back to Completed Reviews

Site Name: Clompish
Owner: Haley (Clompeh)
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 23rd January 2010

Previous reviews:

Clompish

Extract of Insanity

Essence of Insanity

Site Name

No problems here! I’m actually really liking how short the name is.

Coding and Validation

Your coding has 5 errors and 12 warnings and your CSS is valid.

In a few of your meta tags you have some slashes before the ending > and these are causing a problem in the validation. This is because these slashes are only used in XHTML validation, and you’re in HTML.

In your FanUpdate entries you are using <center> within a paragraph code for the date. Not only should you avoid using <center> as it is deprecated, but it would be wiser to use a class such as <p align="center>.

I’m shocked to see that you aren’t using an external stylesheet. They load a little bit quicker. I know that you are using PHP includes anyway, but an external stylesheet makes things a little easier to manage and coding a little easier to edit.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Your site is navigable and functions in Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

The navigation is easy to see. I do keep getting it confused with the x’s you have at the top of your layout. I’d like the text a bit on the bigger side of things, but it’s fine the way it is as well.

I really love the link decorations but the way they move on hover is a little bit annoying. Perhaps if you included a transparent or white border on the left and top on a:hover, they wouldn’t move.

Layout

Since I’ve reviewed your site quite a few times, I notice a huge difference in your layout style. I really like this layout compared to other ones you’ve had at Clompish. For starters, it’s not an overly dark layout, and I do recall that you seemed to take a liking for grey colours. This is such a simple layout but I really like the use of colour.

The colour scheme is quite unique, as I haven’t seen magenta teamed with olive green very often, along with teal and less harsh shades of grey. The colours are a lovely choice.

The x’s at the top of the layout are rather interesting. As I mentioned, they do look a bit like navigation, but other than that, they are a nice touch to this simple layout. I would have normally suggested your site name be in that place, but the current elements of the layout work so well together that I can’t possibly see that being changed.

The detail in the links and navigation are a lovely touch to the layout, as well as the subtle heart in the left of the footer. I also like the subtle background – not a plain solid one but one with a very subtle pattern.

The headphones image looks a little out of place but otherwise, is a bold addition that makes the intricate details stand out.

I don’t have much to say about this layout, and I’m not sure if you put a great deal of thought into it but it looks good and is a nice change from what I usually see on your site.

Content

Owner

Wow, very long owner page. I know there’s lots to say, and I love the way you’ve set it out with the quotations at the beginning of each paragraph, but I think it should be cut down a bit. The “biography” link isn’t really needed, because it’s just a link to this page.

Website

On the main page slighty should be slightly. You’ve linked to EOI and mentioned that it’s viewable but I can’t see the website at all anyway.

Very lengthy acknowledgments page. While not many people like to read a lot (and I would suggest you make these pages shorter) and I’ve seen quite a few long pages from you so far, I think that they really show your love for writing and really express yourself. I’ve caught a few mistakes on the acknowledgments page:
greatful should be grateful
amzing should be amazing.

Also, I believe Clompish was later changed to Clompish should be Clomps was later changed to Clompish.

The awards on the awards page should be linked to the websites you won them from.

On the contact page our fancy form should be my fancy form.

It’s been a while since I reviewed you so I don’t remember if I told you or not but you should not credit Google. You should attempt to find the actual site you got the images from, not just Google.

On some of your pages I’ve noticed you using “our” and “us” – “my” and “me” would be more appropriate since you are one person.

On the past layouts page:
definetley should be definitely
diagnal should be diagonal
Jugsaw should be Jigsaw
ulta should be ultra.

There are some mistakes on the Terms and Conditions page:
adress should be address
adresses should be addresses
redistrubute should be redistribute.

Visitor

This is fantastic – I love how you have cleaned up this section. I remember it taking a very long time to load when I previously reviewed your website.

I think the animations can go – they’re quite tacky and your other graphics are of so much better quality. Besides, there are only two animations.

The avatars are okay; it’s nice to see a range of effects on them. The first one with the polar bears is a bit fuzzy. It’s also repeated under two categories.

As usual the banners are gorgeous! There are so many. I think a few of them could be cleaned out – I spotted a few that weren’t the “best”. I’m not too fond of the colouring in this one. And this one would be a gorgeous banner minus the dotted circle texture.

Also, banners like this one have too many brushes overlaid on them. These are just little things, but it’s obvious when some banners look better than others, even though these effects can be so simple.

I think you could rename the “blogs” to something like “blog boxes” (or something more creative) so that people don’t get confused – most of us are familiar with the term “blog” being used to describe an online diary of sorts.

Also on the “blogs” page and the bullets page, you should not be using <textarea> to display code. You should be using <code<, and converting HTML into its entities with a converter. This tutorial at DearAgony.org will explain it in further detail. <textarea> should not be used because it is intended for user input and not for displaying code.

