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Site Name: Tarnished Colors
Owner: Amber
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 3rd January 2009
Site Name
Before I start, hello Amber and congratulations on opening your own new site. 
So.. Tarnished Colors is a great site name. I have a habit of typing “colours” though, as I’m from Australia. I would say the name is rather long but otherwise good.
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 9 errors. One of them is caused by the backslash in your character encoding; see here:
...content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
If you just get rid of that backslash it will stop the problem.
You’re forgetting the alt tag on your header image. In your doctype, you need to have this on every image, even if it’s blank like alt="".
You’re also missing a starting <body> tag, which should go directly after </head>.
Your divs are a little messy because you’re forgetting to close some of them, or you’re adding an accidental </div> somewhere. I think you may be forgetting to close your entire content div, even though you are remembering to close each div class.
I don’t like the idea of your CSS being embedded, when it’s a lot easier to have the CSS in a separate file called css.css. You can do this by saving the document in Notepad as “css.css” (with the quotation marks). In your website pages, you use this to call on the file:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css.css" type="text/css">
Despite that, your CSS is valid CSS 2.1! That’s a great job. (And a significant improvement from your old site, I might add.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
The site looks great in most browsers according to Browsershots.org.
The navigation is nice but it should be put first thing on the sidebar. Visitors don’t like to scroll to navigate!
I would recommend making the font size a little bigger on your default text but it’s not too bad.
Layout
It’s a great layout and I’m glad you didn’t use celebrity images in this one. I like how the layout is a little far from the left so it doesn’t look squished. The colours are a nice combination with the grey.
I like the coloured stripes around the header, though you’ve overdone it a bit in your headers of your blog – the headers you’ve used for the titles of the individual blogs, I mean. Too many underlines!
The header image is simple. You’ve added just your site name to the stock image, which is good as the image already has a slightly blurred effect. Anything more and it could have been overdone.
While I like the header image I think you could cut the height down a bit. The black background and the edge of the table in the photograph isn’t necessary, and you can cut off unwanted header height to prevent so much scrolling.
The width could also be cut down a bit to prevent horizontal scrolling.
You’re using an iframe for your Cutenews which is fine, as Cutenews can get annoying. However, it’s better to use a div as you can set the height of the div to auto, so no extra scrollbar appears.
Content
In your sidebar:
came should be come
by should be my
blog comment should be comment on my blog
though I should be though, I
nick jr should be Nick Jr
haters the should be haters, the.
I really don’t think you need such welcome messages.. people usually ignore them, really. Also, your image credit (Tangerinetles should probably be Tangerinetales) doesn’t lead to the correct site as you’ve forgotten the http:// in front of the URL.
Visitor
Here, uncoded layout should be uncoded layouts.
Oops, now this is where your CSS goes funny and all your text appears blue, because you’ve written <b> instead of </b> somewhere. I think it’s after your avatar description.
These avatars are lovely. The text on some of them could be clearer though. Thanks for using some of my stock images! Try to add more effects to some of these rather than just cropping.
The button bases are nice! I like the lighter pastel coloured ones better.
I don’t know if these quote things are used so often but they are quite colourful and look alright.
Now these contests are creative, and I actually have to use my brain. Might have a go at entering one; I think I know one or two 
Thumbs up for the original idea! Instead of having comments left in your blog, have something separate like a form, or a comment box.
You’ve got a ‘Brainiac of the month’ link here, but you should have that on your main visitor page too!
Your photography is great. I love the clothespins! Very retro cool. I noticed you used links for the larger images – note that on this page so visitors know to click the link to open them; otherwise make them smaller or make thumbnails for them.
The stairs look rather creepy! Haha. These bigger ones are a lot nicer than the smaller ones. The sunset and lake ones are very pretty. In fact these pictures look better quality than your little clothespin guys.
Note on your layouts page to click the thumbnail for a bigger image! Your blending looks really good here. I notice again you used some of my stock images. I like the blended look, though I wouldn’t say the teddy and ink go too well together 
Also, it might be a better idea to call this page ‘layout images‘.
Site
I notice you have two affiliates, but you only linked one in the sidebar. Is there a reason for this?
Also, you might want to add rules for affiliation or something similar.
Everything else here is pretty neat; maybe make a few more link buttons.
Originality & Creativity
This layout was really nice and your site was a lot more original than your previous one. I like how you’ve embraced the use of photography and added your own as visitor content.
Your graphic skills are quite good and your layouts show you can be quite creative. I suggest making some more with more images that aren’t of celebrities.
I love your contests that require the use of a brain! It really gets people going. I know for a fact that I like to think. Sometimes. I hate maths though.
Organisation & Errors
Everything was pretty well organised and I didn’t come across broken links. I did find your visitor page a little odd with you forgetting to close a bold tag correctly (typo, I know).
I didn’t like the scrolling in your Cutenews entries, but that can be solved. Perhaps put less on the one page, or use a div instead of an iframe. Won’t do much more harm.
Just a couple of spelling errors I noticed here and there. Take your time when typing and be sure to check before uploading!
Overall Comment
Amber, I think you did a great job opening this new site. It’s a lot more original and to me it seems a lot more fun than your old site.
It’s interesting to see you and Jen branch out. Great job on your new original content. I actually enjoyed this review and noticed improvement in your coding and organisation.
The only suggestions I have are to add more great content, add a contact page too and maybe a bit about yourself. I love your photography. Those nature ones like sunset and snow are lovely. Get your site out there and have fun!
I’m giving you three and a half cookies. You’re really close to four; your site needs a bit of “oomph” as well.
