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Site Name: Heart Bliss
Owner: Priya
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 18th October 2009

Previous reviews:

Heart Bliss

Site Name

Easy to remember and quite unique. No problems here.

Coding and Validation

Your coding is valid.

Your CSS can’t be checked. I think it might be the fact that you have put a space in the folder for your WordPress theme (“Without You”). You should use an underscore or dash instead to avoid this sort of problem.

Regardless of that, through checking your CSS file (from your WordPress theme) manually, your CSS is fine.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Your site looks the same in most browsers and is navigable and functions in Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

Now I did mention a small problem with your layout when images are turned off and your navigation not being visible. Alternate navigation at the foot of the page would be appropriate. However, it is possible to alter the positioning of your divs a bit so you could make margin-top a positive integer so it wouldn’t fall past the edge of the browser screen.

I also already mentioned the issue with your URL. Your site appears blank upon visiting www.heartbliss.info but is fine on heartbliss.info. You can solve this problem by placing a redirection on the URL through cPanel or by other similar means (there is a WordPress plugin to enforce the no-www).

The font size is a bit on the small side but otherwise readable. The navigation is fine.

Layout

This is a beautiful layout and oozes your style much like your previous layouts – always very elegant.

Of course I was surprised to see that you had also opted for a similar sidebar style to mine. But that aside, I do like the positioning of your layout. I think this layout would have looked better with a bit more space on the left.

I like that this time you have used a header image that is uniform. In your previous layouts you always had it in a flowing manner, but it’s good to see you’ve chosen the solid shape for the header image to suit the sidebar boxes.

The header image is very nice. I don’t think the girl’s facial expression suits the “Without You” tagline, but the way you’ve designed the image does. The colouring on the image is great. I love how you are able to take the rather sentimental look and make it striking with so much colour. Your site name under the image does look a bit out of place, and the image is a bit large in terms of height.

On the sidebar, the “Family” section looks a bit messy. You should just leave your “moving in” hostees until they have their sites up.

You generally use the same CSS for your layouts so it would be nice to see some variation.

Content

Visitor

On the main page, Calender should be Calendar.

The brushes are beautiful and I love the previews. You mention that the brushes are “made by me or scanned”. I assume you drew some of these but if you obtained some from a book or other forms of media and scanned them, you should make note of this.

Nothing much to say about the fonts. The good thing is that you’re linking to the right place and not redistributing, but otherwise this page isn’t very useful.

There’s not a huge amount of scans but these are all quite creative and a useful source.

The scans and textures are lovely! I think the textures could be a bit bigger, because I’ve seen textures that are much larger than yours.

The icon textures look great. They’re quite soft, which is a unique quality. I notice that a lot of people create textures which are much too sharp, and the colours usually too bright. The one miscellaneous texture is not centered like the rest, though.

Again with the calendar icons, calender should be calendar. The icons are okay, but usually people can use a table with borders to create something similar for their dates. I also think you should make more decorative ones. These are alright but they’re very basic solid colours. Instead of having simply vibrant colours, try using soft ones as well, and maybe use textures for a few.

The colour palettes are nice but a lot of websites have colour palettes so they’re pretty common.

On the premade layouts page Blogger, they should be Blogger; they. You should mention “HTML website”. All these layouts are very nice and you have a nice variety of styles.

The icons/avatars are very nice with lovely effects, and are of high quality. I think there are a few celebrity images here; I’m sure you’re aware that you should have permission from the photographer to use photographs.

The pen tool drawings are cute but they’re a bit rough on the edges. I’m not sure if you use a graphics tablet but you need to make neater outlines – perhaps opt for a different shape of brush – a much rounder, smoother one.

The website material is okay. The shading on the bullets needs to be improved a bit and the “new” and “updated” signs could be more interesting.

The pixels are very cute. The bows could be improved, but the umbrellas and miscellaneous pixels are great.

On the article “Is Crediting Even Important?”:
atleast should be at least
if you forgot should be if you forget
recieving should be receiving.

This article is great. Though, I think you could wrap it up at the end a bit. You have a conclusion but you trail off into the situation if you’re confronted; try repeating your point about crediting being a MUST.

