(Rated by 11 people, viewed by 321 people)
Tiramisyu has 11 Reviews
Below are the reviews left by other members on Tiramisyu. Jump to review form?
TiffanyBee gave it
on 26th Mar 2009 and said:Hello Wendy. :) Since you requested, here I am, reviewing your site.
tiramisyu? more like TIRAMIEWWWWW!!!11!! omg your site is SOO fat that I couldnt even crop it properly. like seriously? if i could i would put it on slim-fast, jenny craig, weight watchers, && on a treadmill. stop feeding doritos && hot dogs to your site. you seriously need to trim that shiz down. okay i really like that you can change the font colors but wth these are SUCH ugly colors. why is your font for your banner SO HUGE? my GODNESS you must seriously love huge things. everything else is nice though except for the fact that I cant get over how effin huge everything is. in conclusion: MAKE YOUR SITE A SALAD.
LULZ, I had to put that in, I just wanted to make you laugh.
Layout
LIKE OMGZZ WHY IS THIS SITE SO FATT? Haha, just kidding. Your site does not need to go on a diet, it is a great size. I don't think many people have a resolution of 800 by 600 these days but it is nice to see a layout that is a lot larger than just 400px. I have no complaints about the header or the fonts used. Everything looks amazing. The rollover on the links lags a little bit. But it's not impossible for people to click on the links. I really like that you can switch the colors. I've tried all of them but I love the purple color the best. Like you wrote in your blog, your sidebar is a bit cramped. I would just suggest you either move the items down so that your Tumblr & your twitter aren't right next to each other..or you could move your Tumblr elsewhere like at the footer or at the top where your header is or something. Everything is organized neatly.Her
I don't like reviewing about me pages because everyone does it differently. Yours is very neat though. :)Domain
-Credits page: straight to the point. No comment there, other than I didn't know that my tutorials were helpful to you! That makes me happy! It's funny because I look at your tutorials all the time.-Affiliates: neatly organized. the form is also a plus.
-Linkage: I never realized you had so many! They're all very beautiful.
-Reviews by others: Not surprised you got so many great reviews. ;]
-Link exchange: It is always great to have a form there for those seeking link exchanges. I've learned that people are wayyy too lazy to actually e-mail someone their info.
-Past layouts: These are all neatly organized & all of your layouts are gorgeous. I would've liked it if these layouts would pop up in a different window.
Visitor
-Stock icons: these are all really nice, especially because you color them instead of just cropping them like most people.-Premade layouts: so fabulous. they look amazing. the coding on them is also really great. I would love to see more!
-Color Palettes: these look great.
-Icon Texutres: I really like the way you organized these icons. The tables look really great. The icon textures also look amazing.
-Photoshop Actions: I didn't try these out but they look really awesome.
-Other: Nothing to really review here, it's pretty much well put together.
-Tutorials: These are all soo helpful! I know that I've used some of them before!
-Contests: Definitely a great way to get more hits for your site & attract more visitors.
-Reviews & iheartwendy.com: I swear it's like you were in my brain or something because I was contemplating about making a separate site for a photo blog & a sub-domain for my reviews. I can see that you worked these out really well. I have nothing to criticize. I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful but honestly, your site is extremely well organized & everything looks greats.
The only thing you have to deal with is the sidebar. I think your visitors would love to see more layouts though because you are so talented in the designing section. :)
Your site will sure enough gain more hits, I mean, how could it not? It is absolutely amazing & well put together. On top of it, you have an extremely busy life. Keep up the amazing work, Wendy!
P.S. MAKE YOUR SITE A SALAD!!111!!ONEONEONE!!
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kkickball gave it
on 10th Dec 2008 and said:I love the layout and colors. I really do. It's very simple, very bright, but the colors compliment each other and actually work together. I really really like it a lot. *bookmarks* :) I really love sites that have awesome and very easy to read layouts not to mention, IMO, your layout and style is very unique.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE how your sidebar headers slide down when you click on them in order to pull down the menu. I really do like it. I have never seen anything like it and I'm liking how organized it looks when everything is that way! :) Magic! LOL. I'm also very easily amused, if you haven't noticed!
I really like how you have a lot of things in the "For You" section for visitors. It really is great that your visitors have their own content that they can enjoy. A lot of sites are missing that, but yours is chock full!
I also love your number of tutorials. I just may use some of them in the future. :) Especially the WP ones. :D
I have to give your site a 4.5 stars
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Mari gave it
on 9th Dec 2008 and said:Layout: Your site took a very long time to load. I normally have a fast connection, so I was surprised at long your site took. Work on decreasing your loading time. I think it might be because you put huge pictures at the top of each blog. The pictures are nice, but they also clutter the page and distract people from the actual blog entries. Consider making the pictures smaller and moving them to the bottom of the blog entries.
The design of your header image is very cool. However, I can't tell if that's a celebrity image, but I hope it's not. I see that you have noted at the top of this page that you don't really care about using celebrity images, but just because everyone does it doesn't make it right. Also, I think celebrity images are tacky on websites anyway.
I like the font you're using for "Tiramisyu.com", but I think it's too small. If you increase the size, it will fill out the header more and it will really draw attention to what your site is called. Oh, and you didn't put a dot between "Tiramisyu" and "Com". Your site is called "Tiramisyu.com", not "Tiramisyucom", so clear that up by making it ".com".I don't like the way that half of the header is white and it just blends right in to the white container background. It makes the picture of the women look cut-off and weird. Consider changing the color of the container background, putting some sort of border around the header, or doing something else to make the white of the header not blend in with the white of the container. I think your layout has too much white anyway, so changing some of it will help fix that problem.
