Desired Username: Sylph
E-mail: spottedwind87@yahoo.com
Hello! To introduce myself, my name is Julia [ though you can call me Jo ] and I would like to create a site to host my literature [ such as poetry, short stories, etc. ] and occasional artwork/contests. More of a personal website in which you can view my work and updates, it wouldn't be much of an interactive site. I doubt I'd be able to make daily updates, but definately reasonably spaced ones in which I could elaborate on my updates and post many things instead of single and multiple updates each day. I am quite young, but am an aspiring writer and am currently working on excersising my writing skills, and a website is just what I need for critique and personal use so I can keep record of what I've written and drawn/doodled. I've been looking for a permanent host like Xepher to attact viewers, and I believe that Xepher would be a wonderful place to be. I am convinced by this well formed and organized Forum and Site that provides much information.
My work is perdominately poetry, but I am currently working on a new plot for a new story.
My Allpoetry Account -- http://allpoetry.com/sylph87
My personal favorites include [Newest to oldest]
Immortal Love Is Held Within Mortal Hearts [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2141248 ] mostly because of how the poem was uniquely inspired and has a deep, poetic meaning.
Autumn's Aurora [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2088297 ] because I liked how it turned out even it was my first time using this style and I don't normally write poems with a rhyme scheme.
Paint me a Portrait [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2046401 ] Imagery and rhyme scheme once more.
Where the Grass is Just a Bit Greener [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2042416 ] Imagery, wording, and just my sense of poetry, though the rhythm could use a lot of work.
Beauty [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2040145 ] Doesn't really hold any moral to it, but tells more of a story of faith and - well, care to read the comments? My second elaboration seems better than my first on the comments column.
The Eyes of Man [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2039049 ] Again, a story-like poem that was inspired by my wandering thoughts.
I Wondered Why [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2038997 ] This particular poem means a whole lot to me. The poem itself tells its and my own story, and maybe it's a bit juevinile and mediocre, but its from personal experience. I entered this poem into Reflections and got into the District round.
Cabalistic [ http://allpoetry.com/Poem/2038877 ] One of my first, real poems that held a special moral.
[NOTE : not all of the poems I have written over time are on my Allpoetry account, but are kept on paper.]
I cannot show you any of my art because my computer that holds them has crashed, and my dad does not wish for me to use it.
For my 7th grade English Portfolio [English Final] we were instructed to gather assignments we did and hand it in. As an optional, I wrote a short story -1st person view- called 'The Devil's Eyes'. The story was based on a dog's life at home, and his life when he is bought off by a 'dogman', better known as dogfighters. Strongly against animal abuse, my story exposed some evils of dog fighting. The climax was my character in his last battle, a loose description of a dog fight. I could only say that this story is not entirely finished seeing that -uhm- I left it to last minute, it made a great short SHORT story, but would have made an even better short stories that went from 3 pages to about 7 or 8. Unfortunately, along with my scanned art, my short story has been deleted from the computer and this general synopsis is all I can give you which further shrinks that chance of my being accepted I suppose :/.
HTML ::
I know the basics of HTML and regular HTML [ as you can see, I'm no whiz though ], and the best for a website I can do is make splash pages. But if you gave me a pre-made website, I'd know how to edit it. I could take a whack at tables or ask one of my close friends if they could help me make a website for me, so I'm not totally concerned about this.
I suppose that's it for now.
If you have any more questions, feel free to contact me at my said e-mail address.
Thank you very much for reading,
Jo
Alright, I'm really bad at poetry so I won't critique any of it (let someone else who actually knows poetry do that) but there are two things I would like to point out.
First, I've said this so many times, usernames can't have capital letters. They are your URL (yourname.xepher.net) and URLs and capital letters don't mix. This is a minor thing, but it's laid out in the rules or guidelines or something, so I'm just clarifying.
Second, you'll have a hard time getting in without a temporary website that YOU made. Xepher doesn't do the "pre-made" thing, you see. So find some free hosting (is atspace.com what everyone else is reccomending? I forget...) and show us what you can do on your own. If you don't know much HTML, look for a tutorial or two to help out. (yaaay google!)
Other than that, all I can say is "good luck."
