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Exhilaration has 11 Reviews

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

1. 

   Shola gave it on 14th Jul 2009 and said:

   First impressions of your site are quite good. I remember looking at our suite about 2 weeks ago and seeing the typewriter theme layout and thinking it was pretty cool.

   Your domain name and site name are different? Plus the url redirects me to 0home.php? Possibly get that fixed because some people get annoyed at that kinda thing.

   The header is pretty cool I mus say.
   Vair original.
   Nice and small and easy to load. YAY.

   I don't like the sky blue "Hurray for typewriters". it looks out of place. At first I thought it was part of the header but them I realised it is actually part of your blog post. To prevent further confusion try adding a lager padding from your header to the content. Possibly underline the header for blog posts so people know it's nothing to do with your site header.
   If that makes sense?

   The colours are nice and your site has a very distinct style. :] Kinda reminds me of a "retro" feeling, which is popular but your is kinda different so I am quite pleased.

   Your side bar id very neat and I love the courier new font for the navigation, makes it stand out so people know what it's for. I don't think you should of used that font for the affiliates section though. I think you should of stuck with he same font you have for the "Welcome" section.

   A little pet peeve of mine is "Best viewed in". No body is gonna change their browser to look at your site. Yes, I do have 5 browsers on my computer, but I will not change it to look at your site, so I think that is better left out of your sidebar. When I am at university, they only have IE, and when I am at work, they have safari. So,. some people don't have choice what browser they look at your site in, y'know? So it's best making sure your layout is compatibly in all these and just leaving out the "best viewed in" bit. :]

   Your valid CSS button just leaders to the validator, and not the actual validation of your site. The actual link it should be under is:

   http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Falex.heartdrops.org%2F0home.php&profile=css21&usermedium=all&warning=1

   When I actually go and check whether your site is valid CSS now, (only because you have it displayed) it is. but you do have 26 warning. I am not gonna bitch on about it, just try and fix it because if you display it, people will check. SO it's good for when they check it's perfect.

   Webmiss.
   My fave animal is bears too. - I just had to say that.

   Your "me" page need sorting out.
   The pictures/images if I am being specific.

   Your awards would be better suited to your SITE section.
   Or a possible sub section of about me.

   The pictures of collage would be better as a link to her picture when you mention her, or have a picture of her in a "picture" section. or even just align the pictures with your text so it doesn't look so un organised.

   Your toy box/special adoptables and my ice cream should all be put together is a seperate about me section too. I think it would just make it look better as it would be more presentable.

   When people name a section PORTFOLIO I instantly think of pictures. when I clicked it, it lead to this place your prefer to call turquoise. just name it turquoise in the bar. If people don't like it, screw 'em. Call it whatever you want, just don't have two names for it "Portfolio / turquoise."

   With your credit page, I have the same option as your about me page.
   Have different pages for your credits, affiliates, feedback..etc. Having it all on the one page seems bit lazy.

   That's it, I tried and offer solutions to criticisms.

   Have a nice week
   - Shola

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2. 

   afscom gave it on 22nd Jan 2009 and said:

   Ok, I love the name of your site. It's memorable. So's the header image as it's taking up the entire screen height-wise on my laptop! You could get rid of the padding/margin at the top of the screen to move this up a bit, without having to re-size your image.

   Layout
   I'm not too sure about the centered text for your post titles. It might just be me, but it doesn't seem to flow properly with the rest of your text. Same goes for the post-details (posted Sunday 18 January, 2009 @ 3:42 PM. Filed under website, life. 11 comments). I think it'd look better if it was nearer the underline of the actual post title rather than having all that white space going to waste.

   The sidebar navigation looks out of place also, with it being aligned to the right and everything else is aligned to the left. That saying, I did notice it straight away so maybe that's a good thing?

   Content
   I only checked out some of your content, as some bits are a bit same-y.

   - 100x100 Avatars: Did you take all those photos before turning them into avatars? It'd be good to see the credits for the original images if not.
   - Pixel Adoptables: Cute, I'd forgotten about things like this. I use to have a huge collection that I'd made :)
   - Reads: sorry, boring. Filler content in my eyes.
   - CSS Tutorials: Coloured Scrollbars - work of the devil, only work in the devil's browser (internet explorer). Redundant code to be honest. Look into a way to show code without using * to be deleted by whoever is copying it though, that's just confusing to be honest. There are ways.
   - Site: Great details on the history of your site / how you've done it. Interesting reading. I'm impressed that the header photo is one that you've taken yourself.

   Overall
   It's a great basis of a site, really. For your age I'm impressed (and I don't mean that to be patronising). Keep reading up on HTML and CSS though, you can never learn enough!

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Thank you for your great tips! I will look into the titles issue, as well as other text issues. And sorry for making my response so late!

3. 

   April gave it on 16th Jan 2009 and said:

   Hiya, I'm April and I shall review your site. =]

   Name

   First off, I actually quite like the name. It gives you everything in one word: Exhilaration. I also like the reason it is now your domain - it comes from a personal experience that touches you. Nice work on this part! =]

   First Impression

   My first impression upon loading up your site was "oh my goodness - where's the content?!" Your header took up the whole of my 1024x768 page. Think of the children!..er, people on dial up. That image would take till 2000000's Christmas to load, the poor little dears. Maybe make it a bit smaller? Although I do like the header image, the size I'm not a big fan of. I know it probably won't give as much emphasis being tiny but it's sooo big! I mean, WOW EYES POP OUT OF MY HEAD big. =p

   And then I found the content - hallelujah! And my thoughts? Eh, the colours of the header underlines are a bit...hmm...yuck? Come think of it, even the header text colour is tickling my not good muscle. Maybe if you changed the tone but still kept the colours? Or maybe ditch the colours and try something else altogether? I dunno, you gotta do something though! I like the font though and I think maybe orange or black or something for the headers?

