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Site Name: Stolen Rain
Owner: Jen
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 20th June 2009

Previous reviews:

Pretty In Pink

Site Name

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed you so let’s see how you’ve improved.

Stolen Rain is not a bad name; it’s easy to remember and fairly simple.

Coding and Validation

Your HTML has 27 errors.

I know you’re capable of fixing many errors yourself but I’ll help you out here.

You should not use <div align="center"> for your header image. Instead, in your CSS, add text-align: center; to #header and that will center your header image.

You need to remove some </div>s before your container div to make up for this.

You’re using target="_blank" for some links, particularly those in advertising. In XHTML Strict, you cannot use target. If you want to use it, you must use XHTML Transitional instead.

You also cannot use border for images in XHTML Strict. Specify with CSS instead:

img {
border: 0px;
}


Your Twitter update section is invalid. You might want to try my Twitter tutorial which will validate that. I updated it recently so it should work.

You have to edit your FanUpdate templates. You cannot put h4, which you are using for the post date, in the p class. Headers must go on their own, the p class should go after the post date.

You also cannot use <strike> or <s> in XHTML.

Your video blog isn’t validated. I have a tutorial on that as well.

Make sure you remember that slash at the end of image tags.

Your CSS is valid, with 5 warnings. Make sure you put a width on the #navigation li (width: 30px; or whatever width you would like.)

You state the background colour under input/textarea to be #000000; – if you remove that it will remove your warnings. I don’t think you should have a black background for those either. white or pale grey would be better.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

According to Browsershots.org your site looks the same in most browsers.

The navigation is really clear; I like how it’s in different colours.

You’ve been using the same font and text size for a while. The text size is a bit small; you should make it just a tad bigger. Especially when you have a slightly large-scaled layout, larger text would fit it better. Also, the text would look a lot better white, instead of black. It first better with the colour scheme.

Layout

It’s very simple, but the colour scheme really brightens it up. You’ve chosen a great selection of colours which look nice and bold on the grey background.

As I mentioned, you should increase the text and make it white instead of black.

I don’t see a huge problem with the CSS. I think you should increase the line-height of the headers, so the background colours go a bit higher than the text itself.

The headers in the sidebar are a bit annoying because they’re so light; they should be the same colour as your h2.

You also need to clean up your sidebar – too much stuff there. You don’t need that “webmiss” section; I didn’t read it. At least shorten it a bit and introduce your site. Other than that, great layout with great colours.

Content

Visitor

The avatars are alright; they’re not the best. You should place effects or at least some text on them. Change the colour of your underlined text; here you have some underlined text that is hard to read.
I don’t know what is in the ‘other’ avatars but they don’t look terribly appealing. Make them a bit more exciting.

The bullet should have a transparent background. These ones have white backgrounds. Avoid making animated bullets too; they’re distracting.

You have a lot of tutorials, so I suggest putting them in their own section, for example as I have done on my website.

The cPanel tutorials are pretty useless – cPanel has video tutorials and help panels to guide you through.
On the ‘creating email accounts’ tutorial, the image is wider than your container.

With the Bellabuzz tutorial, you also need to fix the image as it’s wider than your container. Linking to a chmoding tutorial would be handy.

You should have screenshots for the installing Cutenews tutorial. Cutenews is also unsafe so perhaps you should remove this tutorial.

A guide to how you can customise your FanUpdate templates would be useful.

On the uploading files tutorial, you could explain how to log in as well. Extra screenshots would be better.

On the bullet tutorial, your text reads “If you end the it will be an automatic breakline.” In your coding here, you should replace < with < and > with >.

<code></li></code>

This is the case with anything you display as code.

On the textarea tutorial, you should space out the CSS so it’s easier to read.

The “other” tutorials are fairly simple. You should explain how to customise the Twitter one, as I have done with mine.

On your opinions article:
oopinions should be opinions
politely manner should be polite manner.

Your articles are very good, even if they are rather short. You could elaborate on the stealing one. Explain more consequences, and use situations to make a point. Your opinions one was very good.

I’ll be honest with your poems. They’re quite good even if they are short. I’m a fan of longer poems. Still, they’re your personal work so you don’t have to change the way you write or anything.

Games and generators – nothing much to say there.

Services are fairly self explanatory.

Domain

Would be better named ‘website’.

On your “about” site page, instead of “webs template” and “webs sitebuilder”, you should say the Webs sitebuilder/template. Capitalise URL too.

On the affiliate application, ok should be okay. And fix up the spacing in the list of rules; there are some gaps.

On the “do not steal” page you have some errors:
they’re names should be their names
out their should be out there.

I don’t really like the animated link buttons, but otherwise, the buttons are okay.

Webmiss

Just a few errors:
I would freak out should be I will freak out
I love gettings A’s should be I love getting As
I made sure should be I make sure
octopus should be octopi.

Originality & Creativity

Pretty original and creative. You aren’t big on graphics, like myself, but you do have creativity; I have seen it in your layouts.

Some of your content was generic but otherwise, solid visitor content.

Organisation & Errors

Fairly well organised. Just a few errors could be fixed, which I have already mentioned.

Overall Comment

Jen, you’ve come so far since you had your old website. You have better knowledge of coding and your graphics are more original. I enjoyed reviewing your site.

There isn’t much to complain about with your site. You blog fairly regularly and update regularly. You’re not big on graphics but things like your avatars can be improved a bit.

I notice that you are actually very good at making simple but eye catching layouts – you could offer some free layouts, because I find that a lot of your layouts now are very good.

You have a lot of generic and rather pointless tutorials so try and jazz them up a bit or make some more unique tutorials. Other than that, great work. I’m sure your site will continue to grow.

Rating

(out of 5)