Well, since I have no gardening or home improvement to do right now (snow/ice storm coming Tuesday night, too :-p ), I’m doing some reviews of blogs. I always have an opinion to offer, and I love web design and blogs, so it’s a likely match. 
I was asked to give my opinion of Blogging with Cents, an entertaining and informative blog (rare is the blog that mixes both so well) by Lori. I reviewed Lori’s other blog, A Cowboy’s Wife; you can read that here.
I like Blogging with Cents, and have visited it a few times before I was even asked to review it. The content is definitely entertaining; Lori’s personality certainly comes through and this is what makes the blog so appealing. She seems to love variety, her posts are filled with everything from blogging tools to building a better blog (”say that 10 times really fast,” Lori says) to favorite Wordpress plugins, to a plethora of contests and giveaways. I’ve yet to see a post on term insurance, but I have faith that Lori, if given the opportunity, could make even that dry topic seem interesting.
About the design of the blog: things are a little messy. I recommend stream-lining the sidebars and perhaps combining similar items. For example, keep the contests links in one area, the affiliate buttons in its own area, etc. I also noticed that the “Recommended Sites” title in the blue-colored sidebar was off kilter. I snapped a screenshot:
I use the latest version of Firefox. I looked at the blog in Internet Explorer and the problem was not repeated, so I assume it is something with the way Firefox reads the <p> or <br> or whatever. I have the same problem with my own blogs between the two browsers. Might want to test it out, Lori, and correct it.
Also, in Firefox, the title and the subtitle information are a little squished together.
Again, this is something unique to Firefox. In Internet Explorer, there is a small line space between the subtitle and the beginning of the post. I prefer the space, because it makes a small but noticeable distinction to the post title, and gives it that professional look. It may be a picky thing, perhaps too picky; I admit I am a fuss-budget when it comes to visual stuff like that. I like the title of a post to be very distinctive, the subtitle to be much less distinctive, and for the post to begin with clarity and give the first sentence a visual punch. Not all themes/templates do this, so it requires tinkering with the code.
On some of the pages, there are 404 errors. I found the following when I tried to access the “Wordpress Theme” under the “Freebies” page:
Sorry. 404 Page Not Found
I’m sorry, but the post or page you’re looking for could not be found. It could be because of our recent re-design. Here are a couple of options that might help you:
- Use the search box in the upper right corner.
- Try scrolling through the monthly archives to the right.
- Try scrolling through the categories to the right.
Same thing happened when I tried to access the Blogger themes. The other pages worked OK. I love the contact form, by the way– very professional.
I like Blogging with Cents and will continue to visit. I love the tips, and the advice is never dull with such entertaining writing!
UPDATE: Lori informed me that she couldn’t see the same 404 Error that I was seeing, so I took a screenshot of it, to give her a better idea of what I was seeing. I saw this on the Freebies/Wordpress Themes page and the Freebies/Blogger Themes page. I don’t know why.
Click on the screenshot to see a much larger picture. It happens using FF and IE. Hope this helps.
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February 27th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Hey! Well, I’ve done some cleaning up but I’m not through yet. You made some good observations and I’m trying to fix them. I can’t find the 404 errors you mentioned though. I was able to click-through to everything that I did so I’m not sure about that one.
I appreciate your honest review!
February 27th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hey Lori, welcome. I snapped a screenshot of that 404 error. Maybe that will help you.
Thanks for visiting, and you are welcome!