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Anastacia Dreams has 8 Reviews

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

1. 

   Fly gave it on 22nd Feb 2009 and said:

   layout:

   the layout looks awesome. the colors are great, light but yet enough to catch your attention. the header fits with the site perfectly with it's simple style. the columns are always good for a fansite, so you have +points for that. i really like the "featuredSECTIONS", it looks clean and simple. i can navigate through the site without problems, so another bonus points to you.
   i like the menu underneath the header. i also like the pictures in your news, that always tells you in which category you posted it.

   content:

   i always appreciate it that when you make a fansite, you don't put your personal opinions in it much - that's what personal blogs are made for. so i like it that you just inform your visitors and the fans about what's going on in anastacia's world and let them decide what to think about it.

   i checked your categories and you have everything - from her biography, through vocal range, albums reviews and fanzone to information about the site.

   featured:

   the gallery has amazing look. i used coppermine gallery for a while, too, when i had a fansite, and i was never able to make my own look. great!
   you have all the lyrics, even b-sides, which is cool, because lyrics are always important in music.
   audio and video section doesn't work for me... pitty.
   and the graphic gallery already has great layout, so i can't wait to see your graphic.
   
   overall:

   i just cannot find even the smallest mistake in your website. it's just great and inspiraning. and i always liked anastacia and her voice and music, so...
   
   KEEP IT UP!

   P.S. - the only thing - with the featured section, can you make them open in a new window? so you don't have to click back back back back when you want to go back to the actual site. :)

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   adreams's Response:

   Thankyou so much, well you didn't really point out anything to improve haha so my reply will be short but sure, i'll change the features to open in a new tab :) - Media isn't finished yet, neither are graphics, working on it :)

   Thanks!

2. 

   entrochique gave it on 16th Nov 2008 and said:

   I'm not really one to visit fansites, but I like that this fansite has a slightly more professional looking layout than you usually expect. It stands out, rather then all of the fansites that have the same sized layouts with the same swirly brushes. The only things regarding the layout I'm not a fan of is firstly 'bringing you the best of the best daily' I think it would have worked fine in the same colour without the bolding or italics to emphasise some of the words. Secondly I'm really not a fan of the hover effect of the four links on the top right, it just doesn't look right to me. And lastly that scrollbar? Bugs the hell out of me.

   As for the side bar I'd suggest putting the poll a bit lower down and having the more important information higher up. The website info is usually seen near the top of the side bar and I don't think it works well being right at the bottom. Same for the website features. I think a lot of Anastacia fans that go to your site are probably looking for the gallery and the link on the sidebar to that is almsot at the bottom of the page, not very user friendly.

   And can I ask why the button to the lyrics page is spelt Lyrix? Seeing things spelt like that just make me cringe.

   The actual content of the front page seems good to me, there's a wide variety, you've updated regularly and it's nicely organised, not much to say about that really.

   I clicked on the Anastacia link and was shocked at how much information and different pages there were on her. A few of the pages have only a little information on them, but overall most of them seem to be very detailed and from what I read (due to a complete lack of interest with all things Anastacia I couldn't bear to sit through and read them all), well written.

   Onto the fan area, I'm not quite certain of the point of Artist of the Month. There is very little detail on the artist of the month and I'm not sure how this links to Anastacia, or if it is meant to at all? And though I thought that was random, it's nothing compared to what I found next. A recipe for apple pie? It's called Anastacia' apple pie but I don't get it. Did she create the recipe? Is it her favourite desert? Maybe you need to explain why the recipe is there o.0

   The links out to the guestbook and the guest map bug me a bit as well, is there anyway to make them more included on the site? So you don't dissapear off to a totally different site?

   The website section. I love the past layouts page, it's always great to see the different looks the website has been through and I like how they aren't all just different versions of the same layout, but instead they're all pretty unique from one another.

   A serious pet hate on the credits page. You've credited Deviant Art. No no no. You should be crediting the individual users on dA. How is someone supposed to find the resources you used? And what's the point of crediting if you're not actually crediting the person who made the resources? If you don't know who made them then you really should. When I download things from sites I save them all in separate folders saying who made them, so if I use them I know who to credit. I suggest you sort out some sort of system that allows you to remember who you need to credit.

   I spotted a typo on the copyright page "Self-made content and graphics are xopyright by us" The site name page seems a little pointless. I'd suggest either adding some more detail to it, or putting that paragraph on another page about the site elsewhere. On the terms of use page for some reason they font gets a lot bigger on the second half of the page? Either keep it all big or all small, but whatever you do, try and stay consistant.

