I have reviewed several personal blogs in the past, and compared to more niche oriented blogs I find them the most difficult to review. Personal blogs aren’t written with one specific topic in mind, but rather, can span a whole range of topics.
The one aspect of personal blogs that is different compared to some niche blogs is the frequency in which they are updated. Many are updated on a daily basis. This week I review a personal blog that is updated several times a day.
Web Site: My Ideas 4 You
Description: It’s a blog about my personal life as well as gadgets and tools which I have seen or used before. I will also publish my own point of views and reviews of movies, computing software and hardware.
Design 
The design of the blog and the colours chosen by the author is pretty unique to this blog. The author has chosen to go with a black background with orange and yellow highlighting. Since the background is so dark, and the orange and yellow is so bright, it provides a nice contrast between the colours.
The actual text used is a gray colour, which may be difficult to read as it isn’t nearly as bright as white would be in that situation.
The layout itself is really simple, with the content on the left and a navigation sidebar on the right. At the top is a bar that includes a menu and several options, such as font size and administration options. The adjustable font size is a nice feature to have. This allows a visitor to increase or decrease the size of the font to their liking.
Below the top menubar is a few links, a calendar, the subscription information, and a hitcounter. The calendar highlights the days containing posts, which you can click on to display the posts.
The navigation sidebar is nicely organized with the main navigational links at the top to make them easy to find. One nice touch to the categories is the grouping of certain topics, such as a Technology topic with several related topics below that.
The blog layout overall is really well done, not too crowded and easy to navigate.
Focus 
From what I can get out of My Ideas 4 You, it appears to be a personal blog about whatever the author feels about talking about. This can lead to a lack of focus as is evident when you read the blog. The author has chosen to discuss many topics so there is no real focus to the blog.
A solution to this problem is to simply create multiple blogs, one for each topic, which would help keep the blog in focus.
Content 
The content is updated several times on a daily basis. This is great for those that like to read personal blogs regularily as there will always be a post on this blog.
The posts themselves are not long and can contain only one or two paragraphs. If the posts were longer, the author may not write as many. Of course the other downside to so many posts is the lack of images. Only a few posts each week contain an image, which reduces the amount of colour on the blog.
If you enjoy reading blogs with short content, few images, and updated on a regular basis, then you may want to check out My Ideas 4 you.
Spelling and Grammar
The spelling and grammar is the weakest part of the blog. Although, My Ideas 4 You isn’t dominated by bad spelling and grammar, it can make it difficult to read a few posts. I had to reread a few sentences because of either a word missing, or a long run-on sentence. Using a spellchecker and reading the posts before they are published would definitely help this blog.
As I read the free review e-mail that the author sent me, I noticed that he did make mention about his grammar, and is aware of it.
Overall
My Ideas 4 You has some nice features that aren’t common in other blogs, such as the font size modifiers and the calendar control at the top. The blog’s layout is by far its strongest part, with the spelling and grammar being the weakest.
The blog is updated several times on a daily basis, which is great for those that like to read the blog. A few more images in the posts would add some much needed colour to the blog, especially considering it uses a black background.
Making a few changes, such as the images and correcting the spelling and grammar would greatly improve My Ideas 4 You.
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on August 1, 2008 at 6:14 am
Hi,
Thank you very much for giving this review. Great one. I will try to heed the advice stated.
I have included your blog in my blog roll too.
Thank you once again.
Have a great day.
Regards,
myi4u