   My eyes have been constantly drawn towards your sidebar for one major reason: it's wider than it needs to be! I'm not talking about making it weborexic but you need to make your content space wider so that it dominates the page and not the sidebar. Or, keep the sidebar the size it is and increase the container's size and make the content space bigger anyway. :P

   Layout

   I do like the setup of the layout. Maybe the colours could be a wee bit better and the sidebar a wee bit smaller but overall, I like the setup. Neat, no nonsense look.

   However, I think you should maybe only have 3 entries per page for your blog. Otherwise it just scrolls down too far. You don't have to decide on three, but I just like that number. Not too much, not too little. Juuuuust right. =]

   I also like your footer. It's a nice decent size and adds a finishing touch to the whole layout. =]

   Now for your sidebar's dissection. You see the way your links space themselves out when you hover? No, no, no, no, no. Very unattractive and it looks teenybopperish. You could make the whole line left align itself but spacing itself out like that is just not good.
   I do like the way the letters are spaced without the hover though - easy to read. Just like all the text on your site. Very easy to read and a nice colour too, hehe.

   Talking about amateur, what's the tagboard dear?! Not good, especially not for a blog site. :( I suggest you remove? =p

   Content

   Your writing style on your blog is funny and quirky and can hold an audience. I enjoyed reading your blog post on Slightly Strange Spanish Speaking and even did as you asked and said it 5 times over, fast.
   I also like the way you ask questions at the end of a blog - it helps bring in comments and also make the viewers become interactive with you. =]

   However, I went to the visitors page and was a little disappointed. In your Reads section, you have some overdone content such as the Pet Diaries.
   But I liked the Babysitter Tips and Tricks. Did you write them yourself?

   Your tutorials for beginners don't really go very indepth. In your CSS tutorial, you don't explain how or why you can change the elemnets of certain tags. Nor do you explain this doesn't replace actual HTML. Beginners don't know this type of stuff and need to be told every little detail to help them get started. What seems simple logic to us, might be gibberish to them.

   It's nifty the way you have an expanding menu though - nice cool little touch. =]

   Your Webmistress page is quite good, Collage is adorable. I am a fellow cat lover so naturally, your cat is absolutely gorgeous.

   It's interesting reading your Site History and why you named the site Exhilaration. =]

   Overall, the content of your site is relatively okay. Everything is spelled correctly and you have good punctuation skills.

   Overall

   Your site's layout has a little bit of maintenance and the For the Visitor section needs a little bit more originality. But overall, nice little site. =]

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Thanks for your review! I'm going to go with your advice and fix the sidebar ASAP. I've fixed the links on my sidebar as well, so they don't space out, because most people have disagreed with that as well. I think I may get rid of the tagboard too, as in your suggestion.

   Yep, I wrote those babysitting tips and tricks myself!

   And speaking of gibberish, I have a tutorial on that in the reads section as well...XD. Sorry, just had to point that out. ^^

   Thank you for the compliment on my expandable menu!

   Aw thanks, I am sure Collage will be happy to hear the compliment. :)

   Thanks again for the great review! I really like your ideas and will definitely look over them again when I am able to update my site more.

4. 

   skykingcat gave it on 13th Jan 2009 and said:

   I'm Jackie and I hope my review is useful agpolarbear :]

   First Impression:

   I was struck by how beautiful your banner is coupled with the light blue background. Nice combination! While I'm not a big fan of the wide blog butted up against the sidebar with no division except a white space, it's not bad and is rather practical.

   Style/Design:

   I like the two different style links you have, one for in text links and the other for your navigation. I love how the navigation links stand out, but the only thing I don't like is how when you hover the navigation links, it becomes an orange that goes with the layout, but on that big a scale it's not my favorite. Personally, I think a darker relative of your background blue would look nice there or perhaps a dark gray. But those are just my color suggestions.

   Hmm, I know this is a bit hypocritical of me because of a past site, but you have enough space so why not write out the word 'affiliates' instead of just 'affies'.

   Now that I saw it, I like that your footer is a piece of your header. Very nice, however I'm having just a little bit of a hard time buying that such a beautiful banner picture was taken by you. I could easily be wrong, so I'm not docking you on that, just saying that if you did not take that picture, you are claiming you own everything in that footer so make sure you're not stealing.

   Personally, I think that because of the length of your blogs you shouldn't list as many on the front page as you do. It makes the page very long, leaving the sidebar far behind as you go down. I see that you have a 'back to the top' link, however I just have a pet peeve about the side bar being much shorter than the main content box. Sometimes it can't be avoided, but in this case it can.

   Ok, I'll now start looking at your other pages:

   -For the Visitor
   I really like the idea of your expandable lists, however it would be more user friendly if when you hovered over a word that made a list it changed colors or something.
   On you expandable 'fun' list, whenever you hover over 'pop!' it has an alternate name come up that is just a period I believe. Most likely just a common code typo, but worth fixing.

   [Graphics]
   Avatars- Are those images yours? Or are they simply pictures you found and made into an avatar yourself? I run a graphics site so I understand in a sense, but it will be safer in the long run to use only your legal images.

   Icons- Hmm, I see you credited the stock photos and apparently the beautiful amusement park image is your own! Brownie points there :] I only have one problem with your credits on that page--listing the image name doesn't really give credit in my opinion; try listing the person who uploaded it instead. That would just be a more formal way of accrediting someone.

   Adoptables- Why point out that they're old? To the viewer, they're new to to them, so don't throw out the promise of new ones just in case you never get there. They're quite cute by the way :]

   Web Material- Hmm, I'm not blown away by your backgrounds, but they're alright. The bullets and button templates are cute but your color palettes don't really give much help. For one, you only have two, and second, they don't give color codes or anything but simply a color to look for on your own. That section is a good idea, but would be better if expanded and if it gave more information as to the colors. Your layout images are fairly nice, but are a little low in quality. Overall though, not a bad showcase here.

   [I'm skipping Liz's Graphics since they're not yours]

   [Fun]
   Ok, I'll admit, I had a blast on your icecream maker. Very cute :] Your printables are alright, except I don't see anyone printing a piece of notepaper no matter how well done...
   I know you credit the makers of Starbound, but I don't think it should earn a spot on your site--personally, I've never seen the point. But you do give credit and have listed it in an appropriate spot which is good.

