Reviews
Most of these are old, but I still review occasionally.
Other
CMS Review: Fanupdate – External link to Fuse Magazine I’ve had a bit of experience using FanUpdate before. I tried to help Jessica find a way to import her Cutenews entries and comments into Wordpress. I used FanUpdate as a bridge and achieved middling success. When imported into Wordpress, the entries were completely commented out and I had to go through and edit them all manually. The comments didn’t come along for the ride.
That was more than enough to kill my interest in FanUpdate, but there were other factors as well, such as the poor organization and design of the administration interface, the bulky and somewhat confusing installation and the one stop page for documentation, changelog and even comments on the script. A readme set up on its own page with its own navigation would be a very nice touch. But I digress. Let’s start with the installation, shall we?
Websites
mallorymaloney.com- Oh look! A splash page, and it comes comes complete with Google ads and requirements. Oh well, at least the requirements aren’t “Respect, Admiration and Devotion”, that’s a plus, eh? Not much of a plus, but I suppose a plus nonetheless. Thanks for telling me that I can view your site in any browser, any resolution and to click the image to enter. Without that I probably would’ve just sat there staring at the screen and drooling trying to figure out just what to do.
BJR – I must admit I’m not a fan of Cincoflex and her work (partly because smut most certainly is not my favourite ‘genre’). I was able to tolerate Tempered (to a point) and I closed Red Shadow as soon as I got to the third paragraph. So when I found out she had a new fiction out, entitled BJR, I wasn’t overly excited, but I was willing to give it a chance. Biggest mistake ever.
Black Guitar – A splash page, how original, did you come up with it all by yourself? No of course not, you were probably inspired by another crappy site (and yes I feel that your website probably is crappy based solely on my first impression, your splash page). What does your splash page do? Let’s see, it calls me a man, it sends me to your blog, affiliates, qbee and a broken link and it has an ugly font shoved on top of it. Wow, impressive. That being said it’s one of the more attractive splash pages that I’ve seen coming from the mole people’s internet design group.
Heartbomb – Look ma! Not enough padding and the background and sidebar/content areas are almost the same colour. Don’t even get me started on the odd need to colour everything that isn’t nailed down! And wow, you centered the text links on the subpages? What is wrong with you!? It doesn’t make you look cool, nor does it make you stand out. It makes you look like you accidentally centered some random text, forgive me, links for no particular reason. Why God, why?
SheCriesInside Reviewed – It’s owned by Cassie and it has been around since October 2007, but she claims to have been making websites since 2006. Cassie, dearest, two years is more than enough to further your skills so that you can walk away from this outdated style. There is absolutely no reason to live in the past, as I recall it 2004 wasn’t that great anyway. For someone who is currently on layout #27 #30 I don’t see that much difference between your old layouts and your new ones. Why? There’s nothing wrong with moving forward, staying in the same old ugly rut for years on end isn’t fun and exciting! Plus your rut is ugly and outdated.
Unkept-Promises.net Reviewed – It’s pink? It’s definitely pink, and not a pretty pink either. It’s more of a grey “I’m really tired of living so please shoot me and put me out of my depressing misery” kind of pink. Not in the least bit appealing particularly because that depressing, horrifying pink is the only colour you’ve used. No scratch that you’ve used a red that makes me feel bad inside along with that depressing, horrifying pinky purple that I really hate.
UL-ONLINE.net Exposed – UL-Online.net has been set up as a safe haven for people who have been pantsed, investigated or just caught red handed by the big bads of the internet. The basic idea is that if you have been in any way harassed or defamed on the internet you can then go to UL to complain and UL will give that big bad meanie a taste of their own medicine. It’s a novel idea, but it really only works if the wronged person is in the right, and more often than not the type of person who would use this website is no where near being right. After all how many people are willing to go to such great lengths to achieve petty revenge? Apparently not many because UL hasn’t updated her website in spite of the fact I know she has gotten at least one complaint email.
Girl at the freak show – I know that if your font size were 12pt I’d be complaining about your writing. Hey wait! Maybe we’ve been wrong all this time guys, maybe Erin has just been saving us the trouble of having a stroke due to her inability to understand what a sentence is (and when to stop one, or is this because you’re legally blind, Erin?) and the fact she doesn’t know a paragraph from a parachute. Of course that would mean Erin would have to feel compassion for others and their situations and she would have to admit that, in some small way she is flawed. Yeah like that’s going to happen.