I was hoping that I could start this Pants Award with my very own review from Ticking Timebomb. It’s one of those tweeny review sites that pop-up from time to time, but ultimately disappear because the standard of reviewing is piss poor and nobody actually reads them [the reviews]. Unfortunately, she refused to review me so you’ll have to make do with my witty commentary on the state of the site alone :(
The site was brought to my attention by Vera, who has recently decided to take over the Jem fanlisting and is therefore automatically a superior human being to everybody. Except me.
I reckon that if you’re going to offer reviewing as a service you have to have some sort of talent or knowledge about the area in which you’re reviewing. While a person’s taste are subjective and everyone is entitled to an opinion, it takes a special something to be able to articulate that into an objective review that will benefit the recipient. Offering reviews about something which you lack any experience in is akin to driving a car without any lessons: a little bit dangerous.
Ashley, the owner of Timebomb reviews is a little bit dangerous. Not in a “I’m going to stab you to death” kind of way, but in a “little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing” kinda way. Oh, and she’s got a personal domain with “wind” in the URL (heartlesswind.com) which made the child in me giggle like an idiot.
Anyway, erm.. reviews. Yes. As I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now there’s a bit of an odd design thing going on with Ticking Timebomb. I am not entirely sure what the desired effect was with the layout but it’s kinda 1960s grandma wallpaper meets pixelfx. On a bad day. And, for some reason — quite likely because Ashley’s screen res is 1280 pixels wide — the whole thing sits to the right when I’ve got my browser width set to 1024. The centering cheat must have passed this one by…
The content is served through a nasty <iframe>, styled with a line-height equal to that of the text size which gives that illegible “smooshed” text look. I am not sure why that ever became trendy, you’d think even tweens would want other tweens to read their text?
In the latest update we’re held to ransom by a pity party, all because the site is not receiving any submissions. This is funny for two reasons: 1) in my reviewing hayday the only thing I could complain about was too many submissions; and 2) she rejected my submission! Apparently it’s all Vera’s fault, and because I criticised her submit form but we’ll get to that shortly.
Much like my my last Pants Award, I almost skipped right over the navigation — despite the fact that it’s about 4 inches high — because its not clearly distinguished from the layout. Either I need my eyes testing or this girl needs a lesson on usability. Maybe both?
The inner pages are styled identically to the front — I was hoping for some line-height here — and are littered with errors. Grammar, punctuation and spelling checks only happen to other people.
The Criteria page lists Enter Page as a rateable component of each review… and there was me thinking splash pages had finally gone out of fashion. Under First Impressions we’re rated for the first impression a reviewer has of the “enter page” which surely renders the first part redundant? Those “unlucky” enough to have no visitor content lose 15 points which is a tad selfish, but who am I to question the notions of our piczo expert Ashley? The idea of being rated for Spelling and Grammar had me doubled-up with laughter, but no more so than Website Name; I’d love to know how ‘jemjabella’ would score there! :lol:
The Submit Form (and this is where my dilemma began earlier) has had 4 fields: Name, E-mail Address, What is Your Site Name? and Anything Else? These fields are fair enough for me — I could put in my actual site name and you’d easily be able to find the URL — but if someone’s site is called “chocolate bananas” and their URL is “ilikefarting.com” there’s no obvious connection. Like the ever-helpful web ninja that I am, I suggested changing this (for the sake of usability if nothing else) when I posted my submission. However, apparently if I really wanted a review I wouldn’t have criticised the form:
I’m sorry I do not what to review your site. You are only signing up for a review because of Vera and I do not appreciate that.
Secondly, if you wanted a review you wouldn’t be critising the form and kept your mouth shut. So no. Go find someone else to start drama with.
…and thus why I got rejected. Not before the form was changed to “Site URL:”, mind.
Incidentally, the form is one of those freebie ones hosted externally, but it relies on some JavaScript. No note of this was made on the form page so NoScript worked its magic and I thought my original submission hadn’t gone through so I retried with JS turned on. Unfortunately, this considerate move wasn’t appreciated and I got told off :(
Secondly. Theres no need to send the form more than once.
Reading your mess twice, was twice as annoying.
(and reading her second e-mail was in no way annoying?)
The few reviews that are posted on the site by Ashley all have one thing in common: they’re all crap. I did like the invention of a new word here though: “so people know how often you are on the site approximently.”
(emphasis my own). Unfortunately, they’re not long enough to give a real critique but I have composed a handy-dandy list:
Why Ashley’s Reviews Are Crap
- She recommends coloured scrollbars for those still using IE.
