Samantha

A fifteen year old high school sophomore with a sarcastic attitude and an interesting outlook on life. An aspiring film director and Florida native, currently attending a boarding school in New York and trying to keep whatever sense of sanity she has left. Learn more...

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Review: The Vault

http://www.thevault.6birds.net/

First Impression

Wow, red. That's the first thing I think. "Lotsa red." That's not bad, it's eye catching. Maybe tone it down a little bit with the extreme brights?

This is an attractive layout, was it made with book covers? I see a few things I would like to discuss, but we'll get to that later. I would look at this website. The layout gives off an appealing vibe, which is good, but it also gives off a slightly unprofessional nature which we'll get into later.

Let's see, the name. I like it, seems pretty catchy, easy to remember. It's definitely not soemthing I would have though up in a name, so I give you uniqueness points! I like it.

Things I Like: The uniqueness of the name, the eye catching colors, and a change from celebrity layouts.
Things I don't like: Maybe the red is a little too bright? The layout, while different, still reflects an unprofessional nature.

Layout/Coding

Header: Okay, let's see...this was made using book covers wasn't it? That's different, in a good way. I enjoy not seeing Miley Cyrus on your homepage. I do have to point out though that you do not own the pictures used and that tends to be risky business because of all the copyright laws.

I caught a small flaw. Maybe it was on purpose, not sure, but it just stands out to me. There's an edge. Unless you're making a completely shaped header, you should avoid edges. I see you tried to have a paint splatter effect, and that's cool, but just be careful of edges.

Where's your website title? Oh there it is! Hiding in one of the book covers! Why is that? We should be able to see your website name loud and clear! Instead the focus is on what I'm assuming is a quote. That's cool, but I would make the quote a little smaller and your website name larger. Maybe they'd be better reversed. Oh, and another thing. you don't really need to have the FULL website name. We know it starts with http:// and you don't necessarally have to inclue the .6birds.net, because we can look up in the address bar to find that. You really only need the website title which would be The Vault.

I do like your header though, it's very different, and that's awesome.

Colors: I pretty much already covered this but I'll briefly review. very warm color choices, reminds me of passion and fire. Very cool, but I think maybe the red is a little too bright. You don't want your visitors to have to wear sunglasses to comfortably look at your page!

Fonts: For the header, I'm a bit confused. You used two different fonts? I like the cursive font but I'm not so sure about the other one. Just doesn't seem to fit as it isn't used anywhere else on the page?

For the page your font choices are fine with me. You stuck with a basic text font which is great, and a elegant but simple header font, which is fantastic and easy to read.

Coding: I'm not the best at coding, so I can't offer much here. I see nothing wrong with your coding, nothing standing out to me. I don't like your scrollbar though. Usually, I recommend not even touching it because to me it's part of the browser, not the website, but if you must color it I would recommend using other colors. Honestly, I can't use it at all because the dark red and the black are so hard to see against each other.

Layout Style: You added your own unique touch. I like it and your viewers without a doubt will too. Something to keep in mind is that when people enter your site, it's good to have the navigation accessable without having to scroll. Your header takes up so much space that we have to scroll just to see the blog. It's different on larger moniters, but on my 1800 by 800 laptop, I've got to scroll to see anything.

Content

Homepage: I like your blog. I can tell right off the bat that you're a pretty good writer. I catch some grammar mistakes though. You should read through posts before publishing just to be careful. That's not a big deal though, we all have that problem. Your blog title is a bit high up into the header and it's hard to read, I would move it down and remove some of the large gaps in between the post and the title.

The sidebar is nicely spaced and organized. Why is "Content" and "More" two different sections? I think they'd belong together as everything on a website is content. You're "Website" box confuses me a bit. I understand up untill the fifth line where "Up-since" and "Co-Owners" are on the same line. Add some spacing in between, I think it would make more sense as a list then just a clump. Then after that I'm not sure what that is. Is it a website description? If so, say that before hand. One other thing, under Affiliates, it says "Apply" twice.

Book Reviews and Quotes: The first thing I noticed is that this disclaimer like thing popped up behind the header? Pretty sure that shouldn't be there.

It's pretty cool that you offer book reviews, that something most websites don't have. It's a fantastic idea, especially if you read a lot already. I love reading book reviews and am excited to see some of yours.

Reading through the rules I see you say that if any cover image or quote is used "credit is mandatory." I don't think you're allowed to claim the publishers cover or the authors quotes. You can be the person who compiled them, but I don't believe you're allowed to ask for credit for something that you didn't make yourself.

I'm only going to look through a few of the reviews because franky I haven't read most of these books and don't really know much about half of them here so it won't help either of us for me to read them. I like the way you compile the quotes and have a rating scale for each book, it makes it easy for viewers to get your main idea of each book without even having to read the longer review.

