Cats And Coupons

This afternoon I reviewed the blog entitled My Chronic Life.

The first thing I notice when the page loads is the color. It’s a soft sage sort of green. The word I think of when I look at it is peaceful. The blog is on a simple two column theme. It takes 22 clicks to get from the top of the home page to the bottom. Seven of the clicks include the sidebar, the rest of the clicks are all content. Moving the categories to underneath the pages and the archives just under the categories might help readers navigate and find specific content more quickly. The sidebars aren’t messy but I would prefer a little better arrangement there.

She offers an about page! The author mainly writes on the topics of health, wellness and awareness. Her posts are of a really nice length and consistently seem well thought out. She tries to provide information and promote awareness in easy to understand wording. The blog is less than four months old and is off to a nice start. When you visit the site, please tell her that valmg sent you.

This afternoon I am reviewing a blog called The Toddler Reality Show.

The Toddler Reality Show blog is by janeybelle. When the blog loads on my screen for the first time I notice a simple bright green and white two column theme with an image in the navigation bar that reminds me of a television test pattern, which I found fitting. This is one of the neatest (as in uncluttered) blogs I have ever seen. Ooooooh! Ahhhhhhh! The text is clear and easy to read on the background. The green is not as commonly used as some shades, to me it seems softer and more attractive.

The Toddler Reality Show takes five clicks to get from the tippy top to the very bottom. Most impressive! (Ever notice they say the tippy top but not the tippy bottom? That sounds perverted. I don’t recall hearing an expression not in bad context for the bottom of a page.)

The Toddler Reality Show offers readers category and archive lists. I’m making a prediction that as the blog ages she’ll use drop down lists for category and archives. janeybell offers readers an about page, which gives visitors a little background about herself and her family.

Posts are original, descriptive and friendly. They are of a nice length, which reflects investment of both time and thought. Janeybell writes on a variety of topics, but her main writing topics are home, family and life.

The sole suggestion I have for janeybell is to include a few more pictures. I think your blog is off to a fantastic start. Nice job!

Tonight I reviewed one of Ron’s blogs, Adapt, Adopt and Improve.

The first thing I noticed was the blurb in the description, which made me chuckle. It reads “I’ve stopped following my dreams. Now I asked where they are going and try to hook up with them there.”

The second thing I see is his post for today. Note to Ron. I knew!

The blog is viewed using a simple two column theme with shades of blue. The home page takes twenty three clicks to get from the very top to the very bottom. At the very bottom of the page is a dark blue section containing some links and stats and stuff. They might look better organized a little differently. Ron could consider moving his archives further up the sidebar, as they are currently at the bottom. My biggest recommendation is to move the links either into drop down boxes or onto their own page. They’re awfully long that way.

Ron’s writing style is fantastic! It’s open, friendly and funny. It makes me giggle. Oh all right, it doesn’t make me giggle. It makes me laugh. On occasion, I read enough posts that I can’t stop laughing and I have tears in my eyes and have to take a break. He writes with flair, and his words bring visions to the mind. Tasty Relationships is an example of what I mean. As far as Ron’s posts, they’re of good length and come complete with understandable full sentences. He could consider adding pictures a little more often.

If you’re looking for a good read, go see what Ron’s trying to adapt, adopt or improve. There’s some really good stuff there. You won’t be sorry. Tell him valmg sent you.

This morning I reviewed the Starryskye.org blog. That’s what it’s called. Before going through it I would have thought the author’s name was Skye. Turns out that isn’t the case.

The first thing I notice is when the blog loads for me I get a horizontal scroll bar across the bottom of my browser. The amount of space that it’s there for is so small I’d try and make one of the columns just a tad less wide if possible. Of course, it will appear differently in other browsers, so that’s just my preference. I hate to scroll left to right on a website.

The bold and colorful header is mainly a deep shade of brown and it coordinates nicely with the red on the left side of the theme. Text is easy to read on the white columns. The look is attractive. The index page takes eight clicks to get from the very top to the very bottom, which isn’t bad when compared to a number of other blogs I’ve seen.