Reason why this is bad: people shouldn’t still be using the devil browser. More realistically (because I can’t force everyone off IE) this is a no-no because web pages shouldn’t interfere with a person’s computer or browser. Oh, and they’re invalid, but that’s obviously something Ashley doesn’t concern herself with. - She recommends colouring italic, bold and underline tags differently.
Reason why this is bad: everyone should be avoiding <i>/<b>/<u> anyway. Use CSS for pretty effects and if you actually want to emphasise text, use <strong> or <em>. - She’s 19, and uses “could of”
Reason why this is bad: could’ve — the contraction that has led to a generation of muppets into thinking “could of” is OK — is actually short for could have. Ironically this mistake was found next to “A few grammar problems though.
“ - Inconsistent reviews
Reason why this is bad: telling one person that a page of links to other pages “needs more information”, and then telling someone else that they should split up their pages into lots linked from one page is giving mixed messages to readers. Decide on one approach and stick to it.
There doesn’t seem to be anything here to save the day for Ticking Timebomb. The layout is bland and the contrast shockingly bad on the eyes; the reviews are sub-standard, badly composed and lacking substance; the coding of the site — which I didn’t even touch upon in detail — demonstrates Ashley’s total lack of experience in web design/developing and I am confused as to why the stylesheet has a .html extension.
Ashley: for thinking you have the right to critique someone when your own websites are a state, I award you 0 points! Oh, and a Pants Award:
Feel free to direct link :)
11 Apr at 4:46 pm
What on earth is on those panties? They look like a load of bogies hehe
Glad to see your pants award is still alive and kicking Jem :)
11 Apr at 4:50 pm
Jem, you mix up its and it’s!
I just thought I’d bring that to your attention before someone else did and called you out on it. That person obviously…not being me? Bahaha?
:|
That green is actually rather cute, lulz :P
11 Apr at 4:52 pm
That’s because I don’t proof read, not because I’m ignorant to the difference :P
11 Apr at 5:00 pm
Hahaha, where do you get these pants graphics? I can imagine you going to the store, deliberately picking out the grossest panties available and taking them home to photograph. ;)
11 Apr at 5:02 pm
Ah, so my comment should read “mixed” instead. :P
Go proofreading, ‘foo. D:
11 Apr at 5:06 pm
YAY! PANTS!!
Well, firstly, good job picking a site that didn’t try to give me a Trojan this time!
Secondly, AHHHHHHHH REVIEWS!!! I don’t really *do* reviews anymore (as in, I’m never reviewed. I’ve *never* reviewed someone else, unless you count ys.nu, which I don’t.), because I can get far more information about how my layout sucks from my lovely visitors! They are so blunt! Really, it’s nice to get feedback, but I would rather get it from one of my peers, whom I respect, than some random teeny-bopper-type who thinks they are far superior to me, but certainly are not. (Not to say that I am superior to them in any way! I just opt for a more neutral position, and I hope most others will do the same.)
11 Apr at 5:31 pm
LOL when I told Ashley in an e-mail that the CSS for colored scrollbars is invalid, she said:
After which she went on and on trying to convince that my browser really wouldn’t break if I used colored scrollbars.
11 Apr at 6:01 pm
Deary me, even a suggestion can tick someone off.
As usual, good read :).
11 Apr at 6:23 pm
@Vera: You mean Firefox doesn’t go BOOM! if I use colored scrollbars? *is convinced to use them*
If you own a review site, you should be able to take criticism, “even if” it comes from people who submit a site. People who request reviews are not necessarily owners of a bad website, with no opinion worthy of being listened to.
11 Apr at 7:24 pm
You make me smirk at the computer while in public and people stare at me for it. Way to go.
Oh, the reviewing days. Too bad I could never get off my bottom and do them. LULZ.
11 Apr at 7:30 pm
I don’t think making a simple suggestion that would help a site look better should get someone angry enough to write (two!) e-mails about it. You would think that she’d be able to take a little criticism (more importantly, constructive criticism), considering the fact that she’s so willing to dish it.
11 Apr at 7:33 pm
Well deserved pants. I’m really bothered by people who review websites without knowing shit about it. Her website depresses me. I’ll go slit my wrists now :P
11 Apr at 7:48 pm
Aw, I think those pants are rather cute! Match her layout rather well, too :p (although that’s not cute… never mind)
11 Apr at 7:54 pm
Well, I suppose you could describe the navigation bar as being “creative”.
And what is “visitor content” anyway? Surely all content is for visitors.
11 Apr at 8:06 pm
Ha! Great (and well-deserved) pants award.