I don't like the big orange button things you've used on the sidebar and for the search. They don't really fit with the rest of the layout and my first thought was that they were advertisements. The sliding effect is cool but it's not really necessary. I would create nicer, more fitting buttons or just get rid of the sliding altogether.
I'm not loving the gray background color. It's not too bad, and it doesn't clash or anything, but I'm not sure it's the best choice. Maybe a lighter orange would look better?
I would make your navigation links bigger and a different color. You don't want them to just blend into the text; you want them to be very noticeable. I also would center the navigation links, because right now the alignment looks kind of weird.
I thought your layout was pretty good. It's not the best I've ever seen, but it's not bad.
Content
Domain I don't really see anything wrong here, it looks fine. I've never really been able to understand the exact difference between link exchanges and affiliates. You may want to specify that, in case other people get confused.
For You I'm not a fan of celebrity graphics, but you seem to be pretty good at making them and I'm sure the people who are into that kind of thing enjoy using your graphics.
-Premade Layouts-
In the first layout, I think the content and sidebar backgrounds are too light to have a good contrast with the body background. I also think this would look a lot nicer if it was centered. There wouldn't be so much bare background on the right of the page.
As for your second layout, I dislike the whole "horizontal layout" concept. It annoys me to have to scroll over to see the rest of the layout, and it just doesn't seem very professional. I'm in a quite large resolution and luckily I only have to scroll a little bit, but I can only imagine how much those in smaller resolutions would have to scroll.
Over under "The Layout" it says "This is a horizontal layout so make sure you don't put too much things in the sidebar" but it should be "too many things in the sidebar".
-Color Palettes-
I don't see any palettes that are really unique and that I would really want to use. Most people go to places like Colour Lovers to find color palettes anyway, and so I doubt that many of these will actually end up used. A few of the palettes seem much too bright; I can imagine a layout with those colors would hurt my eyes.
-Icon Textures-
These are nice.
-The Puzzle Game-
This is a cool idea. If the game's over, you can probably take down the list of players, because right now it just clutters up space. The bare, not styled page is not very nice to see. Maybe you could at least change the font from Times New Roman?
Her
If you don't like writing about yourself, than you don't have to do it! It is your website, and no one's going to freak it if you don't have a huge About Me section. If you really don't like writing about yourself, a short paragraph about how old you are and a few actividies you like to do should suffice.
I can tell that you don't like writing about yourself, because the entire page makes it seem like you didn't put much effort into it and you didn't really want to do it. It's not that organized either. You start with a long paragraph about your tattoos, although I doubt that's the first thing visitors want to hear about. They probably want to get the basics first.
If you still want to have a "Her" section, I would suggest that you stick with lists. You can have a "Likes and Dislikes" list, a "Random Facts" list (as I see, you already have one!) a "Favorites" list, and more. Lists organize the information and you'll end up not having to write as much.
Tutorials
-Add a Favicon to Your Site-
This tutorial is all right, and it does a fair enough job of explaining how to add a favicon. However, this tutorial is quite short, and usually that means it's a rather pointless tutorial that can be found almost anywhere. In this case that's true: If you Google something like "How to make a favicon" you will get thousands of links explaining how. Remember, you don't want to write tutorials that people can find anywhere and have already seen a zillion times. You want to write tutorials that are really unique and keep people coming back to your site.
At the bottom of the page, you accidentally wrote "ie image/gif Or image/gif" instead of "ie image/gif OR image/ico". Change that to clear up confusion!
-PHP Includes-
This is another one of those tutorials that I have seen almost everywhere. I don't find yours to be that helpful, either. I didn't think your explanations were very in-depth. Also, you forgot to mention the important fact that you need to save all your content pages with a ".php" extension for the Includes to work.
If I didn't know how to use PHP Includes tutorial, I might come away from your site with a slight understanding of how to put the Includes on my page, but I probably wouldn't know why they work or exactly what they do. That would make it hard for me if I would ever want to use PHP Includes for other purposes or in a different way.
I don't really see the use of this tutorial. This tutorial has been done so many time already, and I think a fair amount of them are better than yours.
There are some grammar/capitalization mistakes so here are some corrections:
The first sentence should be "PHP Includes break down the process of changing layouts and can easily integrate other pages into a page."
The second sentence should be "They are like HTML but only use..." not "It is like HTML but only uses..." Remember, PHP Includes are plural, not singular.
The next paragraph should be "This is an example of a very simple HTML page. Most of the coding would usually be exactly the same on every page except the content area. So, only the content area would change. This is where PHP includes come in. They section off the top, body and bottom of the page."
The next line should be "Take the top part of the page and paste it on to a new page. Save it as header.php."
The 4th item on the list should be "Now we only have the middle section left. This is where the content goes and changes with each page. Include the header and footer files, like below, and save this page as index.php.
Your main problem here is comma splices. You taking phrases that should be two different sentences and turning them into one sentence with a comma. This is an easy mistake to make, so watch out for it.
-Drop Down Menu-
I wouldn't call this a tutorial, I would call it a "Let's show people this code and hope they understand what it means". Tutorials are when you teach people to do something, not when you just give them a code. I bet that it's easy for people to get this code by googling "Drop Down Menu", and since it's not a tutorial that helps explain or shows off writing skills, I don't see why you need it on your site. If you really want to include it, I would call it a code snippet or something like that, not a tutorial.
