Archive for December, 2006
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Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews
Ok, I am feeling slightly down after the last review I did, which only got a 1/5, so I was excited to review a blog that I loved, and feel has only a few downsides. Secret Squirrels In The House is a small little secret diary about a mother of 3 children. Two of them are grown up and one teenager is still at home. She also has just started a new marriage and has plenty to blog about, and while she may be going slightly crazy it is still something very interesting for people who know her, and more importantly people who don’t!
The design, while slightly basic, is very nice and easy on the eyes. I do not know if the design is unique to this blog, however; I feel it is most likely not. If indeed it is not unique then it has been edited well and not over-used by other blogs. There is a very large header image which could do with a bit of scaling down due to it taking up nearly half the page before the fold on a 1024 resolution. The font of the header image could do with being changed slightly due to it being hard to read, however; it adds a classic feel to the whole blog, which (without sounding too evil) goes well for a blog about a 40 year old mother. The colors used on the blog are great on the eyes and while testing I found that none of the colors cause any problem for my color-blindness, which is great. The design, as I said before, is classic and reminds me of the 20’s and 30’s with the use of patterns from that era, it is not overpowering in any way. The menu is pretty much a basic menu, with a small bit of information telling you what the blog is about, and then a link to a more advanced about page. The blogger has a shoutbox on the website which allows for visitors to leave general words of wisdom and comments about the blog, and so far that seems to have been used mainly by people who read the blog with every update. It also provides a small bit of information explaining who each person that she talks about is. Within the blog she uses code names so that no one finds out who she is and who the other people she talks about on the blog are. Then there are the general things, such as, the archive and blog roll. The blog roll {links} are not too large and keep the page nice and tidy. It then has some rather random links and images related to certain aspects such as Fighting cancer, which is nice to see.
The Content is well written and is done in a format which you would expect for such a personal blog. While it goes into detail about each thing, it would be nice to see more of her thoughts and feelings and not so much about her children. It is great to see the blogger use blogs as a way to let the world know that not everyone is as normal as you would think, and in the bloggers own words she is slightly crazy, which gives the posts, as serious as they are, a bit more depth and humor. There are a large amount of pictures used in the blog posts, however; they are not too large and don’t have too large of a file size. It is a shame to see that this blog is using typeblog for a number of reasons that will remain unsaid, and it would also be nice to see this blog with a domain name.
Apart from the few things I have said, I feel this blog has done well in providing an insight into the life of the blogger and a somewhat crazy lifestyle. The design is nice and while it is not perfect the content has been written well. I would love to give this blog 4/5, and as such I will!
Posted by Bloggeries in Recycling Bin
You sometimes get one of them blogs and wonder why the author is even bothering. And as harsh as it sounds I feel I may of found one of them. Let me introduce you to The Wedding Party First let me start by saying that this is my personal view and others more connected to the blog poster may be more interested and have the blog as something they will read more, however I am reviewing this blog as if I was just some random searcher on Google!
The design is basic and very hard on the eyes. There is a header image which in some sense is nice to see something slightly unique about the blog, however I am sorry to say this is where the good points about the design end. The banner image has rather clearly been done by someone with no photoshop skills, it looks like it could of been cool about 5 years ago, however as the internet changes the style used is clearly not working on this blog. The next major issue for me is the font color, using dark purple on a black background not only looks bad it makes it hard to see for both normal vision people and even harder for people such as me with color blindness. I am not going to preach and suggest that everyone should put tons of effort into making there blog easier to read for those with bad vision, however it helps both them in the sense of visitors and everyone else. The menu is bland and as normal with most blogs is on the right, the first content on the right menu is the Contributors, I do see how people like to get there name out, but I feel it is more important to introduce the visitors to the content before introducing them to you. Next is some rather pointless, badly uncompressed images with silly quotes from the author. This could of worked if the photos did not look like they were just found on the authors computer and stuck there as a filler. Also on the menu we have other pointless things such as “Cool Sh*t” and recent mayhem. The archive list being at the very bottom of the menu and below the fold of the page on a 1024 resolution.