   [Tutorials]
   On your babysitter tips and tricks, I would give just a little background snippet as to how much experience you have. That would make me more trusting.
   I've briefly looked over your code tutorials [I'm really don't in the code checking mood] and everything seems to be in order as far as my rather cursory search went.

   [Portfolio]
   I see you've got a fair amount of writings listed, but your images are lacking. [Cute cat by the way!] Try adding some more; you seem to be a talented artist!

   -Webmistress
   I like how you have the basic info about you organized in a box at the top. Nice touch. For your playlist though, why not link the little playlist image to an actual playlist with those songs? Say like a pop-up playlist or something of the type.

   -Exhilaration
   You've got a good number of sources, which seem to cover everything which is awesome. On your affiliates page I'm just a little confused as to how you see 5 affiliates as a fairly large number. Perhaps you don't, but that's just what I got from reading the text.
   Very detailed site history and information! The only thing I can't figure out is why you haven't deleted the other sites you used to run but have left...? I think it would just be nice to clear up freewebs server if you're not going to use it, but I won't dock you for it.

   One thing I haven't mentioned but I've been very grateful for is your grammar! Just like me you're fifteen, but we've both managed to avoid the dangerous pit that is internet chat talk and the 'cool' way of misspelling words and such.

   Overall:
   Basically, I've only one design dislike and that is the navigation links when hovered. Also, since you're advertising that you're a portfolio site, add more to your portfolio! It's a little empty, most especially your artwork section.
   Besides that and some of the other minor stuff I mentioned, I think you have a wonderful site!

   Hope this [very meticulous] review was useful Alex!

   -Jackie

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Thanks so much for your review! It's really helpful :D

   I like your tip about writing out Affiliates on the sidebar. I'm definitely going to fix that ASAP.

   I also liked your idea about fixing how many blog posts were on one page. I've been trying to fix that for a while, and finally figured it out, so I narrowed it to 2.

   The "." when you hover isn't a typo, it's because I was azy when I learned that I needy to put an alt tag on every one of my images and ended putting "." for all of them xD

   Some of those 100x100 avatars are my own photos, some are from free photo websites, and some are not xP

   Good idea about listing the person who uploaded which pictures. Except, some of them I actually edited, so it's not the exact image as theirs was. And, the link does go back to them.

   Thank you for the compliment on the adoptables! I don't get that a lot, lol.

   I really like your idea about adding a snippet on my experience in babysitting. Will add ASAP! (and fyi: I have beenbabysitting for I believe 4 years...and took a CPR course.)

   Yah, I want to add more photos I've taken, though I'm not sure whether to make them stock photos for people or just in my portfolio...

   Yes, beware of chat speak! go us :D

   Thanks so much again :)

5. 

   disalarming gave it on 9th Jan 2009 and said:

   Viewed in: Firefox 3.0.5, Mac OS X 10.5.6

   First impression: I love the color and the image of the header. It's colorful and artsy. However, it's huge - when the page first loads, all I can see is the header image, I can't see any of the content. Also at 670KB, it's quite a large image and will undoubtedly cause loading issues with viewers that have slow internet connections. I love how the footer image matches the header image too.

   Layout: I like how everything is set up. Your navigation is easy to find, and I like the titles you have for each section of your sidebar. It makes things easy to find and figure out what is offered on this site at a glance.

   Blog: You have correct spelling, grammar, and mechanics. So far your posts seem to consist mainly of site updates and tidbits from your life. A general suggestion would be to try and make your blog something that would interest everyone and can be relate-able, When visitors want to return to your site and read your latest post, that's the sign of a good blog.

   For the Visitor: All of the options listed in this section are not available. I am assuming this is because they are "coming soon" things, yes? There's nothing that says they are under construction though (or if there are, I can't seem to find it). It's a personal pet peeve of mine when sections of a site is non existent, even if it is marked with a coming soon/under construction marker. Personally I prefer these sections to remain offline until they are ready with content - it just seems like a teaser otherwise.

   The Webmiss: I would recommend you move the "A little more info" section above the "Playlist" section. As a visitor, I'm more interested in reading about the webmiss rather than what is on their playlist. I would also place the "Contact Me" link in a more visible place. Also, your random facts generator doesn't seem to have any random facts. There also isn't very much about you, so I suggest to add more about yourself or use what you write in your blog as an outlet for your personality.

   Exhilaration: The explanation behind the site name is really, really long (I didn't read it). Maybe try explainin the site name with a short summary rather than a short story? Also, as your "Site Name" and "Site History" links lead to the same thing, I would get rid of the extra link and just rename it to "Site Name & History" or something. You have a thorough credits page, which is always a good thing.

   Overall: There is definite room for improvement, but there is lots of promise with this site. If you continue adding original content to the site as well as work on making some of your pages more concise and getting rid of duplicate links, then your blog can only improve. :)

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Sorry it took a while for me to respond :)

   Thanks for your tips on blogging! I am going to look over those next time I blog.

   I am confused that you couldn't view any of my For The Visitor stuff. All you need to do is click on one of the bulleted words for it to drop down a list of what is in that section. Since you may have been confused, I added a sentence about that at the top. Hopefully once you read this response you will go over that section again and review it.

   What do you mean by the random facts generator does not have random facts? Will it not switch facts, or are you saying that they aren't random enough?

   The explanation behind the site name is a paragraph, it is the site history that is long. I used page anchors, so that is why they are on the same page.

   Thank you so much for your review! I will keep working on original content :)

6. sassa12489 gave it on 7th Jan 2009 and said:

   I said I’d review you and wala! here I am.
   Viewed in: Safari
   First impression: Hm, not impressed. The header image is huge and the texture is a bit random because nothing else happens. It doesn’t help the picture meaning it really has no purpose because the rest of the picture’s very clean and ungrungy like. I think with carefully chosen textures that cover the entire pic and then addition of a couple more, this layout could work.

