A Singaporean in London. The title of this blog piqued my interest even before the page had loaded. I looked forward to a selection of posts comparing cultures, or perhaps just poking fun at England, but unfortunately the author seems to be on a bit of a break, and has only posted funny things for the last two weeks. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking a break from a blog when life gets busy, but I do hope that the author returns to more regular posts about life on the other side of the world.

I like the header on this blog, though it does have a distinctly ‘home-made feel’. I could be critical and point out that the dark writing is less lcear closer to he buildings, and perhaps yellow text with a black outline or shadow would be better, but at least the header is personalised and unique. I also feel that the header does not match the colour scheme of the rest of the blog, and perhaps some tweaking is in order.

 I also wonder if there might be a way to more clearly define the three columns of this template. As they are the columns seem to merge together, and I prefer viewing pages which are more clear-cut.

The pictures in each post are a nice, much needed touch because they lift the page and draw the reader’s eye. It would be hard to blog about living in London if you didn’t have any photos to prove your point. There are some interesting reads here if you have time to browse.

And although I have it on good authority that Vegemite is infinitely superior to marmite, it seems quite a few blokes out there still enjoy it.

I like this blog, but personally feel that the layout could do with a bit of a lift, and it will pick up some more with new on-topic posts. I will give it a 6/10.

(I should also mention that the blog directory buttons are nicely arranged in the footer of this blog, and I have visited a few to add myself to them. Thanks mate!)

You must learn your limitations, both in life and in the Internet. There’s a maximum number of projects you can manage at once, any more than that and all your projects will suffer.

I see it fairly commonly on the Internet, especially among Bloggers. They have a dozen ideas that they want to implement and make successful, but once they’ve set up their blog, or bought the domain, they lose momentum because of all the other things they have to manage. They just have too much to do! So those domains and blogs sit there, gathering dust and using up money.

So what do you think you could do to prevent over-burdening yourself? The one thing I’d suggest is to try your ideas out before you make any commitment to them: white a dozen posts and see whether you can really do it or not. Browse for themes before hand to see if you can get started straight away. Check out the competition, or the keywords.

That way you wont find yourself with half a dozen never-updated blogs that show a heap of potential, but you just can’t get off the ground. And if you do, you can try to sell off unused domains, or let your free blogs go idle and wait until you can get back to them.

Remember: Only take on what you can carry.

It’s time for another free review, and this time it is for Thou Shall Blog, a blog that describes itself as a ‘beginner’s blog for beginners’ and says it’s there to document a ‘personal journey in the blogosphere’.  

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a great start to me. I’m not really fond of newbie blogs about what newbies need to know, much like I don’t like MMO blogs that don’t actually MMO! But I was prepared to give this one a chance because you can’t judge a blog by its niche.

First impressions of this blog, and please remember that it’s first impressions that count, is that the template is boring. Everything is white, grey, or a teal which is suspiciously close to grey. It’s certainly easy to read, but it’s not at all eye-catching. Even the RSS icon is black and white! I realise some people may consider this style to be ‘refined’ but I will always consider it to be just ‘plain’. The layout really needs something extra.

The content is easily browsable from the front page, with a few sentances  of each post visible at the same time. Some people will insist that it should be full posts or nothing, but I don’t really care either way. At least you can browse a wide selection of his recent posts, and hopefully find something that interests you.

Speaking of interest, I wasn’t particularly engaged by the content on offer. It’s certainly very informative, even including samples of code where they’re appropriate, but they’re just not interesting unless you’re desperately seeking help with something. That’s no fault of the blog, just a product of the niche that means casual readers aren’t particularly engaged.

Also, this writer seems to enjoy saying “Content is King but Traffic is Queen”.

Overall I’d give it a …… hmm, that’s a tough one. The blog isn’t bad as such, it just isn’t the sort of things I look for in a blog. I suppose it should get a 5 out of 10.

It always seems a daunting task when starting out with a new blog- first impressions are so important, so where can you find that perfect theme which isn’t the same as everyone else? Prepare for some window shopping because I’m going to give you a list of my favourite places to find free wordpress themes.

• http://www.wpthemesfree.com/ - This website has a few thousand free wordpress themes, with a couple of new ones added every day. There’s bound to be something remotely suitable in here, and to make it even more useful there’s a nifty search option in the right hand column. You can search by category, or if you have something specific in mind you can also search by colour, columns, sidebar location or a handful of other features.

• Bloggeries theme section has a selection of themes by a few rather unrecognised designers. Some of them are truly beautiful (a personal favourite of mine is the scroll layout, if only it matched what I’m about!), and because they’re a less commonly used source, it’s unlikely you’ll bump into someone with an identical theme. Please do me a small favour though, if you’re going to sign up to Bloggeries please do so with this link: CLICK. It gives me credit for referring you.

• Slider v3 is the most customisable template I have found, and as such I felt it deserved a special mention. It has an in-built, incredibly easy menu to edit the theme, and allows you to alter header height, sidebar width, sidebar location, which posts are open or closed, completely redesign your colour scheme and icons you use. The default settings are quite plain, but here are two examples of what you can do with this theme; Example#1 & Example#2. Did I mention the rotating header script comes with it? I have now!

• For those of you that are cleverer than I, there is a Wordpress Theme Generator here: http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/ but I myself just aren’t clever enough to make anything spectacular with it.

Google will give you thousands or results for ‘free wordpress themes’, and many of them are quite good. When choosing a theme, check to see whether you have permission to edit any part of it, such as changing the header or colour scheme. If you can, then that gives you another degree of personalisation to your favourite theme.

Just be sure to leave the designer’s links (and their sponsor’s) in the footer. They deserve their credit for giving you the free theme.

DownUnder Update has requested a review, so the only honest thing to do now is to give them one!

First impressions of this blog is that it’s very simple. The layout is clean, but not at all eyecatching. Although that emu looks at me in an accusing way, the header in an aspect that could be utilised for much greater effect with a new design. The three columns of the layout are not used for great effect, although the top of hte page looks fine, scrolling down sees the sidebars finish long before the bottom of the page. Having two columns instead of three would make the length of sidbar more consistent with the length of posts. Or, filling the current sidebars with more things, perhaps twitter, or if Susanna wanted to monetise, then ads could also fit in the sidebard to lengthen them. Pages of older entries match up neater, whether this is because only older entries are shortened to fit nicely on the page or not isn’t clear.

The other disconcerting thing abouthte layout, is that it’s not all in English, which is off-putting to a plain-speaking bloke like myself.  You notice it under the title of each post, ‘comentarios’ instead of comments, or ‘entradas anteriores’. There’s that foreign tongue in the footer too. Is it French? Spanish? It isn’t Aussie, that’s for certain and doesn’t fit with the distinctly Australian feel to this blog. If it’s part of the template, then some editing is in order.

But what is actually written in this little blog? Wonderful things! The very first post left me with a hankering for quiche jam and cheese, and the rest of the blog is filled with equally good articles on stories about our culture and our life. It evokes a touch of nostalgia, and a sense of pride.

Overall, I would have to give this blog 6.5 out of 10. I feel that the layout lets down its charming content, bt I will keep looking back on this one for a good read.

Oh, and it has entrecard too if any droppers out there are reading today.