Opening the Meg Cabot section, and looking at Mediator 6: Twilight, I noticed a large problem. I can't read it. Why not? The page is black and apparently so is the font? I have to highlight to read. Fix this, please and make the world a better place.

I saw this same problem on the "Mediator 5" page as well.

I have to mention the unusual cover on the Twilight Review. The third one. Never seen it before in my life. Freaky. Moving on... Oh I just noticed something. How come when we click on Stephanie Meyer we automatically get sent to the Twilight review? What about the rest of the series and the other book ("The Host" which was equal to, if not better than Twilight, in my opinion) by Meyer? Have you just not gotten there yet?

Icons: I looked through all of these and I'm impressed. They're all very nice, I like them a lot. Again, watch out for the celebrity images. Those are risky. The quotes are great though, love those.

Requests: I really like that you have this option for your visitors. It's interactive and a great way to keep your viewers satisfied and coming back for more. I'm not so sure about the e-books though. I'm pretty sure that isn't legal? I dunno. Just imagine this: you're a published author, working hard to sell books, but then someone on the internet is giving them away for free? I don't know, just not something I would suggest at all. Could get you in big trouble.

Download Free e-books: You say: "We have picked them up from various file sharing websites and downloading them is not illegal in any way," but the problem with that is that the file sharing websites you're downloading them from may not be legal. Or the websites might be legal, but what people are uploading is not. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I familiar with every copyright law, but I know that I download all my books from ebooks.com and I always pay for them. I don't have much else to say on the matter, not sure where I stand with that.

Shriya's Work: I think this section would be better titled: Shriya's Writing, since it's writing. By work I just sort of automatically assumed graphics.

It's cool that all this writing is on display. I'm excited to look through some of it. It's neat that you have book covers, that'll attract readers and help if you ever decide to try and publish them.

Your synopsis is a bit much. If you're allowing people to read the first 50 pages, then there isn't much need to give away that much of the story in a description. Instead maybe include a short couple of paragraphs on the basic plot, enough to keep the reader interested. I would put it this way:

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards? Three Magicians and a servant are sent to Earth to make sure past destructions don't repeat again.

Jennifer Kelly Hamilton, the pretty small town mayors daughter, is the princess of the town. Yet she remains oblivious and prefers to stay with Ryan and Rob Williams, her identical twin best friends and wear loose tees and shorts over designer clothes. Jennifer is a practitioner of the lethal art of Kalaripayattam, which originally evolved in the wilds of Kerala, India. She can kill a man with one hit.

When Aaron Nicholas Richardson, the new incredibly handsome senior in her college, rescuses her from some drunken men, she is not impressed. Him and his title, The Secret Savior, is causing the crime rate of the town to drop alarmingly. Unfortunately, his identity is not such a secret anymore. How is he related to those sent to protect Earth from itself? What is he hiding?

That's all I can come up with, I'm not nearly as familiar with the plot as you are. Feel free to use that if you wish, or not. Just offering a way to easily shorten it up and keep readers wanting more.

The stories are very good, well written, interesting plots, everythings in check. It's an easy going writing style that's great for attracting large audiences. Keep it up!

Site: I haven't found any problems with this section, everything that should be here is here and in the right place. Everything is easy to find, which I love. It's unique that you allow your visitors to use your previous layouts. That's pretty cool but I think that maybe belongs in a different section. Maybe a "Content" section of "Coded Layouts?" In that case you should use different text areas to display the codes because that just isn't the way to go with large coding like that. Check this tutorial for a fairly descent tutorial on displaying code. If you don't want to display them, then maybe consider having them downloadable.

I think the previous layouts should be just that, a collction of previous layouts. Not layouts to use, even though that is a wonderful idea. Perhaps add a link at the top of previous layouts like "Click here to download these."

Owners: Good section, I like this and how you have so much information in such small space. I have nothing to say about this section, it's pretty great already.

Originality

Nice work keeping this website one of a kind. You wont find another one like it on the web, you offer your own unique content and a lot of things viewers would love to see. Love that. Keep it up.

Overall Thoughts

Okay, I'd like to mention that I really enjoyed reviewing this website. It's so great. Saying that does not mean there isn't anything to improve on, because there always is, but it is a wonderful website. There's plenty to work with.

Things that can be improved: Check about the ebooks situation, I'm really not sure how legal that is and you wouldn't want to run into trouble down the road. The black page problem on a few of the reviews. Don't claim credit for quotes and covers unless they were created by you. Try keeping the novel descriptions short and sweet and too the point to encourage reading.

Things I would keep: Your originality, of course! The ability of visitors to request content. Allowing viewers to read the first 50 pages of your stories. Your super cool quote icons! The fantasticly written blog.

I really like this website, and I'm sure visitors do too. Keep it up and you'll only grow. I hope you found this helpful and not too harsh. It was all meant to be helpful, please take it that way. Thanks again for letting me review your site! Keep up the amazing work!