   Css: This one’s a bit hard because there’s so many colors and the only central color is the different shades of blue in the sky and green. I liked how your use the green but I don’t like the red. The red is a big central color like the blue so blue would look better as a header I think vs. the background.
   Perhaps the body background could then be the light red and then white as the central background. Idk, it’s hard picturing this stuff only in your head. But I also think green as the text color for the header is a mistake.
   Resources: I absolutely love the script you’re using. I think I might use it for the next layout or so.
   >>Icons: I really don’t like these. They’re a bit oversaturated in bright colors which take away the picture clarity. If you have photoshop (don’t know about psp) Instead play with selective coloring and changing color levels.
   >>AIM...:Cool you took that picture. That’s a nice pic.
   >>Pixels: Won’t review b/c I don’t know quite what they’re for or who uses them
   >>Premade…: Don’t like them. They’re not very good. This new layout outshines them by 103298%. Make some new ones :D
   >>Web stuff: (I’m going in order. Each – represents a separate section)
   -I don’t know anyone who uses the backgrounds but who am I to say no one uses them.
   -I’m sure peeps use this too
   -I’ve seen that button style on the net so those are a keeper I guess
   -I don’t like your color pallets. They look more like rainbow ice cream rather than site appropriate.
   -I doubt anyone would use these. I’d get rid of these.
   >>Liz’s graphics: I don’t know how I feel about that but you give proper credit so whatever.
   -I love her pixel things. They’re cute. That snow man’s pretty awesome
   -Don’t like the cute art too much but I don’t know what its used for either
   -Why do you have the option of viewing her past layouts? Idk, a bit weird to me
   >>Reads: Interesting lists. Very different. Could actually help people too.
   >>Fun: If ever I were bored, I’d come here and play the star game. That’s sounds cute to play :D
   >>Tutorials:
   >>Text: I like it. I love how you touched on stuff most sites don’t talk about like the strong tag and super and sub script.
   >>Links: Hm, you tutorial for page anchors isn’t very good. I’ve never heard of them and I have a lot of questions. How would I link to it. Is it like an iframe? Ask yourself questions while you write tutorials and look out for stuff that might confuse people.
   >>Css: One thing I know is helpful is when I go to a tutorial site and they have an example at the very end. You fail to have that. Show a complete version of a simple coded stylesheet maybe.
   >>Style sheet: I think that it would be helpful if you explained what a style sheet was while you write tutorials. You can never ever be too clear when writing tutorials.
   >>Portfolio: Oooo, very interesting. I love reading stories. You’ve been bookmarked for later :D.
   Webmiss…: Love how you listed your playlist. Johnny Rzenik is amazing. I agree. Kind of hot too. Good song. Like MB20 too. The random fact is really cool too. I refreshed like 5 times lol.
   Exhil…: Cool page. Nice info.

   Final notes: lol at your cat. My cat stretches the same and rolls all over the place while it stretches lol. You’re site’s not that bad. You have a nice amount of content but the thing is that it’s not that good. I not talking about the things I said I wouldn’t review b/c even if I don’t use it, it doesn’t mea someone else won’t but the quality of it is just not that good. Work on quality of your content and you’ll be on your way to greatness :D

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Sorry it took so long to respond, and thanks for reviewing! :)

   I agree with not liking the red. It wasn't my favorite, and I didn't want people to think of holiday colors, but I realized I needed some of the red in my layout. Still, I am not going to change the background, because I like the color and how it matches the sky in my header.

   Thank you for liking my script xD You are one of the few so far lol

   Thanks for your tips on my avatars

   Liz is my friend and used to have a site of her own, but due to her reasons she cannot keep up a site, so she asked me as a friend to still show off the work she is proud of, and that is what I did.

   Yah, the star game isreally fun. Has cute music when you play too haha.

   Thank you for your suggestions on tutorials. I will certainly look into that.

   Thank you for your encouraging words! I will work on the quality of my content. And thanks again for the review :D

7. Veve gave it on 7th Jan 2009 and said:

   Appearance

   The first thing I notice is the massive header that takes up half the width of my screen. While this might serve as a point of interest on the home page, it gets tiring very fast as it's repeatedly shoved in my face on every page I click on. You might consider keep the full-sized header on the home page along with a blurb about each section of the site, and create an alternative banner that's cropped that you can use for all the other pages.

   I can understand your choice of accent colours that you've pulled from the banner; however, red, green and white tends to schema that most people associate with Christmas. If a festive theme is what you were going for, then it works well if it were not for the subject matter that the photo depicts. Colours should be chosen so that it's consistent with what you're trying to show. There's a great article on photographic palettes that might give you some inpsiration http://24ways.org/2006/photographic-palettes

   Your content/sidebar needs padding on the sides to give it some breathing room. It's about comfort. There's a constricting and claustrophobic feeling, as though the container is invading the content area. It also helps me read faster if I don't have to separate the background from the content.

   I like the personalized "signature" that you're using to sign off your updates/blog posts; however, it's huge in comparison to the the header. The point of headings is to separate your content into section so that readers can jump between them (so that they read only what's of interest to them), or have a milestone to rest their eyes on. When the attention is drawn to you signing off, it defeats the purpose.

   I'd also consider using a different font. At first, the bubbly writing might be associated with carnival rides in terms of childhood and innocence. The affect of your manipulation on the image is more powerful than the subject matter itself. The sharp lines conflicts with the childish font. Again, it's a matter of being consistent in your visual signals.

   The hover effect on the navigation and the "back to top" link is obnoxious. While you do want to indicate to the user that he is hovering a link, you don't want to so jarring in your execution. For one thing, I still want to be able to read the text when my mouse goes over it, and modifying the character spacing makes it difficult to read.

   Content

   Visitors

   - I like the expandable content for pages that don't have enough content to warrant its own page. It also offsets the scrolling of the massive header.'