11 Apr at 8:30 pm
Yay, a Pants Award, I love these =D
I kinda have a problem with the ‘tween’ and ‘teenie’ Internet sterotypes, though…I’m 13, but I try my best to be valid (it isn’t, but it’s pretty close!) and I hate Internet Explorer, grew out of IFrames way early on, etcetera.
11 Apr at 8:37 pm
Oh, how I love the pants award.
Not to mention, the fact that her inability to even have her site name included in her layout is quite hilarious.
For a first time visitor to Timebomb (and last at that), when I read words, ‘about’, ‘criteria’, then finally, ‘SUBMIT’, I realized that was her navigation, not a slogan of any sort.
Congratulations on the pants, Ashley.
11 Apr at 9:38 pm
Pfft. I’m always criticising about mail forms when I use them. And lol 0/15 for Vera’s content. But a blog is fine with just having a blog…
11 Apr at 10:23 pm
PS. Where’s my pastel stylesheet?! I demand a pastel stylesheet!!!
11 Apr at 10:53 pm
It seriously took me two minutes to find the navigation. I’m glad to hear I wasn’t the only one having trouble finding it though, I was starting to feel really dumb.
11 Apr at 10:58 pm
10 points for the frickin’ website name? Lol. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone use ‘could of’ though; I thought most people over 10 were through making that mistake.
Yay for well-deserved Pants Awards! Those pants are snazzy.
12 Apr at 12:07 am
There are three types of review sites in this world wide web:
1. “Pants review sites” who review “Pants sites”.
2. Good, no-nonsense review sites who review with no-nonsense and a sense of professionalism.
3. Jemjabella.co.uk
:D
12 Apr at 12:17 am
Huzzah, Jem, now I have a mess of sardine-y white text in a tab, and it’s all thanks to you.
Kind and generous person that you are, you only told her off on one typo/grammar error, too. There was such a wide selection to pick and choose from!
12 Apr at 12:45 am
OMG THAT IS SO MEAM!!!!
YOUR SUCH A BITCH. NOBODY VISITS YOU’RE SITE.
12 Apr at 1:12 am
lmao @ Julie =D
12 Apr at 1:27 am
Awesome job, Jem. I was just waiting for you to Pants an awful review site like this. Of course, even Ticking Timebomb shines in comparison to my first review site. I had it on Freewebs pagebuilder (I was too lazy to use the crappy, invalid, i-framey HTML that I knew) and used a template full of sparkling bright purple circles. I graded on the “Personality of the owner” but never even put the stupid category to use because I was too afraid to say anything mean. Best of all, I gave out prizes depending on the score of the review. The prizes were celebrity buttons and banners that closely resembled vomit.
As for the stylesheet.html extension, I’ve seen that one a ton (and also stylesheet.php) from when I was immersed in the teenybopper fan site world. I remember that I worked for a free celebrity graphics site (no clue why they hired me, I sucked) and even I knew enough to spend about a million years trying to get the owner to change the stylesheet from stylesheet.php to stylesheet.css. She didn’t understand that my Firefox wouldn’t just show the stylesheet anyway like IE and that I had to look at the site every day and see almost no styling. She never changed it.
Ugh, I left a long rambling comment. Apologies. Anyway, I loved reading through this post. But why couldn’t those pants have been for ME? They’re so beautiful.
12 Apr at 1:51 am
Yes, I also wonder where you get these pants graphics. I imagine the same thing Cine does. xD
12 Apr at 4:21 am
A .html extension for a stylesheet? That’s a new one.
12 Apr at 4:56 am
Maybe I make some spelling and grammar mistakes, but at least I am mature enough NOT to write a huge nasty blog about someone. And for the record, I do not write all of the reviews, I have co-owners, so yeah >.>
12 Apr at 6:24 am
Site closed down.
What’s with all those people calling you Jemma?
12 Apr at 6:29 am
The site closed down with a link to your site. Why don’t people ever link me like that? Why?
12 Apr at 6:42 am
Firstly, since when did you switch to wordpress?
Secondly, woo! Pants awards.
I think you should start selling actual pants from this site, all with your slogan on!
12 Apr at 7:12 am
I second selling pants! You could trademark them. :)
12 Apr at 7:40 am
Oh, damn. The site closed down. However, I did see the thing earlier.
12 Apr at 8:38 am
Can’t see it. Poo. She closed her site. :P
I also second Carly’s suggestion of selling your own brand of underwear. It would be amusing.
12 Apr at 9:59 am
Shes 19 :O
I expected her to be like, 11 and that was her reason for having such pants coding and, well “1960s grandma wallpaper meets pixelfx” layout
Haha.
She obviously reviews sites to make herself and her site feel better. It’s not working honey!!
