(Rated by 3 people, viewed by 171 people)
Arrowsmash has 3 Reviews
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/goodwin.jpg)
goodwin gave it
on 2nd Sep 2010 and said:(I wrote most of this review and then something annoying happened to this computer and all was lost. I am writing it again, which may affect things.)
The first thing I see is a message telling me that your website has moved. That’s OK, and naturally I shall be reviewing your new one instead, but it might be slightly more elegant to redirect using .htaccess or PHP, to save people from going to the trouble of clicking on a link.
The name “The Blogologist” instantly makes me think of a well-known chap called Alister Cameron, who also uses that word prominently. It’s not the end of the world, and apparently you’ve done enough moving around, but what was wrong with “Arrowsmash”?
There's a mysterious bug regarding content that sits beside the right-hand navigation bar, running as deep as the navigation bar. Links (such as your “Posted in Blog” one) appear not to exist, the text can't be selected, and the
acronymtag tooltips don't work. Below the level of the navigation bar, it's fine, and the sticky-outy comments links are fine (being sticky-outy, I guess). It seems that a transparent part of the navigation bar has extended itself to be overlaid over the main content. This strange CSS is part of the problem, I think, but I'm too lazy to work it out properly myself:#navigation {
width: 100%;
border: 0px;
background: transparent url() repeat-x;
height: 43px;
position: relative;
margin-bottom: -40px;}
Have fun fixing that. It may be restricted to Safari, but actually I had the problem with the Firefox web browser too. I haven't explained it very well, but I hope that by having a look you will see what I mean.
The “Posted in Blog” thing below each entry title seems a little redundant, forgetting the fact that the link can’t be used, because the “Blog” category is the only category. You write, “Oh, yeah, I have created a category called ‘Thought-Provoking Nonsense’”, which leads me to assume that at one time there were different categories.
Some things about your contact page. You write “My tweets are not protected”, but they are. Also, it is a good idea to encode your email address, to prevent automatic email address harvesters from sending you spam
Otherwise, a good job. An impressive number of people are reading and commenting on your blog, so I can't fault that.
Don't worry too much about strictly “returning comments”. I have found that lots of people don't do that at all. It's definitely good to take an interest in your readers' blogs, and if you have something to say leave the occasional comment, but people are nice, they will understand that you are too busy to reciprocate every single thing. Also, if you don't have something to blog about, don't feel like you must blog, either, because one good blog post once in a while is better than heaps of mediocre ones.
I was going to mention, and maybe did mention in the original review that disappeared into the ether, quite a few other things, but I've definitely broken through the 300 word barrier already, and I am lazy. I hope I have been a little bit helpful, and I hope my focus on the few areas for improvement doesn't make me sound too critical.
Using Safari on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/wiwaneko.jpg)
wiwaneko gave it
on 7th Aug 2010 and said:Hey there! It's Trish. :) Just thought I would review your site.
First Impression/Layout
This layout is really clean and simple, which is always a plus for me. I really like the shade of pinkish-red you used. I do have to agree with Rose on the header - maybe try using a flat style or filling in the words with a pattern or something. I also really like the other yellow and green colors you used, but I wish you used them more throughout the layout. The sidebar looks really cool; I have never seen one like that. Very unique. The header styles are also really neat - you made the first-letter style work very well. Near the footer where you have all your social icons, I think it would match the layout better if you used a more simple font (like the one in the header). The curly font just looks a little out of place.
Score: 4/5Blogs
Your blogs are very lengthy, but when I've read them it didn't feel like that at all. I do like how you switch them up by using lists or quotes - some people (like me sometimes) have a hard time reading just straight lengthy blogs. It also helps that you always include your personal opinion in your blog.
Score: 5/5About
Very simple and to-the-point. I like your buttons! Makes me wish mine weren't so crappy...I love how you organized it. I never thought about arranging it the way you did with the mini-navigation. The only thing is that the archive link might be unnecessary since you already have it in your About page, but it provides simpler access, so I don't have a problem with it.
Score: 5/5Contact
I'm honestly not a big fan of how this is set up. I can see why you would put your links to the side because it saves room and fills the emptiness next to the form, but it just looks a bit strange. Not a big deal, but whatever. The last two links seem like they would belong in the Katarina section, not on the contacts page.
Score: 3/5Katarina
You're the same age as my brother - so young! You have a big family, too. It's nice to see you're not a boy-crazy teenager. :) The basics part seems like a survey kind of thing (very myspace-esque), but it gives me a feel (that sounds creepy, sorry) of what kind of a person you are. The in-depth section is organized well and I like how you added some pictures. I love cats...
