IYK Poll

New Layout. Your thougts? -Surprised- Decent TEH AWESOMES! Sucks rice balls. This place still updates? View results Version 2.08

S O T M  W I N N E R S

June 2005 Winner: Inuyasha's Reflections http://www.inuyashasreflections.netfirms.com/ Description: General InuYasha Site Rating: ** Layout: Definitely unique. Like me and my friend did, we played with the sliding menu a few times. Quite amusing. ^_^ Overall the layout itself needs a little work, it does get the job done, just could be a little better. Content: Complete titles for episodes, fair amount of summaries so far, games to do, general info, etc. Special Qualities: The puzzles amused me the most and of course the navigation is indeed unique. Ending thoughts: I'm not going to sugar coat what I think needs improvement and the problems I'm running into. Keep in mind that there's always room for improvement for any site, this even includes Inuyasha - Karma itself. Lol, oh indeed that's so. So, I'm going to touch by some of the major problems that I think needs just a bit of attention: 1. Right off the bat for the main page when I load the site it takes... forever to load. Perhaps it's the tag board, I know it's partly due to that affiliate swapping image on the top right. The site is forever loading and I can simply stare forever wondering why. 2. I think they mean well with the affiliate swapping box at the top right, but it's pointless to me why it's there. You are only able to see one of your affiliates for a split second. If there was a site that caught my eye, it's like, tough luck because it already just flew by. You can't click it in time. Note that I was saying this is a major loading issue. That little affiliate box takes forever to load, I would simply do away with that. I don't think it helps your affiliates much. One of the reasons why I did away with graphic buttons for links is that it takes that extra time to load everything, which just takes longer than it should. 3. Links Out page. A nice idea, but oh...my.. this one really takes a long time to load. Because of the special effects you have for each link. Then there's so many! There's no wonder it does take so long to load! Simply stick with regular html text links! Especially if you're going to have so many! 4. General note: Really big pictures takes such a long time to load. They need to be optimized to an appropriate size. I don't mean by shrinking it down by the pixel height and width either. It would just be as long for loading it if it were at it's fullest size. Because of big pictures, that takes so long for loading time. Sucks up the bandwidth as well. If you don't have such an editor to do this, then ignore this one. 5. Pictures section... Mmm... using java for that? Also making them take longer than they should to load. I see the point of it since they swap out if you put your mouse over it, but it's so slow to load. Picture galleries should just simply be pictures. I don't want to give the impression that this isn't a worthy site, one of the things that's quite important to me is what amount of effort was placed into a site. Anyone can slap a few freeweb templates together and copy and paste information. Researching on how to do html codes, or just a clear organized site is something that takes time to create. It's possible for people to make their own site via no templetes, but it's up to you to reasearch and explore what your options are. I look forward to seeing how Inuyasha Reflection's will evolve. Keep up the great work so far, you should be very pleased of your accomplishments thus far.





May 2005 Winner: Shattered Glass http://www.neko-simba.net/shattered/ Description: InuYasha x Kikyou Shrine Rating: **** Layout: Clean and sharp, I very much love the header image blend. Content: Like a tutorial guide almost really! It's polite, instead of the norm of: << back (like I would do ::cough::) To go back to a previous page, this site will have: Would you like to go back to the gallery's main page? I'm sure I'm the only one who enjoys that tiny bit feature of the navigation, but it works wonderfully. Makes you feel welcomed. The pages flow along very well. Special Qualities: Another site that features MP3s. So brave. ^_^ Generally, I would say special qualities for this site would be informational content. The pixels, avatars are very nice also. (sadly so few of them, but nice!) Ending thoughts: Hooray for (for the most part) pre-cut thumbnails for galleries! It loads so much grander for me. ^_^ Site overall is done very well, indeed. Content is one of the most strongest points of the site. What can be improved is to finish up the sections that aren't linked/currently up. Usually my advice for upcoming sections isn't to have it apart of the navigation if it's not done/up, but that's just me. ^_^ This is a very tasteful shrine to Kikyou and InuYasha. Quite an enjoyable visit!





