Sorry for the absence . . . .
Life has gotten pretty weird over here. Basically my 2 year old, who used to sleep until 10 or so in the morning, has decided to start waking up at the crack of dawn (7 or 8 am for our house). Which means that I don't get as much time on the computer as usual. Which means that I can't do as much updating as possible, and why you haven't seen me around online a whole lot. I am sorry about this (especially as it had to happen right when mosey went out of town!) but I am still managing to get online long enough to check all the forums, and my messages. So if you need to get in touch with me for whatever reason, send me a message. It will be answered within 24 hrs. :) Hopefully she'll go back to her normal schedule, or I'll get used to her new one . . . .somehow.

Scout 8:49 AM 0 comments

Zeta Guide (review)

The Zeta Guide, a fansite by wheeler13
I was supposed to review this site last week or earlier, but Real Life has caught up with all of us here at scout's house, so here it is!
Zeta Guide is a fansite created by wheeler13, the owner of the Treasure Hunterz club. She has been working pretty hard, putting up new graphics and making sure everything is according to the rules, but all the effort has really been worth it. :) She has put up a lot of great information, and a really nice tutorial started.
I have to say that I love the Back to School banner across the top! Tiggles looks so cute, and the graphics work is really well done.
She has put some cute little adoptables up (see the disco dancer??), and a couple of games to play when (horrors!) zetapets is down, and some neat looking desktop backgrounds.
So overall, I give this site two paws up. It has everything it needs to be legal, some nice graphics, and nothing seriously wrong that I can see. I would like to see more content, but it has enough to make me satisfied. Good job, wheeler!
Kitaro 8:19 AM 0 comments

Logo Contest Winners!
So the logo contest is over and Amanda picked some goodies. She said that there were so many good entries that she had to give some of them honorable mentions (and ZP prizes) even though they weren't put on merchandise. And I would like to congratulate MewKitty (winner!), AnimalGal19, and Clearkid (HMs), all member of Zetahelp!! And I also want to congratulate Dragonpaw, though she's not a member, cuz Pawy is cool and now she doesn't have to keep dying from all the waiting to find out if she won (and she won HM!).

And there is now a Cafe Press Shop opened with Zetapets stuff, including t-shirts, mousepads, lunchboxes and other cool stuff!

Scout 2:36 PM 0 comments

Zeta Online (review)

Zeta Online, a fansite by Chyla, Tumbleweed Queen!

Wow. Yeah, that's really all I can say. Wow. Have you noticed, in your zeta surfing, that there are a lot of really bad sites and a few medium sites, and then there's - well - the best. Amanda definitely didn't choose wrong when she gave out the top three spots. I'm going to be focusing on -Wow- Zeta Online today, and revisit ZetaHelp and Zetaholic later this week.

Wow. All images hosted on her own site. Copyright notice on left frame, where it stays during your entire visit to the site. Blue. Wow.

Wow. Fantastic help guides. Tips and tricks. Html help. Wow.

Wow. GRAPHICS! - blogs, websites, lookups, club layouts, avatars, forum fonts. Wow.

Wow. GAMES! - zeta games!

Wow. Two paws up. Go there. Bookmark it. Be wowwed.

Kitaro 2:26 PM 0 comments

The Fansite Contest is Over!
And I've just got to jump up and down and yell - WE WON! Third Place, but WOOHOO! I also want to congratulate Zeta Help (our club website) and Zetaholic (Pinnapple36's site) as two of the First Place winners, and Paw Print (Clearkid's site) as one of the second place winners. Congrats to all the Club Zetahelp Winners, way to go!

Scout 11:20 AM 0 comments

Krystal Light (review)

Krystal Light, a fansite by the Fontmaster, Dragonpaw!!
So with the contest over, I finally have a little time to catch up on reviewing all the sites that popped up because of it. :) First on my list is going to be Krystal Light. The first thing I have to say is that it is so BRIGHT and TWINKLY! :) Not to my personal taste (I like subdued neutrals, can you tell?), but it is very well done. The first thing I thought when I looked at the site was "Oh, great . . .can't see the navigation on such a dark twinkly background." But in true Pawy style, the links become highlighted in, what else?, rainbow as you hover over them - making them very easy to read. And, as the self-proclaimed Font Master on Zetapets, she has excellent font making tutorials on her page as well as a very elaborate general forum tutorial. I would have liked to see some images of what the various font codes do (especially since I can't actually see them on the forums because of my borwser *grins*). I also love Pawy's avatars that she created. And I love seeing all those images hosted on tinypics and other image servers! :)

The forums are as bright and cheery and rainbowy as the rest of the site, and I like the continuity of that. They also seem to be a nice place to hang out with various boards for RP, showing off artwork, and general chatting.