-Back and Forward-
Same thing. This is just basically a code snippet that could be found anywhere. I never saw the point of the "Back" and "Forward" links anyway; most people have them on their own browsers anyway and so the links often just take up space. I would get rid of this is if I were you, but if you really want to keep it, put it as a code snippet, not a tutorial, because it isn't a tutorial.
-No Right Click-
The "no right click" script is basically useless. If someone really wants to steal, they can turn JavaScript off in their browser and then they'll be able to right click. Many browsers also have a menu at the top of the browser window that have an option to view the page source. I suggest removing this; the script is useless and will just annoy the visitors who might want to open a link in a new tab or something but can't right click.
-Password Protected Page-
I haven't really seen this code before, but it looks like it uses JavaScript. I'm pretty sure that that means it's useless, because like I said above, people can turn off JavaScript and then they'll be able to view the password protected page. I would remove this code, because you don't want to mislead your visitors into thinking pages are safe when they're not.
-Lightbox-
This is a better one. It's pretty lengthy and you've explained every step. I think you could still be a little clearer in some places, but otherwise it's good.
-Installing Cutenews-
Cutenews is an insecure script; I wouldn't be telling people how to install it if I were you. Oh, I see, you've included a note about how Cutenews is unstable and you say people should install at their own risk. I would just take the tutorial down, because if you know the script is insecure, you don't want to be explaining how to install it. Look out for your visitors by getting rid of this tutorial.
-Skinning your Site-
This is pretty good. You've explained it pretty well and it will probably help some people. However, you say that people can see skinning in action on your site right now, but it doesn't look like you are using multiple skins for this version. Make sure you keep that up to date.
-Description Menu-
This is pretty useful, and it's not something you see quite so often. An example of this might be helpful, just so that people know how it will turn out before they decide whether to do it.
-Hide Tracker-
This is pretty useful: you don't see it often and it's not JavaScript. Howver, it seems to be more of a code snippet than a tutorial.
-Coding Notes-
I'm not sure this tutorial is really needed. Most people know how to add notes/comments, and even if they don't it's not exactly a mandatory thing.
-Page Anchors-
This is good. Nothing wrong here.
-Centering your Layout-
Well, this is an interesting way to center a layout, and you've explained it well. However, it's much easier to just use "margin: 0 auto" for the element you want centered, and then you don't have to deal with the whole center-aligning your text thing and you won't have to change your text-align back to left for all the other elements.
So while it's a well written tutorial and an interesting idea, it's not the fastest or easiest way to get a centered layout.
-WordPress Tutorials-
Your WordPress tutorials are pretty good, although tutorials on the same things are most likely available through the WordPress website as well. I would keep these tutorials up anyway though, people might find yours easier to read than other tutorials or something.
-Introduction to cpanel-
This is good, it's fairly unique. When I stared using cpanel, something like this would have have really helped me make more sense of it.
The rest of the tutorials are pretty good, but most of the stuff you've explained how to do is pretty obvious. These tutorials might be helpful to those who have just started, though.
I can't judge your Photoshop tutorials too well because I don't use it, but I'll look over them.
-Gradient Screen-
This seems like a pretty obvious thing that most people could probably figure out on their own. I'm not sure it's wroth writing a tutorial over.
-Image Mask-
This is better, it's more in depth and it's probably helpful to people who use PhotoShop.
The Faded Vintage and High Pass tutorials seem good too.
-Gaussian Blur-
I really don't think a tutorial is needed for this. Many other people have already written a tutorial on the same thing, and I think most people can figure out how to do a Gaussian Blur easily by just looking at and trying the menu options on Photoshop.
Portfolio
I don't like celebrity graphics so your portfolio wasn't my favorite kind to look at, but I think you've organized it well and I think people who like those kinds of graphics will like looking at it. I really liked your drawings, by the way. You are talented.
Coding
Your XHTML has 3 errors but they're not really big errors. You've forgotten to close a tag for something, and I think there are a few other little errors like that.
Your CSS has 6 errors. I think most of them are because certain values you're using aren't actual values, or something like that.
Overall
Here's what I think you're already doing well
-Most of your layout is good, and I think it is overall a nice design
-Your Icon Textures, I liked those.
-I really really liked your drawings. It'd be even better if you added more!
-Most of your coding. There are some errors, but nothing drastic and nothing that causes too much of problem.
Here's what I think you can improve
-There are some parts of your layout I think you can change to make it even better.
-I know you don't care about celebrity images, but when you make graphics without them the graphics will really be completely yours, wihout an image that actually belong to someone else.
-I didn't really like your tutorials. Most of them were either for things that were already obvious, things that weren't a good idea (like the no right click script or cutenews) or topics that have already been done a thousand times. Try to come up with original, unique tutorials that people will really be interested in.I hope this review was helpful and good luck with your site.
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Muse gave it
on 4th Dec 2008 and said:Hullo there. ;D Review organized by design/aesthetics, usability, and content (which really seem to be the only things I mumble on about). ^^
Design/Aesthetics:
This section is going to be quite short. Why? Really, I can't find any problems. Your style is fresh, breezy, and polished. There are no persnickety flaws like a dearth of padding I can note down, and very few things that don't sit right with me.
So, good points:
> love your header image; tasteful use of type in the header, and it's not so over-colourized as what I normally see.
> your colour scheme in general is just fantastic. Looks summery. I miss summer. DD:
> fantastic use of icons; it fits in perfectly with the rest of your site.
