Complete Nirvana
Robert Brooks
September 04, 1999

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Introduction

About four months ago I took my first glance at Complete Nirvana.  The conclusion of that review ended up stating: 

"[Complete Nirvana] has an extensive amount of information and multimedia related stuff.  The information sections was excellent.   Although not original 100%, it is more original than some other pages."

Will that statement change?  I hope so.

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Connectivity Test

• Modem:  US Robotics 56K Winmodem

• Connection speed : 38.6K

• "Welcome" pages are included in the test

Internet Explorer downloaded the page in about 25 seconds.  Netscape Navigator downloaded the page in about 31 seconds.  

The connection seemed to play fair this time, but honestly the browsers do not make much of a difference as far as the download time goes.

Once again the image download chart seems to show that my download time to be pretty accurate.  Let's keep in mind that these are just the images here, there are a lot of other things on the site that will contribute to the download time: frames, tables, text, color, codes, etc.  The download time for this site seems to be pretty average.

Page Interface

The page's interface looks very well done.  The site is made out of tables, the site's content being justified into the middle of your browser window.  The exterior background color is dark blue, sort of like Duke University's color. The main table has two main colors: black and purple.  The top of the table has some of the basic stuff: a chatroom, a message board, a link to the Top 25 Nirvana sites, a guestbook, and a link for contact information.  Below is the logo for the site, a bannered link, and a form for a mailing list.  Below that is the largest area for the main table, to the left in text are the links, to the right is the site's updates, and mostly links.  One suggestion is for the news, it would be much more interesting to have the news scroll or having a code that will allow it to look like it is being typed.  My last suggestion would be to give the main table some shape (such as having curves on the top and bottom corners of the site).  The navigation and links stay with the site as you are surfing through the different pages.

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Site Content

• Sounds - This site is keeping things legal by having Real Audio and MIDI files available.  The Real Audio files, of course, are clips and thus they are smaller. A total of 24 Real Audio files, and although they do not contain every song from all of the albums, it is a pretty large list for a MIDI collection.  All of the MIDI files are 221 kilobytes.
• Movies - From Geffen's and MTV's site, there are a total of 43 files, some clips, some longer.  Ranging from performances to interviews.
• Tabs - For the guitar, bass, and drums (courtesy of the Nirvana Drums Tab page).  The guitar has all of the songs and most of the rare songs except for Beeswax from Incesticide -- you can download all of the tabs and print them out if you wanted to, all for 72 kilobytes.  The bass section is similar to the guitar, except that it does not have as many rare songs, and the drums tabs page is an excellent source for drum tabs.
• FAQ - An interesting section with some original questions, I think you'll find this section a tad bit helpful.  Nothing too in depth, but enough for a quick read through.
• Pictures - There's either three ways to post pictures: thumbnails, links, or not at all.  The reviewed site chose to do the links, and I think that is the most effective way it can go for the number of pictures it has...147.  The sections for these pictures are: rare, group pictures, Kurt pictures, Others, Live pictures, Unplugged pictures.  There are quite a few that I haven't seen before -- like the band in robes. :)
• Lyrics - Pretty basic, nothing new or original.  The content is there, so I guess that is pretty important.  They are pretty accurate and readable.  
• Multimedia - Containing screensavers, a desktop theme, and some icons available for download, calculators, and the Nirvana font.  The screensavers provides the size of the file and a screenshot of each, which is pretty helpful.
• Other - These sections are pretty self-exclamatory and I think you should be able to make your own personal decision.  They are: interviews, news group, Nevermind, Incesticide, and Wishkah linear notes,  a poem about Kurt, the "Polly" story, Recording Sessions and Songs, list of bootlegs the webmaster owns, info on Kurt's guitars and his equipment.
• Suicide note (text and scan), death certificate.
• Information - This section seems to be original, it contains a chronology, discography, Fact Files about the band and its members, Quotes, and covers that the band has done.  
• Song Meanings - This section so be integrated with the lyrics section.  For right now, it's separated, and you can find the songs in the same fashion as you can for the lyrics/tabs.
• Latest News 
• Links/Buy stuff - Links to Nirvana sites and links to e-businesses where you can buy Nirvana [related] stuff.
• Fan Stuff - Things for the fan to do on the site.
• Webmaster Stuff - Things for the webmaster to do on the site.

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Conclusion

The site may not have improved in a manner that made it completely different.  From the first review I knew that this site would come this far and do this well.  The only thing has to do is to keep things fresh and keep adding the original content.  The site doesn't have loads of the same things you find everywhere else, although it has the necessary everywhere stuff.  This site earns one of my highest recommendations.  Keep up the great work.  This page will definitely make you complete.

Visit Complete Nirvana.
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