   - "AIM icons": Thrilled that you're crediting your source images individually; however, it's hard to discern which credit belongs to which icon. Right now, it's hard not hard to guess as which filename is associated with which image, but as your collection grows, it will become more difficult. Considering using the JavaScript solution that you are using now, but adjust it so that when the user clicks on icon, only that associated credit will expand in the content area.
   - "Premade Layouts": You mention in the description that these were for beginners. You also mention that these are made "ready" for the user on the actual page. Yet, none of these are fully coded templates a beginner can slap onto their website with little modification of their own. The effort, or lack therefore, you put into these "layouts" are astounding. With a far stretch of faith, I suppose you could say they're cute in that you drew pictures, but they lack the kindergarten charm. The main reason being... a kindergartener didn't do it. The same thing applies for the "Layout Images" you use in the next section.
   - "Web Material": This is the first time that you're using internal anchor links. It will be beneficial to extend this to the other pages. Pages with similar functions should have similar layouts. Extension of the consistency principle.
   - Is there a reason why the headings in Liz' "CG" and "Adoptables" is inconsistent with the headings in the rest of the pages?
   - Is there a reason why Liz' "CG" and "Misc" both include her artwork, but are on different pages?
   - As for the overall quality of your graphics, the leave much to be desired. Some of the 100 avatars are nice, everything else is rather sloppily put together. For example, the polar bear AIM icon. Is it even something that you see yourself using? There's a huge number of sites offering icons and avatars, and the quality is by far superior. If you want to differentiate yourself, you're going to have to do more than change the hue value of a cropped image. Furthermore, all internal anchors should be accompanied by a "back to top" link, otherwise, the internal anchors only saves the user from scrolling once which is sort of defeating in its usefulness if it "breaks" after the first click.
   - For the most part, the "Reads" are well-written and to the part. I also get the impression that the stuff that you share actually matters to you in some small way, and it shows in the writing. A bit of proof-reading will be beneficial, even at the minimal level of pasting the whole thing in something with a spell-checker. For "Reads" in which most of the content is written by someone else, as in "Pet Diaries", "Quotes", and "Things Girls Don't Realize", it would be best inject some personal ancetote. For example, a blurb about what you like about each quote, or an experience that you have to go with some of the things girls don't realize.

   - "aprende hablar espanol" and "Starbound Game" are external resources; they're more appropriate in the link section rather as filler content on your site.
   - I have no words for "How to Speak Gibberish"... Perhaps it's a culture that I've outgrown because I fail to see the usefulness or even the "fun" factor that calls for the existence of this page other than to piss off the generation that prefers unobstructed communication between people.
   - "Ice Cream Maker": I don't think you have a claim to the "drag-and-drop" idea, because I suspect dollmakers have been around for years before your site existed.
   - "Printables": While I would never use these (because I can buy better quality stationery and bookmarks cheaper than it would take to print these), I cannot speak for your target audience.
   - "Web Polls": The location of these page is inappropriate. The interaction may be "fun", I'm sure you'll receive better feedback if you put it on your sidebar above or below your tagboard.

   -----------

   To be continued at a later date.

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Sorry it took so long to respond. I'll try to keep my response short (lol) since you have not actually finished reviewing.

   I added padding, and it made a huge difference. Thank you for the link of color palettes, I will look over that soon ^^ Thank you for explaining your thinking with my signature font, and I will think about fixing my sidebar navigation.

   I don't understand what you mean about the Liz headings being inconsistent. Could you explain please?

   The Spanish Guide is not an external resource, as I created that my self, and due to text issues with accents and ~ in Spanish, I had to host it on another site.

   On my Ice Cream maker, I was not claiming that I created the drag-n-drop maker, I was saying that I created THIS one, the one of these ice cream images. The maker was of my own creation, not the drag-n-drop part.

   Thank you for starting to review my site, and I look forward to seeing a finished review, if possible.

   Thank you for being the first to like my expandable navigation throughout all my reviews :D

   I like your idea for the AIM icons, although it would be difficult, seeing as when someone clicks on an icon right now, it opens it into their AIM, so they can use it. I like your consistency principle.

8. 

   Erin gave it on 6th Jan 2009 and said:

   First Impressions: All I see when I first open your site is a gigantic header image. I have to scroll down just to get to any sort of content, so I really have no idea what your site is all about when I initially enter. Next time, try to make something that’s a little smaller vertically so that your visitors see there’s more than just a big image to the site.

   Layout: The picture you used is a great photo and matches your site name – an amusement park ride certainly provides exhilaration. However, I think you could have manipulated the image better to create a more interesting header. The coloring is decent, and I see that you tried a texture to make it more visually interesting, but I think the texture is a bit too overpowering and kind of detracts from the overall appearance. Maybe tone that down a bit. Also, I want to point out that the rounded corners at the top are a bit rough, so you should make sure to smooth those out the next time you create any rounded graphic. Lastly, the font you used doesn’t do anything for your header. It looks kind of sloppily placed into the corner, and honestly, it looks kind of tacky. You used one of those default “fun” fonts that all computers seem to come with, and more often than not, they look stupid instead of good. You can find more festive fonts that actually look good on graphics, or you can use a very simple font in a sophisticated way.

   The CSS is pretty good. There are a lot of colors in the header image, and I think you pulled just the right ones out of it to be the dominant colors in your headers and text. I do have a few suggestions, though. 1) I think you should up the size of your bold and italicized text just a bit so that it matches your regular text. Right now, it seems too small and mismatched. 2) Add some padding! All of your text is smooshed up against the sides. Let it breathe, give it some space. 3) I think it looks kind of odd that your content headers are centered, while your sidebar headers are left-aligned. Try to keep it consistent throughout. Also, the content and sidebar divs should start at the same height; right now, the sidebar is a bit lower than the content.

   I see you have an image for your footer. As I said for your header, make sure your rounded edges are smooth, and use a better font. Also, it’s kind of hard to read the text on the footer, so maybe you need a different color choice or placement.

