Name: Marissa
Site: Pretty Vegas
Review completed on: 25/09/06
SPLASH PAGE
Yawn. Celebrity graphic of a goldfish - oops I mean Angelina Jolie, massive promotion of Internet Explorer, ah well at least it's organised, albeit for the horizontal scrollbar.
Lmao, I see you've put slap bang in the middle of your splash in caps "SAFARI DOES NOT WORK WITH PICZO." Lmao, was that for me? It's not Safari that doesn't work with Piczo hun, it's me. You've even included a screen shot of what your site looks like on IE6. Okay, let's compare:
The only difference is the name of the browser, and the fact Safari (like Opera, FF etc) does not spout out popup ads or viruses every which way. Why say Safari doesn't work on Piczo when it does? A means of justification if I complain or point out the truth? I don't get it. The fact that right above your Safari statement you've put "THIS SITE HAS NOT BEEN TESTED IN OTHER BROWSERS" is quite amusing as it totally contradicts the statement that has followed.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Looks more organised than many other Piczo sites I've reviewed, so that's all good. Not keen on the superfluous horizontal scrollbar though, and these seem to come hand in hand with a Piczo site.
LAYOUT
Celebrity images aren't the greatest, ever, seeing as unless you took the image yourself or gained written permission from the company that owns the rights, you are violating copyright. I'm tired of going into this and Piczo users (apart from Sarah, a member of the Review Club) are not known to be particularly receptive to advice, so I'll just leave it alone. There's no point. The cursive font at the top of the graphic is very hard to read, in fact I cannot make it out. The "Pretty Vegas" title going up Angelina's leg looks a bit queer, perhaps it would look better placed in a less ridiculous location. The font is easy to read - I didn't need to turn my text size on medium as instructed by you, but perhaps you have to in other browsers, I don't know. Instead of telling visitors they need to do this and that, you should automatically make it so that your text is a medium size, or whatever size you want it.
CONTENT
Marissa
This section was really interesting, I liked it. I spotted one error, so we'll just get that over with first:
Under "I Look", "I like dying in my hair" should be "I like dying my hair". I'd certainly be asking questions if you died in your hair...living dead girl! Hehe. So yeah, as I said, I liked this page. The cam pics of you were arranged in an organised manner. It is hard to believe you are only 14 when looking at your pics...you have a mature face. That isn't an insult! Or at least, it's not intended to be. I've never really had friends who are girls so I've no idea about the female psyche, but I think girls like to look older when they are young? And the other way around once they hit thirty, I'm sure. Gorgeous artwork - you've got a talent there. And thumbnailed, too! Even better. This section was great, well done.
Gallery
While you have some nice pictures, there are way too many being crammed onto the same page, and whats more is that they haven't been reduced in size at all, so they are considerably large and loading time was a bitch. Thumbnail these like you've done with your artwork, and people will find that they can view your galleries with added ease.
Visitor
Layouts - thumbnailed I see - good work! Some great layouts here, all made by you as well. While we're on the subject of layouts, I cruised by your site sometime last week and I saw the layout you had up - it was seriously one of the nicest layouts I'd ever seen, even on non-Piczo sites. It was lovely - it was the horse layout, complete with a noticeboard and everything. I really liked it, and it was a shame that you've changed your layout since then.
Reads - hmm...no.
Avatars - there were nice, particularly your floral ones. The page loaded in a matter of seconds - and I'm on dialup, so the small file size of your avatars was much appreciated.
Affiliates
Wow, you have tonnes here, with surnames included too! Are you sure your affiliates don't mind having their name and surname plastered around the public internet?
Domain
A short paragraph detailing how long you've had your site for, etc. You say that your site has been around for a year, but in the past you have had ten different websites. So, you must have been web designing perhaps longer than me? I started doing my own coding in 2004 but I didn't understand it and didn't want to learn. I taught myself enough to get by in June 2006.
SUMMARY
For a Piczo site, yours isn't too bad, and going by the Marissa section, I think that you have potential. The originality is there, you just need to expose it more. Your artwork is pretty much the only component that differentiates your Piczo site from others, other than art it's the same old same old. Remember to steer clear of making false statements like you did on your splash page, because people will laugh at you and wonder what you're going on about. I know it's not nice, but that's the reality of it, and no one likes being laughed at so I'm saving you the humilation. Good luck with everything, I look forward to seeing what you can come up with once you decide to break free from the limitations of Piczo! Take care now.