I love the emoticons! I love how they’re not entirely smooth but sort of have a grunge edge. Very unique. I’m not sure how they are on different coloured backgrounds because of the edges, but they look very good.

I actually can’t remember if you had more guild layouts previously. I believe you did, and picked out the best ones. I personally like the first one because it’s cute. The others look pretty good as well. With this page you also need to display the coding correctly.

The userlookup (there’s only one) is not as interesting as your other graphics. I think it could really be improved and made more interesting like your blends and guild layouts.

Some of the pixels look okay, but the last few – toys and household objects – look a little bit rigid and could do with a coloured outline rather than black. Having a coloured outline the colour of the object but slightly darker gives it a less cramped look and doesn’t look so forced. The rocks look alright because naturally, rocks are supposed to be a bit edgy.

The scribbles are a lot better than your pixels, hands down. It’s obvious that you are much more skilled in this area. I’d love to see more here!

With the Neopet shields, again display the code correctly with <code>. It actually can be customised and can look neater.

The stock images are great; especially the fireworks ones. They’re amazing.

The textures are very good as well. If you can make slightly different styles, that would be good too.

I think that on some of these website layout/guild layout pages, you could include a preview as a little thumbnail on the page. With the website layouts, if you could remove “A Warriors fansite”, it would be more useful to people who don’t have a Warriors fansite. That is, if you still have the original document to edit.

On the “what to look for in a host” article:
the won’t should be they won’t
adress should be address.
Also, bandwidth is not how much space you get or how much space your files take up. That is referred to as space or quota. Bandwidth is used up when people visit your site and load a page, or even when you visit a site and load a page. It is the amount of data that gets “downloaded” from your site. If you have a popular site or a site that is image-heavy or has a lot of media, you tend to need more bandwidth. When referring to space, most websites don’t even need unlimited space – most websites only take up 100MB at the very most. All my websites together take up 300MB – it is rare that a website would need or even use up a lot of space.

On your article “Creating and Running a website”:
interesing should be interesting
affies should be affiliates
url should be URL
bloggings should be blogs.

On the blend tutorial you should include more screenshots of the steps in the process.

On the Server Side Includes tutorial, you should not write “installing”. This is quite misleading and I believe it would be a better idea to write “converting” as it is a means of converting .html to .shtml.
When you say “edit your sidebar on one page” you are probably better off writing “file” rather than “page” to avoid too much confusion. Also, you need to display code correctly on this page.

On the brush tutorial imporssible should be impossible. “Google” should also be capitalised. And on this tutorial, it would be nice to include some screenshots of the steps.

I like the text smilies but I didn’t know this was actually for HTML until I looked at the codes. I know these can be used with keyboard shortcuts too, so perhaps they might be a good thing to add? Nevertheless I really liked this one: (∩▂∩) though I prefer it with an underscore: (∩_∩)

Ah, so, you do have a converter on your own site. Make use of it and display your code with <code>!

Writing Portfolio

On “The Homework Issue”:
bare with should be bear with
wok should be work
answer correct should be answered correct.

On “Utopia – Is Perfect Really Possible?”:
mater should be matter
I though should be I thought
more wise should be wiser
howeverm should be however,.

On “Where Are You Sleeping?”:
sufficant should be sufficient
their’s should be theirs.

Ironically in your article regarding literacy you have spelled “grammar” wrong twice (as “grammer”).

I find your random poems a little bit amusing!

I wish you would parody another of Miley’s songs; I don’t really know this one so well. I am sure you could write something hilarious.

On “Pondering” there are a few characters on the page that appear as question marks. They are possibly em-dashes.

I didn’t really go through the short stories in depth; I feel that they are a bit more personal. However I did enjoy reading your poems and lyrics as they caught my eye. I like that you have included some personal pieces on your website.

Originality & Creativity

Very original and creative. I would say that the Neopets graphics are a bit “tacky” and “outdated” but I know people still use these sorts of graphics and your graphics are not bad at all. You don’t have overly generic content and the graphics you make are always very unique.

Your articles are great – they are generally well written. Make sure you proofread before you publish as well.

Organisation & Errors

The only errors I spotted were in the spelling and grammar in some articles. There were no huge problems and any other errors I have outlined through this review.

Overall Comment

Your site has improved a great deal since I first reviewed it. I personally like the changes in your website since your website now reflects more of a personal one, with a blog and written pieces. Looking back on your old website/s, your content was a bit of a mess and needed a clean up, and you also had some “pointless” content on your website.

I’m very happy with the way you have changed your website. I have also looked at your previous layouts coming up to your current one, and you change styles so well and I can see that you’ve tried to work with different styles (some better than others). I don’t have many further comments on your website – keep up the great work.

Rating

(out of 5)