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Site Name: Kisses and Cake
Owner: Morgan
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 30th March 2009
- Previous reviews:
- Over My Head
Site Name
Funny name. I didn’t know Kisses and Cake go together.. but well, it’s easy to remember.
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 3 errors and 22 warnings.
You should be quoting everything, so here:
<b>Layout</b> <a href=http://kissesandcake.net/>Morgan</a>
You should be putting your URL in quotation marks.
With your tracker, you should be removing backslashes before the end bracket – they’re only for XHTML.
You don’t end the </center> in your advertising section, so don’t forget to do that! Though you really should avoid using the ‘center’ tag.
You also have an extra </div> at the end of your document.
The warnings are all caused by your Cutenews, which places things in XHTML. That can’t really be changed unless you want to convert to XHTML.
Your CSS has 11 errors and warnings.
Under u, “font:arial” should be font-family:arial.
You have a lot of blank values in your CSS which is really silly. And you’re using a lot of colours that are the same for font and background.
Also, fonts with more than one word or that have a space need to be quoted. For example, “times new roman”.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Looking at your site at Browsershots.org, your site looks similar in most browsers.
Nice navigation.. challenging my eyes. It’s too small, Morgan. And your text is too small. I looked at your site on a large screen this morning (yes, it’s night now) and I could barely read your text. Make it bigger, please.
And for Pete’s sake (whoever Pete is), INCREASE THE LINE HEIGHT. I do not like squinting to read lines that are squished together like dodgy layer cake.
Of course, the layout would look better centered. It looks unneat when it’s off center. I highly recommend trying div containers to center it nicely.
Don’t say ‘clear’. Clear what? Say ‘Home’.
Layout
I would have killed you if I started my review and you changed your layout. But, I hadn’t started.. so you’re safe. Still, to be honest, your current pink-and-green blob isn’t as nice as your previous layout with the photograph of the girl on it.
Well, I don’t know if it is noticeable to you, but the header image background is a different colour from your container background. #F9F9F9 is the colour you’re after, not a clean white. It looks a bit weird when it’s a different colour.
Pretty simple layout. Just looks like a blob of brushes put together (when I have a little peer at it).. and really, I think you could have used more colours. While I like the combination of pink and green, your layout doesn’t fully excite me.
Good work though, it is quite a nice but simple header image.
Sorry, but your CSS is the dodge. Big bold headers don’t really work well with the layout. Also, with headers that stand out a lot, you’re using them too frequently. I see tons of pink and and green blocks in your sidebar. You should be using something less ‘in-your-face’. And on an organisational note, your ‘elite’ (affiliates, I’m guessing) and ‘reviews’ (which should be reviewers) should be in a list. It would make things a heck of a lot neater, and not make your sidebar look like a clumpy hairball.
I suggest varying the CSS a bit more, and not making things so bold. They don’t match too well with your header.
Also, the tagline in your header image is incorrect; it’s way should really be its way. Looks quite unprofessional.. not to mention that I seriously don’t think you’re saying ‘love is on it is way’.
Content
About
I’d prefer if this was named ‘site’.. because you have a section called ‘owner’. Oh well. Not a big problem.
Affiliate application. Is it necessary to mention the cleanout? Or, if I really must go by your words, clenout? You don’t accept Freewebs sites? Hmm. You should really make that clearer. All I see is a blob of green text. We don’t really need to know about a cleanup on your affiliate application page. That’s not for the visitors to know; rather, you should tell your affiliates yourself. I mean, I doubt they’d visit this page to find out. It’s just something sort of pointless.
Your contact form says ‘affie images!’. Not too accurate, I should think.
Your credits page needs to be more refined. If you used burshes from my site, I personally wouldn’t like being linked as ‘photoshop brushes’. It would be nice to have the site name as well as why you’re crediting. And do you have a host to credit? I’m sure you do!
Blah. Gifts. Your reviews ones are old. And the last one isn’t even a review gift. It’s a birthday gift. Your birthday gift to Emme is a review gift. Has someone been playing musical chairs in your site?