> search dropdown looks very sleek (although there's a slight problem with it to my mind; see the usability section).
> this is actually quite a small thing, but I love the very subtle thick border around your content area—it looks much like a very elegant CSS-only dropshadow. I'm in love with this effect every time I see it, although it's really a very tiny thing—it just lends this aura of meticulous attention to detail.
> I love that your posts all have those lovely banner-y images at the beginning. Very attractive.Tiny flaws:
> the accordion menu in the sidebar sticks out like a sore thumb. Somehow, I feel the orange is just a bit too bright considering the rest of the site. They also have this sort of pixel-art style to the rounded borders, which again doesn't quite fit. I think a paler, less bright orange would be perfect.
> actually, in the banner, I feel there needs to be a tad bit more space between the scripty T and the rest, and then it'd be impeccable.
> also, if you were trying to position your site title so the 'com' part would be on the white and the 'Tiramisyu' part on the gradient, perhaps put a little more space in between 'Tiramisyu' and 'com', or have more letter-spacing.
> maybe not quite a problem, but to me your footer looks like it's too far away from the bottom edge of the content box. Less padding?But seriously, the design in general is so gorgeous I feel myself inclined to rush off and try to code something right now for myself. (I should probably finish this review first, though, mm?)
Usability/etc.:
Honestly, the only things I can say here have to do with your use of JavaScript. It adds an extra layer of professionality to your site, but please consider fixing some of the following:
> with scripting disabled (which is how I usually browse, although I allow it when I go on a reviewing spree) your lovely accordion menu doesn't open up when I click. Consider changing it or finding one that degrades gracefully, and just has all the sections opened up if JavaScript is turned off.
> on a similar vein, I can't open your search dropdown with scripting disabled.
> and your 'share' dropdowns with the social media.Oh yeah, and I can't figure out the need to have those little buttons to close a post on the main page. I can't imagine they're particularly useful, and it seems more like an effect for the sake of an effect (rather than something genuinely useful or pretty enough to be worth it, although it is pretty cool).
The 'read more' link at the end of your posts should probably link to the comments section, and be labeled accordingly, because you're displaying your full post on the main page. And the pretty post image is gone from the top of the single post template. DD:
Your site is making me feel so guilty, though. I really have to go and learn scriptaculous. After I figure out JavaScript first. -.-
Content:
I'm going to completely ignore the fact you have a blog now, and focus on your other sections, mk?
For You:
Every time I see someone offering colour palettes I want to beg them to join COLOURlovers. Anyways—
Good points:
> um. It's gorgeous? I'm jealous? I'm inspired? I'm humbled? (Very, very humbled.) Icon textures are gorgeous. Icon bases are carefully chosen.
> I love your puzzle game. So much fun. I finished it. ^^Tiny flaws:
> your system of numbering different content sections with &001, et cetera…why haven't you done something similar for the Stock/Base icons link? To me it makes more sense to number it normally, and then have the links to the various pages in parentheses after the 'Stock/Base icons' text.
> premade layouts are lovely but take ages to load. =/ I'm honestly not sure slicing it up into all those tiny bits really helps with loading time, if that was your intention.
> this is likely the only typo or grammar mistake I can point out in your whole site (excluding blog posts, but eh, those don't count): "These actions can be used with Adobe Photoshop, capatible with the more recent versions." (Compatible, you mean?)
> I haven't bothered downloading and testing the actions, but personally I feel some of them (second and third from the top) don't look like an improvement over the base images, so perhaps using a different example image would work better?And then some of the services (for lack of a better word -.-) that you offer. Oo, layout requests. I'm almost tempted to fill out the form.
(Okay, and a minor coding note. If you're using a normal ampersand (not in a character code like
—, it should be written in the HTML as&. I don't think this shows up as a validation error, but it's more a good-practice type of thing.)Tutorials:
By section:
Coding—many of these are quite useful, and you've provided a little explanation to the code you give out, rather than just thrusting it on someone to use. I personally think, however, that 'no right click' fad went out of style when I was in elementary school. It's just fantastically annoying. I right-click all the time (mostly to open up tabs) and it's so irritating if some snippet of Javascript tells me what to do. Oh yeah, and on your History tutorial—'alot' is two words, not one.
WordPress—personally I don't need to really look at these, but they'd be so helpful to a WordPress newbie (or me a few months ago).
CPanel—I don't know how to use CPanel. Lovely. Cheers!
And after all that, I was disappointed slightly by your Photoshop tutorials, which aren't quite up to the level the rest of your stuff was (and what I was kind of expecting). But at least you haven't fallen into the trap of putting useless 'creating scanlines' and 'put a border around an image' type of thing—filler tutorials.
I actually think the faded vintage one might be useful. If it had pictures, so I could see what I was getting. Where are they? You even reference the pictures in your text.
I just noticed your accordion-menu sidebar actually changes depending on which site section you're in. Amazing. I'd just found out and it's actually quite helpful for displaying sub-sections. Is there some way you can draw a bit more attention to it? I had assumed it was all the same across your site, and hadn't actually used it.
By the way—your 'Her' page about you is fairly interesting, even if you mostly rambled on about your tattoos and possible wedding complications thereof. It sounds rather like a blog entry, actually, especially how you've signed off with a "write more later" sort of thing.
