I Review You

I don’t have the habit of writing about on-development sites, but there’s always a first time, huh?

Content

The purpose of existence of RingtonesFactory.com isn’t that hard to guess. The name says it all. On RF, you can download directly different ringtones to your cellphone. Well, it’s not a download, actually. You must enter your own cell number in order to get a PIN. This PIN will enable you to get some features, such as ringtones, wallpapers, games and others. Subscriptions range from $9,99 to $19,99 a month. Somehow, this is a con on this site. When there are sites providing free content and letting you connect via your own cellphone, RingtonesFactory needs your number and some of your money. Also, if you’re looking for mainstream ringtones, you’ll find a good number of them. If not, hm…

Design

However, and this is one big however, the design of RingtonesFactory.com is pretty cool. Apart the black and white standard colors, blue and orange prevail, giving a light breathe on the design. Rounded borders and the discreet background also contribute to the Web2.0 layout. The bits of degradé also help lighting up the design. I’d say that the webdesigner did a great job on RF, the layout is there, all they need now is to improve their content.

Content

zdiaz.com is the first all-in-one blog I’ve reviewed here. Zigfried goes from money management to faith subjects as fast as you go from your room to the kitchen. The subjects cover money (online and offline), internet matters (SEO), faith, personal development and any other subject that pops in his mind. This is what makes a blog personal, instead of the niche “professional” ones out there. This is the type of blog that makes you relate much more to the owner’s personality than to a specific subject. This approach works in the long run, it’s easier to get loyal readers, I mean, the REALLY loyal ones, however, it’s harder to build the followers line up.

Design

The three-column WP style looks fine. I’m not a fan of the three strips, but this one is very smooth and doesn’t push the text of the posts too tight. However, I should say that I’m a little annoyed by so many ads. The light blue one is destined to ads and only to them. Good points, however, are the RSS icon right on top of the page and the Spottt and Entrecard widgets just below it.

You might have noticed that IRY hasn’t been updated in a while. Yes, I’ve noticed that too.

I’d like to apologize for the readers and reviewees. For sometime, I was having problems with my workstation. Don’t think you’re the only ones who were affected by this. I lost about two weeks of work (almost everything I have to do is PC-based), which could only increase the headaches and stress (and inumerous emails, feeds and messages unanswered).

Enough ranting. Here are the ones getting a review in the following days (in order):

1. Zdiaz.com
2. Valerie Joy
3. Business Leaps
4. Blue Trick
5. Jean Costa
6. Bucks from Internet
7. Time for a Smile
8. Life of Marie
9. Information Technology Blog
10. Search Engine Panel

I’m sorry it took so long to get over these problems, but I truly believe they are all gone now. I intended to post this earlier but I wanted to make sure that… I was sure of this.

Have you ever wondered if that web software works well? You better check MyTestBox. MyTestBox is a web software review site.

Design

There are a lot of pros on the MyTestBox design. I like the way it’s “all there”. The three columns theme works great, with the main sections right on top of it. Categories and Archives pop in a first glance, while the Popular and Recent Posts show up later, after you’ve scrolled through a post or two. I wonder why the subscrition options are separated. At first, I thought “shouldn’t there be a RSS icon near the subscription-by-email option?”, but, when you think about it, feedreaders usually look for the famous little orange icon, while the ones who want to subscribe by email look for a form field. Getting it a bit afar from the search field is a great option. I’m no fan of the “black-gray-primary color” style, but I can’t argue it suits perfectly the MyTestBox theme. It does get things apart. “Ok, here’s the main post, here’s the categories menu”, you think. So: it works.

Content

It was a bit back when Mircea Goia first contacted me about writing a review for MTB, so I’ve been reading the site for a while now. It’s so hard to highlight two or three posts from this site. The reviews are incredibly exhaustive, although they are very objective. Each review comes with an installation/configuration guide and a bit of background on the softwares. Their choices for what to review are great: (links lead directly to the reviews) open source softwares range from the new e-commerce soft Magento to well established scripts like WordPress; and - if someone thinks that OS is the only way - there are reviews on paid products like AbleSpace and AbleDating (social network/dating software).

