TheGuiltyGeek.com

[immanuelx2]

What do you guys think of the code, concept, layout, color scheme, and even the future of this project? It's all powered by PHP/MySQL written from scratch!

 

http://www.theguiltygeek.com

 

Comments and critiques are welcome!

[Ken2k7]

I feel that the nav right is a bit off. Maybe it's the border on the left side that seems very incomplete. Or maybe because it's too close to the white div at the left.

 

The copyright at the bottom seems a little empty if you know what i mean.

 

Now for some more technical stuff.

1. Put script tags at the bottom of the document.

2. Don't use inline CSS. Put them in the CSS file.

3. Change URLs like http://www.theguiltygeek.com/?article=1033 to http://www.theguiltygeek.com/article/1033 or something like that.

[immanuelx2]

I feel that the nav right is a bit off. Maybe it's the border on the left side that seems very incomplete. Or maybe because it's too close to the white div at the left.

 

The copyright at the bottom seems a little empty if you know what i mean.

 

Now for some more technical stuff.

1. Put script tags at the bottom of the document.

2. Don't use inline CSS. Put them in the CSS file.

3. Change URLs like http://www.theguiltygeek.com/?article=1033 to http://www.theguiltygeek.com/article/1033 or something like that.

 

thanks for the tips. What do you mean by the nav right is a bit off? Could you post a screenshot?

Also, as far as changing the URLs, how could i make them the way you suggested by using $_GET variables in php?

 

Again thanks for the critique.

[nrg_alpha]

Here are my thoughts:

 

Non Technical

 

• I feel the choice of font colours kind of 'plain'. You have red, blue, black and grey. I would consider harmonizing those a bit. Some colours that are closer together that gel well with the background would work better IMO.
  
• I can't say I'm a fan of the right hand menu system's look. The rounded corners on one side and the hard dark grey edge on the other doesn't feel 'natural' is the best way I can describe it. Perhaps having those in all rounded cornered panels that are nicely centered within that column space?
  
• I think the header can be spruced up with nicer graphics. If you're not artistically inclined, I'm sure there are free clip art / icon sets out there that you can use to help dress this area up.
  
• The footer leaves much to be desired as well visually.. I would perhaps add some copyright info as well as an auxiliary nav menu or something..
  
• If you're not generating a lot of traffic, I would axe the ads TBH. It's extra bandwidth on both sides of the fence (server and client side).
  

 

---

 

Technical

 

• Your markup doesn't seem to want to validate. Nor does you css.
  
  • I found the load time slower than I expected.. so I fired up Yslow and had a gander at some statictics:
    
  • You have 5 javascripts that weigh in at ~94k. I would consider merging some (if possible), minifying and gzipping
    
  • A note on gzipping, if your server isn't configured to automatically gzip files (like .php and .css for example) I would attempt application level gzipping.
    So at the top of .php pages, you can add:
    

    if (substr_count($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip')) ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); else ob_start();

    
    and at the top of .css files,
    

    ob_start('ob_gzhandler');
    header('Content-Type: text/css');

    and rename .css to .css.php
     
    

  • Since smushit is now included in yslow, I tested your homepage to see what images can be optimized.. turns out a healthy 41.33 KB can be shaved off.
    
  • Consider merging similar graphics into css sprite sheets to save memory and http requests. You can also have a gander at Yahoo's Best Practices on how to optimize the site.
    
  • The meta tag keywords is pretty much rendered null and void (due to an abusive past).. you can safely axe that.
    
  • You have 10 <h1> heading tags on the home page... You should only be using 1 of those per page.. some sources even argue only using 1 <h2> tag per page..
    
  • You have multiple div id="element", div id="header", div id="body" and div id="item" by example.. Id's are supposed to be unique (only used once per page).. what you want is classes instead.
    
  • img tags should have alt attributes.
    

 

It's late for me, so that's all I can think of off the top of my head at the moment.

So while not horrible, I think overall, some code and graphical improvements can be had.

 

[immanuelx2]

Awesome, thank you both for the input. I will definitely consider a lot of the points.

[immanuelx2]

Small graphical update. what do you guys think?

[nrg_alpha]

Looks much better! Much cleaner.. big difference

In the footer, who does the copyright belong too?