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There are many web sites that offer or provide information about free stuff. Some of the sites are quite useful, while others are just scams. I rarely visit them, but this week I’ll look at a blog focused on this topic.

While the author does attempt to keep the blog focused, it appears that at times it is hard to maintain. Unfortunately, there are a few other issues, besides the focus, with the blog that is reviewed this week.

Web Site: Anything for Free

Description: This blog is a collection of great freebies that I found on the internet: free movies, free e-books, free songs, free printables, free ringtones, free lyrics, free advice, free tips, free newsletters, free tutorials, free how-to’s, free recipes, free software, free magazines, free articles, free games and more freebies. You would also find reviews of outstanding websites that provide freebies.

Design 

The blog is arranged into two columns: a left column for the content and a right column for the navigational links. There is also a header that describes the blog and is made to look like a coupon. The light-pink of the header also stands out since the other colours used are a darker hue.

With regards to actual content section, it does have an issue on Internet Explorer 7. On Firefox 3.0, I was able to display multiple posts on the home page, however, on IE 7 only the latest post is shown. On top of that, the background colours for both the content and sidebars are missing so the background was white. On Firefox 3.0 everything appears normal.

The font size used for the posts is rather small and could cause problems for those that have trouble reading small print. Increasing the font size should be done to make it easier to read the posts. The titles of each post are nice and large and stand out among the posts. Below each post title is a Google Adsense ad, although only for the first three posts. Since Google only allows three Adsense units, the remaining posts just display a blank space. I recommend removing the ads below the post titles which will remove any blank spaces.

The sidebars suffer from unorganized clutter. There are many widgest display haphazardly throughout the sidebar. This made it hard for me to find any of the navigational links. I did manage to find the archive and category links, with the category links being a different link colour – blue. The sidebar should be reorganized with the links near the top. Many of the widgets should also be removed because of page loading time.

Page loading time was another issue I found. It took some time to load up each page of the blog, mainly because of the large number of widgets located in the sidebar. Reducing the number of widgets displayed should be a priority when organizing the blog.

There are several design issues that will need to be addressed to make the blog much better to read.

Focus 

The focus of the blog seems to move away from the original topic of free things. While reading several of the posts, it appears that such things as PayPal and Web traffic are discussed. While most of the posts are concentrated around free items, a few seem to move away from that focus.

Keeping a blog more on focus will help to keep visitors returning for more.

Content 

With regards to blogs, it is usually better to blog on a regular basis to provide consistent content to your subscribers. While the author does provide many posts throughout a month, there is no consistency.

One month the author may write 20 posts, while the next only 3 posts are published. There may be times where the author writes two posts in one day, but then doesn’t publish a post for a few weeks. There is no consistency with posting. You don’t have to post on the same days each week, but a least one to two posts would be better than not posting at all.

The posts themselves are small as each one is only two to four paragraphs in length. Some posts contain a small image that appears to be related to the subject of the post. The images do add some nice colour to the posts.

With small posts, it should be easier to post on a more regular basis.

Spelling and Grammar 

There are a few spelling and grammar mistakes that did cause me to reread a sentence a few times to understand what the author was saying. For the most part, each post was easy to read and most mistakes didn’t take away from the readability of the blog.

Overall 

The concept of providing information about free items is great, but the design takes away from the idea. There are many flaws with the design, such as not working properly in Internet Explorer 7, small fonts and an unorganized sidebar. The loading time is also fairly high, especially for a blog that isn’t too graphic intensive.

Fixing the design should be a priority if the author wants to make this blog much better than it currently is.

Have Your Say

• What do you think about Anything for Free?

About Paul Salmon

Paul Salmon is the founder of Technically Easy. He is a an experienced PC user, and enjoys solving computer-related problems that he encounters on a regular basis.

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Related Posts

1. Free Web Site or Blog Review
2. Review: Listen. Are you Listening?
3. Review: 1 Million Love Messages
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There are probably thousands of people with blogs and web sites that are trying to make a lot of money online. There are many avenues, some good and some bad, that you can take that will help you achieve your goal. The problem, however, is that most people take one of the bad avenues and think that making money online is quick and easy.