So the bad points? One big one, you need to place the copyright notice on every page you have anything zetapets-related on, not just the first one. :) Other than that, there are not too many bad points for this site: some spelling errors that could be fixed, some excess space that could be removed, and I think the linkback button coding is buggy (I had to grab it by looking at the page source). Oh, and UPDATE your NEWS! :) You've done so much work on the site, you need to mark it down.

One paw up for now, to be two once the copyright notice is placed everywhere. Great job Pawy!

Kitaro 10:43 AM 0 comments

So THAT'S what Cherry Sugar Syrup is for . . .
For signing up with a sponsor, that is. All of the items posted last week are only available by signing up with a sponsor worth 3000 or more (which does include the new sponsor listed, RealArcade, it's only worth 550).
The breakdown, with a sample sponsor:
3000-4999 Cherry Sugar Syrup (NFO is the only one)
5000-5999 Rah Icecream (United Miles is the only one)
6000-14,000 TWO of the four music boxes (BMG)
over 14,000 Winged Collar (Netflix)

So other newsiness: the Plato Soul Sphere is new, and there should be soul spheres for the rest of the new pets soon (but I'm sure most of you out there would prefer them to be working on Battle Square stuff, right?) And speaking of Battle Square stuff, the pets with complete sets of battle poses up (as far as I can tell) are Fenrir, Feorag, Illuminaire, Kitsu, Mystoc, Stryker, Swifte, Theron, Treicho, and Trixy. It' kind of interesting that the first images they put up on the server are the ones that I would consider . . . .well, not the best Battle Square materials, sheerly from the looks of the species. Yes, it may be that the ultimate Battle Square champ at some point in the future may be a cute tiny little chipmunk looking thing that has more magic and weapons than it has hairs on it's bushy wushy tail . . . . .but I doubt it. And I'm sure that all the Rypher and Omnis owners out there are dying to know what their pets will look like when they bring it on (I mean if they can make a Treicho look cool and powerful, imagine what they can do with a Rypher!). But it seems that the next pet up for the battle makeover is the . . . .RAH, to continue the cuteness, unless of course, the Zeta team goes the Monty Python route, and gives them . . . GIANT teeth . . . can't you see the BONES, man?!?!? Sorry, but it's early, and I haven't had my coffee sludge yet . . .

So for those of you out there with REAL MONEY and who really love your zetapet, Tunafish is selling handscuplted, custom colored figurines for $25. After she backs out the shipping and cost of materials, the rest goes to zetapets . . . .way to go, Tuna! :) Oh, and way to go Halcyon for buying the first one Tuna advertised, a Dejaroo. I think it's going to be arctic . . .

Scout 8:54 AM 2 comments

Chaos Shadows (review)

Chaos Shadows, a club site by infernallord
Okay, I guess the first thing you're going to notice about this review that's different from the usual is that I have NOT posted a link to the site I am reviewing. There's a very simple reason for this. I do not reccommend anyone going to this site, for numerous reasons. I haven't wanted to write this review, because I don't like telling someone their site is "rubbish" (his own words), but infernallord has constantly requested that people come visit his site on the ad boards, so I am going to tell people what they are going to see.

First and worst, even though infernallord has been told for a month and a half what bandwidth theft is and that it is illegal, I could only find two images hosted on his own server, his linkback buttons. The rest of the images are directly linked off the Zetapets image servers or the Zetahelp server.

And on that note, you might notice that the image above is a gif file. The original is a bmp. There is no reason for having a linkback be a bmp image. It more than quadruples the file size (22K vs. 4K as a .gif).

Also, as you may know I am very adamant about the zetapets copyright notice. If you do not have it, you are plagiarizing, claiming that the images and pet names and other zetapets related media is yours when it is not. Again, highly illegal, and against the rules and can get your zetapets account iced. Notice the Chaos Shadows copyright notice:

All codes, images, content, chaos demons and other related things are © of chaos shadows - 2004. All rights reserved zetapets media copyright © 2004 zetapets.com Used with permission.