The Widget
One of the things I love about this widget is its name. It’s THE Widget. The MyTestBox.com Widget displays the latest web software reviews on your site. It’s easy to configure and to install. A good thing about it is that you don’t have to use a WordPress based site to display it, you can use it in whatever webpage system you want. If you use WordPress, just download and install the plug-in. If not, just tweek the configuration on The Widget page, copy and paste the code on your site and you’re done.

My Mobile Adventures won this free review from our contest. Stay tuned for the next one!

The first time I got on Tink’s site was via Entrecard. I thought it was awkward. A really wide banner with a small and simple logo picture, posts in huge font sizes and all this general idea of “big simplicity”. And then I saw its title. That explains the…

Design

MMA is a blog optimized to be seen on cellphones (mobile anyone?), so there you go: big fonts, not too complex imagery to be loaded, primary colors. It all makes sense if you forget you may be browsing the site on a PC/Mac. (if you still want to read the blog on a big screen, reduce the font size twice, it will be a perfect fit)

The primary colors of the design are great for these small screens on smartphones. It’s easy to suffer from low contrast while browsing on them, so it’s a great call.

Content

My Mobile Adventures is a travel blog, a tourist journal. Tink claims the posts place are most oftenly SW Florida, Orlando and New York. Sometimes, something outside of those boundaries does pop up. Like ranting from texting on a non-smartphone, Tink, be sure you’re not the only one that hates that.

Small tips on blog tools also helps keeping the freshness of her blog: talking about RSS or about a Photobucket feature make a good break from the usual pictures and travel updates. Also, I’m a big fan of people that bring some good tips about something that they don’t talk about usually. It helps to spread the word out of the niche.

Her repertoire of photos is just great. The shore pictures deserve a honor mention.

What else deserves a mention is the destruction caused by MMA on our contest. Competing against 10 bloggers, Tink got 68% of the votes. Yeah, 68%. That’s what I call a major victory.

Congratulations, Tink!

How often directories help you in a choice? Do you check them oftenly?

I’m always considering directories, but not for surfing and discovering new things. I go through them to search more of the same subject. I like content directories, the ones that give you different resources on the same topic, although most of the directories are just a random collection of sites in a single category.

I have my own personal directory with links to great resources and bibliography on arts, philosophy and some random links. Most of them point to full articles or comprehensive websites, but almost none takes me to personal pages.

It’s with great satisfaction that I present you the winner of the first I Review You Contest!

Tink’s My Mobile Adventures

With a crushing 68% of the 35 votes, Tink has won a review! It will be posted in the following days, as soon as I get a closer look at her site.

I’d like to thank you all, the ones who participated and the ones who voted!

As posted before, today is the day when the voting for our first contest begins. As stated, on this post, any comment containing one of the participants blog URL’s will be taken as a vote towards it. The participants are:

• B1naryW0lf
• CurryEgg
• MonkMojo’s 1000 Cuts
• Michigan Rafter
• Michael Aulia’s Blog
• Fine Artworks from a Creaky Easel
• NeoBluePanther
• MMAFeed
• My Mobile Adventures
• Daily Japan Photo Blog
• Kat’s Krackerbox

Good luck to the participants! Nooooow, vote and tell your friends! Yes, you can vote on yourself!

This morning, I came across Dneero, another way for bloggers to increase income. As you can see, in the end of this post, there’s a small banner linking back to the site. dNeero has a nice and different idea from the usual thing. What do you have to do to earn some money? Take surveys and post the code you get in the end, on your blog. Your answers will be made public, but that’s not a problem. (or is it?) Anyway… The payment is fine for small bloggers: surveys are worth $0,50-3,00, so it’s a nice way to get some extra bucks by the end of the month.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the first I Review You Contest.

What you get if you win? A free review here, with all the features a paid one has. I’ll review your site’s content and design, along with any extras it may offer. The review will be posted here on April 23rd. The prize also includes a private code analysis, sent by email to the winner.

What do you have to do to get in? Comment this post with your url. Comments will be accepted only until Friday midnight (April 18th-19th).

How to win? First thing on Saturday, I’ll be posting the list of the participant blogs. On that post, vote (comment) for your blog and tell your friends to do it too! Voting goes until next wednesday (April 22nd).

Open doors!