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Site Name: Extract of Insanity
Owner: Clompeh
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 8th June 2009

Previous reviews:

Essence of Insanity

Site Name

Well, you’ve changed it; I must say, “extract” does sound pretty cool.

Coding and Validation

Your coding is valid.

Your CSS is valid. With a number of warnings, but clearly they can’t be helped because they’re in your FanUpdate entries.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Browsershots.org tells me your site is fine in most browsers.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before but your layout would look better centered because of its uniformity. I have a tutorial on that if you would like to try it. It basically involves placing all your content into a “container” div to center it.

Your layout’s still quite wide for a resolution of 800 by 600. It’s best you keep it narrower just for those people on small resolutions. It isn’t necessary but it would be nice to consider those people.

The navigation is clear – very good. One thing that is bugging me is how I have to click the arrow to visit those sites linked in your sidebar. For example, my reviewing link. You should link the text rather than that arrow.

I had a whinge about your font size in your previous review. It’s much better now but I still prefer a bigger font size. Also, I am really not liking the centered text. It should be off to the left; it’s a lot neater, and believe it or not, it’s actually easy to read because by convention, most people read large chunks of text better when it is off to one side (in Japan they read from the right to left).

Layout

My first impression is that it’s very pretty! The shades of blue are bright and sets a really nice, sort of ethereal mood. I remember attempting a blue layout but using shades that didn’t work.

It’s pretty hard to pull off a generally monochromatic layout – using only one colour in different shades – but you’ve done a terrific job. The hint of grey definitely balances it out.

The header image is very nice. Beautiful. I love how you projected the flower against the sky – whether you placed it there or the photograph was originally like that – it’s great.

The CSS is good and fits the layout. I think you’ve done an excellent job.

Content

Website

I don’t really understand why, on your contact page, “form – no work” is written. What does that mean?

Heh, you still have that errors and mistakes page. It kind of made me laugh this time. Perhaps you should change this into something more interesting – allow visitors to submit weird stuff they’ve noticed online, or maybe allow visitors to let you know if they see a mistake or error on your site?

Instead of using <textarea> for your link back button code, use <code>. Textarea is intended for user input in things such as forms, whereas code is actually for displaying code.

Graphics

I can’t quite remember what I said about your graphics but here goes.

I’m sure you cleaned up the avatars a bit. I think previously, you had some that weren’t yours. Some of these could still be cleaned out. I am not a big fan of the animated ones. Some of these are very nice, but others could be improved by adding more effects and optimising the image a bit. Like the Elmo one and the ones towards the end of the page.

As I mentioned earlier, use <code> instead of <textarea>.

I did mention in your previous review that I wasn’t too crash-hot about these animations.

Pretty banners! Aha, there is one with Marvin the Paranoid Android. Woo.

The pixels aren’t really pixels. They’re more like computer graphics (or “CGs”). If you look at my pixels, you will see what I mean. But, it would be cool if you could draw the entire dog; they’re really cute!

I haven’t made any comments on anything else in this section; the same comments apply from your last review. You have great graphics. Taking requests is a good way of keeping your site interactive. It would still be great if you made some premade layouts and such.

Resources

I’m sure the textures are new – good job! I don’t really like the stripy lined ones as they hurt my eyes but the cloudly ones are nice. Some softer lighter colours would be even better.

Stock photos are terrific. This one is so tiny though; I think you linked it to the wrong image. Those fireworks photographs are beautiful.

Writings

On the rants page:
asre should be are
way to complex should be way too complex
realistc should be realistic.
I wouldn’t say I agree with you on Darwin’s theory (just a mild personal note here). I was brought up to believe in God but I still accepted Darwin’s theory. Yes, by all means, inform the public of scientific discovery in relation to stem cells and vaccines, but even now, uncertainties relating to human evolution are still present. Anyway. Moving along.

On your stories page, towards the end, theirs’ doesn’t need an apostrophe.

Good tutorials. Which I do recognise from your previous review. Use <code> to display that code for the SSI tutorial!

Extra

Nothing much to say here.

Reviews

I might apply when I have a new layout and everything. Be warned.

Awww, cute dinosaurs for the rating! I don’t see any credit for those… and I’m not sure if you made it yourself. A page with your rubric and how you review would be a nice thing to add.

Originality & Creativity

Super original stuff. I’m loving the layout.

Most of your graphics are very creative and top notch. There’s just a bunch of avatars, and the animations, which were creative and original but not quite high quality or useful.

Thankfully, everything was credited for and simply original.

Organisation & Errors

No problems here. Just the odd error here and there.

Things would really be better if you aligned your text to the left.

Overall Comment

Good job, Clompeh! This time around you did come out with a better layout and I noticed some clean changes in your site.

There’s just a few suggestions I still do have – I hate to be narky about something as small as font size but, well, bigger would be better. And text off to the left – a lot better.

Some of your pages could still do with a clean. And obviously, add more content. I haven’t noticed too many new things so hopefully during your break you’ll get to add some more. I have pointed out other little things in this review as well. Keep up the great work.

Rating

(out of 5)