Because of the wording, Infernallord is now claiming that he created all the images, you know - the ones he's stealing bandwidth usage for.

Fourth, there are very few pages actually finished. Normally not a big deal, but when you're advertising what a great site it is, it should have more than news, faq, polls, and links. Where the's beef?? (am I showing scout's age again? *grins*) The Help section is coming soon, the FAQ has one question in it, and the News is so grammatically garbled that it is hard to understand what they are announcing. The e-cards are an interesting idea, but again, they are .bmp files (maybe the reason infernallord has to steal bandwidth?), and not the best images I have seen with transparencies that aren't really.

So, is there anything good about the site? Like I said, the e-cards are an interesting idea. The games might be cool once infernallord has them working, but I'm sure you can find them on another site. The only thing unique that is good is really the e-cards. Oh, and it is an excellent example of what NOT to do on a Zetafansite.
Two paws down. Makes me want to roll over and die. Don't bother visiting this site. It will probably be yanked soon anyway for all the rule violations anyways.
Kitaro 9:50 AM 0 comments

Welcome to the Zeta Review!
Well, I would like to welcome everyone to the offical launch of the Zeta Review, where you will find Zeta fansite reviews by the indomitable Kitaro, advice from Ms. Know-It-All Loki, and news blurbs and commentary from me. We will also have a featured site, which is a site Kitaro gave two paws up recently. You can also find a quick bit of advice from Loki, and Kitaro's Top Sites List, all of which received at least one paw up, as well as some graphics that I have made in my *cough* copious free time. Please, as always, feel free to zmail me with any sites you'd like Kitaro to review, questions to ask Loki, or anything else you think I should blab about here. :)

So what's in the news for today? Holy Cow! MORE NEW PETS!! We have a vicious looking little monster called the Deatile (shown in both Baby Boy -ewwwwwww!- and Shadow), an adorable little foxlike creature called the Trixy (Trixy?? Sheesh, but I gotta have one!!!), and the Baby Plato's have been redrawn to match the new adults.


And we also have some new pets shown in battle poses, for those of you waiting eagerly. Here we have what Loki would look like attacking you with dynamite, what Mosey would look like jumping at you, an adorable little Feorag in crane pose (does anyone remember "Karate Kid", or am I just too old for a pet site?), and a Stryker looking pretty darn awesome casting a spell:


The Trixy already has battle poses, the first of the new pets, but they look a little different in style from the other pets. They're a little too cutesy compared to the rest of the pets for me:



And there have been some new items added to the image servers in the last couple of days (woohoo!). A new weapon of some kind, some Cherry Sugar Syrup, and a plethora of music boxes (okay, four) are first up on the list of new items. The Plato Soul Sphere may be new or it may simply be a redraw to match the new Plato. And as for the Rah Ice Cream . . .do we have a Rah Rah Celebration coming soon?


Okay, well. That's what's new on Zeta today. Check out Kitaro's review of a couple of great fan art sites below. Loki will be checking in sometime later this week. :)

Scout 4:27 PM 0 comments

Paw Print

Paw Print, Clearkid's adorable adoptables site!
So, yes. . . I think Clearkid's pixel art is amazing. Yes, she created the fantastic leo review icons I use on this page. Yes, she created the Loki adoptable in the "Reporters" box. But these are not the reasons I think her site is fantastic. She has a very clear nav structure, clean layout, easily read pages, fast loading, all her images are self-hosted (of course, they're all created by her), and she has the copyright notice on each of her art pages. I really don't see anything that I would change about her site, since she has done a revamp and separated it out onto different pages (her original site was one loooooong page). And her feorag adoptable almost makes me want one for a brother or sister.
Two Paws UP! Go check out her site and grab an adoptable for yourself. :)

Kitaro 4:09 PM 0 comments

Gamer Graphix

Gamer Graphix, an art site by keasly2020
So here we have a great art site, with lots of goodies for art-impaired Zetas to grab. :) If you are also an anime fan, make sure you check this site out. There are lots of backgrounds available, none specifically Zeta, but all would look good on a fansite, lookup, or club layout. Speaking of club layouts, keasly has concocted a bunch of precoded layouts to make sure every club layout looks great, even if the owner is not a web guru. I think this is not only a unique idea (keasly was the first I saw handing these out) but also a great idea which helps the Zetapets clubs ALL look good. :) And if you are one of those people who like having music on your site/lookup, there's loads for you to grab.

