Review by Truculent Reviews
Like with her previous review, Brianna gave me another helpful one; in record time to boot.
*note* I used to own and maintain Raving Bitch Reviews, I knew I recognized your url from somewhere! I hope this time my review is a lot better quality. No misspellings here *hugs Wordpress's spell-check*
Presentation
Your layout is very simplistic, but not plain. I like the minimalistic look you have going, and you pull it off very well. I would suggest a different font, it just doesn't sit well with me (most "bubble" fonts don't sit well with me).
"Bubble" font? It's Courier, which - if anything - is a typewriter font.
Because it wouldn't show up right otherwise, the CSS background property doesn't quite work they way I wanted it to.Speaking of the text, it looks like you compressed your .jpg a wee bit too much and achieved a "pixelly" effect at the edges of the font.
Also, why did you slice your image up if it's so small and compressed already?
The pen in the lower right that lightly wrote out "Vera" is a nice touch, very subtle and does add an extra bit of "oomph" to your layout. However, your layout isn't noteworthy, and definitely not something I would remember about your site (your content redeems your layout tenfold).
Content:
The first thing that caught my eye is any section you click on leads to a sub-menu page, and the sub-menu is also listed on the sidebar. Why? You should just keep one set of links per section to avoid confusion.
I'm an overachiever... =P
Sometimes your pages took a while to load, either my internet was being temperamental, or some of your pages are really large in file-size.
It may have been due to the statcounter script...
I will break this up into sections:
Webmistress:
Your facts page is very succinct. You include pertinent information about you, I have no complaints about this. However, the description of "Self Description" switches from second to third person… I'm not positive if it's grammatically incorrect, but it looks awkward to me. "Non-academical" also sounds awkward, even if it may be correct… it's probably because my ignorant American ass is used to "non-academic".
I have a bad tendecy to add ly to any adverb, so it could very well be me ;-)
Regardless, your "Self Description" page is priceless. You are indeed very witty, and it really translates on this page. I like your writing style. Your "Appearance" page is also amusing. Never before have I seen anyone present themselves through a time line. How very original of you! I giggled while reading your rant on romanticized beaches, as a resident of Southern California, I think I have the credentials to agree with you. All in all, the content about you really does encapsulate your essence. I rather liked snooping around and learning more about you.
Tutorials and Articles
Upon browsing your "WPR" section, I really couldn't help but chuckle. Every one of your WPR articles is well-written and helpful. My only complaint is the fact that you have anchored links at the top. I don't see a purpose to this since most of your WPR pages (except for the first) only have three or four subsections, and the subsections aren't long. Besides, it's worth it to read through the entire article... don't give your visitors an excuse to skip past a well written paragraph on how designers should choose the topic of their site, etc.
I'll probably get rid of them entirely... someone suggested I use them, as it was hard to read so much.
In your coding page, I noticed you suggested possibly adding a style-attribute to the <body> tag. While this is valid, I was taught that the entire point of (X)HTML is to separate the HTML from the CSS.
I was listing all possibilities. But I suppose I should mention that it's not good coding practice.
Just a note, "afore-mentioned" is fine as one word, "aforementioned" (in your "Coding" page) and "masteres" (masters) is misspelled in your "Taking up Reviewing" page. I found a lot of oddly spelled words, but again, I'm an ignorant American.
I think it's safe to assume that it's me who's too lazy to double check.
Your articles on PHP were very well written, I actually learned a lot (mainly about the base functions of PHP... very informative). Finally, your article on "Writer's Block" is brilliant, I'm revisiting it the next time I can't think up an essay topic.
Linkware Layouts
Making gorgeous layouts isn't your thing at all. This isn't bad, because you totally have a lot of content to back everything up, and it's witty, well-thought out content at that! (your site reminds me a lot of jemjabella.co.uk site.) But these layouts are mediocre looking, even if well coded, and the last one is just atrocious. My favorite color is green, and you murdered it! The only respectable one is the "Autumn" one, and it's a bit on the plain side. I wasn't impressed at all with the look of the layouts, but you get credit for putting time into properly coding them (hopefully anyone who uses these will adhere to valid (X)HTML and CSS after they've applied it to their site!).
Site Related:
I noticed a couple of typos in your "Site in Detail" page, "doesn;'t" and "papres". I liked reading the blurb on how your site manifested into what it is today, even if at parts there wasn't fluid transition (i.e. you didn't mention that you were previously hosted at Supersonicsquirrel, but rather mentioned it being sold and having to go to Squirrelism).
Links:
Organized properly, and you didn't have one broken link! I am officially impressed. The font choice for your buttons is appalling. Is that "Redensek"? Fix it immediately, pixel-fonts only look good at really small sizes, and then at that point, they're illegible (moral of the story: pixel fonts serve no purpose other than being ugly). Try Arial or Times New Roman even, I rather like the "generic" fonts on buttons and the like. In your fanlistings section, the "Kimi" (Sports) linked to a "moved" page, you should update the url. "Chick Lit" (Books), "Can You Keep a Secret?" (Books), "Hercule Poirot Series" (Books), "Terry Pratchett" (Pratchett & Disc World Series), "Death of Rats" (Pratchett & Disc World Series), "Wordpress" (Coding), "Photoshop" (Coding), "VLC Media Player" (Coding), "Windows Media Player" (Coding), "Chiaki and Maron" (Anime), "Maria-sama ga Miteru" (Anime),"Sei" (Anime), "Eriko" (Anime), "Cat’s Eye" (Anime), "Hikari" (Anime), "Nana" (Anime), "Raenef V" (Anime), "Paradise Kiss" (Anime), "Arashi" (Anime), "Nomiya Takumi" (Anime), "Enma Ai" (Anime), & "Iva" (Miscellaneous) didn’t load.
*sighs* Yeah, time top update... I know.
Your content > your layout. I really appreciate that you put a lot of time into writing your well-written articles. I have to give you kudos on originality (never before have I seen such a thorough overview of WPRs or internet-less PHP). I hope you update your fan-listings, as that took me ages to get through!
Coding
Valid XHTML Transitional, but an error and six warnings for your CSS. Otherwise, you seem a very meticulous coder and have everything in order and proper. I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to validate everything before submitting. You made my job easy.
Rating
Three Stars: Your site has amazing content. If it had an equally amazing layout, I would have definitely given your site a 3.5 or 4. You have spent so much time and energy on your web-page, and have grown so much since I first reviewed it (how many years ago was it??)
Three-ish... I think.
and I greatly enjoyed myself while browsing/reviewing your site. I suggest going over your pages for typos, because I may not have caught them all and fixing all the broken "fan-listing" links. Keep up the fantastic work. I definitely see myself returning to your site.