This week I review a blog where someone is trying to make a certain amount of money, whether it is online or offline. Although, once you look at the blog you may think the author is trying too hard.

Web Site: Geek and Money

Description: A geek talks about technology, personal finance, investing, and frugal living.

Design 

The template of this blog uses three columns with the content on the left and the navigational links on the right. At the top of the blog is a nice blue header and a simple menu. While the original template was probably nice, neat, and simple, the author has chosen to add a lot of clutter.

Before I get into the clutter, lets discuss the header. I like the blue colour chosen for this template as it is nice on the eyes. With the white font chosen for the header text, the blue provides a nice contrast and makes it easy to read. The menu at the top is easy to read and simple, which works nicely.

Below the header are the three columns. The content column is on the left and begins with a large box of Google ads. Placing these ads at the top has pushed the first post down the page, which is also followed by a second box of Google ads. This means that the top of the content section contains two Google ads and one post (not a good ratio).

The remainder of the posts follow one after the other without any more ads. The posts are easy to find as the titles are large and blue while the text is smaller and black.

To the right of the content are the two navigational sidebars, at least that is what was to be intended. The top of the sidebars are full of ads, and coupling that with the two ads at the top of the content section, it makes the blog look more like a splog. Unfortunately, with the author’s pursuit of making money, it looks like he is trying too hard.

To find any sort of navigation links you have to scroll below the ads, where you will find a few sections used to navigate around the blog. It does appear that such links as archives and categories are included, they are unfortunately buried down the page. After the links, however, you have a lot of widgets that the author thinks are needed. Usually, they only serve to slow down a blog’s loading time.

As a side note, besides the ads, the author has also included a donation button. With all the ads and donation button, I don’t think I would take this blog too seriously. If I were the author I would re-organize the sidebars and remove some of the ads, as the blog looks unprofessional as is.

Focus 

From the title of the blog I expected posts regarding technology and money. Maybe even a focus on the dreaded “make money online” niche. Instead I was greeted with Olympic results.

While I did manage to find a few posts on financial matters, the author seems to be more hung up on the Olympics and continues to post results in an almost daily frequency. This appears to move away from any real focus of the blog.

If the author wishes to post Olympic results, I would suggest the author start another blog dedicated to this topic, rather than push it into a blog where that isn’t the main focus.

Content 

As mentioned in the focus, the author has been publishing Olympic results for the past week. Each post only contains a table of the results, and at times I had trouble identifying if the results were daily or total. Another post talks about the USA basketball team which still doesn’t fit with the focus of the blog.

The first page of the blog doesn’t contain any images, however, looking through other pages I could see several images that the author has included. The images themselves do relate to the topic of the post as well as the focus of the blog. Some images, however, were rather large and could take time to download for those visitors on slower connections.

The posts are short, so for those visitors that like short posts you will not be disappointed here. Keeping the posts on topic should be the main concern of the author.

Spelling and Grammar 

While the posts aren’t difficult to read or understand, there are a few spelling and grammar mistakes. The mistakes don’t take away from the readability of the posts, but they do show up on a frequent basis.

Overall 

I would like to rate this blog higher, but there are too many glaring issues. The first is definitely the layout of the blog. Too many ads make this blog look more like a spam blog, or it makes the author look like he is trying too hard to make a buck.

The second issue is the focus. While the intention of the author is good, the posts don’t reflect the true focus of the blog. Keeping the posts within the focus of the blog could help visitors return for more.

About Paul Salmon

Paul Salmon is the founder of Technically Easy. He is a an experienced PC user, and enjoys solving computer-related problems that he encounters on a regular basis.

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1. Review: MoneyMoose
2. Review: BloggerNoob
3. Review: Blog with Ric
4. Review: F1-ToGo

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Since I started offering free reviews in November 2007, I have done mostly blog reviews. Blogs are easy to review since I always look for the same specific information. Web sites, on the other hand, are more complex as there is no ideal standard which I can follow.

This week I will look at a web site that offers WordPress templates. I haven’t used WordPress myself, so I couldn’t have a closer look at the templates. According to the webmaster, though, these themes don’t suck. The next question is whether the web site can use the same tagline?

Web Site:

Description: Listing of premium and free of hand picked WordPress templates that don’t suck.

