Blog Review: laptopmanpaul.co.uk
A blog containing news, tips, hints, ideas and freebies for people building websites or blogs (stolen from the tagline).
What is "laptopmanpaul.co.uk" all about?
It's a blog that oriented towards information technology of all kinds. It's actually an "off-shoot" of webcumbria.co.uk, the main portal for all of his personal websites and his website construction business (some of that was stolen from his "about" page).
Site Design
This blog is using one of those themes that doesn't use quite all of the available screen real estate the 1024×768 resolution (still the most widely-used resolution) has to offer. Most people don't realize how much more scrolling is required when the theme is just an inch narrower than it could be.
I noticed the tag cloud in the sidebar, but I couldn't find his list of categories anywhere. Besides being an almost a standard on blogs, categories count as additional pages. Perhaps Paul doesn't feel it's necessary to display categories because they'd just be lumped into one, but I see the potential to for several categories.
I found it odd that there's only one article displayed on the front page. This is the first time I've seen that and I'm not sure what to make of it. Each of the archives pages only displays one article at time also. This makes looking for past articles very cumbersome.
Article Content
The latest article, "Selling your blog for $10k – surely not?", talks about buying and selling blogs at sitepoint.com. I suppose buying and selling of purely informational-type blogs is a worthwhile pursuit, but I can't see it for blogs with personality.
I found most of the articles easy to read, except for one small detail: The justified text. On some lines it's just excruciating to try and read the complete sentence naturally.
My Overall Opinion
The blog appears to be about 4 months old and there isn't a great deal of content. Since Paul maintains many blogs at the same time, I don't expect the content to grow in volume quickly. In this kind of situation, I'm sure quality will prevail over quantity.
Due to the low publishing frequency, this blog should have feeds by email enabled (but doesn't as far as I can tell).
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They're also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my "Request A Blog Review" page and I'll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.
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May be it is good for a short while and to read seldom. I think majority of blogger don't read tech blogs a lot. They just keep them busy with other stuff related to their ow blogs niche.
I like this review and I quite like the site itself.
I agree with the point about having the one article on the front page – it kind of makes it look like a brand new blog with only one article.
It is only as you scroll down that you notice there is in fact more to offer – I would advise that this be changed as there seems an awful lot of blank space.
You write great blog reviews. I think that the technology niche is a tough nice due to the competition.
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There are some "gurus" out there promoting using blog platforms to make niche websites which would mean one post per page but it shoould be set up a little different than this. Good review RT
My latest blog post: A New Old Friend
I haven't posted to my blog in a very long time also. A nudge now and then helps. I think his site is nice and has a good premise, perhaps just needs a little of his attention.
Just had a quick look at the site; the justified text is a real eye killer! That right sidebar is overloaded as well.
I know standard resolution on most monitors is 1024×768 but I've had issues with logo's etc when I try to set this dynamically. Maybe he's just trying to cater for as many users as possible.
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Hi, many thanks for the review there are lots of fair points in here which I'll take on board. It's also incredibly useful reading the comments as well. I've made some of the straightforward changes already, I'll address the other points when I have time to do a bit of coding. There's lots of practical advice in here, thanks for your time reviewing the site. Paul
what does manpaul mean? I thought it is manual…
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I like your style of reviewing and the fact that youre offering up your services as a reviewer. I shall be keeping that in mind.