Your portfolio is lovely, and you use typography quite tastefully, which makes me unbelievably happy. ^^
So, in conclusion, I bow to your superior talent/skill and humbly offer you this 5-star review. I loved your site, and it was quite fun to explore around and review. Hopefully I'll be around your site a bit more in the future. ^^
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teddyrised gave it
on 3rd Dec 2008 and said:Hi there! I hope this review will be of good use to you ;)
First Impression (4.5/5): My first impression is WOW. You have a header with colours that are gentle to the eyes, as well as an eye-catching typeface for your logo. Your site is javascript powered and it's nice that you've give a lot of thought about how to compress as much contents and funcitonality into a smaller space. The search bar falls as you mouseover it and disappear once my cursor move away - nice one. I also love the hiding and showing of the sidebar information.
Layout (4/5): Nice, clean and elegant two column layout. The header is conspicuous but not too big to draw attention away from the content or to force visitors to scroll downwards to read more. However, there seems to be a little bit too much space between the header image and the search button. You can make is smaller, say, by 1/3 and it'll look a lot better (this will also making the spacing consistent for all four directions around the header image). It seems that you're using a copyright celebrity image for your header and you should take it off as soon as possible. You might not care whether you are violating copyrights or not but mind you, that also denies you the right of persuing your own copyright.
For the images appended to the top of each posts, if you did not take it, ask for permisison first and give due credit. I couldn't find anywhere in your post that mentions from where the photo was taken from and who took it.
Typography (3/5): The header navigation uses a serif font while the rest uses sans-serif. It's an excellent choice because it makes the navigation texts stand out more than the content text. The colours for your texts, especially the content, can be made darker. I have problem reading your text even after I've adjust my screen's brightness, contrast and gamma. The light grey content text are a little too harsh to the eyes and I think readers might have to squint to read it. The good thing about your typography is that you're generous with line spacing between adjacent lines as well as paragraphs. The words don't look too squished together and this improves the readability.
The collapsible sidebar headers are a little too small as compared to the orange ones underneath it. You need to make it bigger because visitors will naturally lend their attention to bigger fonts.
Colours (5/5): I like it that you've used a consistent colour scheme throughout the entire layout - peach, yellow and orange. These are vibrant and warm colours and it feels very comfy and warm for me.
Validity: Your site is XHTML Transitional 1.0 invalid with 3 errors and CSS 2.1 invalid with 6 errors. Don't worry too much about it since the errors can be fixed rather easily. It seems that you've tried to nest an unordered list within a paragraph and this is prohibited because the unordered list is a block level element with a higher hierarchy than paragraphs. In addition, you've closed one of your link wrongly as instead of .
You seemed to be using border radius for your Wordpress caption but that is not allowed in CSS2.1. In addition, you'll have to modify the cform css style because of the -moz-inline-box expression. I do use cform and I must say that the CSS isn't up to standard and it is recommended that you modify it yourself. When I try to run CSS3 validation, there are 5 errors - the same errors except for the border radius property. the moz, khtml and webkit border radii are not CSS3 valid expressions and you can just remove them.
Content (3/5): Your posts are interesting to read but I guess it's up to personal taste to judge how good is it. So for the content section I'm not grading you based on your contents but your other static pages.
About - "I really hate places like this where people are forced to write about themselves. I don’t think I’m that self-absorbed to sit down and skim through descriptions that fit me." Do note that nobody forces you to write about yourself - you're just pushing yourself. If you don't like writings About Me, then don't write it. I have to admit that I was a little miffed when I read that line because it seems as if you're blaming the reader for forcing you to write that whole chunk of text, but no, they're not to blame. The rest of the page is okay, I love the Random Facts part - it gives an interesting insight to your personality and all.
Premade Layouts - "Do not alter the layout in any way including the coding and css." and "Do not claim as your own or post it on layout sites without permission." The problem is that when people release their themes, they release it at least under the Creative Commons license. Personally I find it hard not to modify the CSS style or coding - what if your code is inefficient and your visitors want to improve on it more? Don't tell me you're gonna tell them 'if you don't like it, then be it'. In addition, it's a bit funny that you ask people not to claim your layouts and theirs while you've already violated copyright laws for using celebrity images. If you don't have photos, you can get it from a free stock photos website or with the permission of other photographers.
Tutorials - the tutorials are useful and good, but some are not recommended, such as the disabling of right clicks. I know disabling right clicks will reduce the chances of people stealing your codes and images but these can be easily done with simple workarounds. Disabling right clicking only stops readers from printing the pages they think they might need and etc. The password protection using javascript is flawed because people can simply view the page source. Although it's not possible to view the page source when the popup appears, people can get around the password gate pretty easily. The Wordpress installation instructions are redundant since they have it all up there on Wordpress.org.
Others: One thing about your javascript-based layout is that it doesn't fail gracefully if a visitor has disabled javscript on his browser. I know what is going through your mind - 'people have javascript turned on and to those who didn't, they're just disadvantaging themselves'. I was a designer once and I used javascript libraries that simply fall apart without javascript support instead of failing gracefully. Some of your visitors might be using computers with limited administrative capabilities and their browsers were set to disable javascript to prevent popups and other malicious things.
When javascript has been disabled, the sidebars cannot be expanded and the search form cannot be called to appear. A visitor that is using a browser with javascript disable will be unable to search for contents (and that is a very important, backbone function for a blog) as well as to access the hidden sidebar contents.