PS: Ashley, sure I’m no spelling genius but approximetley which I can’t spell either does NOT have an ‘N’ in it.
12 Apr at 10:00 am
*whinges* I want to see her crappy attempt at superiority! :( Boo.
On a happier note, congratulations on the pants, Ashley. Well-deserved right there.
Third on Carly’s suggestion. “Jemjabella briefs, complete with itching powder and ‘I R F00LZ’ printed on the ass.”
12 Apr at 10:18 am
I didn’t read their reviews – this Pants Award is just for you :)
12 Apr at 1:20 pm
She cancelled her site because she couldn’t handle it anymore…it’s just the internet… o.O
12 Apr at 3:19 pm
I love your pants awards, they are always fun to read. And this is yet another site worthy of it.
Nice knickers btw
12 Apr at 4:36 pm
I’ve had enough of these people who feel they are in a position to review people when they don’t know their mouth from their asshole. Design knowledge? Obviously not. Development knowledge? No sir! Usability? None here, kthnx!
Of course, I’m referring to this girl, not you Jem, as you obviously know what you’re doing (otherwise I’d be wondering how you’ve kept your job! lol).
Too bad I didn’t get to see the site in its full glory, but I do find it particularly hilarious that in her flounce, she bitches about people bashing her for reviews they didn’t like and then proceeds to bash you for your review, which SHE didn’t like. :) There are no limits to some people’s stupidity.
12 Apr at 4:38 pm
I like how she assumes all of her troubles come from people disagreeing with her reviews. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be anything else.
12 Apr at 4:48 pm
Oh dear, she wants a review from me, apparently. I wonder how she’ll handle the criticism… maybe I should reject her application and give her a taste of her own medicine? ;) Nah.
13 Apr at 1:00 am
Hi Jem! Long time no see/talk (from Iconbuffet). I’ve been on and off the net and reading a lot of your entries, particularly anything relating to web designing & development. I don’t know if it’s just me but I always find your Pants Reviews quite helpful for me (from a learner’s standpoint) as well as pure entertainment.
I was actually planning on opening a reviews site (I have (had?) a mini-slight grudge on a certain “reviewer” that I had at yoursite.nu regarding the new layout of my portfolio site but that’s aside the point) and I’ve been looking around for any “legit” review sites so I can get some inspiration. It’s too bad that I didn’t get to see this Time Bomb Reviews site (what the heck kind of a name is that for a review site…?) altogether, but after reading your review, I think I can get the picture of how it looked like before the owner closed her site. Shame.
As always, continue on with what you always do best and keep inspiring other web designers & developers around! :)
13 Apr at 2:43 am
Oh it makes me happyy that someone else has picked up on this rubbish.
I received a review from this place and got told my iframes were ugly… eh… I don’t use iframes (duh). Then when I told her this, I was sworn at, racially abused and attacked. She might claim to be ‘too mature to post rants about other people’ but I’ve had about 8 posts on her site about me so I guess she’s forgotten about that!
She’s one of those people who is automatically on the attack because the whole world is out to get her. It gets pretty darn boring pretty darn fast. I’m sure she’s not a happy girl about this, that’s for sure!
13 Apr at 4:14 am
No offence or anything but Ashley just writes her opinion. Also, She doesn’t have to write could’ve- then all that stuff. Just a few typos or something like that. And that’s what she writes so nothings wrong. She’s just giving her opinion and being nice trying to tell others how to improve their site. No offence, but that’s just plain mean writing that about her and Ashley, If you read this.. PLEASE open your site again.
13 Apr at 4:31 am
Trisha said: “She cancelled her site because she couldn’t handle it anymore…it’s just the internet… o.O”
I don’t quite agree with that because many people (myself included) take the internet seriously. I consider the friends made here real friends, I consider the work I do on my site here real, etc. And, I have also been the brunt of posts like this. The difference I notice, however, is that she deleted her site quickly after one post about her which shows she didn’t have much dedication/commitment/taking-it-serious. I had multiple posts aimed towards me and I never closed my site because it means a whole lot to me, internet or not. It’s not “just the internet.”
So, she might not be very good at handling criticism but she doesn’t take her site seriously.
13 Apr at 5:17 am
Skye: she doesn’t handle criticism at ALL.
According to her, I (as a reviewee) have of course the right to disagree with her, but I shouldn’t write about it. She seems to have some sort of idealized version of the reviewer: a superior internet presence or something.
As for closing down: LOL. She’s not the only one having had criticism aimed at her reviews. Oh please, in the 3 years I’ve been a reviewer I had countless such criticism aimed at me. I’m not saying I necessarily enjoyed all of them, but I was able to (eventually) see their point, and change things.
