Greetings all...
This is a brand new website of mine. It's a personal website that I intend to use to master CSS as a method of design. I use the XHTML Strict Doctype, though I have not validated it with the w3 validator. I has passed Dreamweaver validation, but I'm not too sure how accurate that is. The site is not yet complete. There are a few navigational things still to include and I need to post my resume up there as well as an email link. The site is centered around a blog, so the introductory content isn't the greatest yet. I'll be honest and say the idea came to me quite suddenly and I created the site on impulse, so the step-by-step approach was over looked. lol. I hope you all enjoy what you see. The address is http://www.sinsofadesigner.com. Thanks everyone.

At your invitation I visited your site ... so will bated breathe I clicked on the link ... and ... it was a nice and pleasant surprise ... :)

Nice colors and composition. Easy and pleasing on the eye.

Navigation is straightforward with no nasty surprises.

Nothing leaps out at you, winks at you, tries to ambush you or drag you into the dark alleys of commercialism. It is very respectful of the reader.

I am not a big fan of blogs, but this one visually is definitely one of the best I've seen so far. Keep up the great work.

I really liked your site, good background, everything was easy to understand, on your subpages, I might put return links on the left side, not just the top, thats just me

feel free to review my site

www.jetblackdesign.com

good luck-Derek

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Derek
www.jetblackdesign.com

"I do not regret the things I've done, but those I did not do"

padotj - your use of clean lines and interesting background make the site intriguing. However, the use of the colors fight with the legibility of the site. Either lighten the creme background color by 20% so the RED text in your navigation links is more visible .. OR darken the RED of the text and increase the text weight (more like the Go To Blog) type. The text is just too light. I would also suggest loosing the dashed-lines around the navigation links -on both sides of the body of copy; it fights with the legibility: not very Zen-link. The rest are OK. As in anything .. a little can go a long way: a very Zen approach, I might add.

The overall look is very nice. The most of which is the simple lines and openess. Just don't close down the readers ability to glean and build a desire to return by constricting them with too small type. This is a big problem in a lot of web design.

Oh .. and unlike Trackdancer, I am a big fan of blogging - it's just that most blogs don't offer a compelling enough reason to invest any time into. There are two(2) important KEYs to blogging:

1) IF YOUR BLOG IS TOTALLY PERSONAL- it does NOT matter if anyone likes it or cares to read it. A personal blog is about YOU - and is therefore more of a 'treatment' than a publication. It's my NSHO that most blogs like this clutter the 'etheral-server-space' and should not be clogging the wires. They mostly waste time and space. But, in the interest of fairness and opportunity, I do know of a number of folks who have actually found great solice and relief in just writing down there thoughts in this venue. And I also know of a few who have actually gone on to write very worthwhile material once they found their 'voice path'.

2) IF YOU WANT OTHERS TO FIND YOUR BLOG WORTH THEIR INVESTMENT OF TIME AND ENERGY - then your material MUST be interesting and of use to others: even it's only a small niche group. This type of blog is a commodity and will be treated as such by all who enter its 'marketing trail'. Build it and they will come .. but ONLY if 'they' are profoundly compelled to do so: 'they' must feel 'they' have to - not just want to. This is the 'hook' in all marketing.

This said, there are a huge number of blogs that meet the criteria in #2 that I wouldn't pass up a headache to read: they are worthless drivvel - and even worse - damaging to the sanity of social fabric. But - they are effective and somehow, there are others who find 'them' 'worthy of their time and devotion'. So, regardless of 'value' - blogs do work. For better or worse.

Path on and keep to the Zen of your path ..
net500.cg

i liked the dashed lines, but on second look, after reading some of the comments here, i suppose the red lettering on the navigation is a little difficult to read. i have to say tho, that some people would find it difficult, i checked out the site before reading the comments here and didnt notice anything that i didnt like. i love the colours and the clean lines, everything was easy to follow and find, am looking forward to any new content when you add it.