Summary: In conclusion, your blog is impressive through the typography and clean layout, but you really have to remove copyrighted images. There are several fixes that needed to be done, especially to the javascript, but that's all :)
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Vasili.jpg)
Vasili gave it
on 2nd Dec 2008 and said:When I first got to your site, I thought that you entered the URL wrong when you posted the site up. The index page didn't have any styling for 4-5 seconds! Now, I know this doesn't seem too bad, but it made me feel like this was another "JavaScript needs to be turned on for this page to have styles enabled" sites. However, after the page loads, I'm really enjoying the layout. The colors are very calming and summer like. Are you currently in summer, because where I live, we're going into winter.
Anyway, back to your layout. I like how you use a Serif font instead of a Sans-Serif font, for the main text. I don't see a lot of this, but I really do enjoy seeing it. :) I'd like for your main navigation links (the one under the header) to be larger and maybe a different color. I like the simple hover over effect, though. Now, about this header, I LOVE the font you used for the title, may I ask what is it (both fonts)? I don't like the random cut off of the girl. I HATE the navigation links in the sidebar. They seem too boxy and pixel-like to fit into the current theme you have going. Oh, wait, these aren't navigation links. :O It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out that I had to click on them to show information. I see you're using jQuery for the effect, maybe you can hide the information with it, when JavaScript is disabled. The following code will do this:
$(document).ready(function(){$('#panel2').hide();
$('#panel3').hide();
$('#panel4').hide();
$('#panel5').hide();});
I like how you formatted your blog posts. How you placed everything, the icon you used and the image at the top. The image at the top isn't necessary, but it does give a nice feeling. I'm getting that calmbing vibe again. Your share button is a little useless. I would think that you would want to show those bookmarking links every where you could and not hide them! If you really want to keep this, use $('.share-div').hide(); in your jQuery so that people with JavaScript disabled can see them. :P That X image/box/whatever you want to call it bugs me. I don't understand why you would want someone "deleting" one of your blog posts. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I like to show off my blog posts. If I do want to click it, I enough the fading out effect. Yay jQuery! *fanboy* However, when I click the X on both links, they both disappear, and no new ones come up. :(
Onto the content! The stock icons are okay, nothing too special. I love this one, though. You're premade layouts would be that much more awesome if you used other types of pictures that aren't illegal. Your color palletes are not the greatest. Most of them don't have messing colors, and the way you set them up isn't that good either. Maybe a rounded box because the sharp edges are messing up that calm vibe I was talking about earlier. Oh! I really like your icon textures, if I ever get into icon making, I'll use some of these. With credit of course. Eh, the Photoshop actions aren't the greatest, but what are you going to do? I never understood the point in "free advertising" if you want the person to link back, but hey, whatever you have to do to get those hits. ;) I can't believe this is the first time I mentioned your form elements. The color is WAY too light, and the hover on them is not helping this. Here's that calming theme I'm getting again, that submit button. I really do enough the background you used. Your hosting page is nicely organized, but I would have used list elements for the rules and what you get list. Okay, this form is really narrow. It looks like you wrote a paragraph of information on the sidebar, but in reality there's only a sentence or two. Please make the form wider. I jumped right to the form and completely skipped over the close notice. You should make this bolded or stand out. Here's another narrow form, do what I told you to do to the other one, make it wider. I think that puzzle idea is okay, I got bored with it in a couple seconds.
The domain and about you pages are fine, normal pages. I'm not going to review the grammar or spelling because I'm not the greatest at those. I'll just move on to tutorials.
Add a Favicon: I always thought you needed a 16x16 icon for it to work? Maybe it's because 32 is a multiple of 16. Anyway, you have a typo. You wrote ie. image/gif OR image/gif instead of ie. image/gif OR image/ico
PHP Incldues: I've seen this tutorial everywhere. I don't see the point in keeping it. I'd also suggest saying that you don't need to have the names be header.php and footer.php; your site won't break if you name the file lulz-omg-wtf.php instead of header.php. Another thing you might want to mention is that the page won't be included if you don't have the included file in that directory.
Drop Down Menu: When I read this title I had that wtf face. I don't know why you would want a tutorial on a select menu.
History Links: Isn't that why browsers have those back and foward buttons? Just a out of this world idea.
No Right Click: Disable JavaScript and you have just gotten around this. Hard huh? I leave a site once I find this code in effect on their site.
Password Protected: Password protected what? Oh, a file. I won't use this, because disabling JavaScript renders this code useless.
Lightbox: I find adding rel="lightbox" such a stupid idea for lightbox, but that's not your fault. You didn't write the code. ;)
Installing Cutenews: Why are you telling people how to install a "virus" on their site? I'd suggest taking this down because when a user comes back and complains their site was infected, you wouldn't feel too great. Now would you?
Skinning: This tutorial confuses me, and I understand quite a bit of advanced PHP! You should explain it more. A newbie wouldn't get this tutorial and only upload the file and include it, nothing more.
Description Menu: A demo would be nice.
Hide Tracker: Useless. I would have used display: none;
Coding Notes: I thought these were called comments?
Page Anchors: The anchor doesn't have to be a link, you should let users know this too.
Centering A Layout: I would have called this Centering an HTML Element. You don't need the .class class unless you align a lot of things to the left side.
cPanel Tutorials: I've seen lots of these on the web. Most of them come in the tutorial that comes with cPanel. I personally wouldn't come back to your site if I need help with something on cPanel.
Photoshop Tutorials: Eh, not the greatest I've seen.