On the “Exams and Life: Tips” article, I’m not familiar with the term “mugging up” – you might like to define this in a sentence.
atleast should be at least
long-drawny should be long-drawn
in them , should be in them,
striked should be struck.

On the “Naming your site” article:
site ? should be site?
( just kidding! ). should be (Just kidding!)
eg should be eg.
them maybe should be then maybe

On the advertising page, Freewebs and Piczo should be capitalised.

Tutorials

With the sparkle image tutorial, it would be better if the images were on the same page as the tutorial instead of having a link. I do remember telling you this in your last review. The same goes for the screenshots.

On the clipping mask tutorial, elegant affect should be elegant effect, and linkback should be link back. This is a wonderful tutorial and is very useful.

On the colour shading tutorial, two combo should be two. Again with this tutorial, put the screenshots on the page rather than linking to them.

Same thing goes for the smooth skin tutorial. The page looks so empty simply with links on it. You should put the screenshots on the actual page.

Same thing for the blend tutorial. It’s very detailed but it would help so much if there were images on the page instead of links to the images.

Same thing for the “fresh look” tutorial (on the actual page it is title “Advanced image”). A tutorial is much easier to follow when one can browse through without unnecessary clicking.

I know people who have trouble with icon tutorials because they’re not familiar with “soft light”, “screen” and other terms. Perhaps a little note on where you can find these functions and how to use them would be helpful.

On the div layout tutorial:
udo should be ado
diferent should be different
linkback should be link back.

On the HTML and CSS comments, ofcourse should be of course.

Cutenews is considered an insecure script because of the lack of security (hence why it doesn’t use a MySQL database) and even now that you’ve converted to WordPress, you should probably remove the Cutenews tutorial.

The PHP include tutorial could go more into detail. This one only refers to a problem but it would be useful if it went through the very basics as well.
we ? should be we?
code : should be code:.

The Gravatar tutorial is pretty simple. Not all places on the web account for this though, but you could give some examples – WordPress and FanUpdate, for instance.

Hosting

From a glance, this page looks really crammed. There is a lot of information on it. Perhaps space things out a bit; one line between each rule, making it easier to read?

A few mistakes:
google should be Google
I maybe should be I might
email address will be should be email address can be.

Site

A few mistakes under the history:
Bliss ? should be Bliss?
an unique should be a unique
a online should be an online
a image should be an image
a old should be an old
on ? should be on?
layouts on there should be layouts there
is hosted by Kya should be was hosted by Kya.

Just a quick note; most (but not all) nouns beginning with a vowel (a, e, i, o or u) need to have “an”. An elephant, an umbrella, an apple.

Your credits page is impressive; very wonderful of you to keep this updated with everyone who deserves thanks.

On the owner page:
site ? should be site?
:: young :: should be young
Earings should be Earrings.

When you’re writing things in brackets there is no need for the space, for example:

( though I don’t have much! ).
should be
(though I don’t have much!).

On the link buttons page, Direct Linking should be Direct linking.

On the “apply for affiliation” page:
affiliate’s should be affiliates’.

The past layouts page is well set out but you have used a table to display them, and the table is smaller than the width of the layout and looks odd.

Originality & Creativity

I didn’t see anything hugely original that popped out to me. Your tutorials were a bit on the common side. I think your brushes are great though, and more premades with your lovely style would be better.

However, you have very good skills with graphics. You are definitely very creative but you could offer resources that show this more.

Organisation & Errors

Well organised. Of course you should update a few of your tutorials as they do look quite old. Also, screenshots on the tutorial page are more accessible.

Overall Comment

You’ve improved a lot over the past few months, Priya. Your graphic skill has always been there and I can’t deny that, and you continue to make amazing layouts. Like before though, you need to keep working on that content.

You content is much better than when I previously looked through and reviewed your site, and it’s good to see more premades and icon tutorials. However, you graphic tutorials are very basic and what would be really useful for visitors is to show them a bit more of your graphic skill and how you do it. I’m sure a lot of people would appreciate some word from you on how you make those amazing layouts.

There are just a few mistakes around your site which are easy to fix. Your articles are actually written very well. It might not be your strongest point but perhaps more articles about online life and offline life would be nice to include?

Rating

(out of 5)