   Blog: I read the three blogs currently displayed on the index page (School, oh school…, Happy New Year, and Exhilaration if Finally Open), and they were kind of boring, to be honest. There isn’t much substance to them – nothing to keep me entertained or amused. A lot of the time your talking about site-related things, and when you talk about your life, it’s for an extremely short time. Try to elaborate a bit more about your life. For instance, with a blog title of “School, oh school…,” one would assume you’re going to say a bit more about how you’re feeling about school starting up again. Instead, you just say a sentence or two and go right back to talking about your site. If you’re going to talk about your site in your blog, try to be a little more interesting. Another thing I noticed was that whenever you say “you,” you always clarify it as “you, the visitor.” Well, of course we’re the visitors! Who else would we be? You wrote that three times in three blogs, and it’s just kind of silly and unnecessary. As for mechanics, I noticed a few spelling and grammar errors. Make sure to check over what you right. For instance, you spelled “recently” wrong when you were talking about joining Rev.iew.me. Also, you forgot a comma here and there, and you also missed a period at the end of one of your sentences before the smiley.

   Sidebar:
   Welcome – Nothing much to complain about here really. You tell us what your site is about so that we get an idea without having to search through the whole thing. Just a minor detail, why isn’t your site name capitalized when you write about it? Not a big deal, but your site is a proper noun, and if you’re going to write about it, capitalize its name! You’d capitalize your own name, right?

   Navigation – Easy to find and understand, good.

   Webmistress – You tell me a few tidbits about yourself, which is nice, and you give me a link to learn more. As a personal preference, I probably would have placed this section above your navigation. It seems more logical to me to have it like, “Welcome to my site, this is who I am, and now you can look around.”

   Affies – The buttons are an okay way to organize your affiliates on your sidebar; I guess it’s a little cuter than just using text links. However, I don’t really get much of a clue about who these affiliates are from the tiny little buttons, so maybe you should add a title to the links so that when I hover over the button, their name or site name with show. Also, the “Apply?” link would probably look better if it were on the next line instead of on the same line as the buttons.

   Tagboard – Just a simple tagboard, I’m not much of a fan of tagboards myself, but it’s just a personal preference, so it’s not a problem to have one.

   Stats – You may want to have these links open in a new window. I don’t like to lose the site I’m on when I’m led to another site. If a visitor accidentally closes that tab or window without realizing that they don’t have your site open anywhere, they might not return if they don’t remember your URL.

   On to your content!

   For the Visitor: I’m not really a fan of how this is set up. It’s different, but it’s not the best way to display your links. I’d like to see what you have to offer without clicking on every section.

   Rules – Punctuate at the end of your sentences. The rules themselves a pretty standard, although I think the last one, “Enjoy the Visitors section,” is kind of silly. I think whether or not your visitors enjoy your visitor section is more dependent upon you and how good your content is. We’re certainly not going to enjoy it if you offer us low quality or unusable things, so it’s now our fault if we break this “rule.” Also, since you have these rules here, is it necessary to have them on every page in every section, too? It’s extremely redundant.

   Graphics – You have a small selection of graphics; I think the only things I would use from this would be the 100x100 avatars. However, I’m going to browse through it all since I’m here to review. The 100x100 avatars are pretty nice. I like most of them, and I like that you use stock photography for them instead of having a million celeb avatars. A few of the avatars look a little low-quality though (the strawberry? and dog ones, for instance), so make sure you pay attention to that. On to AIM Icons, some of these are kind of ugly, to be quite honest. I’m talking about the colorized polar bear icons. The regular one is fine, but making the bear all yellow or green or purple? Yikes. That effect is just not worth using. The other ones are okay. I kind of like the heart in the sand one. The credits for the stock photos could be more organized. Why not put them in the order that they appear? For instance, the sushi icon is first, so put the sushi credit first. I see that you took the amusement park ride photo, so I think that’s pretty cool you used it as your layout. One note I want to make about this page is that you state that some of these icons you made from scratch. Which ones? All of these seem to be edited photos. On to Old Pixel Adoptables now, I don’t really know what these are for. I haven’t really seen pixel “toy boxes” since my cartoon doll days in 2004. Some of them are kind of cute though. I don’t know much about making pixels, but on some of them, the harsh black edges definitely could be improved by making them a darker version of the main color, like you have on some of the other pixels. The ice creams look more like cupcakes, in my opinion. I noticed that it says “my creation” under Fancy Dress Girls… what are the other pixels then? Did you not create them? For the cameras, you spelled the brand name Canon wrong in the heading and on the pixels, so that could be kind of embarrassing for you to have spelling errors on a graphic. Again, it says “my creation” under the Pink Poodle… what are the others? Now I’m at your Premade Layouts page, and I think you could definitely do better. Your current layout is much better than those that you are offering, and frankly, I don’t really want to see people actually using them. The Penguin Love and Winter Fishing layouts look extremely amateur. The font is tacky, and it’s hard to read the blue Century Gothic links on the penguin layout. They don’t look like you put much effort into them. The Summer Love header image also isn’t that good. There is way too much text and texture going on. I would suggest you just scrap this page until you have some more quality premades to offer, because right now, it is not representing your skill very well at all. On to Web Material, the backgrounds are pretty nice. I like the striped ones. The bullets are plain and simple; anyone could make those. Try making some more fancy bullet pixels – you have the skill to do so. The button templates are actually pretty cute, although I personally wouldn’t use them. For the color palettes, maybe you should try indicating the hex codes of the colors for those whose graphic programs don’t tell them the hex code of the corresponding color. You also don’t have that many, so you should add more! I am not sure what to make of the layout images. I don’t know how they would be used effectively in a layout. They just seem like big giant images you made when you were bored one day.

   Liz’s Graphics – I don’t really get what the point of having someone else’s content on your site. Even if she gave you permission to have it on there, why have it? It’s not that much stuff, and it’s your site, so you should offer what you have made. I especially don’t get what’s the point of displaying her old site layouts. It seems kind of pointless.