Score: 4.5/5Conclusion
I really like your site. It's so neat and organized. Beside a few spelling errors (which Rose pointed out already), it's pretty darn good. Makes my site look like crap. I honestly wish I was as good as you when I was thirteen. Ugh. Keep up the great work. :)
Total: 4/5Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Sillyish.jpg)
Sillyish gave it
on 4th Aug 2010 and said:LAYOUT
Starting off with the very top of the page:
Header - not sure how I feel about the drop shadow. Everything else about this layout is very flat, so the dramatic drop shadow on the text seems kind of messy and out of place to me. I think it might look better if it has a letterpress-y effect or was 100% flat.Navigation:
I didn't notice the main navigation at first because to me, the tabs with formspring/gmail/host etc stand out much more. I think your navigation should be more prominent than these links.My suggestion for this would be to replace all these links with icons that go where the navigation currently is, and to put the navigation in the tabs.
The tabs could still change that neat background colour that you have for the navigation links on hover.
Also re: the tabs - They aren't connected to the layout, which seems weird to me. Theres 2px or so between the tab and the content area. Having them flush together and getting rid of the grey line where the active tab is would probably look better.
Because you had so many different colours for different text, it wasn't always easy to tell what was a link and what wasn't. Especially on the calendar, where even NON links changed on hover.
Also confusing were the two 'more?' links side by side. I would just pick one. Probably have a link that says "Read More about Katarina" and just let the 'about arrowsmash' link hang out in the main navigation.
Another thing is the readability - everything is good, but, like I said: Hard to tell what is and isn't a link, and also, I think the line-height could be a bit more. The text is a little squished at the moment.
Other quick notes:
-The green you use for a lot of text is a little difficult to read.
-The darker colour you use for the first letter of headings seems odd to me. I'd just keep every letter the same.
-It would be nice if the main title, "Arrowsmash" at the top linked to the home page as well.
-The heading in your about me section, "A MUCH MORE…BORING VERSION" is closer to the text ABOVE it than to the text BELOW it that it's actually acting as a header for. It would make more sense for it to have more space above than below, because that connects it better to the text that it is heading.
-It seemed weird to me that the about me page was the last link in the navigation. I think putting it in between the 'about the site' and 'archives' would make more sense.
-I thought the forms would look nicer with a bit more depth. An example could be this. Ignoring the colour and the graphic, I like the idea of forms having that 'indented' look by having the top and left borders slightly darker than the bottom and right borders.
-How would the body's background look if it were slightly darker? Just so that you could tell the sidebar boxes pop out? (right now they're so similar to the background that you barely notice) I don't know if the site would look better with a darker background, but maybe it's worth a shot?
-I despise justified text. I understand that there is a time and a place, but I think when in doubt: Avoid it. (and to be totally honest, I have never seen it somewhere and liked it.) So... I think you should avoid it on your site :P I rant about this so often that I should just make you google it - "Why justified text is bad"
-I still can't get over the link contrast! I am continually amazed at what is and isn't a link. For example: The next/prev month links on the bottom of the sidebar calendar are links, but you'd NEVER KNOW IT because they're plain 'ole black! Ahhh, so confusing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------CONTENT
KATARINA -
In your about me page, having the word awesome in quotation marks and also the basic information in quotation marks seemed weird to me, and made the reading of it feel disjointed. I'd just keep the quotation marks out. 'noices' should be 'noises' "jokes" ...ditto quotation mark thing - just jokes is fine :P"Even though I’m 13, I still enjoy listening to a few songs off of Hilary Duff’s Dignity album. " haha, I have no idea what this means - why would a 13 year old not like this album? Maybe I'm just out of the loop...
continueing should be continuing
Maybe someday I’ve record them should be Maybe someday I'll record them.7 years? So you started when you were six? :-P
I skimmed THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE, and it seems like it's a good idea. My only suggestion would be to make the entire question bold (and preferably not that hard-to-read green) so that people can differentiate it better from the answers.
Archives - good. Like the expand/contract. Would suggest having a search bar (hypocritical of me - I need to implement one too!) and also a category view. Only having one archive viewing option is pretty constricting.
ABOUT THE SITE -
" I began webdesigning 6 years ago, and have been since on and off."Didn't you say 7 years ago on your about me page?
Under credits, you have a TON of links.
I'd maybe pair it down or explain what each link provides, so that people can figure out where you got this or that. Because to me, one of the main points of credits is helping others find resources that they link. So explaining what is at each link makes it easier for them to figure it out.Ie "I got my smilies from mazeguy.net "(even though I know you didn't. Just an example :P)
Or "the header font I used is called xyz and you can download it here."
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CODE
When I tried to validate, got six errors. All very easy to fix. Just a case of replacing the & symbol with&(you use the & symbol in some links I believe, which is where the browser is getting tripped up. You can use & in links and it'll get translated correctly :) )
Otherwise, code looks good, although maybe using a<h3>tag for entry meta data isn't semantically correct. Not a huge deal. Just a nitpick.CSS Validated. This is good.
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PHEW :)
Done. Hopefully some of this was useful to you.
Sorry if I wasn't compliment-y enough. I tend to launch in and not think about the nicities all the time...Using Safari on Mac | Report This?
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