Other good points: Keasly has the requisite copyright notice, and is hosting all the images. She also has a great statement on the bottom of her page stating that if she has inadvertantly used a copyright image, that the owner should email her and Keasly will link to the owner or remove the graphic. That's good, although it would be nice if she knew where the images were coming from (but I know that in the virtual world, that's not always possible). And incredibly, she has all the images coded, meaning that she wants people directly linking the images to her server instead of saving them to her own.

Bad points: I had to modify the code for the two different linkback buttons I have used for this site. Nothing big, but there is an extra "s" in the URL, which means that if I was a total noob, the image wouldn't show and I would have no idea why. Other than that? Nothing really glaring. The layout is a little confused for me, but keasly even has mentioned that Gamer Graphix is more about getting the graphics out there, not creating a website. I don't like that every link pops up a new browser window (I like working in tabs . . .Mozilla is cool like that, not like much else, but definitely like that), but the navigation menu is at least very straight forward.

This site gets a good solid one paw up, due to the linkback button problems. If you are going to provide code, make sure that it is accurate for the sake of newbie webbies. :)

Kitaro 3:45 PM 0 comments

Whew! Whole Lotta Reviews!
Well, Kitaro is going to be working his poor paws to the bone reviewing all the new sites that are cropping up thank the new fansite competition announced by Amanda. So today we are bringing you three: Crazy Zeta, a return to Zetaholic, and All Zeta. Tomorrow there should be more . . . or later today, if we have time. *grins*

Oh, and have you noticed the loverly new pets that are out??? and the redraw of the Plato?


Scout 1:10 PM 0 comments

All Zeta . . .All the Time (review)

All Zeta, a new website by wicked_wicked186

Alrighty, so we have another new webbie to review (man they are popping up quickly with the contest going on *grins*). All Zeta is a lovely site, with a layout modified from one by FFWarpzone. I like the way she has the links that are pending crossed out on the main navigation bars, but the way the nav bar moves down as the images load kinda bothers me, but that may be just because she has posted all the avatar images on her front page, and I had to keep scrolling down, chasing the nav bar *grins* More good points: she has the images hosted on PhotoBucket, and the appropriate copyright notice (including one for her layout desginer, good job!) One thing I kinda like that is unique on this site is her item list. Yeah, I know ZetaPets Help has one too, and is much more complete, but ZPH seems to have been abandoned (no news since January, and no forum activity since the beginning of July) whereas All Zeta has at least been updated since Monday (August 9, the day all the avatar winners were released). I also really like the way she made sure it was obvious that she is hosting the images offsite by modifying of them with their names.

Well, as pretty as it is, I would like to see a homemade layout for a perfect review. And, of course, I am eager to see the promised graphics. *grins* Other than those points, nicely done.
Kitaro 1:00 PM 0 comments

A Return to Zetaholic (review)

Zetaholic, a website by pinnapple36 (recently revamped!)
Well, after some trials and tribulations with his host, pinnapple has finally got Zetaholic up, running and looking prettier than ever! I told you I would get back to this site, and now the navigation is such that Mozilla sees it just fine! :)

So the good points: A huge amount of information, great guides, downloadable graphics coming soon, nice clean layout, good navigation. I really like the blue scheme. Images are hosted by Photo Bucket, and there's the required copyright notice. In fact, pinnapple is so fanatical about the copyright notice, he even placed one in the code for his linkback button. :) And yes, that gives him extra credit.

Bad points: The header image needs a little tweaking (there's some pixelation around the edges of the individual images where the transparency isn't quite transparent). I hate waiting for graphics, so I hope he's working hard on them - I WANNA SEE EM! *grins*

Okay, so even though I would usually give one paw up for all the graphics that are promised but not delivered, I'm giving pinnapple extra credit like I said for his zealousness with the copyright notice. But I still wanna see those graphics, pinnapple! :) And yeah, I'm gonna be rethinking whether I should be not giving a perfect review when the main problem is that the creator made a place holder page for something that is in the works. I maybe changing some review scores tomorrow.

Kitaro 11:04 AM 0 comments

Crazy Zeta (review)

Crazy Zeta, a new website by white_raven
Well, this is a nice site. It looks like Raven is going to be working hard on making some graphics for others to use on their various lookups, as well as club layouts, backgrounds, and adoptables. I can't wait to see them! So far she has only gotten up some user lookups, but (while they are not my style) from what I see, her lookups will be very popular.