Your portfolio is pretty random. This is where you can have some fun with the way the images are displayed. Maybe even impementing lighbox on them. Are you going to make stuff for me, or are you just showing me what you can do? All (if I'm not mistaken) of your "graphics" use illegal images. Now, you may not care but if you're going to design a website or layout for someone I wouldn't want stolen images on my website. Speaking of graphics, isn't this whole page graphics? I'd change the title to banners, or blends (BLAH!) even. The layouts are blah. I wouldn't call them layouts, more of layout headers. Again, are you going to let people use them, or are you just showing then off? Drawings: Oh! I really like these. Now these are really nice. Did you trace them? ;) The miscellaneous images should be put under the banners/blends section.
Let's look at your coding, shall we? The index page has 3 errors, two of which are typos. For the third you just need to change to , and you should be all valid. I'm OCD about my coding and I try and keep everything with the same number of tabs. Like this:
<html>
<head>
HEADER INFORMATION GOES HERE (TITLE, CSS, JAVASCRIPT) WITH 1 TAB
</head>
<body>
<div id="container">
<div id="sidebar">
SIDEBAR STUFF GOES HERE WITH 2 TABS
</div><div id="content">
CONTENT STUFF GOES HERE WITH 1 TAB
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>I know that sounds really physco of me, but that's what I do. Woah, I see like a million comments in there. Try shortening it down to main sections: header, content, footer etc. Oh, what's this? I didn't know you have a search bar, let me go and see what it's like. Now I see it, it's to the right of the header hidden by jQuery. *goes to click* Wait, what? Usually when you hide something and make it scroll, you let the user click. Sometimes while I type I hit the mouse and it moves. If this happened, the search bar would disappear. Not helpful. Change it to a click function and I'll be all good. 8D
Your CSS has 6 errors in it, easy to fix though. I'd still like to go over some things. the body tag can be rewritten as:
body {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
color: #ababab;
background:#e7e7dc;
font: 11px/18px Georgia, Serif;
}The wrapper 2 div could also be shortened.
#wrapper2 {
margin: 10px auto 0;
padding: 0;
width: 950px;
background: #fff;
border: 4px solid #e3e3d5;
}If you read the CSS shorthand tutorial at TT you would be able to compress your CSS a lot more. Other than that, it looks pretty good.
Your site without images is still easily navigatable, which is always a plus. I'd recommend placing a header one tag at the top of the page with your site name/logo in it. Then make it invisible, by adding display: none;. When a person comes to your site with CSS disabled, there would be a huge title on the top of the page stating your site's title. You may be saying to yourself, "but the header image has my site's title in it?" Well, what happens if we disable CSS and images? Now your site doesn't have a title.
All in all, I like the layout you have up. There are a few things that bug me about it. Your content isn't the greatest I've seen. If you working on the content (and portfolio), as well as the coding, for your site I think your site will be much better.
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missyu's Response:
Thank you for your review, all the things you have said are very useful especially with the codes. My portfolio, it actually says it's for viewing purposes only - the layouts aren't layout headers, they're screenshots of full coded layouts and no I didn't trace the drawings. They were for school projects.
UPDATED 03 Dec 08:
Thank you for your review, all the things you have said are very useful especially with the codes. My portfolio, it actually says it's for viewing purposes only - the layouts aren't layout headers, they're screenshots of full coded layouts and no I didn't trace the drawings. They were for school projects. Oh and for the header fonts I think it's Arial and Champignon.![[img: avatar]](/avatars/ShadowedLife.png)
ShadowedLife gave it
on 2nd Dec 2008 and said:Hi there. This is my very first visit to your website and I have one word for you. Incredible. Never seen such amazingly designed layout before. I am a huge fan of simplicity and I like how the header image has evenly spaced empty areas for some simplicity, but it's not boring at all. The T in your site title has the little curves which makes it look elegant and the color scheme, dark pinkish + magentaish + maroonish (haha sorry I don't know the color name) with the light yellow color that's not blinding at all. Excellent job. I also like how at the COM part, you divide the background into two different colors. On the left side, it's this really nice yellow/orange gradient and on the right, it's white. Perfect balance and well I do believe that the layout still could've looked fine without the model image, however, adding it doesn't matter either, still looks excellent!
Everything in your site has lots of space, but not too much, it just feels really comfortable and great. I like the simple text navigation with the light yellow underline effect when hovering and the orange sidebar looks great not to mention really nice how it opens up the options when you click on the bar. I don't really have anything to say, your site shocked me.
Good gawd the footer makes it even better XD. It's not just white background that continues down forever like mine, the footer matches the header, perfect.
I don't know what to tell you XD haha I guess your site would look a lot better without the illegal images, however, as you said above, you didn't care, so I won't mention that any further~ Umm.. yes, I'm afraid I won't be able to give you much criticism because my site is nowhere close to yours haha- you did amazing. That's really all I have to say. Keep up the amazing work!
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missyu's Response:
Thank you! I think your review is the only good one I've received, makes me happy hahah. Thanks again.
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Liz.png)
Liz gave it
on 1st Dec 2008 and said:Layout and overall design
I must say this layout is gorgeous. I do have to mention like Theresa, that the white space is big but then I put the tab up and it went away:D I love that. I also really like that your about me and things are in tabs your can click to hide or show. It really prevents a lot of junk from cluttering up your sidebar. The color scheme is well done as well. Your sidebars and content are a good width and the text is easy to read your headers aren't huge in comparison but they balance out.Coding
You validated in xhtml 1.0 so nothing to say here.On to your pages
Content
Art- Uh ohh:( celebrity and model images! I know you're aware of that this is wrong but I'm sure you could use stock photos from: Deviantart or SXC. I think the color pallets are useless no one really uses them. The textures are nice. On your photoshop actions I recommend using stock(:
Domain- Mmmm tiramisu is quite good and your site name is very unique and cute(: I feel you are lacking things in your credits. What about the credits for all the celebrity/model images used everywhere? Start using stock images.
