10 things I hate about your site

Another 10 things first–looking back to a site previously reviewed. Where are they now? It seems only fitting that the first site every reviewed here, is the first site to re-visit.

It’s so hard to review personal blogs. Everything from the colors, to the graphics, to the content is so, well, personal. There’s that fine line between the blogger appreciating what I’ve said and thinking I’m the anti-Christ. Angelika’s blog is definitely personal!

Entrecard is working well for me, it appears. This is my second review request from a fellow “Entrecarder” and there are more in queue. This review is on the blog Focus Organic. As the name implies, this blog covers organic and eco-friendly topics. I have to start by saying that I LOVE the design of this blog. The graphics are great and tie in with the theme, the icons and web elements aren’t distracting, and the page loads quickly.

Focus Organic

10 7 things I hate about your site:

1. Are you blogging for the environment, or are you blogging for the ad revenue?
2. Are you blogging for you, or are you blogging for your advertisers?
3. What’s with the itty, bitty text size?
4. Love the Eco-Friendly Friday graphic. Hate that it’s larger than the posts.
5. Link confusion—why do I keep getting Sept. 19th’s post when I click on the Eco-Friendly Friday graphic?
6. Series confusion—where are the rest of the Eco-Friendly Friday posts?
7. Why the green “F”?

The blogosphere, for all of it’s bloggers, can be a small world. Our next site review comes via a theme I chose to use for one of my other blogs, The Web-Betty Blog. There were quite a few comments regarding the Unstandard theme and how to modify it. A few of these comments came from Tracy Rosen. She provided some good info that really helped me modify the theme to my own liking.

That said, I’m going to find it difficult to provide an unbiased review as she has been oh so helpful to me. Since I’ve been asked, however, this is my way of returning the favor.

10 5 things I hate about your site:

1. Holy navigation, Batman! You have quite a few navigation buttons.
2. Busy, busy, busy. There is a lot going on here.
3. Gray, highlighted text.
4. Too many formatting styles in a post.
5. Overall layout—are you making the most of your blog real estate?

Don’t be mislead. While there are only five items listed, they cover a multitude of sins.

© Griszka Niewiadomski
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This week’s resource is a cool little Dreamweaver plug-in that quickly and easily lets you create the newest web craze: the accordion effect. I came across this plug-in while pulling my hair out trying to modify open source AJAX code for this clever effect. This new design style is being tested on my old workhorse, Web-Betty.com. A note of caution…this redesign is still underway and buggy in IE 6. NOT the accordion effect, but the refusal of IE 6 to play nicely with .png transparency! (Visit Web-Betty on IE 6 at your own risk.)

From Trio Solutions:

This is a handy tool if you don’t want all sections of your webpage to be visible at the same time, for example, if you have a long page. Gives your page a professional, elaborated look.

‘d like to thank Holistic Healing for being my first victim. Below is the down-and-dirty list. Click on “Continue Reading” for explanations and recommendations.

10 things I hate about your site:

1. Too many font colors.
2. Inconsistent navigation.
3. Lack of a clear header hierarchy.
4. Odd color scheme/palette.
5. Random “floating” flowers.
6. Link treatment—link, hover and visited.
7. Yahoo! Babel Fish translator.
8. Inconsistent layout.
9. Lack of proofreading.
10. Broken links.