Other good points to the site, of course, lots of great help articles, including gaming guides; copyright notice and images hosted on her own site; clean layout; and something I really like: on her "hidden areas" pages, she states that the various images are hidden or old and may be getting a makeover for future use. I have seen a lot of sites which show the older world maps and claiming that they are "new" and will be going up on the site in the future, but this is simply not supported by the facts. All of these images were on the servers before the downtime, and the staff don't tend to put images on the servers until just before they announce it.

Okay, so the bad points: Part of this is beyond her control. Apparently Tripod does some weird stuff with their hosted sites and the page reloads several times while you're looking at it, which means that if you want to use your browser's Back and Forward button to navigate (as I like to do), you end up getting annoyed by having to click back through three versions (or more) or every page. Raven has tried to alleviate this by having very comprehensive navigation, including Back links. I also wish the page layout was a little more original. I know that it's hard to come out with a layout that doesn't look like a half a dozen other websites on the web, but this particular layout reminds me of hundreds of other petsite fansites I have seen. Nothing really bad, it just irks me a little. And lastly, there's a lot of things still left in the under construction phase, which is a problem that will of course be cured by time, but it would be nice if these linked to an "Under Construction" page, instead of back to the same page or a blank page.

Overall, great page. I would heartily recommend it. One paw up, prolly two once the rest of the downloadables get up.

Kitaro 10:00 AM 0 comments

Dear Loki, How do I make zetapoints on this site????
Well, I am so glad you asked! Not only are there the usual games (Random ZP, Keno, and Sealed!), voting (Top RP, Top Web Games), and referrals, but now with a little real life skills you can earn some cash entering in some great contests! Amanda just closed the Avatar Contest, where users were able to submit avatars to become actual avatars on the site (as well as winning 20,000zp or 10,000zp), and has announced that the next contest will be for fansites! Oh, do I think my brother is going to have a busy time reviewing all the new fanistes that are going to be popping up. So how does one go about making a great fansite? Well here are some things to get you started:

First of all, find a host: Free ProHosting, 50Megs, FortuneCity, Bravenet.com, Freewebs, Doteasy, and those are just the ones that come up on the first page of a google search for "free web hosting". There are literally THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS more. I highly reccomend checking out FreeWebSpace for reviews on tons of free web hosting sites, telling you which ones are ad-free, 100GB, whatever you need to know. :)

Second, find an image host: PhotoBucket, ImageShack, Village Photos, and tons more. This is a very important step, so NOT skip it. Chances are, if you are making a fansite, you would like to put up some Zeta images. If you simply link to the zetapets image server YOU ARE STEALING. You have permission to use all images on the servers, but you must upload them to your own server (and post a copyright notice saying that they belong to zetapets and not you, but you knew that, right?).

Third, if you are new to html, find a help site: HTMlite, Lissa Explains it All, or one of the hundreds of other great sites out there.

Fourth, GO WILD! Have fun, this is your chance to tell how great your pet is, how amazing your club is, or how fantastic you think zetapets is! Do something different, something that's just you. :)

Just follow these four easy (and not so easy) steps and you are well on your way to a great fansite, and possibly an award of zetapoints!!

Loki 6:43 PM 0 comments

Cool Newsiness!
So if you haven't check out the news on Zetapets yet, you should go look! There are a bunch of fan sites listed, including Zetahelp.net! And members of the club have their sites posted as noteworthy as well: pinnapple36's Zetaholic and clearkid's Homepage with her adorable adoptables! *sniffle* Why wasn't this site noted?? *grin* Also newsworthy, two sites Kitaro reviewed previously and gave two paws up: MewsHangout and Alpha to Zeta.

And it's Avatar Madness Time! There are 11 new avatars since I last posted, and Amanda has announced a great new contest for all you artists out there. Make an avatar, have it win, earn big bucks! Avatars must be 64x64 pixels or 65x65, enter by mailing it to amanda@zetapets.com by August 11, 2004. The best avatar will be awarded 20,000ZP and a rare item, and ALL GOOD AVATARS WILL BE MADE OFFICIAL AVATARS and be awarded a small prize! :) Hrmmm . . .*goes to beat her graphics program into submission and try to make some avvies* :)

Also, all you artists out there: Zetapets is hiring! Read the news for full information about what type of artists is needed and what the requirements for application are. :)
Scout 12:00 PM 0 comments