   Reads – I like your Babysitting Tips! You offer some good suggestions, and I like that you even have a game idea. If you can come up with more game ideas, that would be great. Right now there is just one, while your heading for it suggests you have multiple game ideas. The Pet Diaries seems like one of those emails that everyone forwards but nobody actually wants to read. The quotes are kind of boring too, and just seem like space fillers. Your Recommended Reads page is good. You tell us what you like the books instead of just listing your favorites. However, make sure you proofread. There are many spelling errors. (Shoud = should, looses = loses, decifer = decipher, than [in the Twilight section] = then) Also, I noticed that you recommended some books to “any fiction lover.” That’s extremely vague. Try to narrow down to a particular genre (e.g. fantasy, romance… like you have for some other book suggestions) instead of simply fiction. There are only two types of books: fiction and non-fiction, so it’s kind of non-specific just to say fiction. Also, you didn’t capitalize the title of the book by Sonya Sones. Now the Things Girls Don’t Realize… it’s another of those email chain letters. You don’t need that sort of mindless content.

   Fun – Your Spanish thing doesn’t have that much on it yet, and there doesn’t seem to be much to learn from you at the time. If you’re going to teach someone something as complicated as another language, make sure there’s some structure and organization to your method, and make sure you have some solid content to share. Right now, you have the alphabet, basic vowel sounds, and some videos that aren’t yours. I think if you’re going to have a page to teach your visitors Spanish, you really have to make it work. It’s not cutting it at the moment. Also, it opens on another website – why isn’t it hosted on your main website? Now, on to the Gibberish page… I found it hard to follow at first. It seems kind of silly. The Ice Cream maker is a cute idea, and so are the Printables. Those are things that people can actually use, which is awesome. The Starbound Game you didn’t make, so I don’t know if you should be putting it on your site. Try to stick to sharing things that are actually yours. As for the Web Poll, I wouldn’t consider as something “fun,” but rather something you’re using get feedback. Try to find a more appropriate place for it.

   Tutorials – The Fixing Up Your Text tutorial is extremely basic, and that kind of information can be found anywhere. Also, a problem with this page is that you forgot to tell your readers that they need to insert a DOCTYPE before they start any of their coding so that the browser knows what kind of HTML you’re using. Your coding is invalid without one, and if you’re going to teach, don’t teach incorrect things! The Text Links tutorial is pretty basic too; you can probably just combine the first two into a “Basic HTML” tutorial. The CSS Coding tutorial can be potentially useful; it seems to be pretty in-depth. The External CSS one bothers me a bit because half of it was written by Lissa Explains. If you can’t explain it, then why are you writing a tutorial on it?

   Contests – I see you have none, so it was kind of a waste of a second for me to click on that section. Perhaps you should just leave it off until you actually have a contest ready.

   Portfolio – I thought this was going to be a graphics portfolio, but it turned about to be a writing and art portfolio. It’s nice to see the other creative things a site owner does aside from digital design.

   Webmistress: A pretty basic page, nothing too special about it. You gave us the standard name, age, favorite things list. There’s not much personality to it, which is kind of sad because it’s a page all about you! I thought the refreshing random fact was kind of a neat touch though.

   Exhilaration: You’ve got a few buttons to choose from, which is good. The credits are all there, which is great too. One note, you spelled “definitely” wrong, and that is my ultimate pet peeve. Spell check. You definitely should not be spelling “definitely” incorrectly; so many people do, and it just creates an epidemic of incorrect spellings of the word.

   Site Name and History – Another typical page, but I like that you describe in greater detail why you chose the name and the history behind the site. A lot of people would just stop at the definition of their site name, which is really kind of ridiculous if you ask me.

   Affiliates – A pretty standard page. The only problem I have is that you say you’re going to be more strict with choose your affiliates, but you don’t say what you’re looking for. Maybe you should state what you’re going to be strict about.

   Overall: I think your site has a whole lot of potential! You have some really nice ideas, and I think you just need to expand on them. Some other things aren’t doing your site justice, though, so you may have to do some revising or get rid of these things altogether. With the good things, keep up the great work! Just remember to be a little more polished with your writing and graphics.

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Sorry it took so long to respond, and thanks so much for your long in-depth review! It means a lot :D

   I only have Paint Shop Pro 7, and I've been trying to find a way, but have come to find that there isn't a way to put brushes into PSP7. I'll make sure to smooth out the rounded corners next time. I like your idea of using a simple font to make a statement, and will try to incorporate that next time.I added some padding (it did wonders) and am going to check out the headers for sidebars and content thing.

   As for blogging, I've never really blogged before, so I am not sure what people would actually be interested in. I will work on checking spelling before publishing anything, though.

   I understand what you meant and really don't know what I was thinking w/ the unnecessary polar bear icons, and have since taken them off. The Cannon cameras are BASED off of my canon camera, so it is not a spelling error, exactly.

   As for showing off someone else's graphics, Liz is my friend and used to have a site of her own, but due to her reasons she cannot keep up a site, so she asked me as a friend to still show off the work she is proud of, and that is what I did.

   Thank you for looking over some spelling errors in my book reviews. I will fix that asap. The book by Sonya Sones is not capitalized because the actual title isn't capitalized normally

   I am in the third level of Spanish right now and started that guide in the first level. Right now it is basic Spanish. When I have time, I'll add more. And the reason it is not hosted on my own website is because different symbols used in Spanish (like the letter N with the tilde (~) or the accents over letters) end up showing up as question marks or boxes, because it won't work. I really do not know why.

   I got rid of the web poll, but am keeping the star bound game. It has a link under it as credit, and even though I didn't make it, I think it is very fun and like to let my visitors see it too.

   Thank you for reminding me to talk about DOCTYPE in my tutorial. The reason I took the part from Lissa Explains is because she did a good job of explaining that basic part, and I credited her. I would have tried to explain that small section, but it may have sounded like her's anyway and I did not want to be mistaken as stealing it.

   Thank you for your spell checking! I will definitely keep expanding on my site, and I'm very glad you took the time to review it. ^^

9. 