The second thing that stands out is the Archives list. I suggest putting it into drop down format because it’s rather lengthy. The category list is formatted much as a tag cloud would be. It looks different which is good, but even in that condensed format takes up an entire screen. (I have no idea how long of a list it would be if it was turned into one but it’d be too long.) I’d recommend Christine look at how many posts are in her categories, and take the posts from categories with fewer posts and move them into appropriate larger categories, in order to cut down on the number of categories.

Down at the bottom of the page is a section for visitors and blogrush. It’d look a little neater if Christine was able to get all widgets lined up in one line.

There is a blogroll page, as well as blogrolls in the sidebar of every page. I would keep as many of them as possible on the blogroll page to give it an even appearance.

Christine, the author, has an About page (yay!) and offers the reader info about herself and her blog as well as pictures. Pictures do make it more personal to read. The only thing I wish she’d tell us there is why she chose the name starryskye.

Christine’s writing style is friendly, as if she’s known you for a while and is just catching you up on some news. She blogs about many subjects includes much personal and family info, so the writing does feel quite genuine. Her posts are of a nice length, not too short, and reflect personality. Go check out her blog, and be sure to tell her valmg sent you when you get there.

Today I am reviewing Karen S’s Xanga blog which is called Clutzy’s Clutzes. After seeing the title, I found myself wondering about the title. I was interpreting the Clutzy as Karen. But I wasn’t sure if Karen meant other people as the Clutzes or if clutzes meant something else. The other thing I sort of wondered is what there were many of.

Karen’s site includes a profile picture, which after reading for a while almost has me thinking I can put a voice with the face. It’s a nice personal touch. Karen’s writes very friendly posts, including pictures as well as personal and family information and stories. I think that information makes the posts more real. The one suggestion I can make regarding her writing is that she include a category list, so a reader looking for other posts on one topic can find them, or so a new reader could get a little bit better idea what’s in there.

The blog’s theme is very simple in a color of sort of olive green. The only suggestion I really have on the appearance is that Karen might want to look at organizing her badges so they look a little neater. Right now they’re not aligned or arranged in a particular order so that one area could use a little help.

That’s about it. If you visit Clutzy’s Clutzes, tell Karen that valmg sent you over.

Today I reviewed the blog entitled On My Mind, located at SamuelNova.com.

Upon first glance I noticed the theme. The black and white, with some red is simple while striking. The header picture is nice, and looks remarkably similar to the author’s picture. Samuel should take a quick look in his sidebars as the blogrush widget and the textlink ads image are both cut off. The AuctionAds widget is also clipped, but to a lesser extent.

The About page is actually the first page I usually look for in a blog I’ve never read. Samuel offers quite a bit of personal background information on his About page, which I really liked. The page not only helped me to understand who Samuel is, but gave some insight into his background and hobbies. If you look on this page you will see how similar the header image is to Samuel’s picture. From here the reader is directed to the On My Mind page, to learn why and what Samuel will be blogging. No, I won’t tell you, go read it for yourself. Now I’m off to the index page to see what’s going on there.

Samuel writes in English pretty well for a man who was born and has lived in Denmark for most of his life. He puts thought into his posts. He has a friendly writing style, that reminds me of someone writing a letter to a friend. He’s even incorporates a bit of humor here and there. Samuel places some pictures and video into posts, which serve several good purposes including breaking up large areas of text, drawing the eyes to an area, and making some posts more enjoyable.

All in all I’d say Samuel’s done a very nice job. Good luck with your blog Samuel!

This evening I am reviewing the Blog of MR Gee, whose header claims “boring is good for you”. I’m not sure how that slogan ties in to the blog yet, but hopefully I’ll find out.

I think the header image of a guy in his swim trunks using his laptop is nice and colorful. The blog pages themselves are a sort of light blue and truthfully it bothers my eyes. After a minute I thought the text looked blurry. Mr Gee may want to consider a lighter blue if more readers experience a similar problem. I couldn’t find a category list, something I consider a must unless a blog is about only one specific thing. It took ten clicks to get to the bottom of the home page. There is very little in the left sidebar, so the author may want to rethink his layout. With so little content over there perhaps he could just go with one column with navigation at the top.

