If you are looking for yet another source on blogging, or more particularly, Word Press, you may want to check out Han’s Blog eruANNA.net. To get full advantage of this site, you definitely want to view it in Mozilla Firefox, as with IE I did find some formatting issues. However, with Firefox, you don’t even notice them. On the blog you will get a chance to meet Han, the owner and author of this blog. The blog itself is powered by Word Press, and Han has a passion for this. She uses the blog to post about her life and also to provide tutorials and resources on Word Press and other things for her readers – because she’s nice like that. I find it interesting how she describes the meaning of her domain – eruanna. The name means “grace†in Quenya, and her name Han, also means grace. And if you spend a few minutes on her blog, then you will see she is holding well to her namesake. Her most recent bloggeries include Dodgy Cupcake Things, Wow – Stumbled!, From a Dream, One of Those Posts – 17 WordPress Plugins, Who’s a Blogger, How to Write Your Own WordPress Theme and Why I hate Domain Email.
Navigation on the site is very simple and straightforward. Posts are centralized with both left and right navigation bars. The appearance of the blog is very appealing. Posts are black text on white background. The blog also has a very feminine appeal to it without being too pink or girly, but headers are in a very pretty scrolled font. Each of her bloggeries also contains relevant pictures that add to the relevancy of the bloggerie. My favorite picture on the blog so far is from her “From a Dream†post where she did some photo manipulation, however it is just a breathtaking shot that definitely reaches the readers.
In the right bar you will find advertising and widgets advertising her most recent visitors. In the left navigation system you will find a main menu that has links to Home, About, Contact, Downloads and Articles, Word Press Themes, Photoblog, Forum, Sitemap, and Advertise Here. This menu is followed by an Archives Menu, Find Me Menu (for her various social networking), Friends List, and a very handy Word Press Pull Down Menu.
I think a Recent Posts Menu would add further organization to the blog. Currently to access recent posts you have to dig through archives, or click on a button at the bottom of the page to reach previous entries. Overall I am going with a 4/5 on this one. I found this blog very appealing on many aspects. The blog scores well for activity, appearance, and definitely uniqueness of the niche. I also think the blog does well for the most part with navigation, but could do even better with a few of the mentioned changes here. The content as well is well-written and her tutorials are handled in such a way that they are extremely user friendly and knowledgeable enough to be credible sources. This blog is one that I definitely recommend if you wish to enjoy a little bit of personal experiences, as well as learn something valuable about blogging or web mastering at the same time.
– Chrissie