April 2005 Winner: Nozomi's http://wandering-mind.net/nozomi Description: InuYasha General information site Rating: ***** Layout: Easy to navigate, very eye pleasing. I love the green... <3 Content: Very collectively sound with content. Adequate amount and has a nice variety: general info, mp3, interactive's, etc. Special Qualities: I really like the graphic works for avatars, wallpapers in such. Very nice, very nice. Also quite up to date on Inu. info, unlike me. u_u I also find it fun for that the updates really double as a blog for the webmistress. ^_^ Ending thoughts: Alright, now, this is something that I have 'always' pick at with any site. It's of course, image loading. The only instance of this for this site is with the layout previews--and I believe the images at the graphic section (for wallpapers, etc), their actual gallery is text links. I know the only reason I pick at this, or realize it is because I have dial up. I know, I'm behind the times ^_^ BUT*** I am not the only one. Millions of others do as well. Loading is an issue. When making thumbnails of images or making them small to fit in a certain space, I would never recommend taking a large picture and shirking it down by changing it's width and height. Takes the same amount of time as would if it was at it's full size and is agony for my people. Yes. My dial up people. =) Overall this is an excellent site to be apart of the ever growing InuYasha web community. Certainly a site that needs recognition. I can tell a lot of effort has been placed into this site and it indeed pays off.





March 2005 Winner: The Higurashi Shrine http://innocence.kuroi-hoshi.org Description: General InuYasha, and partly a collective anime shrine/links(?) (that's in progress?) -- Then in some parts a few unrelated things. ^_^ Rating: **** Layout: Clean and easy to use, snazzed out graphic header. The pages tend to load a bit slow for me, which is in part because of the special link filter (like my site currently has), which they have 'a lot' of links to cover which takes up loading time, then also the tag board takes up a bit of time as well to load. Content: Very nice range of content they feature. A nice wide variety, some of the sections still need to be added on to, but I must give props on the content that's fully done to a fulfilled amount and is very nice. Special Qualities: I like they were able to put the Japanese names for most of the characters. That's something I haven't seen in many English sites. The character descriptions are done well. They also feature some screencaps from close to the ending 160ish. Again, they have a wide variety of things. Ending thoughts: A few images were broken, such as in the avatars, banners and phases in the moon section. I think* the other day when I was looking at the avatars they were all broken, but then today only 3 were. So, I'm not sure if it's just 'me' seeing broken ones or not. Mostly, this site has done quite a lot of work to where they are at now and is quite impressive. Excellent job, keep it going. ^_^





February 2005 Winner: Legend of Pickles http://tripping.overthefalls.com Description: General anime information/interactive Rating: *** Layout: Simply delicious. Content: Mostly they feature interactive, such as quizzes, the 'debate room', contests, etc. Some multimedia as well. Special Qualities: I enjoyed the mad lib ^_^ and I love** the grammar lessons. The flash cartoons can be either thought of as humorous or disturbing, lol. My vote is for humorous. =) Then also I love the site title... it just makes me hungry! ::shakes random person:: FOOD. Ending thoughts: The layouts and navigation of this site is superb. But** there's a bit of empty content here and there such as in the Images section. Usually I make it a rule of thumb to not add sections unless you have something to put there. Also I found a broken link to the movie/manga -- summaries/reviews section. Overall it's a nice site, just need to pump up the content a bit. ^_^





January 2005 Winner: Kagome-Chan's Log http://www.princessserena.com/KL Description: General InuYasha Information Rating: ***** Layout: For a framed site, works really well and is very unique. Easy navigation. Content: Wonderful content. This site has been going for many years and the content they have acquired reflects that. Mp3's, detailed info, an array of images and activities for one to do while visiting the site. Special Qualities: I would say the image gallery and mp3's they offer. Ending thoughts: I've known this site for... eh.. a long time, lol. It's always been one of my favorites. One thing that I've noticed though is image loading. I can tell that for most of the thumbnails, it's the actual large picture downsized, which that makes the preview image load even longer than it should. It's always best to create individual thumbnails. Helps out poor dial ups such as my computer. ^_^ Other than that it's a wonderful site. It's great that it's been kept up with for as long as it has been around. I don't know what InuYasha fan hasn't stumbled upon this site yet. 0_o

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