   On the Current Layout page I'd suggest also listing information about the sites you need to credit for the layout and possibly the fonts you used so that anyone that sees them and likes them can find them fairly easily and you won't end up with random comments/emails asking where you got so and so texture from or what font are you using for your title etc.

   On the site staff page it would be nicer to see a little more information about the two of you. The images to the left look like they're waiting for photos of you? If not then they seem slightly pointless as they simply say your position on the website, which is already stated above the image.

   I like the site awards page, nice to see the awards nicely organised instead of having a jumble of different sized awards on the same page. However when you click on the preview to be taken to the full award the background colour changes, this would look better if it stayed black. I'd also reccomend linking the full sized awards to the site who awarded them to you.

   I'm now looking at the Online world section. The Anastacia links page is fine apart from the header which is "Anastacia Linx". Please get rid of the x, I've no idea why you would choose to spell it like that.

   The regular affilaites page is fine, and it's nice to a see a page full of buttons without any broken links to the images, as you almost always see at least one.

   The link us page seems pretty empty, I'd suggest letting people know whether or not they can direct link your buttons and also try offering some in different sizes, such as 88x31. Not everyone uses 100x35 buttons. Also under the Link Us link where you have a description of the page it says "Our artist choice updated monthly" I'm assuming it's not meant to say that?

   Besides a few mistakes here and there and things that seem to need reorganising a little I think this is a fantastic site. High quality and a good amount of content. Good job =)

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   adreams's Response:

   Thanks for the detailed review! It will really help I think.

   Ok about the stuff you said.

   Anastacia's apple pie - Haha, yes she made the recipe that's why I included it

   Artist of the month - Hmm, not sure why I added that but I do know that non-anastacia fans visit and I thought it would be nice to write about another artist every month who I love. :)

   I always thought spelling lyrics like 'lyrix' was cool but I guess it would be more profesional to use the proper words.

   Thanks for the tip about putting content into one page, it makes the content seem more 'fuller' that way. Crediting deviantart members is a good idea, so i'm glad I haven't currently used any of their resources (i guess...) . oh i really should watch out for spelling mistakes i hate it when i do that and yes the scrollbar bugs me too :(

   I agree about the link us page, i had no patience to do a whole bunch of different buttons which wouldn't have a major use anyway

   so all-in-all - i think me correcting what you pointed you and some extra effort can possible mean a better mark, thanks for the help :)

3. jmellors96 gave it on 15th Nov 2008 and said:

   The layout is 'good' and fairly 'pro', but to me honest it doesn't fit in what so ever.

   I just feel like leaving there and then, yano? Secondly, I don't really like cutenews, it's abit of a noob thing. Why not thinking abot pushing it into wordpress? In my opinion well worth your time.

   Black is awfuly dull, especially for the time of site it is. Think white, it's pro, cute and fits in with pretty much anything. Also at first it's hard to even notice who that fan site is about, thers no main big bold header with images of her, its just text.

   Joe.

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4. 

   Sean gave it on 15th Nov 2008 and said:

   The first thing I notice when loading your website is the title bar. "Anastacia Dreams | Heavy rotation | I can feel you | A New Era, Utterly Sensational..." This only needs to say "Anastacia Dreams", or "Anastacia Dreams | You're hottest Anastacia resource!" Anything similar to that is fine, but yours is pushing it a little.

   Copyright. I'm not going to harp on you for that, because having read your notice at the bottom, I'm aware that you're aware of the issues; and c'mon, it's a fansite, so really it's not a huge deal. Although Asling's idea for fan art would be absolutely awesome.

   Jumping right into the layout, get rid of the blue bar with the diagonal stripes; it's not necessary. Just make sure you have a decent sized margin between the content/header and you'll be all set. Now, the font you've used through the whole site, but more specifically on the header is so, so tiny. I know this is the trend for fan sites, but please, enlarge the text to maybe 11px? It'd save me a lot of trouble. Also, not loving the tiny pixel text in the header or the navigation; there are other options which are bigger and look just as good, so please keep it in mind for the next layout.

   You have two buttons at the top of your page: refresh and contact. You don't need the refresh button, we've already got one on the browser, so I'd just leave it out if I were you. I will admit though that I LOVE your navigation, it's really nice and you did a good job with it. Maybe adding a site map like said prior to my review would be good, just for accessibility reasons really.

   I was checking out your style sheet and I saw:

   
. style18 {color: #CCCCCC; font-size: 10px; }
. style21 {color: #CCCCCC; font-size: 10px; font-family: Tahoma; }

   Then I look up and I see:

   link href="style/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"

   I don't understand why you don't have those two lines of code in your actual style sheet? If there isn't a reason, put them in there and get rid of that.