...also, how exactly is that email spam-proofed? This has nothing to do with the application.....I'm just....confused. Maybe I should wait until I'm actually awake before posting stuff.
Oh yes, thanks for the username critique. Guess I must've overlooked or forgot that.
Uhm, I don't think my e-mail had spam proof in front of it, or it did, just doesn't now.
Oh, maybe when I wrote "But if you gave me a pre-made website, I'd know how to edit it." it sounded literal .. But I meant, if I downloaded a pre-made layout, I'd know how to edit it. As for an example?
http://www.freewebs.com/sylphnymph/
But that was when I had Photoshop :/ ..
well, it shows you know how to use HTML, so for me everything looks fine. The size leaves something to be desired, but whatever. Then again I'm not the big cheese around here, so you'll just have to wait and see what everyone else thinks.
But be happy! You passed the first trial: me! :D *dun-de-dun!* (I went easy on you ;))
Also, don't mind my random comments. I say (type?) weird things now and then.
Heh, thanks . .? And yay? x3
Oh, same here [: You aren't alone.
Well there certainly is room for improvement with the HTML.
I'm not so much on Poetry unless its a certain kind, but that is a personal preference, and I would not be a good critic of your poetry (to like them), but what i can see you write well, and a couple are ok, but like with my webcomic its not so much that others like it, but rather the creator likes it and sticks with what they want to do.
So those are my thoughts, Windy ;)
FYI, you don't have to "spam proof" your email if you don't want. I just let people know it's okay if they do. Capital letters in a user name... I'll usually just ignore that. It'll be all lowercase if/when it gets added though. Which doesn't really matter for a username like "sylph" but for people like "HammersForLife" (or something) it makes less sense if it's all lower case.
Anyway, on to the app... Sadly, I don't have time to review poetry right now, so just hang out for a while until I get to that. About websites... yes, as ticky pointed out, all your links are allpoetry.com, nothing showing a site you actually made. There are no templetes, generators, or page layout tools here. You have to put up something of your own. I'm not looking for web-design gurus, I just want to know that if I like your content, that you can come up with a presentation (web site) of equal quality. Thus, I would like to see an example of such.
Alright [: Right now, I'm attempting to make a small splash page with minimal design to place all my poetry and writing on. It'll be done mm, maybe give it about half an hour to an hour.
Thanks.
Oops, I lied. I had to get off the computer in the middle of making my layout due to severe thunderstorms in our area. I'm back on and finishing a drawing for the layout and then I have to scan it and then get all my poetry on it >> Yup .. might take awhile.
Oh, I guess noone got it, but When I made my post, I wasn;t being insulting by calling you "windy" I was just playing off of your name "Sylph".
Heh, I just assumed it was a reference to some obscure bit of media...silly me.
Sylph is the Goddess of Wind ;)
Yup [: or simply/generally a nymph that has air as its element.
Or, in the Final Fantasy series, Sylph are a group of three fairies, who, together, are the God of Wind.
Sorry, it just begged to be said.
Ohh, I didn't know that Sylphs were used in video games, especially one as popular as Final Fantasy.
Well, since I'm STILL working on my layout [ Was pissed at parents and, thus, was not allowed on computer ], maybe I should just tell you what MY sylph is .. Well, I should, but to tell you the truth, I don't have it thoroughly planned out yet x: But I can tell you that the sylph's build is based on the cheetah .. yup. [: Much more than that, but I've got to go to Shelter Island now.
Toodles [:
Sylph is used in a lot of video games/stories. Final Fantasy is just the best known.
Anyway, let us know if you ever get a (mostly) functional site. I'd like to see what "your" Sylph is.
Good Luck.
Yeah about that >> I finished the design on the computer and went to scan the picture I drew [happy at how it came out] only to find that my scanner is broken. So the layout is really plain, but if I make another layout, I'll try to get that picture in. I was away at Shelter Island all day yesterday so I just have to upload the layout and put all my work etc. on it.
NOTE : My 'layout' is not a PSP one; it's made on Paint. NET :/ Best I can do so far, we'll just have to see how it comes out ..
YES! http://freewebs.com/ilysfmx3
Done [: Well, I decided to use this crappily made PSP layout instead of the Paint. NET one. I know that it's really bad, but .. yeah, so far this is all I can do. If it's not good enough, I could always learn how to make tables from scratch?
