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Site Name: Heyba’s Blog
Owner: Heyba
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 22nd October 2008
Site Name
I personally don’t like the use of people’s names in their site names. Yours sounds okay; you’ve got a unique and nice name. I like how it’s easy to remember.
I have a slight issue with using the freedomain.co.nr redirecting URL partially because people may want to bookmark certain pages of your site but the URL does not change. However I notice you are using iframes so it would not matter anyway.
Also, I don’t see why it is called Heyba’s blog when it’s not entirely a blog at all.
Layout
I take it you did not make the layout yourself, which is very disappointing. I see in your credits Layout and CSS © CC, where CC is linked to another site.
Therefore I cannot really review your layout because it would mean I am reviewing someone else’s work and not yours. The layout is made well, but I don’t like the advertisements and other links at the bottom, it looks very unorderly and I suggest putting these on a separate page that will open in your iframe.
I don’t understand why © 2000-2008 Neopets, Inc. is printed on the bottom of your page. Does that mean this site isn’t yours and it belongs to Neopets?
Your CSS (even though it’s not yours) is fine, but your links need to look significantly different from your text, and I can’t tell unless I hover over them.
The iframes are not a good idea, you would be better off converting to PHP. You can find a tutorial here. Iframes are not good because it gives search engines hell, and because people who want to print or bookmark individual pages from your site cannot, because they’re trapped in a frame. Also, your iframe is transparent in Firefox, but it is not transparent in Internet Explorer. Another reason why you should convert to divs or PHP (even better).
You seem to have disabled horizontal scrollbars. It’s not a problem for me, but is a pain for people with smaller screen resolutions who can’t even see your entire layout – for example 800 by 600 resolutions.
You shouldn’t have a coloured scrollbar. I can only see it in Internet Explorer, but it can cause problems for people in other browsers.
Content
As I mentioned above, move all your links to a separate page. It may be handy to put a ‘back’ link on your pages, since you are using iframes.
Me
Firstly, you need to add a gap because your avatar overlaps the header titled ‘Random Gallery’, as you can see:
This page is very basic, which is okay, but at least give clearer answers. Instead of Age: ^.^ maybe put Age: Not telling ^.^.
Mostly loves: the loved
Mostly hates: the hated
Favorite color: pretty
What kind of answers are these? What is ‘the loved’? ‘The hated’? Pretty is not a colour. If you’re going to even have this page up, please at least provide some useful information.
Your drawings are good, I like the first one, but the second one is a little blurry. I don’t know what the lumas are, so maybe a small description could help? And are these Luma photos yours or not?
It’s good that these all open in a new window, but maybe an asterisk and opens in new window would be better for the visitors, as some may have popups disabled.
You
All the links in the Games section are external links. They open in a new window which is good, but add the asterisks like I mentioned above. These shouldn’t really be called games, but rather, Games sites or something similar.
The chat and guestbook links should not be here; they are not for the visitor but rather for your site. The guestbook opens in a new window and yet again, visitors should be warned of this.
Onto the graphics section. Why are these boxes called blogs? A blog is a web log, an online diary. These graphics are more like ‘update boxes’ or ‘welcome boxes’. Most of these are okay, and they have your URL on them, which is also okay. However, these images are all from Neopets, and since you do not own these characters, it would be right to put ‘image from neopets’ on them as well.
Most of these are okay but this one – it’s of bad quality. Do you expect someone to use that? And this one – I can barely see the graphic.
Your icons are pretty good, I must say, but they’re all Neopets again. On the last three icons – the code and the icon are on the same line, whereas in the rest, the code is on a new line. Try to keep things consistent.
There’s only one background. It’s not even of good quality. I don’t know what effect you used but it’s not good. No one would use this as a background.
The blends are not bad, but need improvement. This one, for example. I can see an ugly blue streak where you’ve blended the two images. The Evil witch one is better, but the colours aren’t nice. Try using better graphics to blend in the first place.
The single ‘blend blog’ you have is okay, but not the best. The text is too dark and the image too light.
