A very good morning to the visitors to the blog, I got up rather early this morning so pardon any odd mistakes you might find in the review if any. Yes, that’s an excuse but it’s a good excuse because rather than telling you I’m too tired, I’m telling you honestly why I’m tired. So let’s get down to Miss Lily (not real name – I think) over here.
Lily who’s a writer in person (I don’t think I need to comment on her content :P) has a blog called Midnite Lily that brings back fond memories of when I was using Movable Type. Though her slogan, “delivering over-anal thoughts after midnite” sounds horny or kinky I’m pretty sure she’s enough a believer in her religion to remain holy. Sorry, I just had to say that. *giggles*
Recently, she gave her blog a small face lift on the header design. This is the first time I’m visiting her blog but I must say, I do miss the simple blog layouts of yesterday. Back then it was just a header, content, sidebar and lots of white space. In other words, it was simple like hers.
I’d like to congratulate her on a job well done too for illustrating that vector graphic in the header by herself. Bravo! Passionate not only in writing but also in graphics is something out of the norm for me. Her art has been well received by her readers with jokes of some guys honing on her legs and hips.
It’s pretty difficult to go wrong with an ‘old school’ layout but even old school layouts can be improved if you knew where to look. For instance, though the navigation is at the most strategic spot it might occur as normal text than links to people. Why? Because some people are too use to viewing underlines on link text. :)
The added personality to the blog is the ‘personality of the day’ on the right side of the navigation bar. A little more information about how the blogger feels is a good thing. Especially when this blog falls in the personal journal category.
The content on her blog as I did whisper above doesn’t have to be commented on. It has the writer touch but one thing I personally like in the content is the emoticons summarizing her entires for her. It’s like before you read it, you know she’s either high or cranky. Laugh out Loud! (LOL). I’m a smiley addict myself if I don’t keep myself in check.
She’s got a cute Yahoo! Messenger (YM) ‘msg me’ link on the sidebar but a nice button might definetely bring that out more. The sidebar is as cluttered as I spoke in the recent reviews. There’s much cleaning up to do on the mini buttons.
The added word of advice I’d have for her blog sidebar is to concentrate more on the Exabytes affiliation button and not so much on the Adsense ad. The best area optimized for her Adsense is definetely between her content. A 486 x 60 or 300 x 250 ad should do better than the ‘skyscraper’ on the sidebar.
Oh yeah, I’d remove the bolding hover state because it can cause some weird problems. If you tried to hover in the center (or about there) of the word ‘Multicellular Organism’ you’ll notice it.
Well, I guess that’s as much as I can say about this old but pleasant reading blog. According to my investigations, the oldest post was dated sometime in mid-August 2005 but I think this blog might a lil older than that because the file numbering was already 42.
Maybe dear Lily might want to enlighten us on the age of her blog later. :)
^_^ Thanks Danny! that was an awesome & useful review. I’ve been blogging since 2001, but had a personal website since 1998.
You hit my problem areas on the spot, tks for the advice! I do ve a problem with ppl not realising my links in text even tho they’re a different colour. But i hate the underlining. Do u ve a suggestion? Or do I dump my pride n underline em?
Probably the awareness problem is caused by the lack of contrast of color between your content and the link color.
Try using a soft green or a soft blue if you don’t want to underline. That way it’ll still be subtle enough to not stick out like a sore thumb.
Give that a go and let me know how it comes out. :)