Her- Sounds like your unsure or uneasy when you wrote this. Saying bad stuff about yourself is never good I always tell my best friend to stop criticizing her self. It's best not to put this in your about me.
Tutorials- The tutorials are nice, useful, and explained very well. You also have a nice variety of them. Although I'd remove the cutenews one because of course cutenews invalid and it promotes the installation of it. Overall very nice(:
Portfolio- They seem kind of pretty but just because you edit the coloring in some picture doesn't make it "your art."Overall- I love your layout(: the coding is good so are many things like your tutorials. Work on your portfolio a bit that's it
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missyu's Response:
Thank you for your layout but the things in my portfolio isn't just editing the coloring that would be a bit too basic for me.
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Jasmine.png)
Jasmine gave it
on 1st Dec 2008 and said:Layout
I like your layout; the orange colours are gorgeous. All of the headers match nicely and it's very nicely organised. But I think the header image has too much white space in it, making it seem a bit lacking. I love the effect that you have used on the sidebar but I'm not so keen on the same effect used for the search bar at the top, as it moves the entire content area. The text on your main blog and navigation is too light for me. It needs to be a darker shade of grey.Content
I'm not too keen on celebrity images myself but I'm not going to go on about it. I think that if you are into that sort of thing, however, the resources you have provided, like the premade layouts, are of a very high quality.The domain page is nicely done, as are all of the subpages, but I am finding that all of your pages are taking a long time to load. The tutorial pages look really useful and I love the way the orange sections of your sidebar changes with each section.The traditional art in your portfolio is amazing :D
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/accentedneo.jpg)
accentedneo gave it
on 1st Dec 2008 and said:First Impressions/ Layout:
A very cute name and a sunny layout which looks quite professional. I really like the colors you use, the pink and the orange go very nicely and the main thing is that it looks pretty but not over the top. Although your writing is a bit light, it matches, if it was black, I'd definitely give you a thumbs down. I like the search bar effect, but I'm not too keen on it scrolling out and then pushing everything else further downwards. I like your orange side bar, although its not necessarily useful. I think that the headings 'Etcetera' and 'Extensions' could be better worded; I wasn't quite sure what it meant. The contact form is very handily placed on the side.Content Pages
I know that you've probably been notified of copyrights and legal things so I won't bother (I hate it when people keep commenting on the same thing). I really like your premade layouts, lots of skill and effort obviously gone in. However, I don't know many people who'd use the second one as I found the side scrolling utterly annoying.Using Safari on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Theresa.jpg)
Theresa gave it
on 1st Dec 2008 and said:Aesthetics
My first impression told me that this site was missing something, there's just too much empty space for my liking. There's a bit of a gap between your header image and the top of your content area. A gap is necessary, but maybe just not such a big gap. I love your hover effect on the search bar, but the left area of this bar is all white and just makes the empty space even emptier. Once again, the area between your menu and your header is just too much.
While I think the information boxes on the right are slick, I don't think they're necessary, but they're definitely slick. ;)Content
Content I don't think this should be named "Content" because everything on your site is content. "Visitor" or "Resources" would be more appropriate.
+Stock/Base Icons: These are pretty much useless to me, but they're well put together. My biggest issue is the fact that the second and third page links only took me to 404 pages.
+Premade Layouts: It does look like you've put some effort into your layouts, but using those images of the models, unless given permission by the photographer or the main source of the photograph is technically illegal. By the way, your second layout, the links that shift also cause your header image link to shift to the right a bit, it's not attractive.
+ Color Palettes & Icon Textures: Both of these sections are appealing. Good textures, nice palettes.
+ Photoshop Actions: These are too simple for my taste, I think that Photoshop actions should consist of things that take many steps and have to be done repetitively.
+ Advertise & Free Hosting: These pages are well put together, they include the proper information and forms.
+ Custom Layouts: If you don't, by default, plan on coding the thing, then it's not really a layout. I would also think that spending time on someone (whom you don't know) else's layout would be a waste of time all on its own.Domain: This section is very informative. You have base information on the first page and additional information on sub-pages. Very nice.
Her: While I like this section, I have a bone to pick with you. There are two things you say that strike me a bit on the wrong side.
I really hate places like this where people are forced to write about themselves.
I don’t really care whether I capitalize my I’s or not, it’s not that important but since people who review sites always complain that I don’t capitalize my I’s I guess I’ll have to do it.
You don't HAVE to do anything, you're not FORCED to write about yourself. You don't HAVE to capitalize your I's. A review is nothing more then someone's opinion, since it's your site, your opinion matters more then anyone else's. Do as you wish but be willing to accept the criticism for it.
Other then that, I think this page is quit good.
Tutorials: I'm running short on time, so I didn't go through each of these. Some of these seem like they would be useful, others you can find almost anywhere. Overall though, I find this page pretty unique, so I give you a thumbs up on it.
Portfolio: The majority of your portfolio images are nothing more then edited images of people, I don't find that adding effects to images that already existed prove you gifted, I only find that it proves you may have some taste. I didn't really like this section too well.
Overall I gave you 3.5 stars. A lot of your graphics weren't really my "type" but your other content (like your tutorials) seems very useful.
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