Design 

When I first viewed the web site I noticed the themes right away as they are displayed on the left side of the screen in two columns with five rows. One thing that did strike me, however, was also the amount of advertising on each page.

While the themes take up a large part of the screen on the left, it seems the advertising takes up a large portion of the remainder of the page. The ads on the right side are displayed under a heading called “Premium Themes” with more displayed below that under “Resources”. It seems the author of the site appears to be pushing advertising a little too much in this theme.

When I look for themes on a web site I usually look for categories. This site includes five categories, but you have to click the categories link at the top right to display them. The categories are hidden unless you click that link.

With the design of this site it appears the author is attempting to promote more on the advertising than the actual themes.

Focus 

The focus of this site is WordPress themes, at least the ones the author think don’t suck. While the themes are displayed on the left, many of the additional components are either hidden or not easy to find, such as the categories.

Overall, however, you can easily tell that the web site is focused on providing WordPress themes.

Content 

This site is difficult to rate for content, mainly because there is very little. Most of the themes are displayed as an image, and clicking on each theme provides no detail about that particular theme.

The themes that I clicked on to view didn’t provide any additional information, except for a larger screenshot, some ads and informaton on when it was posted. Although comments can be added for each theme, I don’t consider this to be part of the actual site content.

Some themes also redirect you to an external site. I’m not sure if this is because the author benefits from this, or that is how the theme author added their theme.

The theme images are high quality, and provide a good overall impression of the theme. This site could use much more content to make it a better provider of WordPress themes.

Spelling and Grammar 

With the lack of content on this site, I can’t really rate the spelling and grammar. The text I did read had few mistakes, however, as I said it is difficult to rate.

Overall 

Usually theme providing sites are well done with lots of themes and information. Unfortunately, in this case, this is not true. While the focus is good, the design suffers from too many ads and not enough focus on providing information about the themes.

With regards to the themes, you will not be given much more than a screenshot. There is no additional information regarding the themes except a small and large screenshot.

If you are looking for WordPress themes, there are definitely better places to look.

About Paul Salmon

Paul Salmon is the founder of Technically Easy. He is a an experienced PC user, and enjoys solving computer-related problems that he encounters on a regular basis.

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Related Posts

1. Review: Listen. Are you Listening?
2. Free Web Site or Blog Review
3. Review: Life is Colourful
4. Review: Anything for Free

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Some time ago I reviewed a blog about F1 racing called F1-ToGo, which up to this point has been the only racing web site I reviewed. That changes this week as I review another racing blog.

Unlike the last racing review, this one is focused around NASCAR, and from what you will see it is just as well done as the F1 blog.

Web Site: NASCAR Racing’s Biggest Fan Ron Ripple

Description: My website is geared towards NASCAR Fans looking to discuss the latest drama on and off the track.

Design 

The design of Ron Ripple (I will use this name as the name provided to me is very long) is very well done. The design consists of a large header, and two columns with the content on the left and a sidebar on the right.

Let’s start with the header. When you first view the page you will be greeted with a very large image of Ron Ripple (with a mullet) smiling at you. Below the large image is a list of links placed horizontally. These links consist of some of the major navigational links and are easy to read and find.

Below the header are the two columns. At the top of the content column are a list of secondary links and an ad. The content starts below that, and just barely above the fold. The posts are nicely laid out with a large title and nice large fonts. The spacing between the lines in the posts make them very easy to read.

The sidebar is neatly organized with the subscription information, some advertising and some neatly organized links. All the main types of links are accounted for in the sidebar such as “Categories” and “Archives”. There are many other links that are also included, and with the way the entire sidebar is organized, they are very easy to find.

Overall, the design of Ron Ripple is top-notch and is definitely a site to visit for design ideas.

Focus 

From the title to each individual post, you can easily spot the focus of this blog: NASCAR. Such things as the current standings, images, and video are all focused on NASCAR.

Content 

I mentioned that the design of the blog is top-notch, and the content is just as good. As I read through the blog I was immediately impressed with the writing style. There were very little mistakes and every sentence was very easy to read.