13 Apr at 4:42 pm
I love this on her personal site…
Need I say more?
13 Apr at 5:16 pm
^ But doesn’t she HAVE a domain?
13 Apr at 6:48 pm
And she has closed the site down now. Boy you all pissed her off. Hee, hee she needs to grow up and learn to take some criticism. Even I know how to take it even though I don’t like it.
14 Apr at 1:42 am
I’m not one of those people who think that I’m better than everyone else just cause I have my own domain. I realize I started somewhere as do most people who have domains now.
14 Apr at 3:19 am
[…] can’t help but watch the edrama between Jem and Ashley unfold and think “Are we bringing up a generation of young people who are going to […]
14 Apr at 3:28 am
I’m quite aware that I started on geocities and then moved on to freewebs. That, however, doesn’t up your reviews’ quality.
The point of Jem’s post is that you shouldn’t be reviewing unless you DO actually have a fair coding and design knowledge. You have neither.
14 Apr at 4:16 am
Lol @ what Cristina said. *rolls eyes*
Jem, those panties are way too cutsie. Can’t you find uglier ones?!
14 Apr at 6:26 am
Oh and Jem? This is why I always come back to your site. Whenever someone’s going around being silly and…well…wrong… you manage to pick up on it and make sure they are revealed for what they are. This girl has been harassing me for months because of my comments about a review of my site. Whilst my site has a long way to go, the iframe use (there is none) and absence of Ashley Tisdale blends (shudder) are not the downfalls of it!
Anyway, her review of my site is here: http://ohlovely.org/wp/?page_id=143 if you feel like you need a good laugh!!!
Oh and her drama ended up being on my site here: http://ohlovely.org/wp/?p=148 if you feel like you need to laugh some more!
14 Apr at 10:27 am
Aww, the Internet is full of meanies. How to cope?! There ought to be a book called “How to Cope and Deal with the Mean People on the Intrawebs for Dummies!!11”
14 Apr at 1:36 pm
Thanks for the heads up on those things Lisa! Very interesting…
14 Apr at 4:31 pm
Thanks Lisa: I rest my case. She is only able to review bad piczo sites, anything else is clearly above her level of competence.
Incidentally Jem: congrats on your success … of COURSE it’s not because of you. *rolls eyes*
15 Apr at 3:24 pm
She reviewed my website when I first opened.
I got told to add a scrollbar.
She’s reviewed me ALOT of times and said the same thing.
It’s quite boring actually -.-
xxx
15 Apr at 9:21 pm
[…] sent out an e-mail t’other morning to all of those who’d been waiting for a review at Timebomb Reviews announcing the re-opening of the site. (A counter-flounce?) I’m not sure what she set out to […]
17 Apr at 4:22 am
This may probably be pointless, but wow… she reopened her reviews site again. I don’t know how her past layout looked like but the new layout is… hm, I don’t know how to say this in a nicer way… =T
19 Apr at 6:45 am
My goodness. Grey…and more freaking grey (not yours, the review site).
I read her review for Lisa and she has this “I know all and don’t care what you think about it” attitude. As for her saying those who are on freewebs and pizco are nicer is because the fact that MOST of them don’t know crap about coding.
What really tickles me is that she says “If you can’t handle critisicism then don’t bother submitting” or something close to that. Haha, people are funny.
19 Apr at 6:03 pm
That website disgusts me. *gags uncontrollably*.
I’ve sent them comments before, which were promptly deleted.
I see they’re not even civil to people who email them (as they beg me to do).
I can forgive stupidity.
But, the owners are hypocrites. Among other things… They give people poor reviews for having what they believe to be iframes (they’ve obviously never heard of PHP include). Yet use iframes themselves. Annoying bits of trash, they are :).
20 Apr at 10:21 am
Your so stupid. Who actually cares whether it’s “could’ve” or “could of”? Psh.
21 Apr at 5:45 pm
Wow. *gags*
Who in hell uses s anymore? Or frames for that matter?! *gags some more*
30 Apr at 12:35 am
How can a style sheet have .html? Is that how IE recognizes CSS files? IE can only be the product of greedy devils.
I can’t help but smile at the few negative comments about your review…especially when they refuse to understand that your and you’re are two different words.
01 Jun at 1:48 pm
hey thats all so “nice” that you shit on everyone,but you forgot to mention, which pants are yours?probably the smelly brown ones.
=D
13 Jun at 6:08 pm
I just saw this questionable advice:
“One thing I will suggest is a plot line. If you do not want to write it yourself, go to Wikipedia and get one from there. ”
http://timebombreviews.piczo.com/?g=27205102&cr=3