The blog is loaded with pictures and other media, which readers tend to enjoy. But pictures do not replace content. I’m sure you’ve heard it before but here it is again. Content is king. My strongest recommendation is for the author to add more original content. Yes, there are some posts scattered here and there but the majority of them are very very brief and don’t tell us much. A good post almost always needs to be more than a picture. Funny pictures are great and have their place, but they aren’t enough. If you’re planning on doing more monetizing going forward I would hazard a guess that advertisers will want to see a lot more writing. I think with time and work this site could really come into its own. I would recommend the writer evaluate what he wants from this blog and go after it. If humor is to be included, work it into the writing. Words can be much funnier than pictures when done well. And please tell us why boring is good for you. Good luck MR Gee!

Today I reviewed a blog entitled Delusions of Grandeur, authored by mcangeli who is a father of two that works in the IT field. One of the reasons he keeps a blog is to document his life.

The first thing I think when I look at his site is that his three column theme is simple, dark and masculine. The primary colors are shades of gray and red. I don’t usually like such dark colors, but he makes it work. The white text is clear enough that you don’t have to struggle to read it. Upon looking further, I notice something different about his first sidebar. It doesn’t contain your typical blog stuff – archives, calendar, advertising, blogrolls, so on and so forth. It contains smaller posts. I really like this. So much so I got sidetracked contemplating doing something like this on one of my own blogs. In the second sidebar font size is smaller than in the post, but not so small it’s illegible. The calendar and archives display nicely all in one compact area. Here is where I found the one of the two things I didn’t like. I really liked the tag cloud, popping right out in purple. The category cloud is set up the same but is in white. Since most of what is in the category cloud is in the tag cloud, I myself would consider dropping the category cloud and only using the tag cloud. The blogroll is surprisingly compact.

Mcangeli’s writing style is simple and easy to understand, and makes me think of him as a narrator of stories that he is telling. He writes on a number of subjects ranging from light to thoughtful and serious, and is capable of being quite descriptive, but stops just short of conversing with the reader. Each post begins with an area displaying the number of comments, categories, tags, the date, ratings, an invitation to review his post and a button to submit to thoof. Each post ends with an area containing the tag cloud, a chance to digg the article, share the article via several social networking sites and see sphere related content. This was the second area I didn’t feel a lot of love for. I think the bottom of each post is wasting space. Perhaps the author can work these options into the top area before the post. I think that would make the space more efficient and attractive. Also, the tag cloud down there is very hard to read because it is small. With tags already at the beginning of each post in larger font, there doesn’t seem to be a great purpose for displaying them a second time. Pictures are frequently included, which I think is a great thing that many bloggers (including myself) don’t do enough of. Polls are incorporated from time to time, which I think make the site more interactive. I love the random quotes up at the top of the page.

I’ll be visiting this site again. Please check out Delusions of Grandeur, and when you do tell macangeli that valmg sent you.

I had a chance to review a blog titled My Thoughts, Ideas and Ramblings today. It’s written by a blogger named Lisa. I previously reviewed another one of her blogs called Lisa Reviews.

The first thing that I noticed was the theme. It’s made up of shades of blue, looks clean and attractive, and has text that is easy to read. The page is a bit long, taking nineteen clicks to get to the bottom. Ideally that should be much less but the problem is actually caused by the theme itself, because the width of the post column is a bit narrow. In the farthest right sidebar I would recommend changing the color of the text links that are listed immediately under Featured Sites, as they are a bit difficult to read on the dark background of that column.

Lisa’s writing style is friendly, styled as though she is speaking directly with you. Lisa blogs frequently on random topics. The one thing I really wish she had was a category list. I read through a number of pages of writing and wanted to see other posts on a couple of topics. I was unable to find a way to see what categories were written in. Aside from those few suggestions I think My Thoughts, Ideas and Ramblings is well put together. It’s a great place to visit to find out what does go on in a typical day of a stay at home mother who also works from home in the Chicago area. When you visit her blog, please tell her that valmg sent you.