   Greykitty gave it on 6th Jan 2009 and said:

   Layout
   The first thing I noticed about your layout, aside from the top image was the HUGE lack of padding on your text. I would really suggest fixing this. It would improve the look of your layout just by adding about 5-10px padding on each side of your text and nav columns. Your font is a good size though, which is great.
   Ok the image part of your layout, it's nice, but I think the header is too big. I would shrink it down probably almost by half. I am browsing in a high resolution and it still fills up over half of the page. If I were in a smaller I would get kind of tired of having to scroll so far to get to the navigation and actual content on the site.
   Colors look fine, though I'm not really keen on the light blue background it doesn't really seem to fit in my opinion. I would almost suggest a dark dark blue or even black.
   I don't really like your navigation, the font is ok, but I don't like how the words stretch when you hover over them. I think I would suggest having a background color that lights up when you hover over it or just adding an underline. The stretching, to me, looks kind of sloppy.

   Content
   Visitor content is good, and kept me interested, your reads amused me, and I liked that you had a section for learning Spanish. Not often that you find a site with little sections for other languages on it. Your graphics are nice and so are the tutorials. All I can say is add more! lol
   The about you page could be expanded more, writing a couple paragraphs about yourself, personality, how you got into the web, your beliefs and whatnot. Just things like that. Then you could list some of your favorite things, maybe random facts etc.
   You got tons of info about your site, which I find it kind of funny there's more on it than yourself. I think I would suggest putting your links and affiliates all in a separate section/page and add that to your nav.
   I'd also add an archive link somewhere on your page just so it makes it easier for everyone to find previous blogs.
   
   Overall
   Your site is pretty nice, you got some good content. I think you just need to work a bit on the layout and putting some more stuff about yourself on there. Also try to spice up your blogs about with other stuff besides your site news and every day life stuff.

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   agpolarbear's Response:

   Sorry that it took me so long to respond!

   I took your advice and added 5px of padding, and it really did make a difference! I will take into consideration the thoughts of my navigation.

   Ooh, I understand what you mean about my webmiss page. Hopefully I can make it more my own.

   I like that idea about an archive link and I'll see if I can add that, though it is on the bottom of my blog page.

   I will definitely try to spice up my blogging, lol. It's just, I've never really blogged before and I'm not sure what people woud be interested in.

   Thank you for your review!

10. 

    Annen gave it on 6th Jan 2009 and said:

    First impression
    Huge header, really nice image though. Boring font.

    Layout
    Well, I can't say I like the header graphic too much. The colours are awesome, and i'm sure you could make it more interesting. As mentioned above, I find the font boring.

    I would suggest making a smaller header image, I'd add some brushes or textures and make a really special, noticeable font. The reason why I recommend making the image less wide simply is, that scrolling is boring. Nobody likes to scroll 5 miles everytime they load a new page. I'm sorry, but sometimes having a space limit can be ok in the end.

    I really like your style and the action in the image. You've managed to make the CSS really pretty. It goes perfect with the colours from the image. The background is really pleasant to look at as well.

    By the way, your site lacks padding. The content looks as if it's glued onto the sides ;)

    Oh, a little detail here: You've rounded the corners both the upper and those by the footer, but on the footer there's a while liner underneath the rounded corners. That looks kind of strange. Maybe you could look into it (:

    Content
    for the visitor: I like that you've lined everything up so nice. The "click to open a menu"-menu is not my fav. solution though. I like to see what's there and pick what sounds the most interesting. It's annoying you have to re-open the menu's if you go back. You might want to consider that (:

    I don't get the point in showing off other people's graphics - she has her own site, that should do ;) If I wanted to see her stuff, I would visit her site.
    Your graphics are all fairly nice :b Some are kind of plain (like your web backgrounds), but overall you provide content that can be used.

    Webmistress: Tells a few things, not very perosnal, but you do tell what I believe you think is the most important (: It's great. This could probably be improved by adding more personality, but it's working fine.

    Exhilaration: Great! You tell everything that needs to be told ;D The links on the top are a little confusing though, but the content is good. Now we're talking. Just a shame my review is over now (:

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    agpolarbear's Response:

    Sorry it took me so long to respond. Thank you so much for your review! I've definitely added padding on my site, and I will look into that line underneath the footer, though I have been working on it, and have found out that it only shows up in IE for some reason.

    As for showing off someone else's graphics, Liz is my friend and used to have a site of her own, but due to her reasons she cannot keep up a site, so she asked me as a friend to still show off the work she is proud of, and that is what I did.

    I'll try to personalize my webmiss page.

    Thanks again!

11. Kathrin gave it on 5th Jan 2009 and said:

    First Impression - I like the simple-ness of the layout. The focus is clearly the top image, which goes nicely with your site name, is colorful whilst not being painful to the eyes, and all in all, rather nice. The font you used for "exhilaration" is a bit boring though, and the word doesn't blend in very well with the layout. Same goes for the text on the footer of the layout. I also dislike the fact that there is no border around the image, but that is my personal border-obsession -.-
    Another tiny thing is that the writing of your blog page starts very very close to the left border of the layout - possibly add a little more padding. Your blog enteries use good english and all, so that is nice.

    The navigation link rollover is a bit very extreme for my taste. I like the set-up of the "for the visitor" page - it is nicely done. The graphics are okay, though I am sure you can do better. The tutorials are detailed, though the topics are, for the large part, topics that have been covered before. Try making a few tutorials that are original to your website. I do like the way your site spreads over several topics (neopets, random reads, HTML help, etc.). My biggest tip for your site would really be to expand it. At the moment, it is easy to see that the site is still new. Try adding more graphics and especially more tutorials.

    I love that you have a detailed credits page, that is always awesome to see :-). As a tip on the side though, Knee Socks closed, so you have a dead link there xD. Also, I'd advise you to be a little more detailed as to what you are looking for in affiliates. It would make it easier for people to apply since they know what you are looking for. On your "Link me?" page, try including a code for your button. I know it eats your bandwidth.. Host the buttons on something like tinypic, and it won't ;). If a user just has to copy and paste the code, they are more likely to link you than if they have to upload an image and figure out a code themselves.

    Good luck :-)

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    agpolarbear's Response:

    Thank you so much for your review! I really like some of your suggestions. I will try to work some in when I have time.

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