I Review You

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!

A bit of blogging, some blogging tools and a lot of irony. That’s Blog Badly.

Can you take another blog with tips on… blogs? I think I can’t. I can’t stay reading the same old stories about SEO, WP plug-ins, yadda yadda yadda. Please, go read Blog Badly. Don’t overlook the site just because it has too much on sight. That’s a plus, in matter of fact.

Content

You may read the same old blogs, but why not read one that gives you something to laugh at? Or even something to curse too. Max isn’t the kind of guy that stands in front of a PC acting like a PC. He doesn’t give you cold stats, cold news, cold stories. Do you want to know about why blogging sucks? Well, reason #3 is “It’s Too Hard To Make Money - Today’s Earnings: $0.00194“. And what about “All The Good Domain Names Are Already Taken - I guess m-a-king-mon-e-y-onl-in-e.com would work…“? You could also take the list on what you have to do to completely loose your blogging creativity and give it a try. I gave it. And I lost my creativity.

Design

I guess some people would say that the design is a bit too crowded. In matter of fact, it gives you enough. Blog Badly has a lot of widgets on the sidebar, that fits perfectly the overall visual aspect. BB posts are usually small or mid-sized, so you can scroll down the pages and you’ll still read the posts in their entirety. With a double sidebar, the widgets don’t take much of the page vertically, so, when reading older posts, you’ll only get a white sidebar. So, rest! You may ask “but will I have to scroll down to get a clean page?”. The answer is: believe me, you WILL scroll down. The content rocks.

Contest

Funny enough, as our first review, Blog Badly is also running a contest on ads. The prize is a free 125×125 ad slot in the upper part of the blog for a full week. You can (and MUST) check the rules of the contest going here: Blog Badly’s Free Weekly 125×125 Ad Space Contest Thingamajig Extravaganza.

One of the greatest things about Living on Adsense is how Chris Whiteley approaches the internet money world. Chris is not a big fish like Darren or Chow, he is one of us, trying to make a living out of the internet. His insights on different tactics and programs are realistic, “realistic” like in “I’m trying this out right now”. After the infamous episode of his blogging powers being taken away (betrayed), Chris is back for action and wanting more. Being forced to want more, actually.

Content

“Why should I read the blog of someone who hasn’t succeeded yet?”, you may ask. Sometimes we get too fascinated with the big numbers and can easily get carried away on those distant dreams, forgetting how tough the beginning can be. Struggling his way, reading Living on Adsense can give you some of that strength you need to keep going. Thanks Nike for “Just do it”, it’s important to think like that sometimes.

Design

LoA is well designed and has cool features, such as open statistics and the Top Commentators plug-in. Having stats available is a nice way to let us know how he’s doing and how it relates to his final income.

Contest

Chris is also running a contest on Living on Adsense and the prize is a free 125×125 ad slot on the site for a month. You can try it out, get to know the rules.

Hey folks, I’d like to welcome you all to I Review You, a site about sites. My goal here is to get to know great sites from all over the web, providing a review with some insights on content and design, cool features, funny things and everything that can be taken as a positive side to the site. Don’t get fooled, suggestions on both design and content will also be made, so you can take that in matter.

Get your site reviewed

So you created a nice site but has no traffic at all? Do you want to get reviewed here? Your site will be displayed to a new audience, will get some tips and links and, if your site rocks the house, you can get new subscribers to your blog. If you want it, proceed to Get your site reviewed.