On your site history.. is it really necessary to repeat justthewayweroll.com? Don’t think so. You also need to capitalise WordPress.
a wordpress should be WordPress
the fray should be The Fray
I’ve made should be I made.
Link buttons don’t need to be linked to PhotoBucket.
Owner
I over use ‘fail’ and ‘lmao’ and ‘ohsnap’ way too much
If you overuse (not ‘over use’) words, I don’t think it’s possible to overuse them ‘way too much’. You’re already overusing them. Hence it would make more sense to say ‘I overuse’ and list the words.
Grammar Nazi? (Yes, “Nazi” should be capitalised.) Oh, the irony. If you don’t like capitalising words, then you really can’t call yourself a Grammar Nazi.
Nothing too serious about this page. I’d personally prefer if your favourites were in a list, but it’s up to you.
Visitor
Backgrounds? Why are icons, wallpapers and affiliate images under “backgrounds”? I think these should just go straight under your ‘resources’ heading. It doesn’t make any sense.
Icons and avatars aren’t too bad. A few of them are blurry when I take a closer look. And I don’t think it’s necessary to link these to PhotoBucket. It can be mistaken for being a thumbnail.
Ditto for the wallpapers. Which.. don’t make sense to me. Wallpapers? I’m not familiar with Iconator.. must be an Iconator thing. These are honestly not too special. Nothing exciting about them. They are nice, but plain, and some are blurry. I guess they’re okay for.. Iconator.
Quotes. Cute that you made them up yourself, but I wouldn’t say they’re 100% handy.
On your photography page, the last image is a dead PhotoBucket image. Also, these don’t need to link to PhotoBucket.. I keep thinking it’s a stupid thumbnail.
Also, try and make these available as large photos. That way they can be used more freely.
Yawn. Your desktop wallpapers page reads updating night of 3-27-09! Shame it’s the 30th right now and there is nothing here. Never leave a page like this!
I doubt anyone applying for advertising will be on a “jocker list” (what the hell is a jocker anyway; it’s not even in the dictionary.. only the Urban Dictionary, and that’s just the dodge). Because the truth is.. I have never seen one since I discovered the internet nine years ago. And you need to obviously capitalise I’ll, Link and Piczo.
Request. Hmm. Fine.
On your reviews page:
cmopleted should be completed.
You mention to “check out the rubric”.. there is no rubric? On the rules, you should capitalise Piczo.
Well, about time you reviewed some people. Your queue was the same for a while when I visited your site before. Anyway..
You should really put up completed reviews so people know what your reviewing style is like, and so they can learn from others.
HTML codes is NOT a tutorial. It’s just a bunch of copy-and-paste codes. Honestly. I walk in here and see these codes and skip right past them because I know what they are. My brother who knows nothing about HTML looks at it and doesn’t understand a thing. It’s not a tutorial, and it won’t help people.
The articles aren’t even yours. I don’t know why you claimed that all this stuff was by you on your visitor page. So.. I don’t feel the need to review them. Try and write your own.
No one wants bad grammar or typing. So don’t type u, lol, ur, lyk DiZZ stuhff. No body thinks it’s cool, and it’s hard to understand
Bit ironic. No further comment.
I don’t know why you need to repeat your contact form (that says ‘affie images’).
‘About Me’ signs are useless.. people can make their own.
Reviews
Why the double navigation? Not necessary! Don’t need to have it in both sections. That’s silly.
Originality & Creativity
To be honest, nothing really stood out as being original except for the photography. I encourage you to make more and add more.
Organisation & Errors
It’s not too badly organised but there are some things that don’t need to be repeated in other sections or placed on an unncessary subpage. It is very annoying to press ‘back’ all the time!
Overall Comment
Hi Morgan! Yes, again. I was really honest in this review. You have improved by a long shot, and I am glad you stopped using celebrity images.
I think your coding has improved a fair bit, and you have improved on your content. But there is definitely room for improvement. You don’t have such a good selection of graphics and they’re all quite plain and generic. But your skill has improved, even though I suggest working on optimisation a little bit.
Fix those coding errors – they are minimal and not very serious. My suggestions would just be to work on more content – both quality and quantity.
And change your ridiculous font size. Good luck!