Your guild layouts are better, but they’re all boring. For all of them you’ve basically lightened the image and slapped a textbox with a background on it. And this one – why is the box dark and the image light? It’s a horrible contrast too, and it should be the other way around. Places where text should go should be lighter.
Your welcome signs are not good. They’re all too big. This one looks pixelated, this one looks stretched out and bad.
Your enter signs are just riddled with brushes. This one is brush overload to the max. It looks horrid and messy.
You need to edit your ‘blank blogs’ page. The images are resized and any unintelligent lunatic would wonder how to use them. You didn’t link them to the original image, and they just appear as tiny thumbnails.
Your website layout shows that your coding is okay, the positioning is good and stuff. However the layout doesn’t look good at all. The background is scary and doesn’t even match with the header or anything – even a light orange coloured background would’ve been fine. Also, I found the background in Google is not proper credit. Google is a search engine, just like Yahoo. You need to credit the actual person or website you got the image from. It’s obvious your CSS skills aren’t good – the text is bland and in fact, it’s the default font.
Your graphics that you made for others are okay. This one was more impressive than what I’ve already seen! The colours are good, the text isn’t too dark, and you’ve credited Deviantart. Though, you should credit the Deviantart user because there are different artists there who own different images.
Plug board is self-explanatory.
Your poems would be better off in the ‘me’ section. Visitors don’t really have much to do with them. Change MURDUR to MURDER. Even then, it sounds like an empty threat. It isn’t necessary and people would be silly to steal your poems because they can just write their own.
The ‘don’t click’ page was annoying for me, because I am reviewing your site and I have no choice but to click on it. I’ve seen it one too many times. Thankfully yours was not the longest I’ve seen. It’s not really a good page, people who have to click ‘OK’ or hold their enter key down just to get an award.
Site
Your yellow link back button is okay, but your 88 by 15 pixels one at least needs your site name on it. All it looks like is a button base.
Credits are good, but Iframes and contet copyrighted to yourself? Iframes are part of the coding. You should really only say content. Also, domain hosting is incorrect – you don’t own a domain. You have a domain name. A domain is something like google.com and hosting is the one who provides space for you. You’re hosted by Awardspace, which is correct, but only your domain name is from co.nr.
PNGs from Graceful Lament – what does that mean? A .PNG is an image file type. Surely you just mean graphics? Graphics aren’t named by their file extensions. I don’t say ‘I got .jpgs from site.com’.
Your contact page is fairly straightforward. Under ‘Affiliate rules’, change inapropriate to inappropriate. Also, I suggest you put your email in bold.
On your Terms of Use page, change ridistribute to redistribute. And inapropriate should be inappropriate. Also, ‘do not be an inappropriate person’? That rule is vague and silly, and it would be better as ‘respect my site’ or something, because honestly, it just makes me laugh.
with be given should be will be given. You really need to redefine your rules. You mentioned ‘CSS’. What CSS? And ‘if you still do not take it off’ – um, take what off? Where?
You need to be clearer with what you write. And why do you have a guest login for Cutenews? You’re practically asking for spam. But anyway, the login doesn’t work.
Clicking ‘clear’ takes me to your blog/news, not to where I was when I first came here.
Originality
I hardly saw any. Your layout was not made by yourself, your graphics are all from Neopets with you editing them.
Organisation/Errors
Just a few that I did already mention. The guestbook in the visitor section, the links under the layout, some spelling errors, all mentioned above.
Overall comment
When I first came to your site, Heyba, I was pretty impressed with your layout. However, the fact that you didn’t make it yourself was very disappointing. I understand your site is mainly for people who use Neopets, which is only a fraction of the world. You do well in supplying resources for those people, but not for others.
If you are looking to make your site more popular you need to be more original and use your own pictures. Your first drawing under the ‘me’ section was good. You could use something like that, even to make your own layout. But if you only want to appeal to Neopets users, that is fine.
But I am assuring you that with this site you need to work more on graphic skill. You know how to use your programs but you need to focus also on the quality of what you do with your graphics. You also need to give proper credit.
Good luck with improving your site, and I hope this review helped you.