Check your website in a Gecko based browser. There are a few fundamental errors in your design

Lets start with the first line

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

This line throws IE 6 into quirks mode. So even though you think you have written perfect XHTML code, the IE does not think so. Due to this line IE is working in non standard mode and hence percieves and renders the design differenlty than browsers that work in standard mode (Gecko / Opera) with the XML declaration.

Once you get rid of this line, we can continue trying to make your website cross browser compliant

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ranjan | Macromedia Certified Dreamweaver MX Developer
http://www.dreamlettes.net - a dreamweaver resource
http://www.ranjan.ws - got blog?
http://www.total-impact.com - a web design community

I liked the site - it's very pleasing to the eye.

I'd perhaps lighten the background image (lower the transparency by about 30%?) as it makes the text difficult to read. It also stands out too far from the text, i.e. the background is more prominent than the content.

When I scrolled down, I was half-expecting the background to be fixed so that just the text moved. I don't normally use background images, let alone fixed ones, but I think it might be a nice touch on your site (see www.devxnews.com for an example).

I also agree that the navigation needs to be more prominent i.e. bold or something.

Just one last suggestion, don't print your email address directly on your page - you're opening yourself to spam. Try using a contact form which then posts to a script that automatically sends you the email. Oh, and keep personal contact information out of your resume (I'd be cautious about displaying too much personal information on somewhere that millions of people can view).

Keep up the good work!

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Remember, there is no spoon...

Nice, but you owe it to yourself to have a look @ it with a Mozilla or Netscape browser (as in non-ie) there are some alignment / positioning issues.
But your well on the way to a nice job!

I like your site, it's very clean and there are no surprises lurking.

My only possible criticsm is the text is just a tad flimsy on my resolution of 1280x1024 but guess on smaller res' it's just fine.

Good job on a CSS design I say ;)

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Street Racers UK - Car Modifying Online
Tickle Site UK - A FUN place to be!!

Thanks for all the feedback.
I've taken all of it into consideration and I've made some changes accordingly. I considered taking the xml tag from the top the html file, but as I'm using this website for practice I'm going to leave it there. Besides, considering my target audience (my peers), I'm pretty sure the people who even care about what's on the site will not have a problem viewing it. Today I was the first time I sat down to view it with Netscape and I was reminded why I hate Netscape. I've solved the rightBar positioning issue, however I can't figure out how to solve the problem with the top links (Any advice is appreciated). I may just take off the border so netscape users won't think I'm a dork. I took the borders off of the links and bolded them. I agree it looks better. The reason I had borders to begin with was to box in the individual links.

Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and Firebird/Firefox are all developed to display properly written validated code. This forum opened my eyes to why IE is so loved: it is extremely merciful on sloppy (read: unvalidated) code. I build in Dreamweaver which makes "drag, drop, F12" a real addictive way to create and test a site. However, CSS is a very different story (and several different threads in this forum, too!)

Before you delete the top bar so that it plays nice in NN, heed the wise words of ranjan and delete the line of code he pointed out. You can always put it back in later.

My first pure CSS attempt validated in CSS and XHTML on the W3C site, and displayed perfectly (read: no surprises) in NN 7.1, Mozilla 1.5, Opera 7.23, and Firebird 0.7. IE butchered it to the point of absurdity. So much so, that I'm thinking of adding a browser-checking script that will load a different style sheet if it detects IE.

But, I did like the look and layout of the site. The one thing I would agree with some of the other posters on is the "loudness" of the dragon. It commands more attention than your actual content. I would lighten it up a bit.

The one thing I do enjoy, and I mean really enjoy, is the horizontal scrollbar that appears if the width of the content happens to exceed the window's size. Let me clarify: I try to avoid, at all costs, implementing a horizontal scroll, but when it's that or have your right-side text pile on top of your body text, which, in turn, crawls on top of your left-side text...I'll root for the scrollbar any day. I'm glad too see you payed attention to that.

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...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...
-- Romans 3:23

doug sanchez, creative director/lead designer

I've made sure that my document validates strict xhtml 1.0, I took the xml tag out, the css validates and I I'm still fighting with netscape about the stinkin' border around my top navigation... To my knowledge, your suggestions and the w3 validator I have a perfect document. I'm mucho confused. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.