   I'm thinking it's because of the use of iFrames, but that's a wild guess. I recommend trying to use simple PHP includes, really they will improve the quality of your website. People will take you more seriously as a web designer if they notice you're progressing in terms of properly coding your layout.

   Now to your content: plentiful, credited when necessary, perfect for a fan. You're doing great.

   You're a good designer, and you have great potential! You just need to practice a bit and fix a few things and I'm sure the site will sky rocket more than it has already. I hope I was helpful, and hopefully not to repetitive; but best of luck in the future.

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5. 

   Berto gave it on 15th Nov 2008 and said:

   I agree with Aisling. Fansites can be tricky because of the images used. They're on copyright. So, moving on...

   DESIGN
   I like the colors you used. They look nice. But the header where it says ...Bringing you the best of the best daily... is too bright for the site. It is distracting. I suggest fixing that up.

   I like your navigation. Most especially when I hover it. The cyan gradient appears smooth.

   CODING
   With your coding, I saw 2 Errors and 2 Warnings. Just fix minor things.

   SCRIPT
   If I were you, I would not use CuteNews as a Content Management System for it has many bugs. See: Jemmjabella's article : Unsafe PHP Scripts

   CONTENT
   I love what you did with the news. The categories has its own images. What I suggest is that you have previous links on the news so that everyone can see what they missed.

   The fonts are small for me. I suggest making it a bit bigger. The title on the news needs more emphasis. Try a new color in it.

   CONCLUSION
   I like the colors on your site and I think you need a little more effort to make it more wonderful. Overall, I give it 3 stars.

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6. 

   Aisling gave it on 15th Nov 2008 and said:

   Fansites are tricky. Normally, I would be spouting off about celebrity copyright, but fansites are a bit of a tricky area. I don't know how you could NOT use celebrity images. I suppose the easiest thing would be fan art. It would be really cool and original to see a fansite run completely on its own fan creations.

   Okay, the blue on the gradient bar thingy is REALLY bright, and the whole element is really just unnecessary. Your title is way too small. The cyan for the font up top is WAY too bright, brighter than the gradient, even. What's the random smudge there?

   The navigation was really fun. I liked playing with it, and it looked cool.

   The font on your news section is far too tiny. You need more news on this side as well, because your sidebar is sooooo long. It needs to be more balanced!

   Oh my God, you have so much information! It all seems to be well-written and organized. You've really created a full website and resource for Anastacia fans.

   This layout could EASILY be modified to use a table-less CSS layout instead of Iframes. It would improve the look and accessibility of your website tenfold, and allow you to cater to even MORE fans. :D

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7. 

   Joe gave it on 14th Nov 2008 and said:

   Since I'm not much of an Anastacia fan, I'm not going to really say anything about content, celebrity images (I'm not sure what the general consensus of celeb images on fan sites is), etc. Just going to make a few points.

   Big fat iframe. Eww. You really should change it so you're using CSS to create your layout. It'll get rid of that scroll bar that's right in the middle of the page.

   I notice you're using Flash for your navigation. It looks nice, but I would recommend having some sort of textual navigation, or a sitemap somewhere (I couldn't find any), for people who don't have flash installed, or have it disabled.

   Your text size is really quite small and like worldangel, I'm struggling to read it without getting closer to my screen and squinting a little.

   Your sidebar is very busy. There's a lot there. Quite a bit of it could be simply put into its own page.

   To finish, just a quick say on your content. You've got quite a lot, and I was pleasantly surprised to find some unique stuff like information on her vocal range. It all seems very good and informative.

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8. 

   worldangel gave it on 14th Nov 2008 and said:

   Not bad for a fansite, I would say. Except that there is an overload of information in the main page. I feel that I have to scroll a long way down before I can finish reading. Although this might be a heaven for those who are her hard core fans, it is stil very tedious to read so much in a page. I would suggest that maybe you keep some entries kept inside an archive.

   The text is a tad too small, I find myself having to squint to read some of your posts. Maybe make it bigger for the convenience of your readers.

   Plus the scrollbar in the middle is kinda redundant as well. There is already one at the side so don't think you will need one at the middle because it kinda disrupts the flow of the site.

   The header can be made bigger so that it will capture the attention of your readers.

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   adreams's Response:

   Thanks! I agree about the font size and the middle scrollbar, I hate the middle scrollbar, I just used quick solution lol so it's gone now. I really should archive once a week :D

   I think the overload of information is due to the poll maybe, I feel the same way.

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