There's nothing there... just a picture with an iframe. (that breaks your copyright notice, FYI)
What's that?? o.o You don't see any text?
the text is there for me, but the links are...how shall I put this? Nearly invisible and waaaaay too small. Those little yellow x's are just....too tiny. Couldn't you just make the entire title of the poem the link, and in a color that actually shows up?
Also, while this is just a minor pet peeve of mine, you may want to do some research on how to keep the background of an iframe from scrolling with the text. Again, minor peeve, not the end of the world.
I can see the text, but I can't see the links at all. I moused around until I found them. x.x There's also a yellow blob in the upper right corner that looks like it's supposed to be aligned to the upper right corner? Or there's a graphic missing?
Maybe some of you use a different browser than mine, but I on my computer I can read it just fine, but I'll change it. Yes, I believe you have to make the background fixed right? I'll do that too. And yeah, I'm not sure how to align that 'yellow blob' [ it's supposed to be the sun x: ]. Heh, anyone know how?
Oh, a question: how big does the text show up on the site?
There; how's the text now? Too big or still too small?
The text is a good size for me, although you might want to consider a san-serif font, like Verdana or Helvetica. You can align anything within a table cell by adding align=left|right|center (pick one) to your TD tag. If you want to use the sun as a background image and have it aligned up-right, fixed, and never repeating, check out CSS.
I can see the sun a little now...I'm using Firefox on a MacBook though, so that may have something to do with it. Are you using browser safe colors or is that just a color combo that kills my eyes?
Just right, but I suggest and urge you to learn how to properly code a website, there will be no flashy tools to use here... =/
Alright, I'll learn tables then [: .. and CSS. And idk, maybe the sun is a little too bright. If this application gets accepted, I'll be sure to use 'browser safe colors'.
I know it all seem's overwhelming at first, but I'll let you in on a little secret...
Back when I was learning, I had a little Neopet... and I learned HTML using their awsome guide. Other free ones are out there to teach you, and some almost teach you with hardly no effort; soon you'll be dreaming in HTML.
As for CSS, I still have trouble understanding that stuff; when I need to use it I tend to lookup guides from google to aid me.
Haha :D Thanks for the tip!
Personally, I use Frontpage on an MS O/S, I have no problems with using that, and personally don;t feel any need to do something overly fancy because that's not how I am. I don;t have time to learn anything but that, and I am a "Tables Whore" when it comes to HTML because its easier.... people used to tell me that it increases loading times or something, but that was back in the Dial-Up 14k days.
and Griver.. one thing I noticed on MS programs.... HELVETICA doesn't exist any more!!! It was my Favorite font and all school assignments were supposed to be 12pt Helvetica....
Unfortunately, all the sites I used are gone and all the freeware programs are now charging money, but one site that some of my friends have used is http://www.lissaexplains.com/. Personally, I would work on the tables and all the HTML basics and really put a whole site together before adding CSS to it. Once you the ins and outs of manipulating things through HTML, CSS is really just an extension of that.
Yeah, I always use Lissa Explains when I'm stuck.
Yes, but do you guys make your layouts from scratch like raw HTML or image slice on PSP?
Html using dreamweaver... with the newer versions I find myself overriding the DW html more and more... along with images made in Photoshop.
Alot of the time I love looking at websites, if I see something I love I'll try and re-create it myself or spend time just drawing things out I want on a piece of paper and then trying to piece it together on the computer.
Ohh ok.
Oh and for images I use MS Paint and Irfan Viewer.
Phew .. Sorry, I've been on vacation for this last week and didn't have time to post about it .. but I'm back.
I wish I could give you a long, in-depth critique on your poetry, but alas, I'm not a writer ^^;
As for the site design, I don't find the colors blinding and I can read the font just fine =3 The background of the iframe still scrolls, but I think that's because I'm using Mozilla. I tried having a fixed background too and that didn't work out. I used PSP's slicing tool and made the iframe's pic the background image for the table cell it was in and gave all the iframes transparent backgrounds... I hope that made sense ._.; Ooh! And www.tizag.com is pretty cool for learning HTML (=