A Blog Scrutinized - TechZilo
TechZilo was the top commentator this month so here is the blog review of TechZilo.com
TechZilo is actually a blog authored by a 15 year old. I have been reading TechZilo for a few months and it doesn’t seem like it is written by a 15 year old, the writing seems much older. Sumesh, the “founder” of TechZilo was one of the first to link to Blog Scrutiny. The link came when I commented on a post done by Sumesh called Alternatives to Related Entries plugin by Wasabi, I noted another alternative. He then asked me if I would do a review of it and he would link to me. The post I wrote about it was Semiologic Terms2Post - Related Entries Plugin. Now let’s get to the scrutinizing.
Likes:
- Great content, I believe currently Sumesh is on vacation but there is usually a fairly steady stream of quality posts.
- I love the About page on this blog, it lays everything out there talking about how Sumesh got interested in computers and a little history of the blog.
- I like the fact that he uses strikethrough when making corrections, this lets everyone know what the original post was without making him look like too much of a dork.
- No ads on the site, there is nothing wrong with ads but it is refreshing to see that this blogger isn’t just out to make a quick buck (not that it is that easy to make a quick buck with blogging, your better off making a quick buck from a minimum wage job).
Dislikes:
- I’m not a big fan of the theme on this blog, it makes me feel like I’m in a dream sequence form an early 90’s TV show.
- Sumesh is doing one of those, link to me and I’ll link to you pages, not really terrible, but terribly cliche. (by the way TechZilo - Tech from a teen’s tech side)
- Sumesh is on vacation!! I know that isn’t something that should really be in the dislikes but I just have to point out that the frequency of updates isn’t up to the point I would like it to be (mostly because I get frustrated when I don’t have anything interesting to read).
Suggested Posts:
- Is Google becoming the next Technorati?
- Top 12 Mozilla Firefox add-ons for web designers
- What is Google Juice?
- Bring back Show Desktop icon
TechZilo, I read it everyday, that its updated, and why don’t you?
It is the last day in August but next month is a new month, would you like your blog reviewed on Blog Scrutiny? If so just be the top commentator, remember I will delete your comments if they are not relevant so be a good commentator and add to the conversation.
PXS Mail Form, Drop Dead Simple Mail Form
I had been meaning for waaayyy too long to add a contact me page to CyberSurge and I finally got around to doing it. To do so I needed to find a contact form plugin. The first one I found was PXS Mail Form. This thing was drop dead simple to set up. I have to be honest with all of you though, I apparently was having an idiot that day because I couldn’t find the link to download the freaking thing. You tell me if you can find it:
Yea pretty dumb huh? Alright now that I’m done telling you all why I’m an idiot I’ll tell you why this plugin is great. Just like every other plugin you just upload it to your server and then activate it. But after that you just head over to its options page at Options>PXS-Mail. Inside the options page you have, quite obviously, a number of options.
The options include:
The subject of the email
A redirect option to send users to another page after sending their mail
Along with options to customize a few messages
After setting all the options up adding it to a page is extremely easy, just put the following code into the page where you want the form:
“mailform” inside of two {} (I’d show it to you but WordPress is being fussy about it)
Pretty great plugin huh? The only thing I don’t like about it is I don’t see any way to add any type of spam blocking into it, that means I will probably find a different solution to try and keep the spam to a minimum.
UPDATE: I have implemented the plugin here, you can see it working at my contact page.
WordPress Plugin Competition
A few days ago the winners were announced for the WordPress Plugin competition and I thought I would let you all know who won and what I think of them.
Consolation Prize
The consolation prize winner is Ozh for Who Sees Ads. The plugin lets you control who sees ads on your blog. I’ll tell you something very interesting about this plugin, I’m using it right now and their is actually an ad that displays over this text right here. The reason you can’t see it is because I’m using this plugin and, Who Sees Ads? no one sees ads.
Third Prize
The third prize winner is Keith Dsouza for WordPress Automatic Upgrade. I don’t know anyone who would trust this plugin because upgrading WordPress is already scary enough let alone letting some plugin do it for you. Just spend the 5 freakin minutes to upgrade your WordPress installs people, it isn’t that hard and I’m tired of seeing people with out of date installs.
Second Prize
The second prize winner is Barry for MyDashboard. Don’t use this plugin. I’ll tell you why, even though it is an intersting idea iGoogle and Pageflakes do it sooooooooooo much better (I used extra o’s to emphasize my point, isn’t that coooooool?).
Grand Prize
The Grand Prize Winner of the Wordpress Plugin Competition is Anirudh Sanjeev for his OneClick Plugin. Thats pretty cool, It’s like having FTP built into your browser, oh, like FireFTP. Except it is ONE CLICK, OH MY! Ok so installing plugins and themes with one click is kinda cool but why have one more plugin that you need to keep up to date when you already have an FTP client?
Reviewing The Top Commentator, Monthly
At the end of this month the Top Commentator plugin will reset my sidebar widget and we will start over from scratch. But, I want to let you all know what I plan to do on a monthly basis. As a thank you to all of the commentators here on the blog I am planning to write a review every month with the subject of the review being whatever blog/website is linked to by the top commentator.
So now throughout the month you won’t just be writing for the single link to your blog or to carry on the conversation but as an added bonus if you are the top commentator you will also get a review at the end of the month.
Ok, Spammers realize that I will delete your comment if it isn’t on topic which means it isn’t even worth your time writing a comment like “Great Site!” Write something interesting and on topic and if you comment enough you will get a great review.
Have fun commenting and unless Kyle Eslick, Michael Fultz, or Blog Tools (weird name) really kick it up a notch in the next few days, TechZilo should be expecting a review.
Keep a Blogging Notebook
I don’t plan on writing a whole lost of posts here specifically on tips but I thought that I would mention this one.
One of the things I have learned from starting this blog is that it is extremely difficult to keep everything straight that is going on on more then one blog. That is why I keep a blogging notebook. Not just for taking notes about ideas for blog posts but also notes about plugins I would like to try out or any aspect of either one of my blogs that I would like to either change or improve upon.
You would be completely amazed at how well this works. I find myself jotting things down all of the time now. One of the key things to remember about this tip is to keep the notebook near you, take it with you wherever you go. You would amaze yourself at how often you find yourself writing things down while you are at other peoples house or even while shopping.
It doesn’t have to be a large notebook, a small pocket sized notebook would probably be even better that way it is even easier to carry it around with you. This sounds like kind of a lame tip and to those who are thinking that, just hear me out (my guess is if you weren’t interested in this tip you wouldn’t still be reading this so I going to abandon my idea of telling you to hear me out).
I just recently started this blog and have found this to be a life saver. Try this out especially if you have multiple blogs it will help you keep your sanity and you will thank yourself for deciding to spend $0.50 on a notebook (your so freakin cheap, you couldn’t get a nice one?)