The content writers seem to have a need to use swear words in every sentence, now in some ways this could work, however mixed with the design it feels more like a 13 year old teenager wrote it rather than someone wanting to share information. What is more is that the content seems to have no direction and is more of just chucking what ever they can think of onto the blog, this certainly does not work due the lack of category’s. What content is does have however is written well, minus the over-use of swearing.
Overall this blog could do with alot of work both on the content and design, and I am sorry to say this is the first blog I have reviewed that is going to go into the trash and only gets a dismal 1 rating from me, please however comment if you feel it deserves more!
Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews
Adventures Of Linx, not to be mis-read as Adventures of Linix. If you are looking for a blog that looks at the upside of everything then this will not be the blog for you. The blog posts some of the things that are happening in the world on the bloggers take on them, as well as some posts related to his personal life.
The design is very basic and uses only 5 colors and no images, this is great for both loading time and the validation, it is also very nice for those who have been up for hours and are reading the blog, I always feel that it really matters how easy the blog and colors are on the eyes, and I tend do these reviews at 3AM and as such, I can comment on this area. The blog design is uncluttered and the lack of images gives the feel that this blog. The text and general style of the blog is professional. The menu is basic and contains only a small amount of information, it would be nice to see just a little bit more, the menu at current contains Archives, Categories and Links. It would be nice to see some more information such as how to contact the blogger and recent comments, however this is not to important. The menu is contains a very small search box, I found it hard to quickly go down to it without trying to aim my mouse cursor with skill, I feel like the search box could do with being slightly larger. The amount of posts per a page is.. 1. This really needs to be at least 3 as it is a waste of time for me to keep clicking next page, for example a interesting blog post on “Linx Makes A Mockery Of An Evangelist, Waits For Lightening To Strike” was hard to navigate to. This is something that the blog owner will have to address.
The content is very negative about every subject, however this is the aim of the blog poster and it works well by keeping the posts within the same post style, it also means the blog feels very unique and while being negative the posts always have a funny point to them, be it a image or just a general comment the poster looks at life and events around the world in a very unique way.
All together I rate this blog high, however due to the few issues which I stated above I shall only being give it a 4, which is still very high compared to some of the blogs. I wish the blog creator tons of luck, and to start cheering up! I must state I really do enjoy blogs which have been create just for the fun and general want to to please others, and this like lots of other blogs I reviewed is not commercial. So great job!
Posted by Bloggeries in Spotlight
Crypthunter.com is one of the most interesting and well designed blogs I have visited in a very long time. Adventuring, archaeology and general tomb/relic/cript hunting is all covered in this interesting blog, which is written well and the general feel of the blog is amazing.
The design is unique and unlike most other blogs you really feel like you have visited one of them small gems you find ever so often. The design is in essence the same format as most blogs, content on the left and menu on the right, however it is done to a style which is perfect for the topic the blog talks about, There is just enough posts on each page to avoid it looking to cluttered, and the menu contains everything you would want and nothing else. First the menu contains a very small About box, which introduces you to what is going on around the blog, it also intises you to sign up to a mailing list, which is great if you want to keep up with the blog posts and don’t want to use RSS. Next on the menu is Recent Comments, now this would be intrusting to people who visit the blog a lot and like to feel in a community, with the subject of the blog being so focused you can really feel the blog having a community sense. The search box is basic, however as I always say, search is very important and it is placed in just the right place, and provides users a easy way to find the content that they want. You also have the general wordpress things such as Archives, Pages and links. The number of links is fine for the style of site, however I would advise from adding to many more. The menu also contains some rather random set of images for related sites, these images do nothing to help the design due to the changing of the sizes. The color of the design is great and really reflects what you would expect from a blog about adventuring. Black on white text is easy to read and does not hurt the eyes. Images on the posts are well scaled, for example on Things to get your Crypt Hunter for Xmas
The content is long and informative. It has a little touch of humor within each one witch means even if you are not really 100% interested in the subject you can still find the posts interesting. Each post uses a google amount of images without looking like that the images are trying to make it look like there is more content. For example on the post Training - Escape from Quicksand! it provides something that serious people would be interested in while also brining up the subject of evil monkeys
Overall this is a well designed site with well created content. I am proud to say this will be my first ever Spotlight on Bloggeries and I am going to give it a 5. Don’t expect me to give out many fives, so I hope that shows how impressed I am with this blog.
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