about me. I will just have to choose wisely what I say. But I come off as nice? He he well that's a good start I guess. n_n
   10-(DONE) Um drop-down menu.. Would it look better in a "Previous 1.2.3.4.. Next" format? I used a plugin via wordpress for the blog navigation but I'm sure there must be an option to change that. I'll look into that.
   11-(UPDATED) The reads do have a certain amount by me, if it's a poem when at all possible I have added the author's name. I might rethink having those though. Jokes were either released of their copyright or are stories that have been told for several generations and have become sort of common knowledge everyone knows. I promise to have another think about having those too.
   12-(UPDATED) Internet page, I find it a bit cluttered up with this and that, that I haven't figured out where else to put. Also needs rethinking.

   Well this has given me quite a bunch full of things to work on and several things that I wasn't really aware of too. So thank you as your review has also be very helpful. I need to go write all this down. n_n

   UPDATED 15 Nov 08:
   Background: (GONE)
   Webmiss: working on making it more personal
   Reads: took some down
   Internet page: (GONE)
   n_n

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