The posts are written in a manner that is very entertaining and will have you reading more than one post, even if you aren’t a NASCAR fan. On some posts, there is an accompanying image that reflects what the post is about. The author even includes videos to make his point more clear.

The only negative thing I can say about the content is some of the images. With the images being high-quality, some of them may be fairly large (100KB+). For those with a slow Internet connection, it may take some time for you to download some of the images.

I enjoyed reading the content as it is well written and at times addicting.

Spelling and Grammar 

I found that the posts are well written and contain very few spelling and grammar mistakes. For those posts that do have a mistake, the mistake doesn’t reduce the readability, or distract from the point the author is trying to make.

Overall 

For the NASCAR fans this is one site you should definitely check out. It is well-designed and well-written, and it will probably make you want to subscribe.

If you are not a NASCAR fan, I encourage you to check out the site anyway to see what a great blog looks like.

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About Paul Salmon

Paul Salmon is the founder of Technically Easy. He is a an experienced PC user, and enjoys solving computer-related problems that he encounters on a regular basis.

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1. Review: Suburbian Queen
2. Review: F1-ToGo
3. Review: Tetsujin’s Blog
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As a parent of two young children, I know how frustrating it can be when your child is constantly crying and doesn’t seem to want to stop. Raising a child under such circumstances is very difficult, and at times can cause you to lose your nerves.

This week I review a web site, not a blog, that provides information on getting you and your baby through the difficult days. Those with infants and young children may find the site very interesting.

Web Site: Fussy Baby

Description: A site dedicated to helping parents cope with their fussy, colicky, or ‘high-needs’ infant.

Design 

The design of the website consists of a navigation menu at the top, the content on the left, and some additional links and advertising on the right. For navigating around the site you need to select an option in the top menu and then one of the additional links in the content.

I like sites that contain the links on the left or right broken down into sections. This method provides a one-stop shop for all the navigation through a site. This site, however, tends to bury the links within the individual pages. The good thing about this is that the links contain longer, descriptive text instead of short brief titles.

The fonts and sizes chosen for for the content and the sidebar is nice and large and easy to read. The colours tend to contast nicely with the background, however, the lighter green used for some links doesn’t provide enough contrast. A darker green would be more preferable.

The design overall suits the focus of the blog, but providing a more clear navigation system would help visitors find their way around.

Focus 

This web site is well-focused and a visitor won’t have difficult to figure out the content of the web site. Right on the home page is a nice description of what you can expect to find on the web site as well as links to specific topics.

Content 

There is quite a bit of content provided on the web site focused on helping parents cope with difficult times when raising a young child. The author has provided much information as well as external resources that parents may find useful.

Under the “Articles” link in the menu are many long articles (very easy to read) that include a wealth of information about symptons for crying, all nicely organized into topics. Stories of parents that have been through crying children are also provided to help others with advice through their own experiences.

As I was navigating around the site I noticed the images on many of the pages. The images are of very high quality. The one major problem with some images is the size. When I view some images individually I noticed that they are actually resized by the browser, which means that they are rather large and can take some time to download. I suggest that they be resized in an image editor and then displayed in the browser. This will reduce the overall page size and take less time to download.

There is plenty of content of those looking for some helpful advice on crying children. The only problem I saw with the content was the size of the images, which can easily be fixed with any image editor.

Spelling and Grammar 

I had difficulty finding any spelling and grammar mistakes on any of the pages on the web site. Keep in mind that it is a Canadian web site so some words are spelled differently than the American spelling.

Overall 

The web site has a nice design with easy to read text. The spelling and grammar is well-written and contains very few, if any, spelling mistakes. The only problem I noticed with the content were the large images that were resized by the browser. This problem can easily be corrected with an image editor.

Being a parent of two young children, I know the frustration of a child that can cry for long periods of time. For those in similar circumstances, you will definitely want to check out Fussy Baby.

About Paul Salmon

Paul Salmon is the founder of Technically Easy. He is a an experienced PC user, and enjoys solving computer-related problems that he encounters on a regular basis.

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Related Posts

1. Review: NASCAR Racing’s Biggest Fan Ron Ripple
2. Review: 1 Million Love Messages
3. Review: Listen. Are you Listening?
4. Review: Blog with Ric

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